NNAOPP Update
Summer 2019
New York Subway
Judy
and I were in NYC to see son Ben and Deb, who are expecting their first child
in August. Lucy and Fred were hosting a
baby shower / gender reveal event for the occasion. BTW, it’s a boy. The Friday before I had a
day to kill so I joined Ben for lunch at the Oyster Bar in Grand Central
Station. Afterwards I journeyed to see
the new Hudson Yards, then hopped on the subway to tour the Tenement Museum.
I
noticed him immediately after the subway doors closed. I was seated and he stood near the recently
closed door. His tee shirt read,
“Friends of mine died on that death star.”
A Star Wars storm trooper was printed next to the text. He had two black metal bands wrapped tightly
around his lower lip, about an inch apart.
He had looser rings adorning his upper lip and eye brows. His pants were rolled up above the knee held
in place with safety pins, revealing knee socks that looked like yellow yard
sticks. His teeth were so bad I thought he might have purchased them in a novelty
store. And he wore a straight billed
ball cap backwards with a New Zealand flag motif. I’d guess he was about 50, bigger than me,
and fairly muscular.
He
glared and said, “Are you staring at me?”
“No,”
I lied. But I thought to myself, “Who
wears an outfit like this yet desires not to be noticed? Unless, of course, they’re certifiably
psychotic.
“I
think you were staring at me.”
“Sorry,”
I replied meekly. Then I couldn’t help myself and added, “Those lower lip bands
sure look uncomfortable.”
“F__k
off.” He growled.
So,
I returned to the business at hand, which involved getting off at the right
stop. I was on the local 6 train out of
Grand Central Station heading south to the Bleeker Street station. It was one of the older train cars, so they
didn’t have a light board illustrating each station on the route in their
order. I would turn and carefully
scrutinize each stop.
After
a few such displays of subway ignorance my new, colorfully attired acquaintance
said in a moderately refined British accent, “What stop are you looking
for?”
I
told him Bleeker Street, and he added, “The next stop in Union Square. Bleeker is two after that. I’ll let you know when to get off.” And he did.
The
Tenement Museum was beyond lame. I’ll
admit I only went to one of the six tours available, and it covered the time
period from 1945 – 1960. The one I chose
fit my timetable and may not be representative of them all, but it was a total
waste of time and money.
Eight
of us, led by our tour guide, walked through tenements once occupied by Jewish,
Puerto Rican, and Chinese families. We
were told, ‘Don’t touch any of the artifacts, unless they are specifically
handed to you.’ At one stop in the tour
we were advised we could sit on one of the beds. Then, and I’m not making this up, the guide
handed us a jump rope that we could actually touch, and said, ‘The little girl
who lived here once played with this jump rope.’ The senior rate for this fascinating glimpse
into tenement living was only $24. I
felt robbed. These people need to get
out more. I recovered from this
irritable tour by walking back to Ben’s Brooklyn abode via the Williamsburg
Bridge.
NYC observations
In
all of my subway travels I never once saw a person read a newspaper or book. Yet everyone was on their smart phone.
Former
Mayor Bloomberg missed the boat with his intrusive efforts to ban sugary
drinks. He should have focused his
attention on gum chewers. Every square
foot of sidewalk in the city is covered with at least a dozen expectorant laced
gum blotches.
Ben,
Deb and I took a lengthy walk for breakfast and Whole Foods shopping in
Williamsburg on Saturday morning. I did
not see a single person above the age of 50 save when we passed a window
reflecting my image. That evening we
dined in Chinatown, where old people could, once again, be found in abundance.
Boston
In
early June, Judy and I traveled to Boston to attend the Harvard Business School
class of 1969’s 50th reunion.
We arrived Thursday afternoon, went to Charlie’s Kitchen (one of the few
remnants from a half century past) in Harvard Square to drink beer. We briefly attended a welcoming reception at
our class’s hotel where the best lobster rolls ever were being served. Then we
adjourned to meet friends, now living in Boston, for dinner from our Drury
College days. Mike is a Harvard Law
grad, and Jeanette is married to a fellow Springfieldian with a Harvard master’s
degree in linguistics i.e. mathematical patterns in the Arabic language.
Mike
and his wife Susan have three daughters.
The oldest is an art dealer and mother.
Their middle child, Laurel, happens to play the role of Jan, the Toyota
spokesperson you’ve undoubtedly seen if you’ve watched television in the past
decade. Their youngest is Selena, a
standup comedian in New York City. Mike
is a wickedly smart guy, possibly the only conservative living in
Massachusetts, and certainly the least likely person to have sired two bona
fide, professional comedians.
And
he told us the following story: “Selena was performing in a small club in NYC,
and she asked the audience where they are from.
After several responses, a young lady responded, ‘Kansas City’, and
Selena says, do you by any chance know my friends, Chuck and Judy Wells? and
she replied, ‘Yes, they were my nextdoor neighbors.’ The KC responder was none other than Ellen
Haun, a talented and aspiring actor now living in NYC. She and her sisters would take care of our
cat when they were little ones. Small world.
In
case you have ever pondered, “Do East coast elites have any concept of life in
‘flyover’ country, here is an anecdote that might add clarity.”
