AMERICAN CHRONICLES: Impractical Cats
Copyright: John C. Merino 2016

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Originally airing March 18, 2016

When I stop to think about it, Miss Dolan was at fault. She was my 5^th grade teacher at 17^th Street School…a former Army WAC Sergeant in WWII…she managed 10 year olds like a room full of recruits.

She taught the three R’s of course, and once a week made all the boys polish their shoes with paste wax. In the 1950’s, you couldn’t wear sneakers or jeans to school. No T-Shirts either. You had to have a collared shirt.

We practiced Air Raid drills once a week by jumping under our desks when the alarm went off, and looked forward to June because she always gave her class a “Roast Beef on Weck” party to celebrate the close of the school year. She was tough alright, but introduced us to poetry by reading from T.S. Elliott’s “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats”. I still have a copy in my collection.

That, I suppose, is why I’ve mostly chosen cats over dogs during the course of my lifetime. I’ve had a couple dogs that lived long lives (Sebastian & Pudge), both mutts from the SPCA…but there were always cats too.

Midnight was the first. When I found her wandering the street on the way home from the Big Pool one summer, she couldn’t have been more than a few weeks old. I picked her up, held her in one hand and told my mother she followed me the whole way.

I was allowed to keep her and later that summer when my father started the lawn mower, she was jolted from her sleep on the front porch rail and darted in to the street, where a 48 Desoto hit her and that was that.

Several years later, when I returned from my wanderings across the country, I got my first apartment….a cold water three story walk up on the corner of 18^th Street and Ontario Avenue….across from the pet store. A handwritten sign in the window said “Free Kittens.”

The one I chose was all grey. I named her Delores Del Streeto. I bought her a red collar, flea powder and food. She was street wise alright, never attempting to cross if there was a car within a block of her. When I’d get home from work she’d be waiting by the door for diner. She talked a lot…always something to say.

She didn’t look any fatter to me, but one morning when I woke; there was a liter of six kittens at the foot of the bed. I never heard a thing. I gave them all away, but for one little tough guy I named Junior Del Streeto. He was black and white…broad shouldered and tall. So now it was me and the Del Streeto’s…Delores and Junior.

A couple years later, we moved out to a cottage on Lake Ontario. It was attached to a green house that hadn’t been in use for decades. Delores and Junior loved the lake. They’d walk the beach together, playing with the dead fish that washed up, chased the squirrels and prowled the greenhouse in search of mice.

Delores got ill. The Vet said she had cat leukemia and when she passed, I buried her in an old tool box, wrapped in a towel, under a fir tree next to the cottage, carving her name in the bark with my pocket knife.

I stopped there several months ago to see if the cottage was still standing. It was and the greenhouse was thriving. Her name is barely visible now. After all, it has been a little over 40 years.

The following winter, the furnace died and the property owner simply told me he couldn’t afford to fix it so I’d have to move. Junior and I headed back to the city. We found an apartment on Main Street in an old Victorian house that had been cut up in to four units.

It was owned by Dr. Walker, whose home and office were next door. He was the anti-war doc. Dozens of draft age boys would get their medical draft deferment letters from him in the early days of Viet Nam. He would find something wrong with you…even if you didn’t know it.

The apartment behind me, facing the alley, was occupied by an Alabama red neck, his wife and daughter. He’d moved to Niagara Falls to work as a laborer on the Power Project and never left.

They were nice enough, but he hated Junior. When he’d get home from work, Junior took to jumping up on the hood of his El Camino. It was warm and a purrrr-fect place for a nap.

When Junior disappeared for a few days, I asked the red neck if he’d seen him. “Nope” he said, but the following afternoon his daughter who was only 8 or 10 told me that her daddy had taken my cat for a ride in the car. He wouldn’t own up to it….said he knew nothing about it….but I heard him yelling at her and she was crying.

I went to the hardware and bought a gallon of oil based navy blue paint. It took him weeks to buff it off, rubbing on a small spot every day when he got home from work.

He knew it was me and I knew it was him.

On the chance Junior had just been dropped off on the other side of town, I went to the SPCA to see if he might be there.

I walked into the cat room and called his name. There were 20 or 30 cats in a long row of cages. In the end cage a paw came out between the bars when I called “Junior”. It looked like him to me, so I sprung him and took him home.

The girl I was dating at the time said it wasn’t Junior.

