Thanksgiving 2025

A couple of years ago, I did a post listing the things in life that I'm thankful for. Here's a slightly updated version:

Thankful for:

• Family. (Many are friends, too!!! Yay!)
• Friends. (Some are like family!!! Yay!)
• Dogs. (Their very existence makes living worthwhile.)
• Health. (Iffy ankle aside, I'm kinda/sorta rockin' geezerhood, healthwise. So far, anyway. Update: had a few minor things in the last year, but knock on wood. And the ankle's fine. Shifting from 7 miles a day walking to 5 did seem to eliminate most of my joint pain. Alas, it did result in a 10 pound weight gain.)
• Medical care. (My doctor, dentist, and eye doctor are all in walking distance, and all still in their 40's. All are excellent. Bonus points for being young. My wonderful PCP decided to join a concierge practice, but I was able to transfer to another highly-recommended physician in the same place who I'll be seeing in January. And she sounds just fine. She's also younger than my "old" PCP. And I'd say my dentist and eye guys are now in their early 50's. I almost ask my eye guy when I saw him in September. Still likely young enough to see me out the door.)
  
• Home. (Sure, I'd like a rug under my dining room table, but I love the cool new lamp in the LR. Sometimes Wayfair does have just what you need.
  
  Or just what you want, anyway.) There is a new furniture addition. My sister Kath downsized and I got this gorgeous cherry breakfront. Forget Wayfair. Crate & Barrel, baby!
• My neighborhood. (Beacon Hill. Lucky me. The Boston Public Garden is my front yard.)
• My City. (Oh, oh, Boston, you're my home.)
• NYC. Chicago. (If I had to pick another city.
• My State. (Guess I'm pretty much a homer, but this is it for me.)
• Maine. Vermont. (Maybe. If push comes to shove.)
• My Country.  (Sadly, not always. Still beats many alternatives.) Yes, it still beats many alternatives. For instance, I wouldn't want to be in North Korea or Saudi Arabia. But the way this country is going... Thankful that, for now, we are still able to exercise our first amendment rights, but we know that the rancid malefactor in the White House is just lusting after operationalizing the Insurrection Act. 
• Ireland. (If I had to pick another country.)
• Galway. (If I had to pick a city in another country.)
• Old sweaters. (Some go back 30+ years.)
• New sweaters, too. (Are sweaters my hobby?)
• Comfy shoes. (And Bombas socks.)
• The baseball season being over. (How 'bout those Red Sox?)  Yes, the last couple of years, the Red Sox were god-awful, but they pulled their socks up this year and the season turned out to be fun. And I wasn't happy to see it end. 
• Truck day. Pitchers and catchers. (It'll be February before you know it.)
• Music. (Still crazy after all these years for folk, folk rock, Celtic.)
• Books. (Not the reader I was before I started obsessing on the news. Now 1-2 a month, vs. 1-2 or more a week. Still, where would I be without them?) This year, I'm on pace to have read over 100 books. So, two a week. A return to my norm. A combo of literary fiction, history, biography, mystery, police procedural, political and social issues, beach reads. The only requirement was well-written. If not, I slapped it shut fast. I also rediscovered the Boston Public Library, which I hadn't used regularly in quite a few years. Now if I pick up a book that isn't all that enjoyable, I can slap it shut without fretting about how much I paid for it. Anyway, I'll be doing a highlights post on my year in reading sometime in December. 
• Work. (Especially now that it's 99.99% 100% in the rearview mirror.)
• Volunteering at St. Francis House. (Gotta do something, and SFH is a great place to do that something.)
• Oranges. Cherries. McIntosh apples. Nectarines. Tangerines. Blueberries....(And nuts, too.)
• Pasta. (Especially the good kind from Italy that I buy in the North End.)
• Salad, and all the good things to throw in salads.
• Sesame chicken. Teddie's peanut butter. Scallops. Asparagus. Broccoli. Etc.
• Fried clams. (Other than the light and the baseball, I'm not wild about summer. But just about now I'm missing a summertime fried clam roll.)
• My Le Creuset Dutch oven. (If you only have one pot, this is the one to have.)
• Chocolate. (What's not to like?)
• How in god's name did I leave ice cream off my original list???
• Tea. (Barry's is best.) But I've added peppermint and ginger to my tea repertoire. Both soothing. And who couldn't do with a bit of soothing these days?
• Prosecco. (Alcohol of choice, for those occasions that call for alcohol, which I must say occur nowhere near as often as they used to.)
• Sense of humor. (Where would I be without it?)
• Public transportation and Uber. (Love being car-free.)
• Other stuff...

Not quite sure who(m) or what I'm thankful to exactly, but plenty to be thankful for. 

Happy Thanksgiving, 2025!

Betcha can't eat just one

Seriously, who doesn't like potato chips?

There are plenty of food items you can't eat just one of: Oreos, M&Ms, and peanuts, for starters. But right up there on my list you'll find potato chips. And you don't need to take my word for it. During my youth, Lay's ran a famous ad saying "betcha can't eat just one."

Not that I ate Lay's. In my house, if and when we had chips - which was mostly when we were having a holiday cookout, so Memorial Day, Fourth of July, or Labor Day, or when we were going on a picnic or having a day at the beach - we had State Lines, a local brand that has almost but not quite disappeared. (State Line got its name from its location: Enfield, Connecticut, on the Massachusetts-Connecticut boarder.) In school, when I had an extra nickel to buy a bag of chips, the brand was even more local: Wachusett, a product of Worcester County. 

These days, if and when I buy chips, it's almost always going to be Cape Cod, which are delish. (Not exactly a unique opinion.  Earlier this year, Cape Cod Originals with Sea Salt were chosen the best potato chip by Food and Wine.)

If and when I buy a sub, which I try to limit to once every couple of months, I'll usually throw in a bag of Lay's, which seems to have a monopoly on local sub shops. 

Lay's are fine, just not my faves. But they are the market share leader, and they're doing a big brand makeover. 

Some of the makeover involves removing synthetic colors and flavors from the ingredients that go into the making of a chip. Which is a good thing, but I'm wondering how all the flavored brands are going do without fake whatevers. We'll see. Actually, "we" won't see, as I do not like flavored potato chips - even the most innocuous sour cream and onion flavor. Although I'm down with Cape Cod Russets, the original, the plain, the "vanilla of potato chips" is still the greatest 

Anyway, as part of the Lay's rebranding, Pepsico - the snack empire that Lay's is a major part of - is putting the potato on the bag as well. 

• The redesign will also incorporate a new logo that looks like the sun, photos of potatoes on the bag, and the phrase “Made with real potatoes.”
• A 2021 survey found that 42% of consumers didn’t know Lay’s were made out of the spuds. (Source: Fortune)

42% of consumers didn't know Lay's were made out of spuds? Come on now!

