If you’ve got some time to kill…
As some of you know, I’ve been writing a professional blog, Minding the Workplace, for over six years. A lot of the material is heavier stuff, looking at employee relations, workplace bullying, employment law, psychological health at work, and so on. But on occasion I’ve written pieces with a lighter touch that may be of interest to readers here. I thought I’d dig into the archives of that blog and share a few of them:
Taking stock at midlife: Time for reading assignments? (2014) — “So, in the absence of these colleges for 40-year-olds (and beyond), how can we think and reflect upon our lives to date, our lives right now, and our lives to come? For those who, like me, sometimes turn to good books for guidance, let me introduce a thick anthology, Leading Lives That Matter: What We Should Do and Who We Should Be (2006), co-edited by Mark R. Schwehn & Dorothy C. Bass, both of Valparaiso University, my undergraduate alma mater.”
What now, not what if (2013) — “Currently stored on my DVR are a PBS program and a National Geographic docudrama about President Kennedy, both produced to coincide with the 50th anniversary of his assassination. Although I’m a devotee of history, I have a feeling that I won’t be watching them….That lesson was reinforced to me in Stephen King’s 2011 time travel epic, 11/22/63, which takes us back to the years leading up to the assassination of President Kennedy.”
The perils and pleasures of nostalgia, even about work?! (2013) — I get especially nostalgic about two work experiences. The first was my initial year as a Legal Aid lawyer in Manhattan, following my graduation from NYU’s law school….My second nostalgic focus: Returning to NYU after six years of legal practice as an instructor in its innovative first-year Lawyering Program….Both clusters of memories, however, gloss over the fact that I was years away from discovering my true passions as a teacher, scholar, and advocate. I was clueless about a lot of things, and not exactly on the leading edge of emotional maturity.”
August 1982: Next Stop, Greenwich Village (2012) — “This month, I find myself particularly nostalgic over events of 30 years ago, when I moved from Hammond, Indiana to New York City to begin law school at New York University, located in the heart of Greenwich Village. This was a pretty big deal for me. Although I had benefited greatly from a semester abroad in England during college at Valparaiso University, I was far from worldly and had never been to New York City before applying to NYU….Within a few days of my arrival, I would start classes in Vanderbilt Hall, the main law school building, on the southwest corner of Washington Square….”
Collegiate reflections: Studying the liberal arts (2012); Collegiate reflections: Working on the campus newspaper (2012) — “With Commencement season coming to a close at colleges and universities across the nation, I beg my readers’ indulgence as I use a short series of posts to reflect upon my own collegiate experience….”
Ch-ch-ch-changes: Some books to guide toward good transitions (2012) — As we turn the calendar to a New Year, I wanted to gather together some recommended titles for those who are engaged in or contemplating a major work or personal transition….If you’re in the midst of big changes, these books may prove a worthy investment in terms of your livelihood and well-being. I hope you find them helpful.
Does life begin at 46? (2010) — “Conventional wisdom, according to research, is wrong. True, we start off our adulthoods pretty happy and become increasingly disenchanted as middle age approaches. However, our outlook then gets better as we age. The Economist cites research studies to back up its proposition, overcoming the presumption that this is more Boomer-inspired babble about how 60 is the new 40.”
Embracing creative dreams at midlife (2010) — “Dreams die hard is something of an old chestnut, but having entered the heart of midlife, I am thankful that this often is true. I think especially of creative energies waiting to be tapped and unleashed, perhaps after some of life’s other priorities and responsibilities have been addressed, and pursued with the benefit of experience and maturity. Two long-time friends come to mind when I ponder this. Hilda Demuth-Lutze is a friend from college days at Valparaiso University (Indiana) who is the author of historical novels for young adults. Mark Mybeck is a friend going back to grade school in Hammond, Indiana, whose band, Nomad Planets, is creating a niche for itself in the Greater Chicagoland indie rock scene.”