I was in denial for a week but finally understood. It wasn’t Junior. I called him “GI”…the Great Imposter. When I finally let him out a couple weeks later he never came back, (but as cats will), he left me a dead mouse on the back stoop as a thank you gift for aiding in his escape from the SPCA.

Since then, I’ve had nothing but house cats. Among them was Azalea Mae Von Bulow whose name was later changed to Azalea Mae West after Klaus Von Bulow was arrested in Rhode Island for trying to murder his wife. I didn’t want her to be stigmatized.

Then there was Mitzi who lived 15 years, Lucy who still lives in Niagara County and is 13 and Cleo who wakes me up every morning around 4:00 AM by pawing my face until I scratch her head. I’m up before dawn seven days a week. She’d have it no other way.

There are neighborhood cats that prowl my backyard in the early morning, triggering the motion detector light on the garage and Tink down the street who follows behind her owner when the dogs are being walked. Tink likes to hang out in my yard in the summer, especially when I’m doing my gardening.

Obviously, I like cats…their independence and look, their getting out of the way just in time, the purr and swagger of them.

As T.S. Eliot wrote:

“The naming of Cats is a difficult matter,
It isn’t just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have three different names”

I’m John Merino and this is American Chronicles.

AMERICAN CHRONICLES: AT RANDOM
Copyright: John C. Merino 2016

Originally airing Feb. 19, 2016

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This may be a long list. I honestly have no idea. I just started thinking about so many different things at once, none of which fit together, that I thought I may as well get it off my chest, so to speak………here goes!

• I’m completely fed up with national politics, politicians, pundits, and those who believe they have something “all knowing” to offer us. You know what they say about opinions
• I’m tired of “Letter’s to the Editor” from ministers of one ilk or another, quoting scripture and somehow managing to equate it with what they believe is a direct correlation to some catastrophic world event, misguided presidential effort or hidden message the rest of us are missing. Enough already. Save it for your pulpit and keep it out of my morning paper.
• I like the mayor. I think he’s done and is doing a good job for this community. Talk about two year terms and that perhaps it’s time for a change is bogus.
• There are way too many pictures in the paper of people patting themselves on the back for doing what their supposed to do….their job.
• Use your signals when you’re going to make a turn, will ya….and the law is you must signal at least 50 feet before your turn. Putting your blinker on when you’re in the process of turning does nothing for other drivers nor does it meet the legal requirements.
• I don’t want our local police department to merge with anybody. I like the responsibility being right where it is…..in town. Having had experience merging two police departments some 25 years ago as Police Commissioner of Lewiston, N.Y. I can tell you it does not save money, if that’s the objective….and if our coverage’s are working, we don’t need city officers directed from the county seat. Stop wasting time and study something else like county wide recycling and electric cars for all government uses. Something that actually can save money.
• Stop showing these heart wrenching animal cruelty commercials in the middle of an otherwise interesting TV program. My cat doesn’t like them any more than I do. OK, I’ll send a check.
• Why is it that the guy in the neighborhood with the smallest driveway and least amount of sidewalk has the largest snow blower?
• How did Jamestown which has much more in common with Buffalo, end up Gerrymandered in a congressional district with Ithaca. Absolutely illogical, except for the fact that conservatives want to forever control the county.
• …and why is it that in New York State citizens cannot offer “Ballot Propositions”. California permits it and they haven’t collapsed yet.
• Did you know that more money is spent every year on pet food then feeding poor children in America? Heard that on the radio the other day.
• Why is it no one ever mentions Sonny Bono….ya know, just in passing?
• Hey Apple……help the FBI gain access to the San Bernardino terrorists’ cell phone. You’re not making friends
• That’s enough…….talk at ya again next week.

I’m John Merino and this is American Chronicles.

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There is no question that the Chautauqua Institution is not only a gift to our county, but so too, deserves the world class reputation it has earned over more than a century as a seat for intellectual discourse and creative artistic presentations.

You’d be hard pressed to find any other center of learning like it, anywhere in the world.

…and the announcement earlier this week of the end of year retirement of its president, Tom Becker, should give us pause to reflect on his accomplishments and say to him as a community, “Thank you”.

I am troubled, however, by the planned demolition of the historic amphitheater in order to replace it with a modern version. I have followed the discussion for the past year, as presented in the media, as proponents of restoration have built….I believe….a strong case for retaining the existing theater and rehabbing it at a much less expensive price tag than the new plan calls for….A reported $42 million.

