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D: None of the Above

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Pixabay photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

The federal government? Yeah, of course. Heavy eye roll, shake of the head, shrug of the shoulders, palms to the sky and deep sigh. Oh, I almost forgot: quick puff of air directed upwards that lifts any hair hanging near a forehead.

No doubt the powerful tandem of Tesla creator Elon Musk and primary disruptor and climate change minimizer Vivek Ramaswamy will find plenty of ways to increase the efficiency and cut the budget from the federal government. I’m sure they will to trim redundant functions, shrink bureaucracy and cut costs, turning the behemoth into a well-oiled machine, filled with productive, engaged and excited workers and a smooth outward-facing electronic interface that enables quick and effective engagement between the people and their government.

But, hey, after the two weeks it takes to fix everything — okay, maybe it’ll take a bit longer — the tandem may be looking for other outlets for their efficiency efforts. I have a few suggestions.

Now, for the list:

— The DMV. I have interacted with some amazingly efficient and even accommodating workers at the DMV. Still, any time I go there, I recognize that I might spend several hours or more only to have to return again.

— Doctor’s offices. Regardless of whether the Affordable Care Act changes, is revised or becomes something new, doctor’s offices are also not brimming with efficiency, particularly regarding time. These visits are not predictable exchanges, in which doctors know exactly how long each diagnosis will take. Still, waiting for a doctor can take the good part of a morning or afternoon.

— Airlines: It’s hard to come up with just one area that could use help here. Just try getting an actual person on the phone. But it seems especially aggravating when the airport doesn’t have available gates when we land. We have sat on tarmacs for close to an hour while pilots apologize to those people with connecting flights. How could the plane’s arrival be that much of a surprise? Didn’t the airline share the list of flights and approximate landing times? 

— Shopping. Here’s some inefficiency. We put everything in a cart, to take it out so we can pay, and then put it back in the cart. Wouldn’t it be easier if solar powered smart carts auto scanned products that we put in the cart and then wheeled directly to our cars? 

— Trimming movies. Let’s face it: some of these movies are good, but just don’t hold our attention for the entire film. After the EV treatment, they could cut these films from over two hours to under an hour and a half or even under an hour. Maybe artificial intelligence could help determine which scenes become tedious and nonessential to the plot. The Liam Neeson film “Taken,” for example, is a 93-minute film that packs quite a few punches without dragging.

— Awards shows. Pick an award show, any show. It’s typically too long. Emcees of these shows often lengthen the shows by talking about how long they are or how far behind they’ve fallen. The EV treatment could turn the Academy Awards into a tidy 90 minutes or less. We might miss a few of the oddball sketches or interviews, but speeding things up could get the guests to their after parties more quickly and could help people determine whose predictions were the most accurate.

— Breaking up. Yes, it’s hard to do, but with the EV approach, they might go beyond the “it’s-not-you-it’s-me” routine to something truly special and reassuring that also doesn’t take too much time or emotional effort. Surely they can turn the process of the on-again, off-again relationship into an opportunity for both people to move on and live their lives.

— Fall leaves. Every year, leaves fall on yards, creating work for homeowners, superintendents and landscapers. Perhaps the efficiency tandem could create a leaf attractant system that pulls the leaves into a pile. Then again, the mix of orange, yellow, red and brown on the ground offers an artistic, pleasing and unique array of colors. Maybe not everything needs greater efficiency.

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METRO photo

By Daniel Dunaief

My wife and I have visited with another couple, whom I’ll call Ben and Jill, several times through the years. We’ve attended sporting events and chatted at meals in different cities.

They are both pleasant and agreeable and seem pleased to reconnect with us each time.

Recently, we had an unhurried dinner where the stories went from the routine to the sublime.

Jill is worried about her second son, who is working incredibly long hours and doesn’t seem to have much, or any, work-life balance.

Her husband Ben, who is in a similar line of work to their son, worked incredibly long hours in the first years of their marriage, too.

Indeed, back in his day, Ben would work all day, come home to take a shower while a car service waited outside and then would return to work, without so much as a meal or a rest.