I can see not thinking that Cheese Doodles aren't really made with cheese. (And you'd be right. It's "cheese flavoring.") I can see not knowing what the hell Pringles are made out of. (If you're wondering, it's dehydrated processed potato.)

But what did people think potato chips were made out of? It's pretty simple. Unless they're those weird flavored chips - barbeque, vinegar, dill pickle - potato chips are made out of potatoes, some type of oil, and salt. 

And even if you don't realize and appreciate what the ingredients are, I betcha can't eat just one.

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Image Source: Pepsico

Indifference to Running

Not that I watch much college football, or churn through a lot of brain cycles thinking about it, but one of the funner things about college football is the team mascot. 

Sometimes it's a student cavorting around in a costume, like Notre Dame's Leprechaun. Sometimes it's a student cavorting around in a big-foam-head costume, like the UMass Minuteman. Sometimes it's a student cavorting around in an anthropomorphic whatever it is costume, like the Ohio State Buckeye. Sometimes it's a student cavorting around in an animal costume, like the UCal Berkeley bear. And sometimes it's an actual animal cavorting around in its birthday suit, like the Navy Goat. (Okay, the Navy Goat is sometimes a student cavorting around in a goat costume, but at other times it's the real goat deal. I'm not sure whether there's ever an actual elephant on the sidelines, but Tuft's mascot is Jumbo the elephant, originally donated to the university, in all of its stuffed majesty, by none other than P.T. Barnum.)

Among the real animal deal mascots is the University of Colorado's Buffalo, a shaggy beast always named Ralphie, even though they've all been female:

The running of Ralphie during Colorado games is one of the most famous mascot traditions in college football. Five handlers run with Ralphie, who is actually a bison, although buffalo and bison are sometimes used interchangeably. The animals can reach speeds of up to 25 mph. (Source: NY Times)

Alas, Ralphie VI ("real" name: Ember), who served for  four years, has been retired. She was put out to pasture because she ticked off Colorado fans with her nonchalant approach to cavorting on the field.

“Due to an indifference to running, typical of many mammals both four-legged and two-legged, it was determined that it was in Ember’s best interest, based on her disposition, to focus on relaxing strolls on the pasture, which is her favorite hobby,” Colorado’s announcement said.

Ember had replaced Ralphie V ("real" name Blackout), who was dispositionally the polar opposite of Ralphie VI. Blackout took to the field with gusto, so rambunctious she once pulled away from the ropes her handlers held her back with. In her later years,Blackout kept up her aggressive ways. Unlike Ember's "indifference to running," Blackout started "ignoring cues from her handlers." So, indifference to handling. Tsk, task. 

Ember will be put out to pasture with Blackout, where they can compare notes on whose approach worked better.

I'm going with Ember, who was able to weasel her way into early retirement after just four years of goldbrickin' on the job.

You don't go, girl! Maybe Emagainstber didn't like being manhandled by a bunch of cowboy-hatted students. Maybe she found crowd noise annoying. Maybe she was pissed she wasn't eligible for lucrative NIL payments. Maybe she just didn't like football. 

But maybe, just maybe, Ember's slowing the line down was a protest against using live animal mascots. It's one thing for a student to don an animal costume. They're doing it voluntarily, for the joy of supporting their team and the privilege of a can't-beat-it sideline view of the game. 

Not that there's anything natural about a student in an animal costume, but when you think about it, it's more natural than expecting a real, live animal to cavort up and down the sidelines in front of thousands of screaming fans. Personally, I'd be displaying indifference to running, too. 

Enjoy your retirement, Ember, out there at home on the rane. You've earned every bit of it.

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Image Source: AP News

Did there used to be this many narcissists?

You're not imaging it. 

There have always been narcissists. Caravaggio's masterpiece Narcissus was painted 1597-1599, and he obviously didn't pull the concept out of thin air.

But many psychologists are saying that there really are more narcissists these days than there used to be. 

Sure, some of the increase may just be an increase in awareness of the problem. As with autism. I have a hunch that the stats on how many autistic people exist are inflated by the definition of autism having been expanded. Autism is now considered a broad spectrum of behaviors, not just Rainman-like behavior. My career was in tech, and a lot of the colleagues we considered your typical techie oddballs would now be characterized as "on the spectrum." 

It's likely the same with narcissism. The term, in all its glorious (mis)understanding, trips off pretty much everyone's tongue. And when the inglorious spectacle of a manifestly disordered president - a fellow who, when it comes to narcissism, pretty much checks every box - invades our lives, a lot of us are thinking/fretting about narcissism 24/7. 

But it's also likely that technology - all that Insta, all that TikTok - and the equating of success and happiness with having a distinct personal brand have resulted in greater levels of self-absorption. Influencer as a profession, anyone?

One of the more spectacular manifestations of narcissism that I've seen recently came across my timeline. 

Jennifer P is a NJ stay-at-home dog mom (nice work, if you can get it, I suppose) who has been cataloging her "fitness journey" for years. I don't know how many folks she actually influences - when I looked at her TikTok, the number was fewer than 2,000 - but earlier in the fall she was getting an awful lot of views, and it wasn't for all those butt angles of her  tightening her glutes in her lululemons. 

I won't be using the full name for Jennifer P, but it's out there. (Click the linked article and see for yourself.) But I'm not using it because I feel kind of bad for her. An influencer with little influence who brought a virtual ton of bricks down on her virtual head, and who keeps posting (at least as of this mid-October writing) videos continuing to excuse herself from any stupid-doing while assuring her meager pack of followers, and herself, that what she did was fine and dandy, that she can't believe she's become such a thing (and such a target), and that she's really ok. 

So, kinda sorta sad. 

But a pretty good example of narcissism run amok. 

What Jenny from NJ did was put out one of her exercise vids and decide to make it about "gym etiquette." But she wasn't pointing out that folks should put the weights back, and wipe their sweat off the equipent they'd just used. No, she took on a fellow gymgoer, bitching her out for "photobombing" her video, and accusing her of doing it deliberately. When IRL, all the accusee was doing was being a gymgoer. Here's how it went down:

The video was set up to focus on [Jennifer P] completing her routine on a bench, but more of the gym beyond her was visible, including a row of weights and mirrors. During her set, a woman stepped into frame to return her weights and to stretch in front of the mirror, seemingly to check her form.

[Jennifer P]  appeared irritated as she glanced at the woman and then looked at her camera, as if to confirm that the woman was included in her shot. She appeared irritated as she switched to leg lifts before finally dropping to the floor and approaching her phone.

Off-screen, [Jennifer P] asked the woman why she was standing there. When the woman expressed confusion, [Jennifer P]  stated: "Because you're annoying me. You're annoying me. You're doing this on purpose."

The woman replied something inaudible to [Jennifer P]  before grabbing another set of weights and walking out of the frame.

But that wasn't enough for [Jennifer P] , who said:
"Don't work out next to me. Don't work out next to me. Please, don't work out next to me."