Dreaming of spring training
Baseball season approaches! Meanwhile, if you’re wondering what the sidewalks look like in many residential areas of Boston, here’s one from my ‘hood. I snapped the photo on Sunday night, walking home from the subway. (Photo: DY, 2015)
During this winter of our discontent here in Boston, baseball season seems as far away as the moon. Perhaps that’s why I find myself waxing nostalgic about the game, thinking back to my boyhood years when I became a fan.
During my latter grade school years, I discovered baseball, both watching and playing. The watching was inspired by my 80-something grandfather, who was living with us in Northwest Indiana and enjoyed Chicago Cubs games on television. He didn’t speak much English, but he could follow the ballgames, and so after school and during summers, we’d often watch with him in our little TV room. Here’s the song that would open many a Cubs telecast:
The playing was by way of my friends, who were big sports fans. A few were on organized Little League teams, but for most of us baseball was a pick-up game played on the local parkway, with improvised diamonds. I was terrible at first, but I had fun and kept at it, to the point where I could hold my own hitting and fielding.
In fact, my affinity for the game grew quickly, and the slightest sign of spring became reason to get out my baseball glove and bat. Once the temperatures hit the 60s, I would be full of anticipation for the coming Cubs season and for our parkway ballgames. I’d check the newspaper for news about spring training and search out neighborhood pals to play catch. I also became a fan of tabletop baseball games that used statistical charts and cards to simulate the performances of real-life baseball players — the forerunners of today’s sophisticated computer and video games.
As I got older my focus on baseball waned. But after I graduated from law school, I rediscovered the game. I was in New York City by then, and in the mid-1980s it was still possible to get Mets grandstand seats for under $10. I shared a pair of season tickets with friends during the Mets 1986 World Series championship season, and it was a blast. I also joined fellow Legal Aid Society lawyers for weekly softball games in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. Yup, those were good years.
Today, I’d be in better physical shape if I was still playing softball, instead of anticipating the start of fantasy baseball season and playing baseball board and computer games! Whatever. Until this snow starts to clear up, any manifestations of baseball around here will be virtual anyway.
From top dog to underdog: Why I’m pulling for Barnes & Noble
Recent B&N acquisitions
Not too long ago, Barnes & Noble was a big bad bully of the bookselling industry, pushing indie bookshops out of business across the country and swallowing up competitors like B.Dalton. For a while it jousted for top dog status with Borders, its main competitor in the superstore category.
But then along came Amazon, the biggest, baddest book selling behemoth of them all, armed with easy online click & ship ordering, the Kindle e-reader, and marketing savvy. Borders would go into a slow death spiral, finally crashing a few years ago. Barnes & Noble is now trying to survive as the only significant, national brick & mortar bookstore chain.
The top dog has morphed into the underdog.
Still and all, I very much hope that B&N makes it. I have always enjoyed walking into their stores, wondering what new discoveries await me, and exploring their huge selections. In addition to the shopping experience, B&N’s stores host author talks, meetings of writers’ circles and book clubs, and informal meet-ups. They are good for a community.
In addition to shopping at indie bookstores and, yes, Amazon at times, I’ve been making a conscious effort to buy more of my books, DVDs, and periodicals at B&N’s main store here in Boston. If it disappears, Boston will be without a major, high volume bookstore in the heart of the city, and that would be a genuine civic shame.
Me and B&N: The beginning
Barnes & Noble and I go way back. I first discovered it well before its superstore era, when the company was a plucky retailer, with stores in Manhattan and a fledgling mail-order business. As an undergraduate living in Indiana (1977-81), I sent away for their thick catalogs, and I would spend hours poring over the remainder listings in search of good bargains.
When I moved to New York for law school in 1982, my periodic walks from NYU’s Greenwich Village campus up to B&N’s twin retail stores on opposite sides of 5th Avenue at 18th Street became regular rituals. The east side location housed its flagship academic bookstore, offering mostly new non-fiction titles and textbooks at full sticker price. As a budget-conscious student, this made it better for browsing than for buying.