“I wasn’t as worried about Ben,” she said, as she spent her waking hours taking care of three children who required her considerable attention.

Like many other parents of children in the 30-ish range, Jill is eagerly waiting for her oldest son, who has been in a relationship for years, has purchased a house with his girlfriend and shares custody of a dog, to take those next steps that would not only net her a daughter-in-law but would also bring her grandchildren.

“Honestly,” she shrugged, “I thought I’d be a grandparent by now.”

Speaking of grandparents and grandchildren, Jill shared that her grandfather died last year at the age of 105.

Doing quick math, I realized that he was born the year before the Spanish Influenza of 1919 and died after the end of Covid, which means that he was one of probably a select few who lived through two pandemics in different centuries.

He had served in World War II in Washington state as a code breaker and was a widower for the last few decades of his life.

When her grandfather was 90, he needed heart surgery. Doctors wouldn’t normally perform such a procedure on a 90-year old, but they said he was much more like a typical, healthy 80 year-old.

They put a device in his heart that was supposed to last 10 years. When her grandfather reached 101, the device faltered and he had sepsis. This, the family thought, could be the end of his long life. He rebounded, however, and lived another four years, enduring vision limited in part by reduced visits to the ophthalmologist during Covid.

The conversation turned to baseball, as Ben and Jill are avid Mets fans.

I told them my memories from Game 6 of the 1986 World Series, when I was living in the Boston area and was surrounded by giddy Red Sox fans on the verge of their first championship since 1918.

Ben’s eyes lit up and he told us that he and Jill attended Game 7 of that series.

No, they hadn’t purchased tickets. They knew two people who had worked at Shea Stadium as vendors, but hadn’t worked in a while. They borrowed their vendor badges, which didn’t have their names or pictures on them, arrived at Shea two hours before the game started, and casually walked through the gate.

When they sat down in left field seats, a security guard asked them what they were doing there and they said they worked at the ice cream vendor in left field. The security guard informed them that there were no ice cream vendors in that area. They considered leaving, but instead hid in a stair well until the crowds came in.

They found an usher who allowed them to sit on the concrete steps — empty seats were unlikely in a winner-take-all game — and watched the Mets come back to clinch the title.

Whenever anyone asks Ben to share something people don’t know about him, he relates the story of their bold and successful effort to watch live the last Mets team to win a World Series.

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Pixabay photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

Many people had an enormous stake in the election.

Beyond the policies, the ideas, the rallies and all the other hoopla around the hotly contested Election of 2024, people contributed significant amounts of money to back their favorite candidate or candidates.

OpenSecrets predicted that the 2024 federal election cycle would be the costliest on record, at $15.9 billion.

That’s a lot of advertisements funded by people who felt compelled to offer their financial support to candidates they thought would be the best for them, their counties, their states and the country.

So, what did we get for all that money?

Well, for starters, we had advertisements that decried the unqualified or awful nature of the other candidate. Sure, I suppose there’s some value in that.

But as a die-hard Yankees fan — a fitting phrase this year after the Bronx Bombers committed the kind of errors my son described as U8 mistakes — I’m not sure I’d want my team to spend so much time and effort trash talking, beating up or insulting their opponents.

Yes, I get it. Sports and politics aren’t the same, and yet, we the fans, supporters and general public invest in people in these arenas, hoping for the best from them.

Talking about how bad the competition is doesn’t make you better. It can scare people into voting for you, I suppose, but that doesn’t seem like a particularly honorable way to win. It also doesn’t set the tone for our children, who watch these advertisements or hear the words from would-be political leaders and wonder why they should exercise restraint on the playground after they’ve heard political leaders call each other names or insult each other. 

I suppose all those horrible words and a readiness to “fight” is far preferable to the historic human way of changing government regimes. In previous generations and in non-democratic societies, people shed blood to create a new government or bring in new leaders.

In theory, every four years, We the People can go to the ballot box and alter the direction of the country with our vote.

That brings me back to the money. Beyond the contribution to our candidate, what do we get back for the money we spend?