Ironically, [Jennifer P]  wrote in a text overlay on the video: "Gym Etiquette Lesson 47: Don't photobomb the content creator."

She also wrote in the video's caption: "She did that sh*t on purpose." (Source: ComicSands)

I'm not going to say that all hell broke lose, but partial hell sure did. And all of a sudden, viral being viral, a whole lot of TikTokers were weighing in on Jennifer P's "delusional level of entitlement" and lack of understanding of what gym etiquette actually means. To the world at large, Jennifer P is no Emily Post of the Gym. One critic even wondered whether the whole thing was a skit. 

Then some big kahuna fitness influencer, one Joey Swoll - Joey Swoll of the 8.1 million TikTok followers - came for Jennifer P, suggesting that if she needed so much private space, she needed to build herself a home gym.

Jennifer P, like a true narcissist, found it impossible to accept any responsibility or blame for the incident, and kept posting back. Some of her commenters warned Jennifer P that she was going to lose her gym membership over this, but Jennifer P insisted that she'd been a member for 17 years, and no way were they going to kick her out.

A short while after she posted her NFW would they expel me video, Jennifer P was kicked out of her gym.

Oh. 

Maybe Jennifer P was having a bad day. Maybe she was having a menopausal meltdown. Maybe one of the bulldogs she moms was sick. But she sure sounds and acts like a narcissist to me. (And, yes, I did look through some of her TikToks.)

Anyway, technically there may not be all that many narcissists out there than there used to be, but it sure seems as if there are. 

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Image Source: Turning Leaf Therapy (Ur Source for Image: Caravaggio)

Short answer: not really

Well, yesterday, my post was dedicated to pudding. Today, we take on an adjacent foodstuff: Jell-o salad.

One of my mother's festive specialties was the Jell-o mold.

Early on in my childhood, for Thanksgiving, she regularly made a Waldorf Salad that contained apples, celery, and walnuts suspended in a lovely golden apple-flavored Jell-o. Even though the walnuts got a little soggy, I loved it. Then Jell-o went and stopped producing apple Jell-o. Hiss, boo. My mother experimented and landed on lime, but it was never the same.

But she had another Jell-o mold up her sleeve: a strawberry Jell-o delight that had strawberries, bananas, and walnuts in it, and was slathered with sour cream. 

For Easter, she made orange Jell-o with shredded carrots and pineapple. 

Sometimes she'd whip up a lime Jell-o with canned pears special, other times she doctored up whatever-flavor-of-Jell-o was on the shelf with canned fruit cocktail or grapes.

True confession: my palate ain't all that sophisticated that I didn't absolutely love these Jell-o molds. Don't knock that orange-pineapple-carrot mold unless you've tried it. (And, yes, I have made plenty of fun of Jell-o molds over the years.)

Maybe it's because I'm half Midwest, but whie I may not ever actually make a Jell-o mold, I'm fine with eating one. 

Years ago, on a biz trip to State Farm HQ in Bloomington, Illionis, we went with our client to the campus cafeteria and there we found not one, not two, but three options for fruity Jell-os. I abstained. I knew they would not be as good as my mother's. 

Although my mother's molds sometimes used a veggie - carrots, celery - Liz never, ever, ever made a savory Jell-o Salad. 

But they're apparently a thing. A gourmet thing.

A recent NY Times article asked a compelling question that drew me right in. Can the Jell-o Salad Be Redeemed! 

Talk about click-bait!

Aspics and other savory gelatins are popular again, this time with top-notch ingredients and a refined, ultramodern look. (Source: NY Times)

What's pictured here is not, of course, an ultra-modern, top notch anything. It's a totally vile 1950's recipe using unflavored gelatin, tomato soup, spaghetti-o's and hot dogs. 

Revolting dosen't begin to describe this desecration. We didn't have a lot of say over what my mother put on the table. She occasionally served something that my father liked, but the kiddos mostly found disgusting. Looking at you, creamed chip beef. Looking at you, liver and onions. But once a year, we were all capable of gagging down a meal we hated. Early on, I mastered the act of sluicing down a bite of something disagreeable by floating it down the hatch in a mouthful of milk. But if my mother ever tried to serve this, there would have been a riot in our kitchen. And rightly so.

But The Times isn't talking about hot dogs and spaghetti-o's. They're talking about high-end top-chef creations. 

They're talking about chefs who make "aspics [which] resemble Lucite sulptures." Like one that features soft-boiled egg, herbs and cubed sausage and ox tongue. Ox tongue? That's right up there in the Top (Bottom?) Five when it comes to disgusting foods. Personally, I'd rather sup on Lucite.

A chef at a Berlin restaurant came up with a dish that 

...used a dashi-flavored gelatin to suspend crisp endive leaves and jewel-like kumquats, making the broth with fermented smoked bonito and umami-rich aged rausu kombu from the Japanese island of Hokkaido.

Oh, FFS. 

Anyway, I was not surprised to learn that this Berlin restaurant went out of business last year.  

I don't care how fancy-schmancy these "salads" are, the short answer to Can the Jell-o Salad Be Redeemed! is not really. A shorter version is NFW. A still shorter version is NO. 

A Jell-o mold with fruit, on the other hand... There is a gelatin brand that makes apple. I'm hosting Thanksgiving. Maybe, just maybe.  

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Image Source: Cookbook Community

Proof of the pudding

I like pudding. 

Chocolate. Butterscotch. Vanilla. Rice. Grapenut. Tapioca. And the near relations: mousse, flan, and whatever's in the middle of those chocolate volcano cakes. And, of course, bread pudding. (Worth a trip to New Orleans for, and it's near-ubiquitous there.)

My father had a colossal sweet tooth, so we always had desserts at our house, and when my mother didn't have time to bake, she'd whip up something quick. As often as not, that was pudding. If she enough time for making something but not enough time for baking something, she made chilled "parfait" of graham crackers and cooked chocolate pudding. If she had a bit of time but not enough for the graham cracker concoction, she made plane old cooked pudding. If she didn't have any time, she made instant. My mother was a scratch baker (and cook), but when it came to pudding, cooked or instant, it came from a little carboard box from Jell-o or Royal. 

Everyone (in their right mind) preferred cooked pudding to instant, but sometimes when it was instant-time, my mother made a combo of chocolate and vanilla, putting them in clear glass bowls - chocolate layer followed by vanilla layer, topped off with half of a maraschino cherry. (I can't say I've ever replicated this "recipe," but I do have a couple of those little clear glass bowls, which are very useful keepers of small amounts of ingredients when baking or cooking. Most recently, I used them for orange zest and freshly squeezed OJ needed for a yummy orange-shrimp-pasta recipe of mine.)

I like pudding.