Here are my thoughts.

One thing that has always challenged me about the Institution is their limited interaction with Jamestown and the missed opportunities to develop “off-season” programming for a population of children largely economically disadvantaged.

Though over the years, they have solicited and received monies from the Jamestown based Foundation community (in the millions I might add) my personal experience some 12 years ago when I first came to our community to serve as CEO of the Gebbie Foundation, troubles me to this day.

I was invited to and attended a luncheon with their senior staff and a few board members. Being new to the position and only having a cursory knowledge of the Institutions value and import, it was suggested by my bosses that I accept the invitation, visit the Institution and ask a simple question.

That question was, “what can we do to have the Institution program more broadly in the Jamestown community, especially in the “off-season?”

The response I received was unanimous….as several persons attending the luncheon spoke to the same basic answer.

“To experience Chautauqua, one needed to be inside the walls of the Institution”

What troubles me about that idea is that “one” would think, that given their reputation and stature around the world, they would look at their local role in broader terms….feel some level of responsibility to help uplift and educate those children who might otherwise go a lifetime without hearing a concert, see a ballet or learning from the lecture series…all of which are unparalleled.

To give them credit, they have partnered with the Reg Lena, the Jackson Center, WRFA and many other local organizations for decades….yet, off season programming designed to nurture and expand the minds of Jamestown’s most vulnerable citizens (our children) has been relatively non-existent.

Is it their job to play a part in such an effort? I believe it is. After all, they are a part of our community, too.

If it was possible to raise some $42 million to replace the historic amphitheater from donors who believe that it is the correct step to take, then how tough would it be to create an “off-season” fund for specially designed programming benefitting the community’s children….in effect playing an important role in building new generations of local residents whose appreciation of the arts and letters presented there, guarantee future supporters…..and wouldn’t it help build better citizens in the long run?

Whenever legacies are discussed….regardless of the individual or organization being touted at the time, those who will stand out are not the ones who confine their efforts to a limited constituency, but rather reach out to those whose need for those gifts is obvious…and well outside a limited definition of who their beneficiaries are.

Experiencing Chautauqua should not be limited to what happens inside the walls of the Institution…especially for children who will never see a play, lecture, dance, concert or any other of the wonderful offerings presented there, unless nurtured to appreciate.

Because so much financial support has been awarded to them by Jamestown based foundations for decades, and in order to play a part in building a stronger local community, choose instead to rehabilitate and restore the existing historic amphitheater and take a few of the millions raised to teach our children during their school year (the institution’s off season).

Open the gates to Chautauqua’s valuable programming…let it out for our children to experience.

Legacy is built and sustained by the gifts that are given to those who otherwise will never know…and without the Chautauqua Institution reaching out in a generous way, many of our children will never know….and ultimately….care even less.

I’m John Merino and this is American Chronicles.

American Chronicles is a bi-weekly locally produced feature on WRFA written and produced by retired Gebbie Foundation CEO, John C. Merino. Currently, John is an Adjunct Professor of Micro-Economics, Organizational Management, and 20th Century World History at Mercyhurst University. American Chronicles airs twice monthly, Friday mornings at 7:15 and Friday Afternoons at 4:35. American Chronicles features original stories (partly fact and partly fiction), commentary on local, state , national, world conditions and more.

Find past episodes at www.wrfalp.com/tag/american-chronicles/

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I don’t know about you, but I find that this time of year brings out the best…….and sometimes the most annoying sides of people’s desire to be “Politically Correct”.

Let’s take a visit to any store or shop, looking for the perfect gift for your loved ones, for example.

When is the last time you actually had a cashier make change without looking to the register screen to see how much you were due? It just doesn’t happen. Most can’t count….and just as we used to learn to write cursive in school, making change is an art that is no longer taught either….therefore it no longer exists….

…..and heaven forbid you reach in to the penny cup at the counter to pay the 3 cents your charge calls for……….well watch what happens. The look of confusion and embarrassment that runs across the cashier’s face……especially if the bill is $6.33 cents…..is just priceless.