The west side storefront, however, was the site of B&N’s huge Sale Annex. It quickly became a personal treasure trove, with several floors of low-priced remainder books, discounted new books, and a generous used book section. At the risk of betraying more of my geekdom, I confess that my heart would start beating faster upon entering the store, in anticipation of the affordable goodies I might find there. I cannot guess how many hours I spent in that store during my 12 years in New York.
Right next to the Sale Annex was a large B&N music store. Here, too, I was overwhelmed by the choices. This was still the golden age for cassette tapes, and the music store seemed to have them all. At the time, my “stereo system” was the portable cassette player I had brought with me from Indiana, and I would wear out the batteries over and again playing my purchases there.
Enter the superstores
In the early 1990s, B&N made its big move, launching the superstores with their huge book selections, many shelves of periodicals, music and video offerings, and cafés selling beverages and food. They started in New York and soon expanded the concept nationally.
At that point, B&N became the bad guy, the Manhattan bully that was pushing small independent bookshops out of business. There was truth in the charges. With its thousands of titles and discounted best sellers, B&N simply offered much more than did its smaller competitors, and at lower prices for popular books. Borders would soon join the fray, and the two went head-to-head for a decade or so, while the indies took even more of a beating.
Among book lovers, the superstore vs. indie issue became political. Looking back, I recall being in a distinct minority among my liberalish social cohort in saying that I preferred the big superstores to the mom & pop bookshops.
These debates even helped to inspire a main storyline in the 1998 romantic comedy You’ve Got Mail, starring Meg Ryan as the owner of a small Manhattan bookstore and Tom Hanks as a senior executive for the superstore opening in the indie shop’s neighborhood. (It also features AOL as the e-mail platform. How things have changed!)
Fast forwarding……
My gosh, the superstore vs. indie discussion is largely passé, yes?! When it comes to bookselling today, it’s Amazon vs. Everyone Else. In fact, until recently it appeared that Barnes & Noble would go the way of Borders and disappear from the scene. In particular, B&N’s Nook e-reader has flopped as a competitor to Amazon’s Kindle, and losses from its e-book division have been a drag on B&N’s balance sheet. In addition, Amazon’s ubiquitous online presence has hastened the closure of many B&N stores across the country.
Among the departed are the main and annex stores on 5th Avenue at 18th Street. That breaks my nostalgic heart a little.
However, B&N has been making something of a comeback. It appears that a growing number of book buyers have recognized the importance of having brick & mortar bookstores around, and B&N has joined indie booksellers in enjoying a minor resurgence. In pure business terms, even its stock value has staged a recovery.
Until a year or so ago, I was buying most of my books from Amazon and keeping a Prime membership to guarantee fast delivery. However, ethical concerns over Amazon’s treatment of its warehouse workers have caused me to reduce my ordering from Amazon and to cancel my Prime account. (See this piece posted to my professional blog for a longer explanation.)
In the meantime, I’ve rekindled my enjoyment of visiting brick & mortar bookstores of all types, including small indies, used bookstores, and B&N’s superstores. Yup, click & ship is awfully handy, and online booksellers (including B&N and Amazon) are now networked with used bookstores across the country, making the hunt for elusive out-of-print titles much easier. Nevertheless, physical bookstores, where you can browse and discover and buy, are a joy for the mind and spirit and are part of an intelligent, healthy society.
Let’s hope that B&N and other bookstores are around for a long time. I look forward to giving them more of my business.
Throwback Thursday: Staying in New York (January 1985)
I saved this magazine cover from Dec. 1984; it’s displayed on a wall of my condo.
Thirty years ago, as I approached my final semester of law school at New York University, I accepted an offer to join the New York Legal Aid Society as a staff attorney after graduation. For me, it brought together two things near and dear to me: First, to work as a public interest lawyer; and second, to stay in New York City.
I had spent the previous summer working at a large commercial law firm in Chicago. Although the firm would extend an offer to return as a full-time associate attorney, I realized that my heart was not in corporate law and kindly declined. I wanted to work in the public interest sector, and so I applied for jobs across the country with legal services organizations, public defender offices, and a variety of other non-profit and public employers. Although NYU was very supportive of students who wanted to do public interest work, these jobs were in heavy demand among young (and not so young) do-gooder types. I knew that I had my work cut out for me.