I rarely make it, but when I'm out and see rice pudding, tapioca, or grapenut pudding on the menu - which I believe can only happen in restaurants/diners that specialize in non-exciting, non-innovative old time American-New England cuisine - I'll often order it. The one and only time I was in Greece, 50+ years ago, the treat of the day was finding a street vendor selling little cups of rizogalo - 

rice pudding dusted with cinammon. 

But one thing about pudding: with the possible exceptions of flan and bread pudding, pudding is eaten with a spoon.

Not so for the youth of the world, who've begun convening in parks and other central locations to eat pudding with a fork.

According to a recent article I saw in The Boston Globe, "eating pudding, in public, with forks" is "the latest social media-driven activity now sweeping the world." Or the GenZ world at least. (All I see on social media, which for me equals BlueSky, is the stuff of politics. That and cute dogs and the occasional poem.)

And the origins of forked pudding are in a country not generally associated with fun.  

The first Pudding mit Gabel [Pudding with Fork] took place in the southwestern German city of Karlsruhe, best known as the site of the country’s Supreme Court, in late August. Evidently, young people across Germany thought it was a tremendous idea. Within weeks, there were pudding fests in Stuttgart, Hamburg, Munich, Hanover, and other cities and towns.

These events attract crowds - a thousand or so twenty-somethings (zwanzig etwas) - and is now spreading around the world. It's recently arrived in the States. Although there was a recently small gathering at Boston's Northeastern University, and another in DC, it hasn't yet taken off. Let's give it some time.

The NU gathering was local, but I was not invited, anymore than an old geezer in the 1950's would have been asked to join in with a bunch of crazy college students seeing how many kids they could stuff in a telephone booth (ah, those were the days) or a VW Beetle. (I'm trying to come up with a similar youth fad of my college era. I guess it was streaking, but I was more into protesting the war in Vietnam.)

I'm happy that GenZ-ers are looking for ways to connect, and have fun, in real life. 

But pudding with forks? Why? Some have suggested the goal is to build community, and make new friends, a slippery grasp for togetherness, in a world that seems increasingly fractured.

But pudding with forks? Although spoons (löffeln) do a better job, I guess the answer is why not? 

The world is often a mean and ugly place, and young people are bearing a disproportionate burden of the meanness and ugliness, especiallly when it comes to what comes next. If you're living through particular and general existential crises, why not have some dopey fun and try eating pudding with a fork. 

The only downside is that it's harder to scrape the last of the goodness out of the cup using a fork. But I guess that's what tongues are for.

The proof of the pudding with forks fad will be to see whether it continues to grow, or just dies out. 

I may be sticking with the spoon method, but I'm rooting for pudding with forks to grow. With so much rancid stupdity and evil out there, we could all use a little fun. (Bonus points for the birthplace being Germany. Juhu!)

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Image Source: Silk

Buy Now, Regret Later

I am at the point of my life when I don't really need anything. 

When I was a lot younger, and a lot shoppier, the byword was that "need" should never enter into the shopper's vocabulary. So I bought a lot of stuff I didn't need. I'd stop at Crate & Barrel after work and buy a cute little pitcher that I really had no use for. But, hey, it was only fifteen bucks. So what if, when I had parked my car and was heading home I whacked the C&B bag on the side of a brick Emerson College building just down the street and destroyed the cute little pitcher. It was only fifteen bucks.

I bought plenty of clothing that I didn't need, even back when I went into the office five days a week, back in  the day when you had to look at least quasi-professional. Non-need-based shopping is how I ended up with three periwinkle-blue cashmere sweaters, two nearly identical teal silk blouses. 

I'd spend Saturdays shopping with my sisters and friends, hunting for bargains at Loehmann's, at Frugal Fanny's, at Filene's Basement, and at the outlet stores that were starting to pop up in places like Kittery, Maine. 

But while I wasn't exactly shopping at K-Mart or the Dollar Store, my tastes were pretty pedestrian middle-class. Crate & Barrel. Lord & Taylor. Talbot's. Funky, artsy stores with funky, artsy tops and earrings. I had a few higher-end pieces from upscale brands or shops, but they were items I got at Loehmann's or Filene's Basement. That cool sweater from Barney's - does Barney's even exist anymore? - I got it for not much in Filene's Basement. I had a pair of kick-ass black leather Ferragamo boots I got for pennies on the dollar at Saks because size 10 AAAA boots weren't exactly flying off the shelf Sometimes I'd do a birthday splurge on a $$$ sweater from Peruvian Connection. 

I will say that, in my shopping days, I enjoyed shopping, especially when it was part of a social excursion. 

Now, meh. And it's pretty much the same for my shopping companions of yore. (We old.)

And, of course, I don't need anything - those cute Crate & Barrel  on-sale dessert plates don't wear out. And I'm someone who hangs on to clothing for a good long time. I've had one of those $$$ sweaters from Peruvian Connection for 35 years. (Birthday present from me to me on my 40th birthday.)

Most of what I buy these days is replacement: undies, socks, sneakers, tee-shirts. 

But even in my shopping prime I was never drawn to luxury goods. And never in a million years would I buy a clothing item or kitchen  tchotchke that was going to put me in debt. Sure, I'd charge things, but when the bill came, I paid it. (I say this now, but I there were plenty of times when I didn't fully pay off a credit card bill the month it was received. I was just too cautious and frugal and paranoid to rack up much debt.) 

The idea of acquiring a heavy consumer debt load for anything other than a car loan or a mortgage (or an MBA) was anathema to me. Unless it's a big ticket, once in a very blue moon item, if you can't afford to pay for something without going into serious debt, how could you enjoy it? 

And, fortunately, I never wanted high end designer items to begin with. Birkin Bag? Way cute! But $12K for a pocketbook, when I was just as happy with a Dooney & Bourke I scored at TJ Maxx. 

And, of course, I'm not young and scrolling through Insta and Tik-Tok seeing all the cool and expensive stuff, the It Girls, the influencers are urging us to buy. And feeling aggrieved and jelly that I can't afford it. (And I'm not young and saddled with college debt and wondering whether I'll ever be able to buy a home, let alone worrying about the existential yuck that the youngs these days endure.)

Anyway, I was interested to read a recent NY Times article about a young woman who - gulp! - found herself $50K in debt for buying high-end duds through Buy Now, Pay Later apps. These apps - Klarna is the best known - let you put down a small amount up front, and then pay it off in installments. 

Elysia Berman's first B.N.P.L. purchase was for a used orange snakeskin Proenza Schouler PS1bag. This is a brand and item I've never heard of, but the one she saw was $1K retail, but only $430 on The RealReal (a site where people sell used designer clothing and accessories). In Berman's defense, she was young. She'd grown up a relatively poor kid in an ultra-affluent town, she'd gone to college with a lot of big buck classmates, and she was working in the fashion industry where most of her colleagues were rich girls who had multiple pricey bags. (Probably had Birkin bags, too.) 

