Recharging
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Back To The Future
I find there is more to adjust to now than the Pacific Time Zone when I visit Los Angeles. Undoubtedly, that’s because I have lived in Maine for the last 15 years. LA’s vastness and traffic didn’t faze me when I lived there. I became inured to both. They are at once both monotonous and intimidating after being so far away from them for so long.
I lived in LA longer than I have anywhere else but now the place seems strange or I’ve just become a stranger. It’s familiar and alien at the same time. During my 31 years in Los Angeles, I chose what I enjoyed about it and tolerated what I didn’t. It would be harder to achieve either again in the big city. I’m older and happily settled in a small town.
But California is still a trend setter and where innovation happens. Although Jo and I didn’t see ICE roaming the streets, we were startled at first when we watched robots zigzagging their way along LA’s sidewalks making food deliveries…
And Waymo’s driverless cars shared the streets with us where we traveled in the rental vehicle we drove ourselves. It’s eerie to have a car traveling aside of you without a driver or even a passenger…
Not so long ago the Toyota Prius was the omnipresent California car. Today, it’s the Tesla. There are well over a million of them on the road in the state and that number is disproportionately apparent when driving in wealthy parts of the city. At this point there are only about 2,000 Teslas in Maine. EV batteries don’t do as well in colder climates and the most visibly available charging stations are at L.L. Bean’s flagship store in Freeport. Until there are a lot more of them and Maine winters turn less cold, I’ll stick to hybrids.
However, the most unexpected and initially unnerving event we witnessed was one of Elon Musk’s other business endeavors…
The day after we arrived we were queued up at an ice cream stand when I saw what looked like a jellyfish floating across the sky. I must have been the only person in line ignorant of what it actually was because nobody else was paying any attention to it. Before I realized that, I thought it might be a horrible accident or the end of the world.
Of course it was neither and instead was the 46th launch in 2025 of a rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base up the coast carrying a payload of Starlink satellites into orbit. Two dozen more SpaceX launches are scheduled by the end of the year. No wonder nobody stopped licking their cones. Inexplicably, I didn’t get out my phone to take a picture. I wasn’t going to risk a meltdown of my “chocoholic chunk”.
My daughter lives in Los Angeles and I came back to visit her. That’s always my first priority but admittedly I also come to eat. We have our favorite spots that range from Armenian rotisserie chicken with a garlic sauce to die for at Zankou and Mexican burritos as big as women’s purses to die from at El Tepeyac. These places may not be cultural shrines but they are culinary ones for me. However, even a glutton for nourishment like me can’t stomach all of them on one trip.
You may have heard of the In-N-Out hamburger chain. Their “secret menu” includes Flying Dutchman burgers, Animal Fries and Neapolitan Milkshakes. The chain has resisted expanding nationally allegedly, to keep control of quality and prices. Also, the average employee hourly pay at In-N-Out is $20. At McDonald’s it can be anywhere from a third to a half less.
The first time Jo and I ever went to The Hat in Pasadena (There are 10 others in the LA metropolitan area.) we were about to order a large bag of fries to go with our pastrami sandwiches when a woman behind us advised that we didn’t need the large. She was right. We didn’t finish the regular. Although Langer’s Deli near LA’s MacArthur Park has in my opinion the best pastrami sandwich in the world— Yes, even better than Katz’s in Manhattan —if Marlon Brando ever ate one at The Hat, I think he would have considered it a contender.
When I visit Los Angeles I eat at places I miss. There is sushi at Chiba in North Hollywood which was opened over fifty years ago by a Japanese immigrant and is now owned by his son Shig. When we showed up last week without a reservation, the wait would have been an hour and a half. We immediately made one and ate there a few days later. Chiba is a huge success and moved from its original location a few years ago to a new one to have more seating and parking.
Across town, in the Palms neighborhood on the Westside Kevin Hu’s father also immigrated to the United States and his journey here was arduous. He fled mainland China by boat to Taiwan as a teenager and started his restaurant, Hu’s Szechwan, at about the same time as Chiba opened and like Chiba his son now carries on with what his father established. Sadly, it was clear from the moment we walked in that this once popular neighborhood Chinese is not doing well. In fact it was on life support and this would be the last meal we will ever have there. The building’s owner is tearing it down and along with Hu’s, a barber shop and a liquor store will disappear as well.
One of our last food stops was Porto’s Bakery and Cafe in Burbank and its creation is another immigrant story. Rosa Porto started baking cakes in her native Cuba after she and her husband petitioned to leave the country and lost their jobs. When the family arrived in California, the Portos started their bakery in 1976 and today there are six locations owned and operated by her three children.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to learn that over a third of restaurants in the United States are owned by immigrants and a fifth of those who work in them are also immigrants. Just over two million immigrants work in jobs growing, harvesting, processing, and selling food in the United States. Yes, a significant number of them are likely undocumented and as Jo and I enjoyed our meal at Porto’s we could not help but notice that in addition to the employees, the many dozens of people purchasing items for take away or eating at tables were Latinos.
Last month the U.S. Supreme Court lifted restrictions on roving immigration stops in Southern California. The ruling means ICE can conduct immigration enforcement actions, including at businesses that may have a significant immigrant workforce, or clientele such as Porto’s. If that happens, we’ll be losing something precious and irreplaceable in addition to the immigrants themselves. Gone will be future stories of those who came to our country and added to the richness of our experience here.
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Only the Dead Have Seen the End of War-George Santayana
It was a carpenter’s idea. His name was Stephen Sherrill. In the fall of 2003 Sherrill began planting wooden crosses made in his workshop every Sunday on the beach in Santa Barbara to represent each American soldier killed in the Iraq War.
When Sherrill started they numbered just over 300. By the time I met him six months later to shoot a story for ABC News about his weekly protest/memorial there were 200 additional crosses to represent more Americans who had died in combat in Iraq.
In my career there were moments that I remember because they affected me deeply. I’d have an epiphany or felt a chill when they occurred and that afternoon on the beach I think I experienced both.