My job search stretched across the country, but New York was my top destination by a huge margin. I had moved there from northwest Indiana to attend law school, and I fell fast and hard for the city. New York of the early-to-mid 80s was a city in transition, emerging from a previous decade steeped in crime, urban blight, and corruption. It was an awesome, gritty, sometimes overwhelming place to me.
In many ways, going to law school in New York was like a study abroad experience, in that I kept discovering its endless nooks and crannies on a shoestring budget. It was still possible to explore and enjoy many aspects of the city on the cheap, with an occasional splurge or two for a show or a nice dinner.
Anyway, good fortune would smile upon me, and I spent my final semester of law school knowing that my immediate future was set. I graduated in the spring, took the bar exam over the summer, and started at Legal Aid in the fall. Between being ousted from the NYU law dorm and my $20,000 starting salary, I was propelled into the apartment share hinterlands of Brooklyn. It would be many years before my paychecks yielded more disposable income, but at least I was in a city that captured so much of the world. Armed with subway tokens, travel guidebooks, and a credit card that I tried to use judiciously, I took a lot of New York “staycations.”
Yup, this takes me back some 30 years, and that realization does a number on me. Though concededly I was quite clueless about so many things back then, this was a very good chapter of my life. Sometimes, even memories filtered through rose-colored lenses of personal nostalgia can be pretty spot on.
Throwback Thursday: Math 14 and my pursuit of mathematical genius
Brilliantly anticipating the Digital Age: My final project for Math 14 (Photo: DY)
As a political science major, my bachelor’s degree program at Valparaiso University included a set of distribution requirements covering basic liberal arts subjects. Among other things, I had to choose three mathematics and science courses, with at least one math offering among them. Heading into my senior year in the Fall of 1980, I had already managed to take a pair of science courses to cover two of the three, but the dreaded math course still loomed in front of me.
You see, I hadn’t taken any math courses since my junior year of high school, and I was happy to be done with them back then. Although I’ve tended to be a pretty good logical thinker, that aptitude or affinity has never quite extended to the field of mathematics. Indeed, I was a living exception to the stereotype about Asians and math.
And so I reviewed the math course listings in search of something palatable, or at least passable. At VU, they were numbered in the 100s, 200s, 300s, and so forth, to signify their relative level of complexity. But mixed in with the three-digit numbered courses was one offering, Math 14, a/k/a “Mathematical Ideas,” with a description free of scary terms like “proofs” or “calculus.”
With a sigh of relief, I enrolled in Math 14. In the class, I saw a few students I knew previously, including a fellow political science major or two. However, by far the most notable cohort was comprised of members of the VU football team. VU was refreshingly short on “rocks for jocks”-type courses, but this was an apparent exception.
Math 14 was taught by a friendly senior professor who actually cared about stoking some enthusiasm for the subject matter among we math-phobes. He also adopted a textbook equal to our skill sets; I can’t recall the exact title, but it was something like Mathematics for Everyday Life or close to it. And yup, inside the book were a lot of story problems.
Hey, I’m not meaning to brag here, but I kicked butt in that course. Our final project was to assemble a set of 3×5 index cards using hole punchers to simulate a simple digital computing function. (Keep in mind that the personal computer era was a few years away.) Boom, I pulled off that baby without a hitch! And thanks to my penchant for not throwing anything away, I can now proudly share a photo of that project above. (Go on, tell me this isn’t like gazing at the collegiate notebooks of a young Stephen Hawking.)
Despite this rousing success, I did not attempt to switch my major to math at that late juncture, tempted as I was to continue on this newfound path of excellence. Instead, I stuck with the political science major and would go on to law school, as I had planned. But at least my index card computer remains operational; some exhibitions of raw brilliance must endure.
