Why I am not a magazine salesman...

Shortly after my father's death, we found a certificate in his papers from the Curtis Publishing Company. It acknowledged my father as a "young hustler", yes those were the exact words. In 1929 the term was probably not reserved for the pool halls, though it is likely that my dad knew the then current pool hall term from first hand experience, either losing his money or earning it. The certificate has a very nice gold seal on parchment so it must have been important. His name was nicely written below the statement of what a young hustler was. It told the world that he was a successful magazine salesman. He was 13 at the time and sold magazines door to door. I think he was still selling magazines when he died 68 years later or if not selling them, he was probably figuring out new ways to sell them.

As kids, my brother and sisters and I all had opportunities to work for dad, selling magazines. My career started when I was about 11 or perhaps a bit younger. I pulled my wagon of Redbooks and Good Housekeeping magazines down the streets of the neighborhoods near old town in Albuquerque. I guess my neighborhood was not quite up-scale enough or perhaps I had worked it already. I sold them for 50 cents each and earned more than I could ever earn doing anything else, though at 11 I did not have a lot of options.

I avoided selling magazines as much as I could during High School. It was a bit silly since I could make two or three times selling magazines as I could washing dishes at Glenwood Manor. But occasionally I would need a bit extra and try my hand at selling over the phone. "Hi this is... with ... periodical. We are calling some of the ... (auto shops, hair dressers, etc.) in the area. " That was not really too bad, I had been in the auto shops and barber shops and seen the piles of magazines in the waiting rooms. The goal was to make the calls, the orders would come. I learned a lot about selling that would come in handy 30 years later. But I was a lousy salesman.

But then one summer, I found myself in need of a job and dishwashing did not fit the profile of a junior college student. My dad had moved back to California and I was in Kansas. He wanted me to close orders that one of his saleswomen sold. I finally caved into the financial reality, selling magazines is more profitable than lots of other occupations for a 19 year old college student. So that summer I became a closer. A closer is the one who gets the contract signed, 5 magazines for 5 years. "So in addition to Life, Look, and Newseek would you prefer Field and Stream or Popular Electronics", became my refrain. I travelled the back roads of Kansas and Missouri getting contracts signed. In Abeline Kansas my Toyota died, teaching me that water and oil really are important. In Oklahoma City I learned that Greyhound bus stations are probably not the best places to get advice on where to stay when the last bus has left. And in Tulsa I learned about rose gardens.

But it was in Derby, Kansas, that my career changed forever. I did not mind working the auto shops and beauty salons. But I did not like selling to residences. One day somewhere near Derby I pulled up to a house, a bit worn, but a fairly typical farm house. Knocking on the screen door eventually brought the woman of the house out, dressed in a moomoo and looking out of place, even for rural Kansas. I proceeded with my pitch, conscious of the aura of sloth that surrounded me on this farm. The decision was a big decision for the woman, Woman's Day or Motor Trend. But I left successful, contract signed and first payment received. I think the deal was actually for more than 5 magazines. That night in a motel named something like Derby Inn or Maint Street Motel, I reflected on the day. I do not remember the scene but I remember the revulsion. I had just sold 6 or 7 magazines a month to a woman whom I was convinced was never going to read any of them. Was it me, perhaps my charm or my scrawniness, that made her want to write me the check? In my heart of hearts I knew it was over. I could never walk up to a farm house and sell them four or five hundred dollars of magazines. Maybe I could do it in Kansas City, but not in Derby or Junction City. It might have helped if I was actually a good sales person. Thus my career in magazine sales ended, and that without ever earning the coveted, Young Hustler certificate.

I did actually become a verifier a couple of years later but that was just a momentary diversion. A verifier is similar to a closer but it was all done on the phone and there was a bit less sales involved. But it was the farm house in Derby that sealed my fate.

Such was my first career...

A Cerebral Fourth of July

Smoke on the horizon, a huge red ball shining through the haze, and it is the fourth of July. But neither the smoke or the red ball is part of a fireworks show. It's sunset, looking up the coast toward the smoke in Santa Barbara. I missed the very cool picture of a red globe muted by the cloud of smoke while I was driving on the freeway. The fires have muted the celebrations a bit.

I spent the evening sitting outside at a Starbucks reading a good book, enjoying a quiet evening. Driving home through the hills by a small lake, I could see occasional fireworks in the rear view mirror. I had appreciated the quietness of a holiday during the day but it was only this evening that I appreciated that it really was the Fourth of July. I reflected on it on the way home. I watched the fireworks following the Boston Pops concert on TV. The emotion of the fourth came out as the cameras showed the faces of children watching or the soldier holding his children enthralled by the brilliance of the display. The cerebral part came first on listening to an interviewee on Tavis Smiley who stated that if Obama wins the presidency he will not be a spokesman for African Americans but for all Americans. Then David McCullough gave brief snippets on several of his books on US Presidents and other American history to Charlie Rose. As he spoke of Adams and Jefferson and Teddy Roosevelt the simple truth of my life welled up in my consciousness, I am proud to be an American despite all of our failures and the current state of the noble experiment begun 232 years ago.