You hand them a $20.00 bill, a $1.00 dollar bill and grab 3 pennies from the courtesy cup. Well…..be prepared to wait twenty minutes………and don’t be surprised if they have to call the manager for assistance…….and all of this simply because you’d prefer to have a $10.00 dollar bill and a $5.00 dollar bill as change, because you already have a bill fold packed with ones.

……..and how about the “new” standard seasonal greeting…. “Happy Holidays”…….and what holiday might that be, I thought…. The Fourth of July?

I asked a young woman behind the counter at the mall the other day why she didn’t say “Merry Christmas” especially when the chocolate Santa stocking stuffers were piled 10 deep and 10 high next to the register where she was standing. Ready for the answer………..”We’re not allowed to say that”. “What”, I said…….”why not”

…….”because we might offend someone, I guess” she told me. I couldn’t believe it. We’ve become so worried about political correctness that saying Merry Christmas has become a possible offense…….so retailers have added that to their personnel policies so as not to open the door for a law suit or worse……..someone overreacting to the holiday’s well wishes and storming out of the shop. Go figure.

What I especially don’t like this time of year is having to worry about knowing what greeting to utter……depending of course…..on with what company one might find themselves.

Happy Kwanza for my African American friends who celebrate this holiday, Happy Hanukkah for my Jewish pals, for the Buddhists I know (and yes I know quite a few)…Happy Bodhi Day, Happy Id al-Adha for the two practicing Muslims in my circle of friends, Have a great Winter Solstice I keep in mind for our one Wiccan Friend, how about Happy Festivus for my friend George who hasn’t been able to go a single day in two decades without watching reruns of Seinfeld, and I don’t know any Japanese folks, but just in case……Happy Omisoka.

…….and how about this one………..Merry Krismas……..spelled: K-R-I-S-M-A-S for those Agnostic, Atheist and Deist folks we run into from time to time……..and the Neopagan’s celebrate Saturnalia……you know, a seven day feast worshiping the ancient gods of Rome………these folks are everywhere so be prepared.

It’s all too much. From now on I’m not saying anything remotely connected to a seasonal celebration………..

………I’m going to revert to that old standby……the one we all say…..the phrase which tends to annoy everybody……everywhere……all the time…….and is probably the most spoken phrase in the English language……….”Have a Nice Day”……so sue me!

Damn that Forest Gump anyway.

I’m John Merino and this is American Chronicles.

American Chronicles is a bi-weekly locally produced feature on WRFA written and produced by retired Gebbie Foundation CEO, John C. Merino. Currently, John is an Adjunct Professor of Micro-Economics, Organizational Management, and 20th Century World History at Mercyhurst University. American Chronicles airs twice monthly, Friday mornings at 7:15 and Friday Afternoons at 4:35. American Chronicles features original stories (partly fact and partly fiction), commentary on local, state , national, world conditions and more.

Find past episodes at www.wrfalp.com/tag/american-chronicles/

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I ran in to a contractor friend of mine at Home Depot the other day. I spend a lot of time there since retiring a few years ago. Amazing how many little jobs get ignored when you’re marching to a different drummer than your own rhythm.

We talked about the Paris slaughter, local taxes, the Comedy Center plan and what I’ve been doing since retirement.

………..”Teaching a couple courses at Mercyhurst as an adjunct professor”, I told him. We talked about family and the other politeness’ a brief encounter entails. The whole conversation lasted about a minute and a half………….and all the while he had one eye on his phone, texting someone.

Ten minutes later in the plumbing isle, we crossed paths again. He was looking for rubber boots to connect some waste pipe he was installing for a client. I helped him find them.

I had earned my papers as an industrial pipe fitter before I decided working at Love Canal in the mid 70’s……..25 feet underground building pump chambers to move the ZOOKY as we called it, to intermediate treatment facilities before it was pumped back into the city waste water system for a second treatment…….on its way to the Niagara River………….. Was not the way to earn a living. It helped me decide to go back to college and leave the chemical piping business behind.

He was still texting………….and believe it or not, he asked the same questions and said the same things we had spoken about……not ten minutes earlier in another isle.

He didn’t remember a thing we said.

The encounter got me thinking about how we communicate today.

I have an opening exercise in my Micro-Economics classes. I ask my students to hold up their phones………..turn them off and put them away…….in pockets, purses, backpacks…………wherever they are out of sight…………….but it took several weeks in to the semester before they were out of mind.

My students were actually lost in the beginning………..because they were un-tethered from their main means of communications.

