My friend's father's car savings plan

In defense of checking IDs, they send people out that look older but are younger just to test whether you are checking or not. Yeah its entrapment but the penalty is pretty high if you are wrong. I volunteered at the local community theater snack bar with beer, wine, coffee, pop, etc., and it is pretty scary trying to decide who to card or not and knowing if you are wrong, they can lose their license and a good deal of operating money. So sometimes the policy is just to check everyone rather than take a chance. Then you are supposed to know if the ID is fake or not. So I have a little symphathy for the guys on the other side of the counter.

I once questioned the clerk at a local pharmacy why I was being carded for my case of beer

I told him “We both know I’m way past 21”

He said “Yeah, I can see that. But I’m supposed to card anyone that looks like they might be under 40.”

There’s a Grocery store chain in upstate NY called Wegmans that’s now moving into New England. They card EVERYBODY. You could be 90yo…and wheel chaired with an oxygen tank…and they’ll card you if you buy beer. In fact the computerized cash register will NOT finish the transaction if there’s alcohol without the clerk typing in (or scanning) info from your ID. It’s a little annoying sometimes…but IMHO…well worth it.

Always interesting that a $10 an hour clerk may judge a $100 an hour professional as having no money because of leisure clothing.

There’s this Pizza shop I visit a few times a year. After a while I got to know the owners. Very nice couple. Well about a year ago I was in there…and one of my employees was there. The shop was owned by his Aunt and Uncle. They had know idea I was an engineering manager. I would usually go there on the weekend after a long day working on my yard. He thought I was a landscaper.

You’ll find a great number of people in the engineering field (especially software) who dress down at work. Most don’t meet customers…so there’s no reason to dress. During the summer if I’m not meeting customers…then I’m wearing shorts to work. I worked for a CEO who had a BS and MS from Harvard…He wore shorts ALL THE TIME. Even when meeting customers. He was very highly respected CEO and Engineer. Held at least 40 patents in Electrical Engineering and Telecom.

@Docnick‌
That story about Ronnie Hawkins got me to reminiscing. The Hawk and some of the other members of The Band spent money as fast as they made it back in the day. Apparently at the beginning of one summer back in the early 70s Ronnie and the boys decided they needed a yacht to live on while they played and partied in Grand Bend (where incidentally the late Governor George Romney and son Mitty regularly holidayed). It must have been a helluva summer because the yacht was repossessed over the Labor Day weekend…Ronnie had (and maybe still has but I heard it was up for sale) a mansion overlooking Stoney Lake north of Peterborough where I grew up. John and Yoko stayed there a couple of times when they wanted to get away from it all. Anyway there was this wonderful, boozy honky-tonk called the South Beach Hotel (long since burned to the ground) and, as it was not too far from the mansion, Ronnie would occasionally show up, unannounced, get on the small stage and belt out long renditions of Who Do You Love among other classics, with whatever band happened to be playing. Large pitchers of real draft, huge frosty glass mothers absolutely dwarfing today’s pathetic plastic imitations were under five bucks and we kept em coming until they closed the place at two in the morning. The best times were when we were staying at a friend’s cottage on an island up the lake in an era before the OPP had a boat in their budget or at least one that was manned at two thirty in the morning.

My brother came very close to opening a country nightclub with him as a partner. Just as well, although my late brother was a hard living and impulsive type (he bought 15 condos when the market collapsed and sold them later for a tidy profit) he was more suited for the construction industry.

I did a stint with Outboard Marine in Peterborough and we mostly partied at their Oak Orchard Lodge and “test facility”. It was fun tryng out all those new boats and motors.

On a holiday trip last year I toured the Peterborough Canoe Museum which is in the old Outboard Marine office building. My old office upstairs is now a room housing all the different types of paddles used from the Indian days to the present.

Interesting that there now is filmed in Grand Bend a TV “reality show” called The Grand Benders (very appropriate name) about a bunch of young people working and carousing at a club there. Romney’s family would want to avoid that venue!

“…and impulsive type (he bought 15 condos when the market collapsed and sold them later for a tidy profit)”

I would call that shrewd, not impulsive.

@london: I love stories like that. (and good bars maybe a little too much, though I don’t get to frequent them as much these days)

Typically when the clerk has to enter a date into the system, if I’m buying alcohol, she enters ‘1-1-11’ or ‘11-11-1111’, or whatever. Sometimes I remark (being the p.i.t.a. that I am) that I wasn’t born in 1111. But it’s rather rare when I get “carded” these days.

I always throw my pocket change into two jars–one for pennies and one for the silver. After a year or two or when I feel ambitious I roll it up and take it to the bank. Usually the jar of silver is at least 30-40 lbs. And typically it’s several hundred dollars. Some years it’s my Christmas fund.

@jtsanders Yes, my brother was completely uninhibited and fearless. Once when discussing living “outside the box”, he asked “What the hell is a box?”

When he bought the condos there was no way of telling how long this depression would last. He managed to rent most of them out to pay the mortgages.

Growing up he carried out completey original Halloween jokes, such as putting a loaded manure spreader behind his pickup truck and putting the machine in motion while driving down a busy shopping street. That actually got him a night in jail. However, he became close buddies with the parole officer.