To borrow from Wall Street, what’s the return on our investment? Can we ask to speak with some of these leaders? Can we send ideas to improve the way government works?

No matter who wins any election, that person has a duty and responsibility to represent everyone, including those people who didn’t vote for them and their adversaries in the election cycle. The once and future president, whether he likes it or not, represents his constituents and his adversaries.

Getting elected doesn’t just give them power: it places enormous responsibility on their shoulders.

They came to us, electronic palms outstretched, asking for money and we gave it to them, despite concerns about our economic future, our desire to save for ourselves and our children and our need to invest in ourselves.

How else could we have spent that money? Could we have taken classes that enabled us to find other jobs? Could we have sent that money to charity to provide for the basic needs of people who are struggling to survive?

Now that donations helped fill many of those seats, those politicians, on day one, should make sure they listen to people, should affect positive changes and policies, and should work to ensure that they reward the public with effective leadership.

Let’s hope that money backed the right candidates, which can and should benefit the entire country.

Is it too much to ask that, one day, we all see a reasonable return on these investments?

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Pixabay photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

I recently attended a wonderful 65th birthday celebration for Jeff that included his wife, children and their significant others and his 90-something father.

As I looked across the table at Jeff, who was sitting beneath large helium balloons with the number 65, I thought about how remarkably young he looked and about these kinds of celebrations for him throughout the years.

“What’s your first birthday memory?” I asked through the festive noises around us in a crowded Queens restaurant.

He recalled how his parents bought him a glow-in-the-dark skeleton costume, which he not only got to wear on his birthday with his friends, but also several days later on Halloween. 

The costume party-birthday party combination worked so well for him that he had similar such festivities over the years.

In fact, many years later, I attended one of his birthday parties in which he asked people to come dressed as one of his favorite things. Several people dressed as M&M’s, one came as a bottle of ketchup and I dressed as Yoda, reflecting his love for Star Wars.

As with any other day, birthday memories are not only festive and joyful, but can also involve the same kinds of feelings that reside in the brains of the characters in the Pixar movie “Inside Out.”

“I vividly remember steering a ferry, sitting on a fire truck and sounding the horn on a train in the same day!” said Michael, who was four during this momentous event.

Benji, meanwhile, ran around in costume outside for one of his early birthdays. Born in the spring, he wondered whether he, like Jeff, should have been born closer to Halloween.

Every year since she was three, Heidi enjoyed her mom’s home cooked noodles and meatballs with string beans, followed by a Friendly’s Jubilee Roll. She always wished for a Palomino horse and was happy to live later in life on a farm that boarded horses in Nissequogue.

Speaking of horses, Mandi, who is a twin, recalls having ponies come to her house during an early birthday. Her pony stopped to drink and her mother said, “You can lead a horse to water…” At the time, Mandi didn’t know what that meant.  Amid the pleasant parts of her birthday, she also recalled hating that she was born in July, which meant she couldn’t bring cupcakes to school.

Some people weren’t sure whether they remembered particular events around their birthdays or whether they had turned the pictures they have seen over the years and the stories they heard into a virtual, story-driven memory.

Rebecca recalled her fourth and fifth birthday confabs at a gymnastics studio, where she raced around over and through various gymnastics apparatuses.

Greg recalled having extensive birthday plans outdoors. Rain, however, prevented him from bringing everyone outside. He recalled pressing his nose against the screen door, looking out at the raindrops that altered his plans.

Larry recalled a first or second grade party when he had a cake shaped and decorated as a train engine. Before the group sang happy birthday, he plucked off the Lifesaver wheels. “Mom scolded me and I was upset during the whole party,” he remembered.

Julia shared how her brother tortured her at every birthday celebration, diminishing the enjoyment of the gathering.

Some people struggled to recall any of their earlier birthday parties.

Jill’s earliest birthday party memory was of her fifth grade celebration, when her mom made a pink and green alligator cake, reflecting the IZOD phase of life, and she went roller skating.

Sue, who works in a supermarket, remembered a part when she turned 12. Her parents invited her girlfriends over and they made soup for dinner and cake for dessert. The girls stayed up late, playing and chatting long into the evening.