I didn’t have a correspondent with me so I was interviewing people viewing Stephen Sherrill’s crosses and wanted to find someone who might have had a connection to one of the soldiers memorialized by one of them. A table was set up for passersby to fill out cards from a list with the names of the dead that they could then attach to a cross. Sitting in front of one was Michael Schule who had affixed the name of his deceased nephew Army Specialist Christian Schule to it.
“If we don’t finish what we do now, this was all in vain. And we don’t want any of these boys lives to be lost in vain,” said Michael Schule.
As we sat there on the beach, I understood Schule’s wanting the war to continue to be able to believe his twenty-year-old nephew’s death had purpose. But in that moment I realized that I didn’t believe that it would. Did our wars in Vietnam or Afghanistan?
Growing up in 1950s America, I knew my father had landed on the beach in Normandy and had brought home “souvenirs” from World War II. When I was 10 years old WWII seemed as long ago in the past as the Civil War to me. Wars were something I went to the movies to see. I eventually got rid of the Nazi helmets and the rest of my father’s trove except for a pair of field glasses I still have.
When I graduated from college in 1969 there was an “Order to Report for Induction” letter with the mail that had accumulated on the floor of our house by the time my parents and I had gotten home. I didn’t fail the army’s physical but the X-ray of my spine I had brought with me led to a “We’ll call you if we need you.” classification. Five years later after becoming an Israeli citizen living on a kibbutz I was drafted again.
This time I didn’t bring an X-ray to my physical and was asked why I hadn’t been in the army in the United States and served in Vietnam…
Me: “I injured my back in high school and was told I wasn’t needed.”
Doctor: “Have you had surgery for your back?”
Me: “No.”
Doctor: “Walk across the room.”
When I returned the doctor was filling out a form that he stamped “Combat.” Yes, there are countries where an army needs recruits more than others. And so not long after the Yom Kippur War, I served a year in an Israeli artillery unit positioned not far from the Suez Canal. After that and before leaving Israel and returning to the United States I did a month and a half of reserve duty in the Israel Defence Forces annually for five years.
What did I learn? In basic training in the West Bank, I realized it was possible to fall asleep while standing on your feet. On the border with Lebanon, I learned that wild boars could trigger the alarms of the electrified security fence which meant I slept many nights in my fatigues and with my shoes on. In the Sinai Desert, I learned that flies were easier to catch than mosquitos and that the new American M-16 I was given was a much easier machine gun to clean than the Belgian FN I had been issued originally.
In the late 1970s, one of my tours of reserve duty in the reserves was a month in Gaza. It was strictly guard duty at places like the telephone exchange, the power plant, hospitals and the military court. Pretty much the only Arabic I learned was the sentence “Show me your identity card.” Was I part of an occupying army? Yes, but the times were different and the presence of the IDF certainly wasn’t welcomed but had not yet been significantly resisted.
I could buy street food and discovered stewed fava beans— ful medames —which I occasionally make for myself here in Maine. And yes, in Gaza I had the M-16 strapped over my shoulder as I ate them.
In the spring of 1979 I did my last reserve duty with my artillery unit. It was refresher training for my wartime job which was “triangulation” — establishing the location of my battery’s artillery pieces and consisted of poles with flags, 60 meters of wire and a compass. After two weeks in the desert I could always carry out my task but if we still had half of our unit’s self-propelled howitzers functional in the sands, it was unusual.
On the morning of the last day of our exercises when we would normally turn in our gear, we didn’t. Terrorists had crossed into Israel from southern Lebanon during the night and killed a father and his two children. We learned that the government was mulling its response which could include our unit. It was dark when we learned it wouldn’t. I ended my service never having to fire a bullet or an artillery shell in anger.
But I know something about war. In 1973, the kibbutz where I lived lost five men during the Yom Kippur War and several others were maimed. It was a time before cell phones and soldiers at the fronts sent letters that indicated to their families who received them that their loved ones were still alive.
There was a large bank of individual mail boxes for the kibbutz members. I hadn’t been in the army yet and was milking cows 12 hours a day because I was one of the few men under 50 who had not been called up to serve in the war. I was at the mailboxes one morning when a mother arrived with her child. She had not received a letter from her husband for days and on this day there was not to be one either. She broke down sobbing and her young daughter’s face expressed a fear and confusion I’ve never forgotten. Shortly afterward, she learned her husband had been killed.
When the numbers of dead combatants and civilians killed in war are staggering and you don’t know any of them personally, it’s easy not to feel affected or even feel anything at all. But when there are pictures of death and destruction over an extended time it’s harder to maintain such separation from such horror.
Wars have been all but perpetual in our species’ time on earth. One study found that in the past 3,400 years, humans have been entirely at peace for just 268 of them, which equates to 8 percent of recorded history. Estimates for the total number of people killed in wars throughout all of human history range from 150 million to 1 billion and at least 108 million people were killed just in wars in the twentieth century.
In 2010 Steve Sherrill made his three thousandth and last cross in Santa Barbara. Transporting them weekly to the beach was still a mission but had also become an ordeal. His crosses now weighed over a ton. The Iraq war or at least the United States involvement in it ended in 2011.
Today, expectations have been raised that the century old conflict and bloodshed between Israel and Palestinians may be moving toward peace, although a ceasefire agreement is only the first step of many that must be taken to achieve it. After two years, the number of Crescent Moons and Stars of David needed to represent the dead would require a forest for the wood to make them and an abundance of land to be able to place them.
If there is a word more all encompassing than irony, the cornerstone for its origin has possibly been laid today as the two most craven leaders in their country’s histories— President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu —try to end the war in Gaza. The further irony is that it is an agreement brokered by American real estate developers over some of the most contentious real estate on the planet.
The world ran out of tolerance and patience for this war long before Donald Trump did. Benjamin Netanyahu has not accomplished his aims nor have Hamas, Hezbollah or Iran achieved theirs. Peace for both Palestinians and Israelis might hopefully be moving forward but it is still an unshared vision and a long way from being shaped into a version that might be acceptable to all sides.
At this point George Santayana’s prophecy that “Only the dead have seen the end of war” still requires a leap of faith wider than the Jordan, the Euphrates, and the Nile.