You should see some of the papers I get from them. In the middle of an essay on Opportunity Costs, I’ll find what otherwise would be a witty analogy followed by a “LOL” and a Smiley Face……..as if I didn’t get the joke……an indicator that they’re in need of an Emoji fix.

Recently, my wife and I went out to dinner downtown on date night. The restaurant was filled with young couples sitting across from each other………but rather than the intimate conversations you might think were taking place…………the longing gazes and occasional soft laugh that comes from a private whispered lover’s coo………….. they were all…………..and I mean all of them………keeping one eye on their phones, texting in the middle of a sip of wine or bite of food………..rarely speaking to each other.

Other than the occasional clink of the fork on their dishes, you could have heard a pin drop.

Honestly, I think we were the only ones carrying on a conversation with our dinner…………about the quality of the meal, the kids, politics, home repairs and the like………….and I felt as if we were interrupting the other diners…………..

……….after all, how could they concentrate on texting when people at the next table were actually speaking to each other?

It’s truly gotten out of hand.

There are no interpersonal communication skills being honed these days. The simple ability to carry on a conversation is dying……

……and heaven forbid that someone says something in a tweet or on face book that is critical…………you’d think the world was coming to an end.

So, here’s my idea. Turn off the phone for one week. Give it a try. Talk face to face with those you want to interact with. Let them call you at home when they want to find you to plan an outing.

You remember the house phone……that thing with a coiled cord hanging on the kitchen wall……………sometimes connected to the latest invention…………an answering machine.

I never missed an important meeting, or date, or emergency message from anyone when I was young. Friends and family managed to reach each other when necessary………….and 8 year olds didn’t have personal phones.

When I was a kid, we had the school playground, sandlot baseball fields, bike riding………we yelled and howled and laughed in person………..and when I learned to drive, you’d just stop by a friend’s house to see if they were home……..wanted to go out that evening……..just cruise in your rusted 58 Chevy on Saturday afternoons. No appointment necessary to just stop by for a visit.

Perhaps one of the world’s problems is the inability to simply communicate in person.

It seems to me that more of that would lead to less stress and maybe build the kind of planet where face to face replaces text to text…….and tweet to tweet.

I just hate the thought that whoever is sending me messages is sitting at their kitchen table in their underwear…………scratching something.

I’d rather see their faces when we “talk” That’s what builds lasting friendships…..opens the door to understanding and removes the question………”what’d they really mean by that tweet anyway?”

(Phone rings)…………….sorry………gotta go……..I’ve got to take this call.

I’m john Merino and this is American Chronicles.

American Chronicles is a bi-weekly locally produced feature on WRFA written and produced by retired Gebbie Foundation CEO, John C. Merino. Currently, John is an Adjunct Professor of Micro-Economics, Organizational Management, and 20th Century World History at Mercyhurst University. American Chronicles airs twice monthly, Friday mornings at 7:15 and Friday Afternoons at 4:35. American Chronicles features original stories (partly fact and partly fiction), commentary on local, state , national, world conditions and more.

Find past episodes at www.wrfalp.com/tag/american-chronicles/

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I never thought very much of the late Governor George Wallace. He was a devout racist….and he preached segregation, standing in the school house door shouting……..”segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever”…………and he believed it, at least until he had an epiphany after being left paralyzed from the waist down by an assassin’s bullet.

One phrase of his does strike me as applicable to today’s world environment, though. STOP PUSSY-FOTTIN’ AROUND.

I needn’t elaborate on the challenges of the Middle East. The problems have existed for my entire life, yours as well……..and for thousands of years before that. There are no easy solutions.

The United States has tried diplomacy and President Carter’s Israeli/Egyptian Peace accord is as far as we’ve come on the diplomatic front. That was 40 years ago.

We’ve funded freedom fighters, supplied sects and tribal entities with arms, only to have them turn on us, use the weapons and money against us………….and all at a cost of American lives and thousands more lives of the innocents living in these nations……..if you can even call them nations.

Now, we have ISIS entrenching themselves, sponsoring terrorism wherever and whenever they can………lunatics whose sole purpose is to destroy any semblance of comfort for millions of people through unspeakable acts of violence across the broader middle east.

……..and we respond how? Well, not very well.

The United States has spent over two (2) trillion dollars in the region since 9-11. That’s right $2 trillion…….and what do we have to show for it?