Megan sat around the dining room table after dinner and had cake with her immediate family, who sang to her. At around seven, she got a host of presents and remembered receiving pens, which she really wanted, among the gifts.

Rachel, meanwhile, enjoyed two backyard barbecues each year: one with her friends and one with family and family friends.

Adam enjoyed a sports birthday party that his considerably older cousin and his cousin’s close friend ran at a local gym, where he wore a sports jersey and played basketball and deck hockey.

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MetroCreative Photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

My wife and I have been voting early for several years. We like the convenience of early voting and find that we don’t tend to have to wait too long through the potential long lines of Election Day.

This election day, in particular, seemed problematic to us, as talk of unofficial and party-trained monitors, some of whom are watching over the elections themselves while others are observing the actions of other monitors, are poised to pollute the process.

We drove to the early site, looking carefully from the road at the number of cars in the parking lot and the length of the line out of the building.

If the line exceeded a certain visual marker, we would have returned at another day and time. When we were sure the queue was shorter than our maximum, we pulled into the parking lot, where we immediately found a spot.

Standing outside in an organized, relaxed and respectful crowd, we opened our phones to take a last look at the backgrounds of some of the down ballot candidates and at the experiences of would-be officials who were unaffiliated with either major party.

An elderly black woman appeared behind us, holding a tiny bijou cream-colored dog inside her coat.

“I hope that dog has an official ID,” I offered, as she smiled at me. “Which way is she leaning this year?”

The woman shared a broad and welcoming grin and said her dog’s papers were up to date.

As other voters joined the line or exited the polling place, several people came over and chatted with her about her dog.

“I miss my dog so much,” a man said, as he asked if he could pet her puppy.

She said he was welcome to visit.

“I lost my dog a few months after I lost my wife,” the man said, barely holding back tears.

The rest of us offered sympathetic glances at the man, who, despite sharing a palpable and visible grief, had come out to vote.

The line continued to build, with a 30-something man in scrubs standing next to the woman with the dog.

As others waited for their turn behind us, almost everyone grinned at the dog whose calm demeanor and charm could easily have won him votes if he were running for office.

Once inside the building, the election official with a name tag that read Sarah asked a woman to dispose of an almost empty drink container in the nearby restroom. Sarah promised to hold the woman’s spot, while the voter deposited her trash.

When my wife and I got to the front, Sarah asked the woman behind us if her dog was a service dog. The woman hesitated and then said she had a bad ankle and would have to carry the dog all the way back to the car.

Sarah apologized and also planned to hold her spot. I walked to the open check in desk, handed over my driver’s license and was asked to pronounce my last name. I was directed to another line, where I waited until another official took me to a voting machine.

The woman who returned her dog to her car was standing at a desk. She said she had considered describing her dog as a service animal, but thought better of lying.

Once at a voting machine, I started making my choices.

“Kamala Harris, Kamala Harris, Kamala Harris,” a Black girl who was about 10 years old shouted in a loud crescendo as her mother stood in the machine next to mine.

“So sorry,” her mother sighed, smiling at me, as she tried to contain her daughter’s excitement.

This young girl clearly didn’t share any of the fear, name calling, or anger of this election. She read a name she knew and was overflowing with unbridled enthusiasm.

As a parent, I wished I had told that woman to videotape her daughter’s delight, not only for the historic nature of the moment, but also to capture the sound of an enthralled, youthful voice.

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SBU's Elizabeth Watson, second from right, and her team coring.

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

I used to liken the process to sitting on a highway divider where the speed limit was 70 miles per hour, holding a notebook and trying to read and record as many license plates as I could, sometimes in the pouring rain, under a bright sun, or in thick fog.

Working for a wire service, with its 24-hour news feed and its endless space for stories, was exhilarating and exhausting. My editors sometimes called me at 4 a.m. to tell me about an important story that was breaking and to encourage me to come into the office to get to work.

