Yesterday my mother was 82 years old.\u00c2\u00a0 She just told me she hadn’t expected to live that long.<\/p>\n
We sent her flowers.\u00c2\u00a0 You just dial up a Website, click on a picture and it’s done.\u00c2\u00a0 Ah, the greatness of the Internet.\u00c2\u00a0 My mother uses the Net too.\u00c2\u00a0 My sister originally insisted she get a Windows machine, back in the nineties.\u00c2\u00a0 Wendy got bitten in the ass for being such an expert.\u00c2\u00a0 My mother called her incessantly for tech help.\u00c2\u00a0 But when my mother moved to her new apartment, I told her to get a Mac.\u00c2\u00a0 She hardly calls, but when she does the questions are so funny.\u00c2\u00a0 The printer, it doesn’t work!\u00c2\u00a0 Is it plugged in?\u00c2\u00a0 No.<\/p>\n
My mom surfs the Net.\u00c2\u00a0 She’s pretty modern.\u00c2\u00a0 But she still has characteristics representative of her generation.\u00c2\u00a0 She loves to go to the movies, she sees everything, hardly ever watching TV.\u00c2\u00a0 And she reads the newspaper.\u00c2\u00a0 From cover to cover.<\/p>\n
She’s infatuated with Bernie Madoff.\u00c2\u00a0 The Town of Fairfield invested $32 million!\u00c2\u00a0 What was the Town of Fairfield doing with that kind of money, taking a risk like that…\u00c2\u00a0 And then her friend in Westport told her she should invest with the guy from Fairfield Greenwich, who lost everything.\u00c2\u00a0 Like some people she knows in Florida.\u00c2\u00a0 Their investment counselor…\u00c2\u00a0 They’ve got nothing left.<\/p>\n
My mother went into New York to buy a new winter coat.\u00c2\u00a0 She went to Lord & Taylor.\u00c2\u00a0 The coat was $260.\u00c2\u00a0 Calvin Klein.\u00c2\u00a0 She paid $47.\u00c2\u00a0 The woman at the desk in her building bought boots for $60.\u00c2\u00a0 My mom remarked how we weren’t shoppers, but if you go to the store it’s positively frightening, they’ve got to get rid of the inventory!<\/p>\n
And speaking of inventory, there are half a dozen apartments up for sale in her building.\u00c2\u00a0 But the heirs can’t move them.\u00c2\u00a0 Because in order for someone to buy one, they’ve got to sell their own house.\u00c2\u00a0 And you just can’t sell a house.<\/p>\n
That’s what happens.\u00c2\u00a0 One person dies, another sells the house they raised a family in and moves into the building.\u00c2\u00a0 But, believe me, it’s not so bad.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like endless summer camp.\u00c2\u00a0 My mother’s got a bridge game every day.\u00c2\u00a0 She constantly gets phone calls for dinner.\u00c2\u00a0 And she doesn’t have to get in her car to arrive at her friends’ domicile.<\/p>\n
My mother’s father came to the States from Russia.\u00c2\u00a0 He worked in the leather factories in Peabody, Mass.\u00c2\u00a0 He was a member of the Worker’s Circle.\u00c2\u00a0 He used to refer to the salaries of fat cats as telephone numbers.<\/p>\n
Did you see that story in the "New York Times" about Wall Street bonuses?\u00c2\u00a0 If Merrill Lynch employees coughed up the bonuses for the last twenty years, it wouldn’t make up for the losses.<\/p>\n
There’s a home for sale near Felice’s family’s condo in Vail for $14 million.\u00c2\u00a0 Who can afford a vacation house for that kind of money? My mother saw that someone was selling a condo in New York City for $27 million.\u00c2\u00a0 Used to be in the sixties, if you saved your money, you could do anything, you could live like a king.\u00c2\u00a0 Today, we’ve got a huge gulf between the rich and the poor.\u00c2\u00a0 And I’d like to say the rich contribute to society, that they make our nation better, but these Wall Streeters just churn money while our nation gets poorer.<\/p>\n
Felice’s father contributed to the collective consciousness.\u00c2\u00a0 His music is heard around the world every day.\u00c2\u00a0 He earned his pay.\u00c2\u00a0 My father didn’t make that kind of money, but he never owed a dollar.\u00c2\u00a0 And he raised three children.\u00c2\u00a0 Isn’t that the American way?<\/p>\n
My mother lived through the Depression.\u00c2\u00a0 Now, at the end of her life, it seems we’ve made little progress.\u00c2\u00a0 Times are bleak.\u00c2\u00a0 So bleak that sometimes it’s hard to keep on keepin’ on, especially if you follow the news.<\/p>\n
Used to be entertainment was recession-proof.\u00c2\u00a0 But that was when it existed outside the conventional realm.\u00c2\u00a0 When it truly was an upbeat escape, or a salve to your sores.\u00c2\u00a0 Today, it’s just part of the endless profit-taking.\u00c2\u00a0 The productions are soulless, those purveying them say they’re just giving us what we want.\u00c2\u00a0 But what we want is a way out of this mess.\u00c2\u00a0 We want leaders.\u00c2\u00a0 We want people to believe in.\u00c2\u00a0 Because we’re sad, and confused.<\/p>\n
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Yesterday my mother was 82 years old.\u00c2\u00a0 She just told me she hadn’t expected to live that long. We sent her flowers.\u00c2\u00a0 You just dial up a Website, click on a picture and it’s done.\u00c2\u00a0 Ah, the greatness of the Internet.\u00c2\u00a0 My mother uses the Net too.\u00c2\u00a0 My sister originally insisted she get a Windows […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-oH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1531"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1532,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1531\/revisions\/1532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}