“I felt like that bitch in that bag,” Berman remembers. After so many years “seeing everyone around you have a nicer life than you,” she was overjoyed to get a taste for herself. Taking home such a treasure for only a small cost upfront felt like stumbling upon a cheat code — “a kind of unlock.” (Source: NY Times)

For Berman, this first purchase was a gateway drug. Among other items, she bought a pair of  R13 boots - another brand I've never heard of - for $2,000. Her "wake up call" was paying $700 for a Khaite (what? another brand I don't know?) jacket that was sharply discounted. She had to have it. But her normie credit cards were (not surprisingly) maxed out, as were several of her B.N.P.L. apps. But she just had to have the jacket. (Believe me, I get it. When I was 25, I spent $150 on an on-sale blue suede jacket at Ann Taylor. This was, in fact, my rent money, and for the next couple of weeks I lived on a loaf of white bread, a jar of Peter Pan, and a bag of oranges. I completely adored that jacket. So I get it.)

The juggling she had to do to make the Khaite jacket purchase got Berman to start looking more closely at what she was doing to herself, and found that she was that big old $50K in debt. (She is now in her mid-thirties and has worked her debt fully down. She no longer uses B.N.P.L. apps.)

Part of the seduction of B.N.P.L. is that your purchases are "interest free." (The vendor pays them a percentage of each sale.) But they're only "interest free" up to a point that can be easily passed. B.N.P.L. shoppers can end up paying 36 percent interest. Yowza! 

Maybe a better name for those apps would be Buy Now, Regret Later.

Sometimes I'm really and truly glad that I'm not young anymore. (And not that it would fit me, but I wish I still had that blue suede jacket.)

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Image Source: Adwin

Heartbreaking. Enraging.

I suppose I should have followed up yesterday's grim post with something a bit lighter, but, hey, in for a dime, in for a dollar. So today we take a look at homelessness.  

Two days one week, three weeks the next, I volunteer in a day shelter. Mostly what I do is give out socks and toothbrushes, give out information, give out directions, and sometimes just lend an ear to someone who just wants and needs to talk. 

Not everyone who comes through our door is experiencing homelessness - some are just plain old poor - but most of the folks we see aren't housed. And whenever someone finds a place to hang their hat, we are jumping for joy. SRO (hopefully not a wretched one) with shared bath and kitchen, or a full apartment, when someone's where they can lock the door, keep their stuff, stay in bed in the morning, they're happy to get up in the morning worrying about where they're going to lay themsleves down to sleep that night. Surprisingly - to some - many of the folks we serve have jobs. They may be poorly paid, low benefit, crappy jobs, but, let me tell you, people do seem to love saying "I just got a job" or "I have to get to work."

The parents who head the five Atlanta families that Brian Goldstone writes about in his brilliant (compelling, depressing) book There Is No Place for Us, all work, often holding multiple jobs. Sometimes they've been at the same job for years, other times their work is temporary or sporadic. The commonality is that the jobs are poorly paid, low benefit, and crappy. (Hmmm. Where have I heard that before?)

The families, for the most part, had - at least at some point - housing stability in a rented apartment where they could celebrate a birthday, put up a Christmas tree, cook a Thanksgiving dinner. But then something rent wrong. 

Someone got cancer. Someone got divorced. Someone lost their job. Someone had their hours cut back. Someone was two days late with their rent check and lost their lease. (Georgia has very few tenant protections.)

Lives are lived pretty precariously when you're living paycheck to paycheck and don't have any cushion to fall back on. 

All of the families Goldstone chronicles fell into wretched housing situations in extended stay facilities (bleak hotels) or living with a family member or friend. Extended stay facilities means that your family is likely living in one room: parent(s) and kiddos crammed into crowded quarters with no privacy, no place for the kids to play, kiddos jammed into bed together, a hot plate and/or microwave to cook on. 

Staying with family or friends sounds better. But when you're poor, your family and friends don't tend to be much better off than you are. So you end up sleeping on the living room couch or a sleeping bag on the floor. Again no privacy, no nothing. No room to breathe, let alone work, let alone go to school.

And, as the time Goldstone spent with the Georgia families overlapped with covid, folks were trying to work and get their kids to learn from "home."

Picture this: you're trying to work a grueling but poorly paid call center job while your seven year old and nine year old are "going to school" over unreliable wi-fi, and your toddler is doing what toddlers do. Which is not giving anyone a moment's peace. 

But since some of the folks in the book were essential workers, they had to go into their jobs as, say, hospital cleaners, even with an epidemic raging. And the jobs they went into were mostly poorly accessible by public transportation, adding a few hours commuter time getting to, waiting for, and riding on buses. Late too many times? You're fired, girlfriend. 

Then there's the wonderful gig work. Door Dash? Talk about slave-driving. You're pellmelling around, getting docked (or fired) when traffic makes you a nano-second late with a delivery, and - of course - your car is old and unreliable.

All of Goldstone's families were hardworking. They were always on the lookout for ways to lemons into lemonade. (Good luck with that, when you lack sugar and water, let alone a pitcher.) They all loved their children. They all hated the lives they were giving those children. They all wanted better for them. And for themselves.

I was having a nervous breakdown just reading about their lives. I can only imagine the lived reality.

My lived reality includes talking with homeless individuals. So I know that what triggers homelessness is a mixed brew of mental illness, substance abuse, past incarceration, childhood trauma, bad schools, poor choices (absolutely), and - the one thing that's 100% in common - bad luck. And, of course, the lack of affordable housing. 

Back in the not so recent past, single folks with (or without) crappy jobs could always live in an SRO. Sure, many of them were god-awful, but it was a place to call home and it beat sleeping in a mylar blanket over a heating grate. 

Back in the not so recent past, poor families could afford to rent an apartment. If they were lucky, they had a good landlord. If they were really lucky, they had a Section 8 voucher. If they were maybe not all that lucky, they were in a project. But wherever it was, it was home.

Alas, other than for scarce vouchers and bogus set asides for affordable housing, the government has long been going out of the housing business. And "the market" has not kept up with the demand for housing for the poor and, increasingly, the middle class. Especially in big cities where the jobs are and where a lot of people want to live. Like Atlanta. (Like Boston.)

The problem, as Goldstone points out quite eloquently and forcefully, is precisely that we have left housing to "the market." Which could not give a rat's arse about anything other than making a profit. 

In Atlanta (as in Boston), neighborhoods that once provided affordable housing for the working class have been gentrified. And capitalism in general, and private equity in particular, has jumped in to make matters worse. Those extended stay facilities are a big and lucrative business. Families in them are pretty much paying what they'd been paying when they had an actual apartment in their former, real life. 

Airbnb's knock a lot of potential housing off the market. Why rent to a family who'll actually live there, when you can make more doing temp rentals to tourists?

Corporations scoop up affordable properties, renting them out, dumping families out of them when they can get someone new (and desperate) in them for a couple of hundred bucks more a month. With so many houses taken out of play, home ownership out of the question for many families (poor, working, middle class). 