Oh, and every three months, when the companies I covered reported earnings, I’d arrive at work for at least a week around 7 in the morning, wait for the numbers to come out, and then spend the day reading the reports, talking with analysts and investors, getting on media conference calls with top executives and watching the stock price of the company rise and fall.

My job was to search through all that information to anticipate how people would react to piles of electronic news.

It was a great opportunity to write on deadline and to experience the absurd. One day, I helped write a few headlines and then had to use the bathroom. As I pushed the door open, my editor, following uncomfortably closely behind me, hovered.

“Can I help you?” I asked, as I stopped and turned around.

“Yeah, how long are you going to be in here?” he asked in his usual staccato, urgent tone.

“As long as it takes,” I shrugged.

“Yeah, well, there’s a headline out there and you need to send out the first version of the story within 15 minutes,” he reminded me, as if I didn’t know our rules.

“I know,” I said, “and I’m sure my system will comply with the requirements.”

Those were tough days at the office.

I’m sure everyone has difficult days at work, whether it’s a police officer dealing with someone who is in an altered, drug-induced state who may be a danger to himself or others, a teacher helping a high-stress student prepare for a standardized test, a truck driver taking a long detour around a crash site, or any of the many other possible strains or obstacles between the start of the day and the workload.

Recently, I spoke with several climate scientists who are a part of the Science on Stage free celebration at Stony Brook University’s Staller Center, which is coming up on October 28th at 4 p.m. (see related story in the Arts & Lifestyles section).

These scientists endure everything from creature discomforts, to resistance to the work they’re doing, to their own deadlines and the need to conduct their studies, publish their results and apply for funding.

Indeed, Elizabeth Watson, Associate Professor in the Department of Ecology & Evolution at Stony Brook University, shared several challenging moments.

“I’ve gotten stuck in the mud, covered with ticks, I’ve gotten Lyme, crawled across mudflats, pushed boats across mudflats, had to row our power boat back to the launch ramp more than once, [and] got forgotten about on a raft in a lagoon,” Watson wrote in an email.

Each of those challenges could have become the focal point of action for a biopic about a scientist.

Heather Lynch, Professor in the Department of Ecology & Evolution, explained that her research on penguins in Antarctica requires considerable advanced planning.

“The main challenge of working in Antarctica is really the uncertainty imposed by the weather and logistics,” she explained in an email. “It’s not enough to have Plan B, it’s more like Plan B through Plan F and then some. Covid and now avian flu have made an already difficult situation even harder.”

Still, at their most challenging moments, waiting for the weather to change, hoping someone will remember to pick them up, or living without creature comforts, these researchers find joy and derive satisfaction in doing valuable and constructive work.

“I’m like a bricklayer, adding more bricks to an enormous wall of knowledge that was started long before I started working on penguins and will continue to be built long after,” Lynch wrote.

Or, to put it another way, Watson wrote that “I love my job! No regrets.”

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METRO photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

Back in the day when I covered Wall Street and spoke with power-broking bankers, mergers and acquisitions experts, and traders, I often chatted with people who had little to no time.

As often as I could, I’d catch someone in the midst of an exciting transaction. I pictured them standing at their desks, staring at papers, looking closely at the clock, and envisioning various life or community-altering transactions, such as multi-billion dollar mergers.

The information would be even better, of course, if other journalists hadn’t yet heard the news, giving me the chance to be first.

Some of my sources would share juicy tidbits, about a company, a strategic move, or a new hire. The cadence of their voice was often quick and clipped and the tone was close to a conspiratorial whisper, with the volume inversely proportional to the importance of the developing story.

They would often be eager to get off the phone so they could continue to rule the world, to collect multi-million dollar fees and to prepare to help other companies keep up with the fast-merging world by moving other pieces on the financial chess board.

A few seconds after sharing the final details, they would invariably use a two word signal that meant that the conversation, whether I liked it or not, was ending.

“Gotta hop!” they’d say. It was a universally understood code for, “I’m not hanging up on you, per se, but those are the last sounds you’ll hear from me on this call.”

During busy days on Wall Street, I’d picture investment bankers in expensive suits, hopping on one foot from building to building, keeping one leg in the air as they frantically finalized details and collected signatures.