Returning to the scene of the crime
On Monday I was in Washington, D.C., to participate in a panel discussion on employment law at the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS), the primary organization for legal academicians. The panel went very well; it was a genuinely engaging and interactive discussion with fellow presenters and colleagues who attended. My paper was on workplace bullying and the law, a topic I have studied and written about intensively for some 15 years. (For more on that, see this entry posted to my professional blog, Minding the Workplace.)
The conference was held at the Marriott Wardman Park hotel, adjoining the city’s Adams Morgan neighborhood. It’s a huge hotel, with multiple towers of rooms. Even with the guidance of the hotel’s helpful employees, you can easily feel lost and bewildered attempting to navigate it, especially if you’re at a professional event and have to get from one location to another in a matter of minutes.
And herein lies the nostalgic connection: Way back in the fall of 1993, I spent two nerve-wracking days at the same hotel, taking part in initial screening interviews for law teaching positions at the annual “meat market” hiring fair hosted by the AALS. I was in my third year of teaching as a junior instructor at NYU Law School (my legal alma mater), and now I was going on the market for a tenure-track appointment.
Here’s how it works: A successful screening interview may lead to an invitation for an extended, follow-up “callback” at a school’s campus, consisting of more interviews and a formal presentation. The process is a grueling one that can span several months, with no guarantee of success. I was fortunate that it worked out for me, including the offer I accepted from my current employer.
Thus, going to the Marriott Wardman Park was a bit of a trip down memory lane, a return to the scene of the crime. For so many who have experienced the AALS hiring fair at this hotel, the sprawling layout of the place contributed to the already Code Red anxiety levels we felt in our guts. This was especially the case if you happened to have interviews scheduled closely together on opposite ends of the hotel!
In that weird way that may be inherent with middle aged memories, in some ways it seems like yesterday, in other ways it feels like an epoch ago.
Some two decades later, I can breathe a small sigh of relief and be enormously thankful that I jumped through that big hoop in 1993. Participating in a panel discussion at that same hotel, this time purely for the purposes of sharing my work and learning from others, was a blessed thing indeed.
Throwback TUESDAY: My last camping trip (1984)
Front to back: Mo, DY, Rochelle, Patrick, and Mark. Talk about roughing it: We had no cell phones back then, so we couldn’t even try to order Chinese delivery. (Photo courtesy of Patrick Long, 1984)
The other day, my long-time friend and law school classmate Patrick sent me a couple of photographs taken thirty years ago, from a camping trip at the start of our third and last year at NYU law school. It was the beginning of the fall semester, and the onset of classes had triggered a bout of cabin fever so intense that five of us piled into Patrick’s car and headed for the Catskills.
This may sound like an odd thing for a law professor to be saying, but my reaction to the start of classes was so acutely resistant that even I — a budding city dweller in the making — was willing to forgo the niceties of the law school dorm in order to escape the world of casebooks and classes.
You see, unlike my outdoorsy law school friends, I was not a regular camper. Actually, I wasn’t a camper, period, and I haven’t been since then. It’s not that I’m a high maintenance traveler. In fact, between summer storm chase tours and countless trips to New York, I’ve stayed in places that won’t be listed in any premium travel guidebooks. But when it comes to accommodations away from home, I do strongly prefer (1) a bed to sleep in; and (2) indoor plumbing.
I don’t remember a lot about the trip itself, though I know that we all got along together just fine. I also seem to recall a couple of loud guys camping in an adjacent plot who had too much to drink on multiple nights, but maybe that’s just a ritual memory of every camping trip, whether it actually happened or not.
Anyway, after a few days in the wilderness, we folded our tents and returned to the urban jungle. Soon I got back into the law school swing of things, and it would prove to be a good and meaningful year, with some fun and laughter mixed in with the work.
Wow, it has been thirty years since my last year of law school. I’m sure the muse of nostalgia will cause me to write more about that time during the months to come.
No cable, so at least we could stare at the flames: Isn’t it wonderful how the discovery of fire made recreational camping possible? (Photo courtesy of Patrick Long, 1984)
Gen Jones favorites: Animated holiday TV specials
If asked to identify an iconic animated holiday special for members of Generation Jones (born 1954 to 1965), my first choice would be “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Rudolph made his first TV appearance 50 years ago, which places him right in the heart of our childhoods.