As a boy I would go into our library and pull out the books looking at the pictures, reading a few pages, gently unfolding the maps or copies of documents. The books were 100 or 150 years old, a few over 200 years old. For a 9 or 10 year old boy they were a special world. We had one set 6 or 8 volumes of the letters of John Adams and another set of the letters of Thomas Jefferson. They often only had the response so I would compare letters to Jefferson in the Adams book to find the corresponding letters in the Jefferson book. I do not recall any great findings but there was a feeling of discovery as I went from one volume to the other. As a 10 or 11 year old I learned that Jefferson did not just write the Declaration of Independence in one nice perfect draft. There is a copy of the draft that unfolds from the book, in handwriting with the crossed out words and the insertions. We also had some Civil War histories from the 1880s that had the best maps of the various battles. There was a copy of the Gettysburg Address that I loved to look at. I developed a connection with the history or our nation at a very young age, a sense of where we had come from and the imperfections of the people who brought us here. I did not really learn a lot of facts but the Revolution and the Civil War did become part of my being.

If I went to a site of our early US history tomorrow I would probably shed a tear. I am not a blind patriot but I am a patriot. Perhaps if I were a more effective patriot I should spend one day celebrating our independence and the rest of the year working to make it actually work...

Happy 232nd!

To work, to sleep, to write...

I find myself in Dallas tonight. I have a million things to do, some fun code to write, a class to get ready for, and a good book to read to help me get plenty of sleep. Yet instead of being stressed about what I cannot get done or happy with what I have gotten done, I am consumed with an email. It should have taken about 5 minutes to respond, or not to respond, and yet it took the energy out of the evening.

I was on the verge of not being overly productive due to a long disjointed travel day. So not accomplishing too much was not a surprise. But an email should not be the cause of the ruining of any one's day. Just to be clear, the email did not come from anyone reading this blog!

My dilemma is whether to spend 5 minutes zipping off a curt reply or 30 minutes crafting an appropriate answer. I may not think my 5 minute response is curt, but all too often when I want to express some emotion I do not usually express the quick answer does not work. So my 5 minute answer turns into a 30 minute analysis, "am I right", "are they wrong", "are we both right", and then figuring out how to write a response that is appropriate, tactful, clear, and, by the way, looks like it took 5 minutes. It is at the moment of realizing that 30 minutes has gone by and the response is no better than the tactless bit of froth I started with that I throw it away or put it in my draft emails to never see the light of day. Sometimes I actually do come up with an appropriate response but that is usually due to seeing whatever the issue is in the light of day and not while sitting alone in a hotel room waiting for sleep to come upon me.

The picture was not from Dallas. It was from home. In refocusing my mind, I thought I would start with a nice picture. My choices were the crashing waves of my beach (see note) or the serene beach with the mountains and the pier in the distance. So I decided to begin tonight's entry with the roar and foam and end with a more serene perspecitve, the view of my town from the beach (see note).

Note 1: In California we all own the beach - usually they say the state owns it but I prefer my perspective!
Note 2: In my town, I do own a piece of property, it is a part of the city, therefore I own a part of the city, therefore it is my town - to a degree.

More serious reflections will follow soon, just as soon as I deal with that email...

I was the stranger - Coffee Shops part 3...

Sitting at my table in the back of the coffee shop, a young woman wheeled her double stroller up to a table, facing me just about 5 feet from where I was working. She had three kids with her, the oldest a boy of 4 or 5, stood by the stroller looking at me. The next younger one sat in the stroller looking around. The mom took the third child into the restroom after giving the boy a stern warning, "Don't speak with strangers."

The boy continued to stare at me as I worked away on my computer. Not too long ago, I would have had an interchange with him, "Are you at such-and-such school?", "Are you too big for the stroller now?", etc. But not wanting to get the boy in trouble I held my tongue, he continued to stare.

Mom came out of the restroom bending down nicely and asking, "Did you speak with any strangers?" He shook his head, "No". But as she said it she glanced over at me as if to say, "you are the stranger I was referring to". I politely said that he was very good and did not say anything. She turned and gave me an awkward stare. She did not respond. She did not speak with strangers. It took a moment for her reaction to sink in to my emotions.