Once they reached their destination, I imagined them putting the non-hopping leg down comfortably on the ground, while massaging the one that propelled them around the lower part of Manhattan.

Wall Street hasn’t cornered the market on signals that a conversation is coming to a close.

People in the Main Street world say they “gotta run.”

Sometimes, out of politeness, someone will indicate that he or she has another important call coming in that’s related to the topic at hand.

In more personal and familiar settings, my friends and family have various codes that suggest they are preparing to end a conversation.

An audible sigh is usually the equivalent of, “okay, let’s wrap things up here.”

Then, there’s the long, slow version of “alright,” which suggests that, fun as this conversation might have been, it’s time to end the call.

I appreciate the moment when people appear to want to be sensitive to me when they’re ready to disengage. That typically includes some version of, “I’m gonna let you get back to work or whatever it is you’re doing” when, more often than not, they have to return to something.

Of course, I have been on the other side of this disengagement effort, when someone who is on a long drive is not only eager for company but is also prepared to share, stream-of-consciousness style, everything they see and comment on the driving skills of everyone around them.

“What is that red car thinking?” they’ll ask. “Did you see that?”

“No, you see, the way the phone works, I can only hear your voice. I’m not looking through a body worn camera at the road ahead of you, but I’m sure the red car did something stupid and it’s great that you’re such a skilled defensive driver.”

I sometimes try to wrap up these calls with something like, “well, it’s been nice chatting with you.”

“Yes,” they’ll reply. “It’s nice chatting with you, too. So, what do you think of the presidential election?”

“Oh, um, I think it’s a good idea every four years or so. More often than that would become too hectic and stressful for the country.”

“No, I mean, what are your top 15 issues for the election this year.”

“I’d love to share them with you, but I have to hop and I want to give you a chance to get back to driving and someone is waiting to take a run with me, so, I’m gonna go.”

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Pixabay photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

My Aunt Maxine had Down syndrome, which means she was mentally disabled.

In so many ways, Maxine and her life defied expectations and labels.

When Maxine was born, doctors told my grandparents that she wouldn’t likely live long, so they should consider putting her in an institution.

My grandparents couldn’t imagine being away from their daughter. They took Maxine home to the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where they raised and educated her.

As she grew up, Maxine was on the shorter side, at under five feet tall, and carried the youthful, round face of Down syndrome throughout her life.

She also had facial hair that my grandmother, mother and caregivers regularly trimmed.

My aunt lacked any self-consciousness about who she was, what she was, and how she related to the world. She figured everyone was as ready to love her and interact with her as she was with them.

More often than not, she smiled, offering an energetic and enthusiastic nod whenever anyone made eye contact. Plenty of people avoided looking at her in part because she was different and, in part, because she lived in New York and the rules of sidewalk engagement limited eye contact.

When people didn’t notice or engage with her, she kept walking, singing, talking to herself, chatting with her parents or the rest of us, or whistling, which she could do by inhaling and exhaling.

She lived at a higher decibel level. Her whisper was even louder than her normal speaking voice.

“What?” she’d whisper so loudly that it could be heard in the back row of a movie theater. “You want me to be quiet? Is that what you’re telling me?”

“Yes, shhhh.”

“Don’t shush me!” she’d say, her husky whisper, like her husky voice, becoming louder and indignant.

“Sorry, Macky,” I’d say. “People are trying to watch the movie. Can you watch it, too?”

“Oh, yes, yes, yes,” she’d say, nodding vigorously. “I’ll be quiet. I will. I’ll be quiet. If that’s what you want, I can be quiet. Sure, suuuuure!”

She was spectacularly funny and knew introductions were an opportunity for comedy.

“Who is this young lady?” she’d ask anyone who walked in the door in our house. The person could be anywhere from six to 96 and she’d ask the same thing.

“How old are you?” she’d ask.

No matter the answer, she’d suggest the person was a “lovely” young lady.

“What’s your name?” she’d ask.

When the person said her name, she’d say “what” several times and then ask the person to spell it. When she slowed our guest down repeatedly and asked her to say it again, the guest would shout.