As a farmer getting poor service from the local machinery tire dealer, he decided to import his own from Korea (a novelty then) and established a successful Hankook tire retail business with good service. His son now runs the place.

His cars? First one a 1952 Buick Special, then a 1957 Lincoln, followed by a 1963 Mercury, 1970 Thunderbird, a series of Cadillacs, and of course a Harley Davidson motorcycle.

He built his own luxurious “log cabin”, not liking the houses everyone was buying.

At his funeral he was remembered for “his generosity and his sense of humor”. I wish to be that lucky.

Hats off. A rare one.

@same‌mountainbike
A few years back, the best complement I ever got was from a ten year old boy while shopping at the mall when my hair was a little long. He wanted my autograph because he thought I was Dennis Eckersly. No matter how much I said I wasn’t, he still insisted I was. My wife started laughing like no tomorrow. So I signed my first name (real) and Eckersly for my last and told him I was his brother. There, everyone is happy. Now I look like Eck’s dad…he gets no older. I have to find his make up man. My wife once kidded me that I looked like Tom Selleck, from a long distance, walking away in a snow storm. My wife is a wise A .

@Docnick‌, sounds like a great guy. Thanks for the stories.

Unfortunately, I’ve never borne any resemblance to anyone who’s ever been famous.
Sigh…

I’ve always wondered how Hugh Hefner did it. He has always been as ugly as the day is long, yet he built an empire living “the dream”. He made a fortune by actually living the life that many men tried to make fortunes doing other things in order TO live. He’s clearly not in line for sainthood, but you gotta give him kudos.

Hugh Hefner rebelled against the 50s straight laced US lifestyle. He was the son of a methodist minister, and believed more in a French style of living than a Midwestern US one.The French sort of wondered what the fuss was all about; girls on French beaches wore way less clothes than the “bunnies”. In England, John Cleese and his Monty Python group rebelled against stiff upper lip British Middle Class life. John himself had an “oh so proper” Middle Class upbringing.

Unknowingly, Hefner pioneered the 60 & 70s sexual revolution. But he did it in style; no unkempt hippy lifestyle for him.

You might say Hefner was a social change agent, like the Smothers Brothers and their TV show; the first group ever to publicly make fun of the president of the USA, and get away with it. Then came Laugh-In which spoofed the Vietnam war and ran the “Pat Paulson for President” line.

Hefner was also a good businessman and had to move with the times. If you visit a Playboy Club today you feel in a timewarp; the bunnies are definitely overdressed compared to most night club waitresses and performers. On commentator described the lifestyle & philosopy as “A Midwestern Methodist’s idea of sin”, which is exactly what it was.

The Hefner philosophy was about sexual freedom for men mostly. It’s ironic that his daughter, a good business head as well, now runs the show. Christine Hefner would not be caught dead in the bunny costume.

I’m surprised that Paulson didn’t win his first 3 elections. His competition was…

1968: Nixon and Humphrey
1972: Nixon and McGovern ( the official used car dealer’ election). Did you vote for the crook or the idiot?
1976: Ford and Carter

Well in 68 Humphrey (Minnesota) had taken a pro war stance and Nixon said he’d get us out. Little did we know that Nixon actually lengthened the war so he could end it. Humphrey would have been good but his war stance was a deal breaker.

In 72, we were for McGovern from South Dakota. He was a very well respected statesman as his funeral attested to. True he wasn’t a very good businessman and he later admitted he was wrong on some of his anti-business stances.

I guess in 76 we were just looking for a change, and boy did we get it. From the frying pan into the fire. What an incredible idiot and is still gumming up the works. Not unlike today where we wanted change but not this kind of change.

Speaking of Hugh Hefner . . .

While I’ve never met the man, he seems like the kind of person that would rub me the wrong way

He seems like a jerk to me

But I acknowledge the man is a marketing genius

But Doc, how did a guy so ugly get all those gorgeous women to go along?

It was Christie Hefner that made the dramatic changes to Playboy after she became President in 1982. She closed the clubs (which were by them unprofitable), pulled the content back from the hard-core that it had become, introduced Playboy to modern technology (or perhaps introduced modern technology to Playboy), and brought Playboy Enterprises back from the brink of bankruptcy. Playboy was the victim of its own success as well as emerging technology. It’s content was no longer Avant-guard, and nudity, even porn, became much more available via the internet. Christie Hefner stepped down as CEO about a decade ago. The organization is a shadow of what her dad created, but she did make it at least profitable.

Db, I believe he’s become an anachronism, a mid-20th century man living a mid-20th century dream in the 21st century. I respect his achievements, but I don’t think of him as brilliant, only as a very lucky man who was born in the perfect place at the perfect time for his beliefs. Throw in a bit of luck and the courage to be open and honest, and the formula for mid-20th century success was complete. The irony is that he has probably done far more for women’s rights and equality than both Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda put together.

wow. mountain. in my humble opinion, playboy opened the gates for hustler and other porn. and while playboy isn t horrible, per say, that other stuff is horrible. very destructive to women and men.

porn is a bad word ?

never mind it s not starred out now