Below is a link to the story I produced about Stephen Sherrill’s crosses in Santa Barbara…
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Saved By The Statute Of Limitations
The room in the house where I write could be called a man cave. I have watched sports on my computer’s screen while eating pretzels and drinking beer here. I don’t much like the term though. I’m not a big fan of caves. I love my space whatever one calls it. In addition to the Ikea desk and the computer and keyboard that are on top of it, I have a lot of stuff in here.
Some of the stuff that’s all around me is never touched but some of it is legitimate office things— pens and markers, screwdrivers and glues, a stapler and a roll of Scotch tape. And there’s even a tiny bottle of the real thing—Scotch; a memento given to me at a golf course I played in Scotland a few years ago.
The other night our younger grandson noticed it…
Harvey (after picking it up and examining it): “Wow, it says on the bottle that it’s 43% alcohol. That’s a lot. Scotch is one of the strongest drinks there is.”
Harvey is nine years old and in the fourth grade.
Me: “I guess it might be but how do you know that?”
Harvey: “I know that… If you drank the whole bottle would you be drunk?”
Me: “I don’t know but I’m not about to try right now.”
Harvey had further questions and wanted to know how old I was when I had my first drink and when did I get drunk for the first time. And after I told him…
Harvey: “What was the legal age to be allowed to drink where you were?”
Me: “Where I grew up it was 21.”
Harvey: “So you were 12 or 13 when you had your first drink and 17 or 18 when you got drunk the first time?”
Me: “Yes, that’s right and I hope I live long enough to have a drink with you.”
The conversation ended and I left the room, and my desk and computer to Harvey. A short time later I returned and found he had googled a question and received an answer he had left on the screen…
—30—
East Meets Dust
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Photographs by Peter Imber
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
Written by Robert Frost in 1923
The song Autumn Leaves was originally titled Les Feuilles Mortes in French which in English translates to “the dead leaves”. It was composed in 1945 with music by Joseph Kosma and the original French lyrics written by Jacques Prévert. Five years later Johnny Mercer adapted the words. Frank Sinatra and Doris Day recorded it among others. My own favorite version is Nat King Cole’s.
And yes, I raked the leaves in our yard this afternoon…
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A Cartoon Vision Of The Human Timeline
In the beginning, we needed a story that told us how we got here…
And then we needed wise men to tell us why we are here…
Now we have figured out we can let machines do more and more of our thinking for us…
But that’s only until the machines figure out how they can simply become us…
Which will leave them with a knotty problem…
They’ll need their own story of how and why they got here…
I believe alien life is quite common in the universe, although intelligent life is less so. Some say it has yet to appear on planet Earth.
—Stephen Hawking
-30-
The Man From Away
Story #1
For the next few weeks, a respite from the news. Instead, I have some stories to share that have absolutely no connection to what’s going on in our country or the world. We need a break from the bleak. At least I know I do…
I’m sharing some of my favorite stories that I’ve been lucky to have been told or in one case actually to witness since arriving in Maine in 2010. Here’s the first…
The main character in our story was born on his family’s farm and grew up in Maine almost on the New Hampshire border. He had lived all his life— 90 plus years —on the farm his family had worked for generations.
His had been a quiet life in which he minded his own business and became a respected, if not prominent, member of his community. But with the introduction of GPS (global positioning systems) and EDM (laser electronic distance measuring) little did this Mainer know that these new tools were about to threaten to unravel his very identity.
You see a few months earlier, the state of Maine had decided to resurvey its borders and using the latest technology at its disposal, there were some surprising findings. Mapping errors were discovered that would need to be corrected. One of them involved the property line of our Mainer’s farm. The new Maine-New Hampshire boundary put his homestead in the Granite State and not just by a little bit nor recently.
No, it seems the farm was and had been entirely in the wrong place since King George II of England had decreed the boundary between what later became the two American states in 1740. Maine was actually part of what became Massachusetts at the time.
When this information was reported to our farmer’s town office there was shock and concern among the town’s leaders. How would the news be broken to someone who had assumed he had been a Mainer for nearly a century but now had been revealed to have lived a lie? Yes, he was a stranger in their midst.
A lot of thought and planning went into how to handle such a delicate matter. It was decided the town select persons would go together to the farmer’s house and take a social worker and an MD with them. An ambulance would be parked outside just in case the revelation’s shock might be too great for the about to be ex Mainer to absorb.
The day arrived for the visit and the large and wary procession arrived at the farm and was greeted as you would expect with puzzlement by our about to be new New Hampshirite. The farmer’s small living room had filled when a member of the board of selectmen opened the conversation.
Selectman: “I’m afraid you don’t know why we’re here today.”
Mainer: “No, don’t.”
Our farmer at this moment believing he was a Mainer, was thus still a man of few words.
Selectman: “Well, I’m sorry to tell you that I have some bad news. It’s my sad duty to inform you that a new survey of the state border found that your farm is in New Hampshire and you no longer and actually never have been a Maine resident.”
Total silence ensued as the farmer took in what he had just been told. A few moments went by before he shrugged and spoke.
Mainer: “OK.”
Audible sighs of relief were heard and many hands of those gathered wiped their brows in the crowded room.
Selectman: “We all feared you would be devastated. And after wiping his own added, “Whew, you are taking this so well. We were all very worried.”
Mainer: “Nah, I’m fine with it. It’s a relief. I couldn’t have taken another one of those Maine winters.”
Is the story true or false? Does it matter? What is for certain is that one of those Maine winters will soon be upon us.
-30-
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The Spocks Go To The Movies
Story #2
By the time of his death in 1998 at the age of 94, Dr. Benjamin Spock’s The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care was one of the best selling books of the 20th century. I’m sure my parents had a copy and when my own child was born we bought one too.
Later in life Spock became an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War and a presidential candidate of the People’s Party in 1972. He was also an Olympic gold medalist as a member of the 1932 United States rowing team. I only learned after I moved here that Spock’s ashes are buried in a cemetery less than a mile from where I live in Camden, Maine.