“Hey, what are you yelling for? I can hear you. Not so loud. You’re hurting my ears.”

She’d squint and a smile would fill her face as she’d scan the room, knowing the old routine had hit the mark.

More than anything else, though, Maxine was compassionate, emotionally connected, loving and supportive.

She would sing the Star Spangled Banner when she listened to Robert Merrill on the radio before a Yankees game.

“It’s so beautiful,” she’d say, as she blew her nose and wiped her eyes.

I suspect many other Americans have an aunt, sibling, distant relative, friend or neighbor for whom labels mean even less than the totality of their lives, the winsome nature of their personality, and the triumphs that define their days.

Hearing anyone use the term “disabled” as a take down misses the point, particularly for those who seek to be the country’s leader.

Maxine required but also taught a level of patience. In exchange, our family and friends appreciated her joy of life and basked in her unconditioned positive regard. She wouldn’t have resented or hated others, wouldn’t have insulted individuals or a group and would have forgiven anyone who made a mistake.

Perhaps some day, those who use words like “mental disability” as a way to dismiss others or to cast others aside will think of the Maxines of the world. We can learn so much from others whose lives are different from ours and who aren’t trying to use words to project an image, to cut others down, or to suggest that someone is limited.

I can picture Maxine sitting in a chair next to me, tilting her head and looking at me from the side.

“You’re such a silly goose,” she’d laugh.

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Pixabay photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

I’m getting messages every day and, often, several times a day. I must be really important.

As with snail mail, those messages could be delivering something extraordinary.

“We are writing to inform you that you’ve won a Pulitzer Prize, despite the fact that you haven’t entered anything and we haven’t yet created an extraordinarily average category.”

Or, perhaps, “we wanted to let you know that your cells are healthier than they’ve ever been and that you should keep up the good work. We’d like to study you to learn how your body is performing better than we’d expect for someone half your age.”

Then, of course, there are the realistic possibilities.

“Hey, want to go to dinner with us this weekend?”

That’s a nice message to receive from a friend or family member.

My son believes brevity is the soul of wit when it comes to messages so he’ll just write “Judge!!!!” or “Soto!!!!” or some combination of Yankee players who have performed well that day.

The most frequent messages I’m receiving are the ones from would-be political leaders, their pals, and other prominent supporters who not only want my vote, but also want me to contribute money.

I’d like to think these messages, with my name at the top, were written personally by these important people, who took the time out of their day to reach out to me.

“You know who I haven’t written to recently? Daniel Dunaief. I’ll just give him a holler to gauge his thoughts on one of the more important races.”

But, no, I know they’re not personal missives, just as I know Siri isn’t graciously saying “You’re welcome” even though she’s programmed to show appreciation in her chipper voice when I thank her.

Still, these messages have morphed from a nuisance into something else. In the frenzy and excitement of consequential races, these communiques are filled with fear and hope, often in that order. In a few short sentences, they tell me what’s at stake, what role I can play, and how these leaders will spend my money wisely.

Wouldn’t that be nice? If we donated to a campaign, wouldn’t it be great to see how our money, specifically, helped someone, as in, “this yard sign made possible by your moderately generous donation.”

If you’ve ever watched the show “Seinfeld,” George Costanza, played by Jason Alexander, suggests that he grows on people, the way ad jingles do. He is like an advertisement for Mennen deodorant. At first, you can’t stand the “byyyy Mennen” sound, but you find yourself singing it in the shower or humming it in the car.

Maybe, in some way, this unprecedented barrage of seemingly personal text messages has become like those jingles.

To be honest, I don’t read them carefully. I do, however, appreciate the earnestness with which someone sends them and I recognize that something consequential is about to happen.

Maybe it’s a bit like the December holidays. The anticipation of November 5th is exciting, even if the event itself might be lacking.

The reality of the election feels more like a gift certificate to a restaurant that serves a combination of my least favorite foods, all deep fried in a type of grease that triggers an allergic response. The election itself, as I see it, will likely have echoes from 2020, with lawyers and politicians exerting themselves, insisting that their candidate won for days or weeks after Nov. 5th.