A more convoluted scenario in which Iran plays a bigger role, finds the Russians now imposing themselves to protect a vile Syrian leader who attacks his own people, the merger of terrorists groups, well armed and funded, willing to do anything to continue their cause of destroying western values………… primary among their efforts, to destroy our values and our way of life.

We’ve become desensitized to it. A bombing or two a day, a head cut off here and there, a town or village falling under terrorist control, kidnappings, torture, western kids joining their cause and we respond with 50 special ops advisors.

I hate the idea of war….grew up watching our nation nearly cripple itself in Viet Nam…..believe that Peace should be given a chance and feel that mankind is fundamentally good……..but all of that solves nothing.

I saw and heard George Wallace speak his infamous phrase in 1968, when as one of a couple dozen protestors I attended his Buffalo rally at the old Aud……carrying signs and chanting whatever the hell it was they had us chant.

He was running for president and shockingly, the place was full and except for the few of us, there were thousands of his supporters in attendance……..in Buffalo, mind you.

We have but one strong ally in the Middle East………Israel……….and in spite of her (at times) hard headedness………she is on the front line, believing as we believe……..in a value system of freedom of expression, the inalienable rights of all people and defending her borders as needed.

So, here we are. Up to our eyeballs again in lost American lives, bankrolling an effort doomed to fail and trying to figure out which of the lesser evils to support.

I’m tired of War. Enough is enough. 15 years of this has made me and most Americans, I believe…….weary.

Randy Newman wrote in his tongue and cheek song “Political Science”…………”They all hate us anyhow, so let’s drop the big one now”…..

Certainly, no one is advocating that………….but I sure wish we’d stop “Pussy Footin’ Around”

I’m John Merino and this is American Chronicles.

American Chronicles is a bi-weekly locally produced feature on WRFA written and produced by retired Gebbie Foundation CEO, John C. Merino. Currently, John is an Adjunct Professor of Micro-Economics, Organizational Management, and 20th Century World History at Mercyhurst University. American Chronicles airs twice monthly, Friday mornings at 7:15 and Friday Afternoons at 4:35. American Chronicles features original stories (partly fact and partly fiction), commentary on local, state , national, world conditions and more.

Find past episodes at www.wrfalp.com/tag/american-chronicles/

© 2015 John C. Merino

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When my father returned from World War II in 1945, he picked up where he had left off.

He was a “Brickie”………having done his apprenticeship as a stone mason with Scrufari Construction in Niagara Falls in the late 1930’s, before being drafted. It was his father’s trade, too.

He formed a small construction company, sub contracting for work with home builders and families…..building gorgeous backyard brick fire places and skinning the exteriors of dozens of ranch homes being built in the first post WWII subdivisions from 90^th to 103^rd streets off what was then Pine Avenue.

His fire places were extraordinary. Brick set at angles creating a herringbone affect, their mantles double coursed………no joint un-raked……not a drop of mortar spilled. They were truly mini works of art.

I would go with him on occasion when I was 5 or 6 years old……..usually Saturday mornings. He would pull his scaffolding out of the bed of his 1946 Chevy pickup, assemble it and sit me next to him as he laid course after course of brick, skinning a sidewall or building the chimney.

I would be strapped to the scaffold with his thick leather belt, a pile of brick to my right, the mortar to his left. My job was to hand him the bricks………one after another as he “buttered” them and put them in place. He would call me a “working man” and on the way home we’d stop by Greenwalds’ for a burger and the best vanilla shakes I’ve ever had.

One developer contracted my father to build the fireplaces and skin the houses in his new subdivision. If memory serves, there were 10 or 12 homes. It was a big contract for the time and my uncle Austy would sometimes work with Pa………..just the two of them………mixing the troughs of mortar, piling the brick on the scaffold, skinning an exterior wall in a day. The quicker they moved, the more they made.

There was, however, one problem. This developer never paid on time. My father would wait………sometimes months………….to get his money. Like most sub contractors, he was at the mercy of the developer who promised to pay as soon as the purchase closings were complete.

The work lasted well in to the autumn, some years. The new owners moving in typically just before the onset of winter…………and even then, my father couldn’t get the money he was owed.

The winter came, and several of the homes were now occupied…………the families thrilled with their new knotty pine kitchen cupboards and Marlite counter tops. The fireplaces ready to be burned with the half chord of wood gifted to each family by the developer.