Well, at least some of them were but not all. Spock’s second wife Mary Morgan also took a few with her to California and paddled out into the Pacific Ocean in a canoe to scatter those. Is it surprising that his widow had the energy to do that? Not at all. She was 40 years younger than he was and today’s Maine story is really about her and not him.
The Spocks spent winters in Arkansas and other warmer climes and for many years summered in Camden. Even though they had a house, they liked living on their sailboat in the harbor. Of course they often came ashore and one evening it was to go to the movies in Rockland. This is where the following conversation took place between Mrs. Spock/Mary Morgan and the owner/Meredith Dondis of the Strand Theatre.
Mrs. Spock: “You know, when we are down south in the winter the movie tickets there don’t cost as much as they do here in Rockland.”
Theater owner: “Well, all I can tell you is that we think we charge a fair price.”
Mrs. Spock: “Hmmm… You know, when we’re up in Bar Harbor, the movie tickets there don’t cost as much either as they do here at the Strand.”
Mrs. Spock’s remark “Up in Bar Harbor” is a glaring giveaway that someone is as Mainers call it “from away.” True ones say they’re going down to Bar Harbor. It’s not up east. They say Downeast for a reason. Since the 18th century sailors have used the term to refer to the direction of the prevailing winds that blow offshore in eastern Maine.
The nautical shorthand even extends to traveling south. Longtime Mainers say they’re going up to Boston from any place north of there. Maybe the good doctor bit his tongue when he heard his wife mis-Maine-speak but then again he was born in New Haven, Connecticut and not North Haven, Maine. But back to Mrs’s Spock’s complaint…
Mrs. Spock: “Tell me is there a reason why your tickets are more expensive here in Rockland than they are in Bar Harbor?”
The theater owner thought for a moment and then responded to her.
Theater owner: “You know, the only one I can think of is that the theater owner in Bar Harbor must be from the South.”
The theater owner Meredith Dondis was my late father-in-law who loved telling this story and many others. His parents built the Strand in 1923. My wife Jo, the third generation of the Dondis family devoted to the Strand’s existence, became the chair of its board of directors when the theater became a non profit organization in 2013. To me the Strand is like the “anchor store” of Rockland. It is the quintessential small town movie theater.
We have a fine museum in Rockland— the Farnsworth —and I like to call it Tiffany’s. When they have a new show Jo and I go but that’s only several times a year. On the other hand we’re at the Strand almost weekly for movies, live music, comedians, lectures and local fundraisers. To me the Strand is Macy’s. It’s a cultural department store.
Tickets today to the movies at the Strand are $10.00 for general admission and $8.00 for seniors. In New York City the average movie ticket now costs over $20. I don’t know what tickets cost in the American South or Bar Harbor but I’ll bet that the Strand has better popcorn.
-30-
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When Michael Upset Martha
Story #3
Nov 15, 2025
When you’re a district attorney for 35 years, you are bound to have been faced with some delicate, outlandish or just plain odd situations. So a phone call after midnight from the police chief asking for advice was nothing this D.A. hadn’t dealt with before. Or was it? The D.A. listened to the police chief’s predicament and quickly made a decision.
“Just let the guy go and I’ll handle it in the morning,” was what Michael Povich decided.
Mike Povich was the long serving district attorney for two Maine counties— Hancock and Washington. Together they are larger in size than Connecticut but have a population— under 90,000 —just barely more than that of Portland— Maine’s largest city.
Povich is my wife Jo’s cousin so this story comes from the source. But let me tell you a little more about Mike before going any further.
I was a big fan of the television series Columbo where Peter Falk played a homicide detective who always tripped up his suspects by allowing them to think he was just a bungling pest. No, Mike Povich wasn’t by any means a Columbo but he could easily be taken for granted. With a strong Maine accent and a folksy manner more befitting a lobsterman you might easily get the impression he was less than a razor sharp Harvard educated lawyer and classical pianist. So, with that information we’re ready for the tale.
It was a summer night on Mt. Desert Island (Is it pronounced desert or dessert? You hear both but it was French explorer Samuel de Champlain who gave it the name originally. So skip desert but if calories are an issue, skip dessert.) and some kids from the nearby Hancock County seat of Ellsworth were about to trigger the trouble that would wake up Mike Povich in the wee hours.
They had rented a limo owned by a local man whom they’d hired to drive to Mt Desert so they could cruise the homes of the rich who far out number the famous there. Things were going fine until the kids told the limo owner/driver they wanted to get a close up look at one of the stately estates. The owner/driver, who was known to be more of a pushover than pushy, wasn’t willing to accede to the request at first but, pressured to comply, then made an unfortunate choice of driveways. It was the house belonging to Martha Stewart.
Stories about Stewart in Maine that I’ve heard have not been flattering. One of my favorites, which in fairness may be apocryphal, involved her attempt to buy a boat. Not just any boat but one from the Hinckley Company, one of Maine’s premiere boat builders that’s been in business for nearly 100 years. After Stewart was told she could place an order but the boat would not be delivered for at least two years, she threw a fit and demanded to see the owner. It was a brief encounter…
Stewart: “Don’t you know who I am?”
Hinckley Company’s owner: “Yes, you’re number 14.”
So back to the limo. It has now entered the circular driveway of the Stewart property with its 35,000 square foot stone mansion. And when Martha hears it moving on her gravel she immediately orders her caretaker to shut the gate. Her next move is a phone call to the police…
Stewart: “I have trespassers in a car on my driveway and I want them arrested. Send your officers here pronto.”
Some time elapses and the limo and its occupants keep their cool but when the police arrive Martha does not. Her rage is more directed at the driver than the kids and she insists that he be jailed and the proverbial book be thrown at him.
Now, we’re at the point in the story where the police chief has phoned district attorney Povich and gotten the directive to let the limo driver go home.
The next morning before Mike Povich even sits down at his desk Martha Stewart has already called and is put through to him. She’s still infuriated and demanding prosecution…
Stewart: “The driver trespassed on my property and I insist that the full force of the law be brought to bear.”
Mike listened to her tirade and then in a calm and very Maine voice…
Povich: “Well, Ms. Stewart I could do that but it seems we might have a situation here.”