An early riser, I grin when the message arrives an hour or so after I’ve gotten up and the person with the morning message apologizes for writing so early.

Really? Because you’re not actually sending the message and the machine that blasts them could pick any time in the day to release this particular text.

With all the money flowing into these campaigns, I wonder if the country invested all the cash both sides collected and put it in a certificate of deposit or a Treasury Bill and created scholarships, what kind of opportunities could we offer future students who one day might want to run for office.

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Pixabay photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

I hadn’t been to Los Angeles in over 30 years. On our trip last week, I traveled with my wife, worked remotely, visited with our nephew, and purchased tickets to attend my first home Dodgers game.

During a visit that only lasted a few days, my wife and I stayed on Eastern Standard Time, which meant we were awake between 5:30 and 6:30 a.m. local time and were at work by 7 a.m..

My wife walked across a street to her office and I sat at a desk on the 17th floor of a hotel, laptop in front of me with my cell phone at the ready.

At around 7:30 a.m. on Thursday, I felt as if the desk in front of me were shaking.

At first, I figured it had to be some neurological quirk. After all, the older I get, the more inexplicable my sometimes random body signals are to me.

When the desk shook a second time, I made an announcement to the empty room.

“That’s an earthquake!” I declared, as if naming it and knowing what it was gave me some small measure of control. I walked around in circles and wondered what I should grab, where I should go, and what I should do.

I knew my wife was in meetings that morning, but called her immediately anyway.

She picked up in that hushed tone she uses when she’s on a phone or a zoom call.

“What’s happening?” she whispered.

“Did you feel the earthquake?” I asked. “What are you doing about it over there?”

“Earthquake? What earthquake? No,” she said, as she quickly typed into her computer.

Sure enough, within seconds of the quake, she had found something online confirming the event.

“What do you want to do?” she asked. 

I was staring out the window, which probably isn’t the right place to go, and watched people casually walking along the sidewalk, cars navigating through crowded streets and birds flying between the buildings.

“I’m going to call the lobby,” I said. I told her I’d get back to her immediately if there was anything we should do.

“Hi,” I stammered, “is this the front desk?”

“Yes,” the woman said. “How can I help you?”

“I’m on the 17th floor and I just felt an earthquake,” I announced.

Silence. I suspect the woman in the lobby was thinking something along the lines of, “You’re not from around these parts, are you?”

“What should I do?” I asked.

“Oh,” she sighed. “Well, if you’re worried or if things are falling from the ceiling, you can take shelter.”

“Shelter? Where? What should I do?”

“You can go under your desk or wait in a door frame. We also have a communication system on every floor and we can let you know if you need to evacuate.”

“So, what do I do?” I asked again.

“Whatever makes you comfortable,” she sighed. “Can I help you with anything else?”

“No,” I said, hanging up the phone. I grabbed my wallet, put on my shoes, and made sure I had everything I might need. I stood in the middle of the room in earthquake sensing mode. I had become a human seismometer, with my arms out, my feet spread apart and my palms pointing down to sense any vibrations.

I kept checking online, where I read coverage of an earthquake that didn’t seem to have caused any damage.

My wife and I traded texts and decided to continue working.

Later that day, we discussed the quake with friends and strangers, triggering all kinds of stories about earlier quakes and the ones people felt at different times.

I’m sure people in New York don’t hear honking taxis, people in the southeastern United States barely register screeching cicadas, and people in Phoenix somehow adjust to the searing heat.

I don’t think I’ll ever be enough of a Californian or a would-be Californian not to worry about the Earth moving under my feet.

Oh, and I did get to the Dodgers game the night before. The stadium was magnificent, the sushi was remarkably good, and the fans were delighted by the other-worldly performance of Shohei Ohtani, who crushed a home run and stole a base. 

The explosive sounds of a thrilled crowd of close to 50,000, the excitement of people jumping out of their seats, and the celebratory flashing lights were far more familiar than the shaking desk I felt the next morning.

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