How many homeless people are there in the US? Who knows. The government says about 800,000. Goldstone points out that the government doesn't count people living in extended stay dumps or sleeping on their aunt's floor. He argues that the true number of homeless folks is closer to 4 million.

Through my volunteer work at the shelter, and with a holiday charity for poor and homeless families, I've gotten to learn up close and personal how tough people's lives can be. But not that up close and personal. I really have no idea what it's like not to have privacy, a warm bed, a comfy couch, a stocked fridge, a set of keys to a door that locks. Sure, I've had times in my younger days when I was pretty skint. But was I ever worried about not having a roof over my head? No. If I had to no place to call home,

I'd probably have a nervous breakdown on day one.

Anyway, go read Brian Goldstone. 

I thought I knew a lot about this problem. I had no idea.

Heartbreaking. Enraging. 

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Image Source: Penguin Random House

It's Just a Matter of Time (Veterans Day 2025)

The song's been running through my head a lot lately. I'm singing it in the shower. One of the signal songs, about one of the signal events, of my generation.

Tin soldiers and Nixon's comin'
We're finally on our own
This summer I hear the drummin' 
Four dead in Ohio

May 1970. Kent State University. Four students, just kids, protesting the Vietnam War. Yes, some rocks were hurled, but the students were unarmed. They thought the Guards were firing blanks. They weren't. Four dead in Ohio. 

Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are gunning us down

A couple of weeks later, two kids were killed at Jackson State. State troopers this time, not Guards.

It was a scary time. 

I wasn't hurling rocks. But I was marching. And shouting. And riding the bus to DC to make sure my voice was heard.

I'd be very surprised if it happened on college campuses this time. But it's coming. Trump. Vance. Hegseth. Bondi. Miller. Homans. Noem. They want it. Blood. Lots of it. 

Maybe some nihilistic moron will fire on ICE and give them the excuse they're salivating for. Maybe it'll be nothing more than a priest in Chicago getting in the wrong guy's face, a Barney cosplayer in "war-ravaged" Portland making a little too much fun of some thin-skinned thug. Maybe an LA protestor will hurl a taco their way. Maybe it'll be a car backfiring. 

It probably won't happen in Boston. I know we're on the list, but there are still a few cities ahead of us. 

But it's retribution time, baby, and there's a lot of trigger fingers out there hoping for a reason to fire away.

It's Veterans Day, a holiday of sorts. I've written about it in the past. Here's one of my early Veterans Day posts, from the wayback of November 2008. When we weren't at each others throats. When the country was in an economic mess, but not an existential crisis. When we'd just elected our first Black president - and I was thrilled. (Election night was warm, and we had our windows open. My husband and I were sitting in the living room with our friend Joe, waiting for the election to be called. At 11 p.m., it was. We started cheering, and we could hear people throughout the neighborhood cheering as well. There were carhorns blaring away on Charles Street. It was a kinder, gentler time.)

Stephen Stills had a point, but I don't think that members of the National Guard are tin soldiers. They want to serve their country. They're patriotic. They want to earn some extra dough. They want the benefits. They want to get out of the house. They love what they do.

And what they do should not involve being sent into another state, where they are neither needed nor wanted. Where government officials, and Fox, and Sinclair News, have propagandized them into thinking that folks who live in blue cities, in blue states, are the enemy. That our cities are full of violence, that they're war ravaged. For sure, we have crime, and addicts, and homelessness, but let me assure you - and I'm speaking for Boston here, but assuming it's much the same for all the cities on Trump's enemies list - tourists are jamming the streets on nice fall weekends because - get this - even people who live in suburbs love visiting cities. 

I feel bad for these National Guards members. 

They really didn't sign up for patrolling our cities, for attacking their fellow citizens as the enemy.  (We have met the enemy and they is us? Alrighty.)

But if the rhetoric, the confrontations, the brutal treatment of immigrants, the roughing up of protestors, the attacks on the press, the rapelling-down-the-sides-of-buildings-and-zip-tying-kiddos-in-the-middle-of-the-night keep up (and I realize those rapellers weren't National Guards, and that the violence directed at protestors, the press, and anyone suspected of being an immigrant, i.e., existing while Black or brown, is mostly coming from ICE), something's going to happen.

It's just a matter of time.

Is it any wonder that I'm singing Ohio in the shower?

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One more proof that baseball is the greatest sport...

I can watch most sporting events with some degree of interest, and in the case of the American Big Four: football, basketball, hockey, and baseball, with a reasonably high degree of understanding and knowledge. I know the plot, I know (mostly) the rules, I know that stories, I know the histories. And for the sports I neither understand nor know anything about - as so often come before me during the Olympics - I am perfectly capable of developing instant expertise. ("How could they have given her a 5? That performance was clearly an 8.")

But the one sport that I hold in my heart, the one sport that I truly love, is baseball.

This has a lot to do with my history. Although he never developed much of an interest in basketball, my father was a sports fan, and his greatest love was baseball. He'd played football, baseball, and hockey through high school, but he'd played baseball beyond, playing for a pass-the-hat, semi-pro team through his twenties. He probably made less than a buck a game. A lot less. But although he never made the claim - and would have laughed at it - I guess it could be said that my father had been a professional athlete. Anyway, he really loved baseball.

And I really loved my father, and I fell in love with baseball sitting with him in the living room, listening - on the combo record player-radio console cabinet - to broadcasts of weekday night games, and sitting with him in the family room watching televised weekend games.

One of my first memories - I was 2 and change - is toddling over to the small-screen black and white Philco and trying to pick a player off the screen. I remember my attempt to grab that tiny little black and white ballplayer, which I now suspect was at the urging of my father, who probably wanted some opposing player picked off base.

As a kid, I read about baseball in the newspaper, in The Sporting News, in Sports Illustrated. And in books about baseball history, biographies of baseball players of yore. Thus, I could talk to my father about Nap Lajoie, Walter "Big Train" Johnson, and Chick Gagnon - a local fellow who made it to the big leagues and whom my father, as a kid, had watched playing for Holy Cross. 

Ah, baseball. 

Last week, the baseball season ended. (On November 2nd. Remember when we used to call the World Series the October Classic?)

This makes me sad, as I will miss it, and am already looking forward to Truck Day, when the Red Sox equipment truck leaves for spring training. 

During the regular baseball season, I watch (or listen to: baseball is a great radio sport) at least a few innings of almost every Red Sox game - and keep a smartphone eye on the games I'm not watching or listening to. Come October, I'm watching a lot of playoff games, whoever's playing.

This year, for the first time in a while, the October gamers included the Red Sox. Which surprised me, as after a very poor start last spring I figured they could well lose 100 games. Instead, they ended up with an 89-73 record, and grabbed a Wild Card spot.

Alas, the Olde Towne Team didn't make it past the dreaded Yankees in the Wild Card Playoffs. But they did win one game out of the best-of-three. And they were playing in October.