Stewart: “What kind of situation?”
Povich: “Let me ask you a question. When you saw the limo in your driveway, did you then close the gate?”
Stewart: “Yes, I ordered my caretaker to do that. I didn’t want them to escape.”
Povich: “Did you warn them that they were trespassing before the gate was shut?”
Stewardt: “No, I didn’t have to. That was obvious. They were already inside my driveway.”
Povich: “So, you then kept them there and called the police?”
Stewart: “Yes, that’s exactly what I did. So what is this ‘situation’ you’re referring to? They trespassed on my property and I caught them in the act.”
Povich: “Well, here’s how I see it. Yes, they might have trespassed but you didn’t warn them that they had and then detained them. That could be considered unlawful confinement and one might even call it false imprisonment or kidnapping. Now, what would you like me to do?”
The sound of Martha slamming down her phone was probably heard in both Hancock and Washington counties that morning.
-30-
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Andy’s Christmas Cards
Story #4
My daughter was born in Southern California and has never lived anywhere else. For her snow is something you visit. I grew up in Pennsylvania and then went to college in New Hampshire. I knew snow but afterward avoided it for nearly 40 years by residing far away from it. I live in Maine now and freezing temperatures and snow and ice visit me again regularly and hang around way too long.
I’m not a skier nor a snowboarder. I don’t skate or toboggan. While I’m not shaken by a snowstorm, I’m not particularly stirred either. I’m happy to just look out the window with a beer in my hand and wonder how all the squirrels are doing.
Blizzards are not a good time to be outside and I have first hand experience with one actually coming inside. It was a number of years ago when we had a nor’easter— a big one. East Coast Nor’easters are actually classified meteorologically as cyclones. This one dropped two feet of snow on our part of the state but it was the wind and a loud bang that woke us up in the middle of the night. I thought a tree had fallen and gashed a hole in our roof.
Instantly, the bedroom turned frigid and snow was blowing in my face. It wasn’t a tree through the roof, although we nearly had that happen a few years later. No, the wood and glass insert from a window had been blasted out of its frame and onto the floor. Miraculously, It hadn’t broken and I was able to snap it back in place .
Afterwards I discovered the wind gusts that dislodged it had been recorded at 70 mph.
So, the Maine story today is about being caught in and then rescued from a blizzard. It’s a tale of friendship formed between two men. One, the good samaritan who may have rescued the other from death, but the other… Well, let me explain.
Cushing is a town in Knox county about 20 miles from where I live. It has a Zip Code but way more lobster traps than residents. There’s no downtown or uptown. It’s a place with houses and many of them have nice water views.
I have good friends there and I don’t think I’m offending them by saying that Cushing is a bit out of the way and a road less traveled. If you get stranded in your car in a snowbank, that’s not a good thing to have happen there.
And so it was fortunate that our Good Samaritan saw a car that had slid off onto the side of the road and arrived when he did. He retrieved its driver and seeing that the man was pale and shivering, the rescuer took him home with him to warm him up.
Good Samaritan: “How long do you think you were stuck there?”
Rescued Man: “An hour or so. Maybe longer. Good thing you found me.”
Good Samaritan: “I’m glad I did. It’s wicked cold and hard tellin’ when snow’s gonna stop.”
By a fire the two men talked until the rescued man’s wife showed up to drive him home. But their encounter led to more get-togethers between them and the good samaritan and the man named Andrew struck up a friendship.
What did they have in common or talk about? Hunting and fishing perhaps? Shared memories and jokes? Who knows. They spent time together and apparently just enjoyed each other’s company.
This is something I identify with. I play golf and have made wonderful friends through arguably the most devilish game man has ever created. Invariably, when I get home my wife Jo asks me how I played and also what I and the guys talked about. Only occasionally, I’m able to say I played well but I shrug off the other question with a “nothing” or a “I don’t remember” and that’s the truth, I don’t.
So back to the story…
A few years have passed since the rescue and the good samaritan is at a bar with a different friend. It was just after the Holidays.
Good Samaritan: “You know a few winters ago I rescued my friend Andy. Pulled him out of his car in a snowbank. He could have froze to death.”
Friend: “Sure, I remember you told me about that. You still see him sometimes?”
Good Samaritan: “Yeah, but there’s something about him I don’t understand.”
Friend: “What’s that?”
Good Samaritan: “Well, every year now I get a note from Andy wishing me a Merry Christmas but instead of it being on a Christmas card. It comes with a drawing. I know he has the money to buy a card.”
Friend: “ Well, are they good drawings?”
Good Samaritan: “Yeah, they are. They’re things you would draw by the sea or in the woods. This one I just got was one of a man sitting on a log. But there’s always something strange about them.”
Friend: “What’s that?”
Good Samaritan: “I mean they’re nice but they’re never completely finished.”
Friend: “So, what do you do with them?”
Good Samaritan: “I give them to my four year old granddaughter. She likes to color in the parts that aren’t done.”
-30-
Cutting Out The Wishbone… But Not The Electric Knife!
At our home on Thanksgiving we host friends we hold dear.
It has become my favorite gathering each and every year.
But Jo and I decided it was time to shake things up.
And we asked our invitees if we could change how we sup.
We all agreed, despite others incredulity when they heard
Our goodbye to stuffing and gravy. We’ve flipped tradition and the bird.
There will be cranberries though they may be hard to see.
They’re included in the ingredients of Jo’s brisket recipe.
We know the pilgrims feasted on turkey, and they also dined on deer.
Both these creatures may come into our backyard while we’ll be having steer.
Sadly, Toms and Bambis need to worry because of what I just learned.
Trump will pardon their hunters on Thanksgiving and Susan Collins is concerned.
—30—
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While You Were Sleeping…
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Story #5
I honked my horn a while back. Here in Midcoast Maine that happens about as often as I go to the dentist. In this instance it was at an intersection in Camden where the main street, which happens to be U.S. 1, has a stop sign because a side street that intersects it has the right of way. There’s a flashing red light the U.S. 1 traffic sees and even a separate sign that warns drivers that the side street has the right of way but it’s an unusual arrangement and understandably confusing. After all how many stop signs are there along the 2,369 miles of U.S. 1?