On Christmas Eve morning of 1957, the developer called. “John”, he said, “we’ve got a problem”. Several of the families had stoked their fires, having opened the flews checking for a clear chimney and then looking to celebrate the holiday in style….lit their fires.

“The problem” as defined on the phone, was that the smoke filled the living rooms. It wouldn’t go up the chimney and people were opening doors and windows, turning on fans, trying to put the fires out and de-smoke their freshly painted new homes.

“I can go over and see what the problem is”, my father told him, “but you owe me $4,000.00 dollars and I’ve been waiting for months to get paid”.

“Come by the office” the developer told him, “and I’ll give you a check”. “I don’t think so”, Pa said. The checks he’d received in the past bounced……….another developer trick for which the excuse was, “the whole thing is the banks fault”.

“Well where am I supposed to get that much cash on Christmas Eve, for Christ’s sake”?

“Not my problem”, Pa told him. The developer called back twenty minutes later. He had the cash and I went with my father to pick it up. They had some words………..mostly in Italian, but none sounded like Merry Christmas to me.

Pa assured him he would immediately go the homes and correct the problem………his pocket bulging with twenty dollar bills.

We drove over in the 1946 Chevy pickup. A ladder, clothes line and 1 brick was the only equipment he brought.

He crawled up on the roofs, hovering over the chimneys and tying the single brick to the clothes line, dropped it down the chimney. He had mortared a single pane of glass mid way up the chimney. When you looked for obstructions from either the top or bottom, all you saw was light.

The brick, tied to the clothes line, would be dropped down the chimney, crashing through the glass, and low and behold, the problem was resolved.

Pa wouldn’t take work from him again and his “Christmas Chimney” trick became the stuff of legend at the Brick Layers union hall…………told and told again.

While visiting with family during my father’s wake, his carpenter friend Frank Forgoine told the story to a group of old Italian tradesmen standing at the rear of the funeral parlor. The laughs drew everyone’s attention and Frank had to tell it to the entire room, taking the sadness of that afternoon and wrapping it in chortles and guffaws……….telling everyone that when he asked my father where he got that idea, Pa responded……”It’s the tricks of the trade”.

I’m John Merino and this is American Chronicles.

American Chronicles is a bi-weekly locally produced feature on WRFA written and produced by retired Gebbie Foundation CEO, John C. Merino. Currently, John is an Adjunct Professor of Micro-Economics, Organizational Management, and 20th Century World History at Mercyhurst University. American Chronicles airs twice monthly, Friday mornings at 7:15 and Friday Afternoons at 4:35. American Chronicles features original stories (partly fact and partly fiction), commentary on local, state , national, world conditions and more.

Find past episodes at www.wrfalp.com/tag/american-chronicles/

© 2015 John C. Merino

With an ever increasing segment of the adult population finding themselves employed in minimum wage level jobs with fast food, convenience store, home repair centers, grocery markets and mom and pop small businesses, a national push for increasing the minimum wage has gained momentum from Seattle, Washington and Los Angeles, California to New York State.

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Politicians and worker advocates pushing legislation in support of this movement have touted the argument that taxpayers are subsidizing employers primarily because a majority of these low wage employees fall below the government’s poverty line for annual income thus qualifying them for public subsidies.

From single workers to the families of those qualifying for benefits under the government poverty line threshold, the current subsidy of taxpayer assisted dollars includes: food stamps, medical coverage, travel reimbursement, rental subsidy, utility expenses, and day care for children.

It is proffered that single female heads of household are the largest beneficiaries of these tax payer based benefits.

Among the most argued points of the movement is that the burden on tax payers will be decreased as wages rise, thus lessening the current level of subsidies which directly benefit the employer at the tax payer’s expense.

The anecdotal argument against this wage increase from employers and trickle down supporters is fairly consistent. Fewer people will be hired, lay-offs will occur, cost of goods to the consumer will rise and small business will be further burdened under increasing government regulations.

The question I would ask is why should our tax dollars subsidize the profit margins of business? Typically, employers schedule minimum wage employees to work 30 hours or less each week. This threshold does not require employers then, to provide benefits………and who foots that bill………….we do, the taxpayer.

Who do you think pays for medical/dental coverage, day care costs, rent subsidies, transportation expenses, food stamps and the other basics of life for these low paid workers that many of us can afford? The taxpayer does.