The
Dean of the Harvard Business School made a ‘state of the school’ address to the
3,700 attendees at this year’s reunion. (Classes from five-year intervals
attend shared events, i.e. class of
1969, 1974, 1979, etc. 300 of my class
of 700 attended. Considering 130 are
dead, this was a pretty good turnout.)
Dean
Nahria showed a map of the world illustrating the global outreach of the
school. HBS has something going in every
major European, Asian, and South American city, including places as far flung
as Accra, Ghana and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
The only dots on the U.S. map were Boston and San Francisco.
Then
he told the following story: “We got to thinking, we don’t know much about the
noncoastal parts of the U.S., so twelve senior leaders from the school went to
Mississippi. The night before our
meetings with locals in Jackson, one of our group asked, ‘Has anyone ever been
to Mississippi before?’ One of the
twelve responded affirmatively. Later we
determined that 11 of the 12 had been to Chengdu China.”
Vail Parade
We
were in Vail Village with Lucy, Fred, and the kids for the 4th of
July parade, always a fun event. Charlie
wanted to be down at street level to gather the candy and toys thrown by the
parade participants, and I accompanied him.
Charlie stood in the front row, and I blended toward the back of the
assembled throngs so as not to obstruct others’ view. It should be noted that I’ve let my hair and
beard get a little long and unkempt, owing to laziness. A little girl approached me, I’d guess she
was about 4 or 5, and asked, “Are you Santa Claus?” I held my finger to my lips and said ‘Shhhh” conspiratorially
and looked both ways over my shoulder to insure no one was watching the
exchange. She smiled knowingly and trotted off. This is the second time that
has happened. It pleases me.
Day Laborers
I’m
in the early process of building a new bridge at the farm. As we’ve had an abundance of rain, I’ve chosen
to build coffer dams around the site of the footings, and planned on using sand
bags for this purpose.
I
enlisted the aid of grandsons Charlie and Finn to assist with the task. We journeyed to a nearby concrete plant that
has a mountain of sand, gave the owner $32, and he said, “Have at it.”
The
boys’ assignment was to hold each bag open, while I shoveled it full, then tied
and loaded each on our trailer. Early
on, they were mildly effective, and even enjoyed shoveling on their own. This involved a few misdirected swings of the
blade, but no one was seriously injured.
They tired of that task after about 20 bags, but I needed 60. They subsequently amused themselves by
burying each other in the sand. I
appreciated their help nonetheless, even though it took about an hour to get
them hosed off before returning them to their home. We stopped for chili dogs at the DQ in Eudora
to round out a great day.
Smart People
This
past Sunday I encountered two very smart people. First, Judy and I went to Indian Hills to
enjoy their delicious brunch. A young
man waited on us. He was our server
earlier in the week, and I formed a favorable impression of him. I’d guess he is about 18 years old. He was medium height, slightly built, with
stylishly long hair, and a quarter of an inch of peach fuzz on his chin. He seemed to have a special spark, so, I
asked him, “What’s your story?” And here’s
some of what he told me:
“I’ve
been accepted to Johns Hopkins Medical School, but I’m taking two years off as
gap years before starting. The first
year, I’m going to work to fund the second year, when I plan to hike the
Appalachian Trail with my dog.”
Because
he didn’t look old enough to be a college graduate, I inquired, “Are you like
that kid in Ulysses, KS who graduated from his high school one week and from
Harvard University the following week?”
And
he replied, “Yes, but it was from Blue Valley North High School, then KU a week
later.”
He
told us that he realized he was super smart around fourth grade when all the
material was easy and obvious to him. He
was fortunate to have good counselors and teachers who encouraged him to do
college course work starting in 8th grade. He achieved a nearly
perfect score on his MCATS (524 out of a perfect 528). He plans on becoming a heart surgeon, with a
subspecialty in infectious diseases.
I
asked him, “Didn’t Michael Bloomberg donate over a billion dollars to Johns
Hopkins to make medical school free?”
He
said, “Not to my knowledge, but I have a plan how to pay for medical school
without debt. I build muscle cars from
scraps I harvest from junk yards.”
In
a later exchange we talked about music and learned he plays 13 instruments
fluently, saxophone being dominant, and has played in his uncle’s band in
venues in NYC and Hamburg. Who knows
what we’ll learn the next time we see him.
What a kid.
The
second smart person I encountered on that Sunday was at the farm. I was using my tractor and the digging teeth
on my bucket and my box blade to create a level piece of ground where I intend
to build a pole barn, another of my fall construction projects.
My
farm neighbor, Joe Tigner, (the same guy who relocated a 44,000 lb. iron bridge
for me), stopped by to check out my work.
He’s older than me, and used to be a bulldozer operator and
mechanic. He’s very practical, and he
can build or fix anything. He gave me
some very excellent suggestions to make my project go better. For example, he said, attach a 4’ level to
the top of your bucket, so you’ll have a continual frame of reference. He’s a very smart man, but it probably
wouldn’t be evident in a transcript.
That’s
the news from here.
Chuck
Charles A. Wells, Jr.
3317 W. 68th Street
Shawnee Mission, KS 66208
816 289-1924
Author of: Ordinary People Who Aren't: An Anthology and
Nude Nuns and Other Peculiar People
