Listen to Your Grandparents

Thanksgiving's a great time to get together with relatives. Somehow it's not nearly so emotionally loaded as that Christmas/Hanukkah/Epiphany/Kwanzaa/New Year season. Families just sit down to a meal. No gifts, no nostalgia for Thanksgivings past, no tears, no pressure. And if you're lucky, everybody talks. It can be really interesting.

This year was a good year. The talk turned to politics, then the economy. And we had the good fortune to have three people at the table who've passed their eightieth birthdays and appear likely to be around for another decade. They had some very interesting observations about the world we live in.

"We have never owed anyone anything," one couple told us. "We bought a house when we could pay cash. Now we own several and rent them out. We don't carry balances on our credit cards. We drive a ten year old car. We don't eat out much."

Don't pity them. They don't live a deprived life. They have two vacation homes (they rent them out in the prime season so they pay for themselves), they travel, they collect art. But they respect the money they've made in their professions and spend it only on things that really matter to them.

"We don't spend what we don't have."

They say that's where they see today's society going wrong.

"What is Black Friday all about? What are they buying?" they asked in genuine bemusement.

Good question. Electronics, apparently. The latest gotta-have-it goody that will be obsolete in three months and broken in six months to a year.

I'm torn. I like my modern conveniences. I like my computer (except when a virus tries to sneak on board, as it did this morning. That just infuriates me. Why can't PC's be reliably virus-free?), I like my washer and dryer, I like central heat. But I find myself longing for an off grid lifestyle that's simpler, that lets me unplug - no, that FORCES me to unplug. I'm a lazy slug. I'll watch TV when I could read. I'll read when I could write. And my back tells me my days of hauling wood and shoveling snow are over - doubt I'd last long if I had to heat with wood now.

But I don't want a cell phone - I have a cheapo pay as you go because my job requires it. I don't use it for much else. I have one television. I'd like to throw it out the window but I still watch it. I don't need a PalmPre, an iPhone, a hURL, a wEDGIE, a sLice or any other cutesie name they may come up with for yet another piece of technology that plugs me into the grid.

For Christmas, I want some good company and good conversation. I want to be with people who like to laugh. I don't want to go to the mall and I don't anyone going there for me. I'd rather we all saved our money for what really matters to each of us.

For me, the best gift would be a little more peace - not only in the world, but in my own little corner of it. We all deserve it.

New York: An Argument Against the Grinch

I love New York. Really I do. But these kinds of stories just don't seem to happen anywhere else:

"At first, I thought, 'You can't be serious.' Then I realized, what can you do? It's New York." —Matt Dahlman, 27, whose bags were stolen Christmas night at Penn Station, while he was holding the bleeding head of an elderly man who had just fallen down the escalator. [NYP]

Now of course this doesn't hold a holiday candle to the gun-toting Santa who made all of us think it might be time to give up on humanity.

But stealing bags while somebody's trying to help another person is just undeniably bad.

In defense of Manhattan, I must knock on wood as I say I have never, ever had a bad experience in the city. On the contrary, I've met some really nice cabbies, shared smiles with people on a crowded street and even had one close call with a man who turned out to be a good Samaritan in disguise.

I was young. I was clueless. And I was riding the South Ferry subway from Grand Central to visit a relative on Staten Island. For those of you who don't know, South Ferry's the last stop and as the train carried me closer to my destination, my car emptied out until there was no one left but me and one guy. He was a little older than me, he looked a little threatening, and he kept looking in my direction. I was frozen. If I stood up and looked for another car I was certain I'd get mugged. So I sat still and tried to act cool.

He stood up. He walked toward me. I started hyperventilating while trying to act like I didn't notice. But he stopped directly in front of me.

"You should move," he said.

I looked up.

"You should move," he repeated. "It's not safe to be all alone in one of these cars. You're supposed to move back as they start to empty out."

"I didn't know," I whispered.

"It's okay. Need help with your bag?"

"No, no. I can do it."

"Okay, then. You be careful, okay?"

And he smiled at me.

Like I said....I love New York.

Happy New Year.