And, blessedly, the Toronto Blue Jays dispatched the loathsome Yankees. Start spreading the news: O, Canada! 

I watched an awful lot of those October games, including the insane 15 inning game between Seattle and Detroit. And although I could have gone either way, I was happy to see Seattle make it to the American League Championship Series. 

I could have gone either way - Blue Jays or Mariners - to win the ALCS, which went seven exciting games. (Even the blow outs were exciting in their own ways.) I would have been delighted to see the Mariners make it to their first World Series - bonus point that they're in Seattle, and Trump is on the verge of declaring war on the state of Washington. I would have been equally delighted to see the Canadian team win. They are, after all, something of the 51st state. 

So I was happy to see Toronto move on and win the ALCS in a nail-biter. 

On the National League front, I was hoping for anybody but the Dodgers to take the NLCS. Yes, I love Mookie Betts and will never forgive the Red Sox for letting him go. I liked Kiké Hernandez during his brief stint with my boys of summer. And I will remain forever grateful to Coach Dave Roberts for the key role he played in bringing the 2004 Red Sox to their first World Series championship in 86 years. 

I was especially sad that Milwaukee Brewers - a small market, blue collar, lunch pail, scrappy kind of team - got swept by the Dodgers. 

But I will say here and now that the Baseball Hall of Fame might as well induct Dodger Shohei Ohtani next July and forget about waiting for five years after he retires. If Shohei ain't the GOAT, I'll eat my cap. 

On to the World Series, and Go, Toronto! Even though Trump has considerable enmity towards both California and Canada, which meant that either a Dodgers or a Blue Jays win was likely to trigger him, I felt very strongly that I needed to root against the Evil Empire West - the LA Dodgers.

(As an aside - but a relevant one - the teams that went the farthest, the Dodgers, with a payroll of $321M (second in the MLB to the hapless Mets) and the Blue Jays with a $240M (fifth in payroll) were both big spenders. The teams on the losing side were below the Mendoza line with respect to spending. Seattle's payroll was $148M (16th in the majors), while Milwaukee's was $115M (23rd). Both of these teams punched above their weight, and it would be good for the sport and the soul if at some point soon a lower spending team went all the way.)

I watched the few games, and lasted 16 innings - up until 2 a.m. - in Game 3, which went 18 innings and ended in an LA win. But when it got down to Games 5 and beyond, I was mostly keeping an eye on what was happening, and jumped in when the outcome seemed determined, or - in the case of the sixth game - when I honestly thought (or at least honestly hoped) that the Jays would pull off a ninth inning miracle. Which they kinda-sorta almost did. But didn't.

So on to Game 7.

Sports purists, and I count many family members and friends among them, love when championship series - baseball, basketball, hockey - go seven gmes. I don't.

I date my seventh game oogs to the Red Sox losing their first World Series appearance in my lifetime - that would be 1967 - in the final game. I decided there and then that I would never watch a seventh game of a World Series the home town honeys were playing in. So I didn't watch the last game in 1975 against the Reds. Nor the last game against the Mets. 

Blessedly, in 2004, the Red Sox swept the Cards in four. In 2007, they swept the Rockies. In 2013, it took them six games to dispatch the Cards, and in 2018, they beat the Dodgers in five. So I haven't had to endure a seven game Red Sox World Series since 1986. Lucky me.

Last Saturday night, I decided to stop being a big baby and, halfway through the game, I turned it on. This was the last of baseball for the season. Winter is long and dark, with no baseball to relieve the long and dark. I had to watch.

The game was a nail biter, and by the 8th inning, I had no more nails to bite. 

When it got to the top of the 9th inning with the Jays hanging on by their fingernails, with a one run lead, my heart was racing. Not quite as nerve wracking as watching election results roll in, but heart-racingly nerve wracking.

Extra innings. Boo! I HATE extra innings.

(Amazing to me that I get so swept up in watching a bunch of well-paid men play a kids' game that in the grand scheme of things matters not...)

Well, someone had to win, and someone had to lose, and sadly - to me anyway - the Jays lost. 

So the really big spenders won, and the not quite so spendy big spenders came up short. But, hey, when the Red Sox were winning World Series, they were pretty big spenders. Mostly you do get what you pay for. (Unless you're the Mets, who had the highest MLB payroll - and the highest paid player in baseball - and fell flat.)

Money talk aside, there are so many reasons why baseball is such a great sport. 

There's the history. I've only been to the Baseball Hall of Fame twice, but I'd like to see it once more - one of the few things on my bucket list. The stories. The legends. The greatness. The rivalries. The sordid past. (No Black players until 1946????) The heartbreaking losses. (Red Sox, too ofen to count.) The redemptions. (Red Sox beating the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS after they were down 0-3.) The eccentrics. The a-holes. The heroes. The bums. I love it all. 

There's the long season, with all its intricate arcs and subarcs. 

There's the crazy, convoluted rules. Sure, all sports have them. But the infield fly rule? I rest my case!

There's the pace of the game. Sure, like a lot of folks, I was happy to see the pitch clock introduced, as games could really drag on. But there's a wonderful rhythm to watching baseball that's lacking in the other Big Four sports.

Let's face it, most team sports are running or skating up and down a field, court, or rink, trying to get the ball (or puck) across their opponent's goal (or into the basket). Not much of a plot. 

Baseball, well, it's different. For one thing, players aren't all running (or skating) back and forth all together. For another thing, well, there are a lot of other things...

I'm sure there's great writing about other sports. But writing about baseball is in a whole other league. Can anything beat Lawrence Ritter's The Glory of Their Times (which I gave my father for Christmas in 1966)? Or John Updike's New Yorker paean to Ted Williams last plate appearance, when he hit a homer? (Earlier that season, in July 1960, sitting in the bleachers with my father, I saw Ted William hit a homerun. My first game at Fenway.) Bang the Drum Slowly, Field of Dreams, The Boys of Summer, The Natural, Ball Four, Moneyball. And one of my all time favorites: Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season by Stephen King and Steward O'Nan. (Good and great writers write about baseball.)

Other sports? Not so much.

Ditto for movies. Bull Durham. Say no more. 

And then there's this:

Mike Trout is a future Hall of Famer. In September, he hit his 400th home run. A moonshot: 485 feet!

Like so much else in our society, MLB home run balls have become a thing to fight over.

Last season, Shohei Ohtani’s 50th home run ball, which made him the first ever member of the 50/50 club, sparked multiple lawsuits over ownership between fans who had fought for it in the stands before it ended up selling for a record $4.392 million. This season, even an otherwise forgettable home run ball from a random Phillies-Marlins game sparked a heated exchange that resulted in an adult taking it from a child. So when Mike Trout hit his 400th career home run on Saturday night, the latest milestone in what is already a hall-of-fame career, it could have gotten ugly once the valuable ball reached the Coors Field stands.