The Huffington Post lists the top ten reasons to increase the Federal minimum wage to above $10.00 per hour. Here are their rationales.

One. Seven Nobel Laureates in Economics endorse the higher minimum wage to $10.10 by 2016, saying it does not lead to lower fewer jobs.

Two. Job losses from raising the minimum wage are negligible. Minimum wage has already been raised 23 times. Every time it was raised it was opposed by some few who said “it is going to lose jobs and wreck the economy” which is factually untrue as study after study has proven.

Three. It is a myth that small business owners can’t afford to pay their workers more, and therefore don’t support an increase in the minimum wage. In fact, a June 2014 survey found that more than 3 out of 5 small business owners support increasing the minimum wage to $10.10.

Four. The value of the minimum wage has fallen dramatically. Since the minimum wage was last raised in 2009, the price of apples went up 16%, bacon 67%, cheddar cheese 21%, coffee 27%, ground beef 39%, and milk 21%. The minimum wage went up 0%. Plus, in the 1960s the minimum wage was essentially half the average wage. If that was still the case it would now be $12.50 an hour.

Five. Saying we have a “free market” that will take care of workers is a myth. No corporations rely on the mythical “free market,” why should workers? Corporations lobby like crazy all the time in Washington DC and before every state and local government for direct and indirect public assistance. All levels of government provide widespread corporate welfare so why not provide some help to low wage workers? The Wall Street bailout cost over $200 billion. Fifty billionaires received taxpayer funded farm subsidies in past 2 decades. Corporate jet subsidy is $3 billion a year. Special tax breaks for hedge fund managers allow them to pay only 15% tax rate, while the people they invest for pay twice that much and their secretaries pay a higher percentage. The home mortgage deduction is $70 billion a year, with 77% going to people with incomes of over $100,000 per year. Giving workers more money is small potatoes compared with what corporations and the rich are receiving all the time.

Six. In fact, one way to look at this is that low minimum wage laws are government subsidies to low wage businesses. What do working people do if they do not have enough to eat or get sick or need housing? They turn to government for public benefits. For example in the fast food industry alone research by the University of Illinois and UC Berkeley documents that taxpayers pay about $243 billion each year in indirect subsidies to the fast food industry because they pay wages so low that taxpayers must put up $243 billion to pay for public benefits for their workers.

Seven. There is widespread religious support for living wages. Catholic support for living wages has been taught since 1891. In 1940, US Catholic Bishops stated: “The first claims of labor, WHICH TAKES PRIORITY OVER ANY CLAIMS OF THE OWNERS TO PROFITS, respects the right to a living wage.” Protestant churches were first on the record for living wages since 1908. Religious support for living wages has a long history and has been recently been reaffirmed by the Episcopal Church, the Jewish Council of Public Affairs, the Presbyterian Church, the Unitarian Universalist Association and the United Methodist Church.

Eight. Worker productivity has gone up much faster than wages. Workers are already much more productive. Using the 1968 minimum wage as benchmark, if minimum wage grew at same rate as worker productivity it would have reached $21.72 per hour.

Nine. It is a myth that the minimum wage is only for teens and entry level workers. Raising the minimum wage to $10 would impact over 15 million workers. 4.7 million working moms “would get a raise if we raise it to $10.10.” As would 2.6 million working dads for a total of 7 million parents.

Ten. There is widespread bipartisan support for raising the minimum wage. In a2015 poll, “75% of Americans, including 53% of Republicans, support raising the minimum wage to $12.50” by 2020.

Bonus point. You know the minimum wage is too low when….WALMART announced it will raise its minimum wage to $10 an hour in February of 2015.

As President Franklin Roosevelt said in 1933: “No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.”

I’m John Merino and this is AMERICAN CHRONICLES.

American Chronicles is a bi-weekly locally produced feature on WRFA written and produced by retired Gebbie Foundation CEO, John C. Merino. Currently, John is an Adjunct Professor of Micro-Economics, Organizational Management, and 20th Century World History at Mercyhurst University. American Chronicles airs twice monthly, Friday mornings at 7:15 and Friday Afternoons at 4:35. American Chronicles features original stories (partly fact and partly fiction), commentary on local, state , national, world conditions and more.

Find past episodes at www.wrfalp.com/tag/american-chronicles/