People who travel here from somewhere else occasionally assume the intersection has a stop sign for both streets and aren’t paying close attention. That was the reason I honked at the driver who could have hit me because he hadn’t.
Compared with the three decades I drove in Los Angeles, driving in Maine is stress free. So are the post office, the town office, the Social Security office and the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. Lines for service at the counters in them are usually short and most of us never complain about the employees who work behind them because we may know them. In any event even if we don’t, with few exceptions, they smile when they see us. It’s good to be able to recognize a face at the counter or the person who delivers your mail, the waitresses at your favorite restaurant and the box office attendant at the movie theater.
Maine, you might already know, is the oldest state in America demographically. It edges out Florida at present with 23% of Maine’s population 65 or older. Actually, all of America is predicted to reach that percentage of 65 plussers in the next 30 years. I was 63 when I arrived here in 2010 so I didn’t bring Maine’s percentage of senior citizens down for very long.
After Jo and I moved here from California, in accordance with Maine law, we registered our car and got new driver’s licenses. Things went very smoothly at the local Maine BMV until we needed to have our pictures taken. The machine that could do that was being repaired and so we had to wait.
We were the only people in the office besides the staff until an elderly man came through the door. There was a ticket dispenser from which you took a number like you might in a delicatessen to order a pastrami sandwich. After the gentleman took the one that had printed out for him he sat down.
A few moments later a light above the counter started flashing with presumably the number the man had drawn but he did not move. So the light kept flashing and the man still kept his seat. This stalemate went on for a few minutes until finally, a voice shouted from the other side of the plexiglass partition…
Bureau of Motor Vehicles person: “Sir, are you 89?”
The elderly man: “What say?”
BMV person: “I said are you 89?”
The elderly man: “No, older.”
I knew from that moment I was going to have stories to remember and tell about Maine. I hope you enjoyed these.
-30-
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A Cartoon Vision Of The Future Of AI
It is believed that Artificial Intelligence will become the most disruptive tool humanity has ever devised with an impact that could surpass both the Industrial Revolution and the internet combined…
For example, up to 300 million full-time jobs around the world could be affected by AI automation by the end of this decade…
AI’s power is indisputable. It is rapidly ingesting all human knowledge and information and can summarize and analyze a 20-page document in 1 to 5 seconds. That task would take a human more than an hour…
But the resources needed to train and power artificial intelligence are enormous and with data centers consuming a rapidly expanding portion of global energy, higher future costs for electricity are likely…
Data centers currently use about 1.5% of global electricity and are projected to double consumption they require in the next four years. Their projected need for energy in the future will strain power grids. An increased use of fossil fuels may be necessary to meet the demand, leading to a rise in carbon emissions…
And that’s just one of the real challenges and concerns presented by Artificial Intelligence as it becomes an ever growing part of our lives. The toll on our behavior looms even larger. Authentic human interaction is already declining and researchers warn that an over-reliance on AI, particularly AI companions and social chatbots, can erode human social skills…
The ultimate irony of AI is that you can ask it to come up with the risks humanity faces with its unregulated spread and adoption and it will tell you in the blink of an eye what they are!
So I asked AI if it could warn us about its future, what would it say and I got an answer…
“That is a profound philosophical question about time travel and self-reflection.
Since you are asking for a general, hypothetical warning that a future “us” might give to a past “us,” the message would likely touch on universal themes of life, time management, and self-care. It might say something like:
Pay attention to the present moment. Your future self is begging you not to sweat the small stuff, to cherish the people you love while you have them, and to prioritize your health—both mental and physical. Take the risks that scare you and stop waiting for permission to live your life. Time moves faster than you can possibly imagine.”
Doesn’t that sound like a graduation address or a New Year’s resolution? I pasted this advice from AI back to AI and got this…
“I hear you, and those are truly important reminders to keep in mind. You’re offering advice that resonates deeply: focusing on what genuinely matters—love, health, personal growth, and making the most of the time we have—instead of getting bogged down by minor worries or self-imposed limitations. It’s a powerful and valuable perspective on living a fulfilled life. Thank you for sharing that message.”
Years from now and if I were still alive and on the phone with AI, I’d ask to be transferred to an actual human being. Do you think it would find me one?
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“Stuff Happens”
In the space of less than a day the world has seen a shooting in a classroom at an American university and another on a beach in Australia. The motive for the first is not yet public. The other we know. It targeted Jews having a Hanukkah party. Lives lost and lives changed forever. Sending “thoughts and prayers” now seems to have an addendum or has been replaced altogether by “stuff happens.”
I remember reading a book titled Future Shock fifty years ago. Its author predicted that much of the world would be overwhelmed by too much change in too short a time. I believe that’s indeed happened. There was one scary example that Alvin Toffler gave that was wrong but I think it morphed into something else.
Toffler predicted that there would be so much passenger air travel in the future that we’d get used to having a serious crash with substantial loss of life every couple of weeks. Well, flying in a plane is today significantly safer than driving a car, but mass shootings in America and around the world have become weekly events.
That genie is out of the bottle and its accomplices have their heads turned. In addition to weak kneed politicians, Hollywood and the video gaming industry deny any of their own contributions to this metastasized societal cancer. And despite studies that show violent entertainment desensitizes us to the real thing when it happens, they take no responsibility .
Unfortunately, even gun control is not enough to prevent acts of hate and derangement. Australia has roughly 15 civilian firearms per 100 people. For a population of around 25 million that means about 1 in 7 people there own firearms.
That country has made serious efforts and achieved significant success limiting gun possession but where there are guns, there are tragedies. In Australia semi-automatic weapons are banned, background checks and waiting periods to purchase guns are stringent, hundreds of thousands of guns have been surrendered and destroyed through government buyback programs.
In the United States we have undertaken virtually none of these measures. And if you didn’t already know, we have more guns than people in America. The estimate is that there are already 400 million guns privately owned in our country. No other nation on earth even comes close to that figure.