Instead, it landed in the hands of a man who wanted a memory more than a payday. (Source: NY Times)

The fan who caught the ball, a fellow named Alberto, was watching the game with his wife and kids. Alberto had his glove with him, but he nabbed the Trout homer barehanded. Although he could have held Trout, the Angels, or the Hall of Fame  up for some pretty big bucks for that ball (even if it wasn't going for Shohei money), Alberto was fine with giving the ball back to Trout. After the game, Alberto met Trout in the dugout, gave him the ball, and in return was given a couple of autographed bats and balls. 

Getting the autographed stuff was nice, but Alberto had one little ask in mind:

“You mind if we can, like, (have a catch) on the field?” he asked.

Trout readily obliged and the two men then tossed a ball back and forth near the third base line.

I was never an athlete. Just a fan. But in the spring, when it started to get a little light out in the evenings, my father and I would sometimes go out in the backyard, sink a bit into the grass still squishy from snow melt, and play catch.

Baseball. There is just nothing like it. 

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Image Source for ball and bat: Psychological Science

Image Source for Alberto and Mike Trout: Instagram

Guy Fawkes Day

It's Guy Fawkes Day, so across the pond there'll be bonfires and fireworks, and maybe some effigy burning. Guy Fawkes was a Catholic convert who was part of an early 1600's plot to blow up Parliament in hopes of killing the Protestant king and restoring a Catholic monarch to the throne. The plotters were apprehended and executed, and the date for the failed plot has been observed since.  

I will be not be celebrating.

• I am not a Brit, and Guy Fawkes is celebrated in the UK. (Pre-American Revolution, it was observerd throughout the colonies - including in Boston - where it mostly had an anti-Catholic slant).
  
• However erstwhile, I am  - or was, or something - a Catholic, Guy Fawkes Day has anti-Catholic origins. And still in the memory of some old geezers, the bonfires associated with the event included burning effigies of the pope. (Now if I wanted to burn an effigy of the pope - which I most decidedly do not, especially given the current pope and his predessor, who seem as if they genuinely want (Leo)/wanted (Francis) to make the Church and the world a better place - that would be quite another thing.)

Which is not to say that if I happened to be in the UK, and could look out my window and see the fireworks shooting off, I wouldn't look out my window.

Growing up in Worcester in the 1950's and 1960's, anti-Catholicism was pretty much a thing of the past. During that time, the population of Worcester was over 60% Catholic. My neighborhood was a lot more Catholic than that. 

The nuns used to tell us that we had to behave especially well when we were wearing our school uniforms, because someone - some "other" - might see us behaving poorly and judge the entire Catholic church based on our bad behavior. Even at the time, I was wondering who these judge-y folks might be, as there were virtually no non-Catholics out there to watch throwing snowballs or shoplifting 5 cent plastic toys at Woolworth's. Not that I was going either, but I wasn't blind.

That there was no anti-Catholic sentiment in my neck of the woods doesn't mean that it might not have been encountered, even in my day, in areas that weren't quite so Catholic. And might still be encountered in plenty of places in the USA. Many evangelical Christians harbor profound animosity towards Catholics. 

But even in good-old-Catholic Worcester, there was anti-Catholic sentiment that was experienced by an earlier generation. 

When my father died at the age of 58, a couple of his high school teachers came to his wake, and one told me that he had never forgotten my father because he was the most brilliant math student he had ever taught.

I asked my aunt why said teacher hadn't encouraged my father to go to college. She looked at me as if I had two heads. "Why, all the teachers were Yankees [i.e., Protestants] and they never would have encouraged a Catholic student to go to college." (My father, who was one of the most intelligent people I've ever known, did manage to get some college in via night school, but he never completed his degree, what with the war, and the wife, and the job, and the kids.)

My aunt had her own anti-Catholic story.

In the early 1930's, she and my uncle moved to the Boston area for his job. They had looked at a rental flat in a two-family house in Belmont, a near-suburb. When they were talking details with their potential landlady, my uncle (7/8ths Irish, but with a Yankee-ish sounding last name) asked where the nearest Catholic church was. The landlady drew back, apologized, and explained that, by tacit agreement, no one in her neighborhood rented or sold to Catholics. (Even if my uncle hadn't asked about the local church, that bigoted landlady would have figured it out soon enough once she'd asked where he was employed, which was with the Catholic Order of Foresters, a fraternal benefit society - sort of an insurance company - that had been founded in the late 1800's for Irish-Catholic immigrants who couldn't find beneficence or insurance elsewhere.)

And so it went...

A bit before my father and my aunt were dissed for being Catholics, there was a crazily outrageous anti-Catholic episode that took place in Indiana.

Sure, there had been crazily outrageous anti-Catholic episodes throughout American history, perhaps most notoriously the 1834 burning of the Ursuline convent in Charlestown, Massachusetts by a crowd of Know Nothing thugs. But this early 1920's one was completely, crack-pot crazy. 

It was rumored that the pope was traveling by train through Indiana. A mob of Klansmen, armed with a rope, met the train and confronted a traveling corset salesman who was able to convince them that he wasn't the pontiff. Phew!*

At about the same time, a pitched battle was fought in South Bend between a gathering of Klansmen and a bunch of Notre Dame students. Go, Fighting Irish!

American anti-Catholicism has never held a candle to its anti-semitism and racism, which have coursed through our country's veins since the jump and never seem to be going anywhere. But anti-Catholicism does seem to have mostly died down, and is a relic of the past. (What with anti-immigrant sentiment and violence growing, it may yet again rear its big ugly head, given that so many Hispanic immigrants are Catholic.)

Personally, I'm not a big fan of organized religions. But I'm also not a big fan of those who are anti-[RACE/RELIGION/SEXUAL-identity goes here], refusing to hire, sell to, rent to to those who they're anti. And sometimes far worse. (Think Dylan Roof massacring nine Black folks attending a Bible study group at Emanuel AME Church. Think the dozen souls murdered at Tree of Life, a Pittsburgh synagogue. Think the recent killing of four attending Sunday services at a Michigan LDS chapel. Etc.) 

Me, I wouldn't want to rent an apartment in my home to, say, snake handlers. But I wouldn't go out there hunting for them, either. And I def reserve the right to sneer (quietly, mostly in private) to some of the ludicrous beliefs that so many religions hold to be true. (It's no accident that the Unitarian Church is chocked full of ex-whatevers, including ex-Catholics.)

Anyway, in honor of Guy Fawkes Day, I thought I'd take this little wander through anti-Catholicism.

Meanwhile, oddly enough, the stylized Guy Fawkes mask from V for Vendetta is now widely used in protests of all stripes (but largely anti-government). If it becomes more dangerous to show my face at protests, I may have to get me one. 

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*Sadly, I can't actually track down the ur source for this story. But I'm a believer.

Image Source: Gia'zilo