I think, I hope, the look was one of confusion. I had put her in an impossible position. If she spoke with my she violated her own fear or countered the lesson she was trying to teach her son. If she engaged in conversation she was a hypocrite. If she ignored me she was consistent, if perhaps rude. But it could be that she was not confused, and this is the scariest option of all. She assessed the situation and determined that I, the stranger, was a threat. While I did need a haircut, I don't believe I was too seedy looking, so her reaction was deeper, more rational, more disturbing. Her calculated look was one of, "And, why would you speak to me?"

Are the days of polite civility from protecting parents gone. Traded for silence. Will I never be able to say, "So cute!", "How old?", or "Wow, that is a cool toy!" again without worrying whether I am violating a boundary erected to fend off the evil ones. Yes, unfortunately there are evil ones.

But just to put her at ease, I did not return the stares of her son and made no comment on her glare. My hope is that her son will somehow not learn the lesson of rudeness but instead transcend the obvious role modelling of his mother. And indeed may he also learn the art of being politely paranoid.

Such is life as the stranger...

Coffee shops part 2...

I work in coffee shops. No not pouring coffee, steaming milk, calling out, "No foam, extra hot, double shot, non fat latte for George". No, I sit at my computer thinking or writing or visualizing some aspect of project management or software or both.

I have often wondered what folks do, sitting at their computers, in coffee shops. At "my" local coffee shop I have a table. They don't reserve it for me but more often than not it is there for me. I can sit and work amidst the buzz of talk and the grind of ice in blenders and the occasional - too loud - siren of some machine making some extra hot drink. The music, just the right volume, tempers the other sounds and conversations and helps them blend into the background.

Back to working at the coffee shop... Some of the people working are serious. Probably, on chapter 43 of that great American novel. Others are curious and engage the old guys in conversation providing a new ear to old stories. I will have to capture some of those stories, give a new venue to them. I have thought of putting some books I have worked on and in which my name is referenced on the shelves of the shop but that would look a little too egocentric. But when I do write that great American novel I will get it on the shelves.

One of my coffee shop friends, J for now, is working on a screenplay. He is intense but we always have a nice conversation whenever I break his concentration. Occasionally we talk about the latest bite he has gotten, seldom about the frustrations of the quest for the right connection. The frustrations are understood. Usually, I ask if he has had any good fishing and he asks me about any more Albanian travels. Someday his screenplay will be picked up and I will buy him a cup of coffee. And someday I will go back to Albania and he will ask to see the pictures.

The other day I heard a young woman behind me discussing her work with Third Culture Kids. That is a rather esoteric topic that I knew a little about. Not too esoteric a topic if you are like this young woman - a missionary kid who is raised in country A by parents from countries B and C going to college in country D trying to figure out who they are and why no one else gets it. But to sit in a coffee shop in my town to hear the reference was fairly random so I engaged in a brief conversation. She had completed a short documentary on the topic. As a budding photo journalist I noticed that she took the time to stop and engage the old guys in a conversation, sharing her recent success and hearing their story. In this case, I was also probably one of the old guys she chatted with that she might recount to a friend later in the day. Or perhaps there are so many of these random, disconnected conversations today that they just filter into the pool of coffee shop images and encounters.

So for now the time-clock indicates that I must be off to the office, where the coffee is fresh and the sounds of the grinders will provide that bit of inspiration needed.

JMP

Coffee shops - Part 1: A retrospective

I am sitting at a local coffee shop, drinking my medium coffee with one raw sugar and dash or two of cinnamon. When in Spain I enjoyed the espresso. When on a date with my wife I might have a latte or a cappuccino. When with my daughter(s) on a warm afternoon I will occasionally indulge in a frappacino or ice blended mocha. But the drink is not really what the coffee shop is about. My afternoon quest is to attempt to capture what it is about going to coffee that provides the relaxation or the diversion that I crave.

It all began for me in 1969, my sophomore year in High School. It was a time of anti-war protests, bell bottoms, and disillusionment. I thought myself an island as a thinking person in the midst of a high school oblivious to the outside world. The reality was, of course, not quite so simple. Our school had its share of unthinking juviniles, a few racists, an intellectual core, a few hippies and a lot of folks who had not figured out what they were. But we all saw the body counts on the news so while some did not express their outrage for one side or the other, the level of ignorance I saw at the time was not very accurate. My entire perspective that year was clouded by personal grief and a budding anger. This is the stage upon which coffee came into my life.

I do not remember now exactly how I happened to start going to Regan's. It was what was known at the time as a Coffee Shop, what today would be called a diner or a Denny's or an IHOP. As far as I know they had always been called diners but that was a term I never used. We went there on the way to school, ate a cinnamon roll and had a cup of coffee - or two. It is difficult to remember who was there, probably Al and Rich and Jim and ???. We talked about everything. This included girls and miscellaneous deep thoughts. All laced together with coffee. The waitress, whom I will call Gracie, was about 60 at the time. She was the essence of what would be called ADD today, at the time it would have been described using some other word for really hyper. I remember little besides her darting to and fro pouring coffee, complaining about the last table or complaining about us if we were less than polite. We went to Regan's throughout my high school years, though the participants and the frequency changed.