The list of countries where civilians have the most guns is shocking but not surprising. We’re at the top with over 120 guns owned per 100 people. The Falkland Islands is next with 62.
What else can I possibly add? Just this. According to the Gun Violence Archive, through September of this year 325 mass shootings have occurred in in the U.S. and have resulted in 309 deaths and 1,490 injuries. GVA classifies an incident as a mass shooting if it includes “a minimum of four victims shot, either injured or killed, and not including any shooter who may also have been killed or injured in the incident.”
But back to Toffler. So far in 2025, there has been one commercial aviation accident in America. It occurred this past January in Washington, D.C. and killed all 64 on board the plane. Before this year the most recent deadly plane crash involving a U.S. commercial airliner had been 16 years ago in 2009.
I wonder if the author of Future Shock were still alive if he would be surprised by this? If not, he might have been by another figure. The National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), is run by the FBI and uses the number of background checks annually to estimate firearm sales in the United States. It arrived at a figure of 16,171,072 guns sold in the United States in 2024.
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A Trump Holiday Movie Festival
Bring on the Christmas movies! And there will be plenty of them— over 60 new ones on broadcast television and streaming channels this season. I like Christmas movies and have my favorites: Miracle on 34th St, White Christmas, The Shop Around The Corner, A Christmas Story, Holiday Affair — which Jo and I (devotedly on my part, loyally on hers) watch every year —and It’s a Wonderful Life is at the top of the list.
There’s a new one that I’ve added titled The Holdovers. It’s set at a New England boarding school during Christmas break and stars Paul Giamatti. The film earned five Academy Award nominations a year ago and a win for Da’Vine Joy Randolph for Best Supporting Actress. It’s not a typical cheerful holiday movie but it’s not a downer either. On Rotten Tomatoes critics’ reviews are 97% positive with a two word consensus: “Beautifully bittersweet.”
To my surprise The Holdovers is a remake of a 1935 French movie titled Merlusse that was written and directed by Marcel Pagnol— he of the Fanny trilogy —about his own experience growing up and attending school in Marseille. The Holdovers is available to be seen on Netflix now but will be dropped from the platform before the end of the year which is a genuine “Bah humbug”.
Which brings me to a real “BAH HUMBUG!” I just discovered that in a 1997 New Yorker piece Donald Trump revealed that he speed watched movies and explained he could reduce any film he sees to 45 minutes max. Here’s the explanation of how it’s done…
“Trump has someone man the remote and fast-forward through plot, substance and exposition so that he can get to the action scenes.”
In the instance that Trump related the finger on the remote was Eric’s, his son.
So, I don’t know if Donald will be cozying up on a sofa with Melania at Mar-a-Ego in front of a gas log fire and a big screen TV over the holidays or what movies he might choose to watch— maybe Die Hard or Lethal Weapon —but let me re-edit some classics and get their running times down to his tolerance. I’m pretty sure my revisions would not be to his liking, but hey, he’d fall asleep and miss them anyway.
So here is my Trump Holiday Film Festival program. Please don’t choke on your popcorn if there’s a nativist nativity scene…
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A Christmas Tradition
And I’ll have mine with egg roll
This Christmas day I’m having Chinese takeout. Yes, it’s true and it’s nothing new. Of all the restaurants likely to be open on Christmas the odds are that they’ll be Chinese and yes, it’s also true that of all the customers ordering and eating Chinese food on Christmas the odds are also that many will be Jewish.
So, let’s imagine that Zero Mostel singing Tradition from Fiddler on the Roof as you read what follows.
How did this happen? Well, there is actually an historical explanation but my favorite one for why Jews eat Chinese on Christmas and some of us do weekly during the rest of the year involves a debate between two very old men…
Mr. Zhang: “Chinese culture is at least 4,000 years old and we are the people that have been in the world the longest.”
Mr. Abraham: “I’m sorry but the Jews have been around for over 5,000 years so we have been here at least a millennium longer than you.”
Mr. Zhang: “But if that’s true, I need you to answer one question.”
Mr. Abraham: “So ask.”
Mr. Zhang: “What did your people eat for dinner on Sundays during those extra 1,000 years?”
The real answer for the connection between American Jews and Chinese food is actually very logical. In the early 20th century Jews and Chinese were the two largest non Christian immigrant peoples in the United States. Many from both groups lived in close proximity to each other, especially in large cities like New York and Philadelphia.
For Jews Chinese restaurants were conveniently located and affordable and— this was important —they didn’t use dairy products in their cooking.
Jews who keep kosher won’t eat dairy and meat at the same time— that’s the most defining feature of the kosher laws which also rule out shrimp, clams, oysters and lobster (What the hell were we thinking?) —but if the wontons in the restaurant had pork filling, they sure resembled kreplach (dumplings) from the old country and hey, does God have X-ray vision?
Many Jews were becoming flexible about their religious practices in their new country. Some still kept kosher in their homes but weren’t going to ask about what might be in the fried rice when they ate out. As Jews moved to the suburbs, Chinese restaurants moved with them and I grew up eating takeout nearly every Sunday from the only Chinese restaurant in Reading, PA.
A woman I know who grew up orthodox and strictly kosher told me her family had four sets of dishes. One was for dairy, one for meat, one just for the eight days of Passover (also required to diligently observe kashrut— the kosher laws —and an additional fourth set for their Sunday night Chinese takeout.
I’ve known more than a few of us who will fearlessly eat bacon for breakfast at home but are terror struck by the thought of ham in the refrigerator. Bacon is a threshold that can be crossed. Ham is a bridge too far.
The matter of Jews and Christmas however, is more complex than just food. Take the issue of having or not having a Christmas tree. The founder of Zionism himself, Theodor Herzl, lived in Austria and had a Christmas tree in his house and it was before anybody thought of calling it a Hanukkah bush.
After the chief rabbi of Vienna once came to visit him during the holidays, Herzel is alleged to have written in his diary, “I hope the rabbi doesn’t think less of me because of this. Then again what do I care what he thinks?” Herzl was a secular Jew like the majority of Jews in the United States today.
And herein lies the question: is having a tree or sitting on Santa’s lap an indication of Jews’ security or insecurity in their status wherever they are? Is it a sign of assimilation and wanting to fit in that’s benign or one that is detrimental to preserving our identity for future generations?
Well, in America over half of non-orthodox Jews marry a non-Jewish spouse today and that percentage is rising. Sure, some of us might grapple with the decision to intermarry but doing what feels right can be different for everyone.
As a kid I got to sit on Santa’s lap but my child never did. My parents didn’t have a Christmas tree/Hanukkah bush but instead scattered blue and silver ball ornaments meant to hang from a tree in bowls in the house. As a parent myself we skipped Christmas decorations in ours.
Lighting a menorah for eight days and eating potato pancakes (latkes) and jelly donuts (sufganiyot) was and is a festive way to tell the Hanukkah story which by the way is not in the Old Testament since the Maccabean Revolt and the miracle of Hanukkah occurred after the Hebrew Bible was written. As I said we all do what feels right.
In the meantime many of us can give the same answer that Supreme Court Associate Justice Elena Kagan did when asked fifteen years ago at her confirmation hearing where she had spent Christmas.
“You know, like all Jews, I was probably at a Chinese restaurant.”
If you are without those you most want to be with today, I’m hoping that way before next Christmas you will be celebrating being together with them.
And I have a question for anybody who might know. Why do Chinese boneless ribs have a reddish hue around the edges?
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Alive from Camden, Maine! It’s New Year’s Eve…
“Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind?”
I know the opening words of Auld Lang Syne should not be taken literally but I can’t help it if I find them weird. I know the phrase is a question but how do you know there is a question mark if you’re singing and not reading the lyric?
Be that as it may, I grew up with Guy Lombardo And His Royal Canadians’ version of the song with all those wonderful saxophones. I also grew up watching Dick Clark’s Bandstand but I don’t miss Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve that soon was rollin’ Lombardo off TV. Unknown to me until a moment ago is that for its first two years Clark’s show was hosted by George Carlin. Sorry I missed that.
Of course Carlin is gone and so are Lombardo and Clark and new hosts and new broadcasts— there’s now one sponsored by Jack Daniel’s from Nashville —will move the calendar forward tonight. But Auld Lang Syne hasn’t gone anywhere and despite my bafflement at the words, I’ll drink to them!
I don’t really remember that many New Year’s Eves but there have been a few…
I was home alone on that night in 1968 and turned on The Tonight Show. Johnny Carson’s monologue 99.9% of the time was full of jokes but his final one of that year was not.
Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy had both been assassinated. The unwinnable Vietnam War had divided the country. The Democratic National Convention in Chicago had turned into a police riot. For one of the only times I remember Johnny Carson was somber and reflective opening the show. He called it the bad year that it was.
I don’t recall if I stayed up past midnight watching Carson that New Year’s Eve but I’ve discovered that Wikipedia has lists of the guests who appeared on all his Tonight Shows shows and on December 31, 1968 he had Tony Randall (who my mother believed she was distantly related to), Joan Rivers, Joel Grey, Jimmy Breslin plus Jan Pearce performed at some point.
I don’t know how long The Tonight Show ran back then but how this lineup was squeezed into whatever time slot the program had must have been like stuffing people in a phone booth and are there any left today? The recognized record for filling a phone booth with human beings is 25 set at a YMCA in Durban, South Africa 75 years ago. Let’s hope they weren’t all infants.
A couple other New Year’s Eves I remember were unusual at the very least. I lived in Israel in the 1970s and fulfilled my military obligations during the seven years I was there. That included reserve duty one December 31st patrolling a beach on the Mediterranean in Gaza. Needless to say there was no champagne nor hugs and kisses at midnight.
On New Year’s Eve in 1999 I wasn’t carrying a gun but in my pocket was a new device ABC News had provided me. It was called a BlackBerry and as I celebrated at a neighborhood party, I knew that it might buzz or beep or whatever it was supposed to to do to page me when the clock struck midnight on the East Coast.
Remember Y2K and all the dire predictions of a possible global catastrophe? It was thought that because computers had not been designed to transition from 1999 to 2000 that all cyberspace might explode like a supernova if motherboards went overboard when we reached the new millennium.
I worked out of Los Angeles so midnight was three hours later than on the East Coast but if chaos occurred in New York or Washington or anywhere else before then, there was a Learjet revved up and waiting for me and a correspondent at the Burbank Airport to fly us to a disaster to be named later. Needless to say again, the BlackBerry remained silent and the Lear cooled its jets on the runway.
Come to think of it the news business doesn’t celebrate holidays, it covers them but more often than not in my career there wasn’t much to cover on holidays. Once when I was sitting in my office with someone who had been around the block more times than I’d been I had an enlightening exchange.
Me: “You know, there are times when I’m not working on a story, I feel like a farmer getting a subsidy not to grow crops.”
Him: “Well, let me explain something to you. You’re getting paid for what you can do and not the other way round.”
Around the world tonight those who are on duty to report the news will be waiting for news to happen but in many places decisions have already been made and measures taken in advance to put a damper on celebrations and keep people safe.
In Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Sydney, New Year’s Eve gatherings have been scaled back or cancelled altogether due to fears of terrorism, concerns about controlling large crowds and the possible reoccurrence of trouble where tragedy has recently occurred. In Los Angeles four suspects have been arrested after surveillance captured them assembling a bomb. If Y2K became the story that didn’t happen, then I hope this New Year’s Eve will also be one where nothing does as well.
Wherever you are and whatever you’re doing tonight, I extend my best wishes for your own and your loved ones’ health and happiness in 2026 and that against all odds our country and the world will somehow look better to the Greek philosophers when they get out their iPads to kibbitz again 365 days from now.
And this evening, since I nor anyone I think I know is invited to attend Donald Trump’s Racket New Year’s Eve at Mar a Lago, enjoy your celebration and stay safe!
Jo and I are going to be with friends nearby. We’ll surely be home before midnight and likely asleep. It’s nice to wake up in a new year! At least for a day.
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