The next coffee shop I remember was not really a coffee shop but a coffee house. Picture hot chocolate or cappacino or coffee or apple cider, darkened lights, the occasional musician. The crowd was not the crowd that went to the woodsies on the weekend. For those who are unfamiliar with woodsies, these were the beer and cheap wine parties thrown on the backroads where hopefully the police would not come. No, the coffee house crowd were a mix of hippies and druggies and other things I was unaware of. Again, the focal point of the evening was not really the coffee and many of the purchases were made outside, looking over your shoulders. Again the memories are very dull but I vividly recall one of the purchases. Making my purchase required me to leave the coffee house and go to, we'll say, John's apartment. While I waited, John's roommate, being a sociable guy tightened the rubber hose on his arm, shot up, and then graciously offered me the needle. Being a little holier than thou, I declined, thinking how low he had sunk and how stupid and sad it was. I left John's, with my purchase in hand. I did not know John or his roommate. But I am pretty sure that one or both did not make it alive past the 1970s. So much for coffee houses.

Coffee shops were defined in the 70s for me as Sambo's. You remember the story, little black Sambo being chased by the tiger and in the Sambo's version, the tiger turns into a stack of pancakes. Perhaps the most politically incorrect restaurant theme you could pick. Ignorance runs high as Sambo was from India. I worked at Sambo's off and on over a period of about 10 years during high school and college. I learned first hand how to be a hyper waiter - thankyou Gracie for the early training. But still I went to coffee shops. Perhaps it was the people watching, the activity around me while I could become absorbed in whatever reading or working or thinking I needed. For many people the coffee shop represents the social network, the Cheers type of place where everybody knows your name. But while I had worked in soap opera like atmosphere of the coffee shop for years, my frequenting of coffee shops rarely caused me to be aware of or participate in these soap operas.

But in the 1980s and early 90s the frequency declined, the aura was broken as the demands of family took priority. The coffee shop became what it was to everyone else during these years, a place to get lunch, to stop for a break on a long drive.

To be continued…

She started it...

I had always like Miatas but driving through the back roads south of San Jose in my Ford Contour a couple of years ago put me over the edge. Not literally. While my Contour had a bit of pep and it was not an automatic, zig-zagging through the hills was fun but not exhilarating. I could just imagine what the same road in a Miata might be like. I refused to let myself imagine it in an Alpha Romeo or an old Triumph. I am not a mechanic and had little interest paying yet another college tuition - for the mechanic's kid. So the Miata was both something I liked and something that would not - knock on wood - be in the shop for half its life.

That brings up the story of the Audi I had, the one my wife likes to remind me of any time I look longingly at some new really cool Audi. Mine not only had a cassette player but also a microphone just in case I needed to do a little dictation while I drove (that ages me a bit). Perhaps when Mia is in the shop I can share more about Audi.

Mia is the other woman. Mia is a forest green (British racing green) 1999 Miata. My wife is at the point where she will tolerate forest green, that is good for the marriage. She would not be quite so tolerant of blonde. I would not normally name my cars. Who would? My wife's car when we got out of college was named Matthew. I am not sure why. I think I know the Matthew in question and I am still not sure why the car was named for him. Ignorance is ...

Now because everyone assumes that because I have a little green sports car I must be going through a midlife crisis of some sort. My advantage if it is "mid life" at my age. No, I was just too cheap to purchase a sports car until I would no longer need more than two seats on a regular basis. I suddenly realized a few months ago that the time had come. That was when my quest for the right Miata began. I was scouring the internet for a 2002 or 2003 Miata, low mileage, blue or grey, .... My quest ended almost as quickly when a friend, someone who actually knew how to buy a car, told me that he was selling his 1999 Miata. Two years before he had searched in surrounding cities up to a couple hundred miles away for the right Miata. He found it and now wanted to get rid of it. It was a great match. He wanted more seats and I wanted less.
But back to the naming thing. It was my wife who started naming the cars. Being the really creative person that I am, my little green Miata became Mia. It is much more fun to go on a drive with Mia than "with my little green Miata". So today this blog is about Mia and I. Tomorrow it may get serious or something else. But today I will not annoy my friends with stories of the latest ding on Mia's formerly pristine paint job, I will blog away in anonymity for now. At least I will do that after I walk around the car a couple of times to be sure no dings have spontaneously materialized.