The story has rented permanent space in some of our minds. If you’ve used the term “misfit toys” in everyday conversations, or mention of the “Abominable Snowman” strikes fear in your six-year-old heart, or you still can hear Clarice singing “There’s always tomorrow for dreams to come true” to a saddened Rudolph, then you know what I mean.
“A Charlie Brown Christmas” comes in a close second on my list; its mere mention starts the theme music running through my head, replete with the kids skating on the ice pond! Interestingly, though, the program seems more thoughtful to me as an adult. That’s one of the compelling qualities of the world of Charles Schultz and the Peanuts gang.
“How the Grinch Stole Christmas” and “Frosty the Snowman” are honorable mentions on my list.
For those of us who grew up in the Greater Chicagoland area, there also was a black & white animated short, “Hardrock, Coco and Joe,” shown during the holiday season on a kids’ TV show. However, the animation looks a little creepy to me today:
Another quick trip to Manhattan
A throwback view — I want to name it “The Naked City” after the old movie and TV show — from my midtown Manhattan hotel room
I’ve been back in New York City this week to participate in a terrific conference, the annual workshop of the Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies network, sponsored and hosted by Teachers College of Columbia University. Among other things, I gave a talk on the quest to advance and nurture dignity at work. I’ll be posting more about that on my professional blog, Minding the Workplace.
During these all-too-brief trips to the city, I try to revisit favorite old haunts from my 12 years there. One of my stops was the famous Strand bookstore. Since my very first visit to New York in the summer of 1982, I’ve been there hundreds of times!
The Strand, my long-time bookstore mecca
When I lived in New York, one of my favorite ways to spend a free afternoon or evening was to go pick up a few discounted treasures at the Strand and then enjoy a hearty meal at the Cozy Soup ‘n’ Burger on Broadway & Astor Place. One of my law school pals (hey Joel!) introduced me to the Cozy some 30 years ago, and I’ve been making pilgrimages there since then. My usual order is a turkey burger (no fries) and a cup of their signature split pea soup. If it’s dinnertime, I also may splurge on an order of rice pudding.
The Cozy’s split pea soup with croutons…as good as soup can get.
Wednesday’s dinner was at La Palapa, a real deal Mexican restaurant on St. Mark’s Place in the East Village. My cousin Judy, a superb restauranteur, is a manager. Fortunately I can champion the food because it’s sooo good, not just because I have a dear family member who works there! Dining with cousins Al, Aaron, and one of their friends, I had this incredible, fall-off-the-bone pork shank dish with rice and plantains.
Tasted even better than it looks!
Cousin Judy and I also went to see a Broadway show, a top-notch performance of “On The Town,” the fresh, funny, and sharp revival of a 1944 musical about three U.S. Navy sailors enjoying a 24-hour leave in New York City.
Outside the Lyric Theatre, NYC
This visit also overlapped with serious real-life events in New York. On Wednesday, a Staten Island grand jury opted not to indict a white police officer, Daniel Pantaleo, who had placed an unarmed and secured African American man, Eric Garner, in a fatal chokehold. Especially because the July incident was captured on videotape, the decision has sparked major protests in the city (and elsewhere). Here was the scene Wednesday night in Union Square at 14th Street in Manhattan.
Protesting the grand jury decision in the Eric Garner killing, at Union Square, early Wed evening
Big Apple Thanksgiving
Amtrak Acela Express train between Boston and NYC (Photo courtesy of Shreder 9100 at en.wikipedia)
Later this week, I’ll be hopping on an Amtrak train from Boston to New York City for the welcomed annual ritual of Thanksgiving dinner with family and friends.
What began over a decade ago as an impromptu gathering of cousins and dear friends has become a tradition: The same home in Brooklyn, with a steady cast of about a dozen regulars, a mix of adults and fast-growing kids. A fulsome, traditional Thanksgiving menu (and it’s always amazing). People congregating in the kitchen as the food is prepared. An evening feast — this is New York, after all, we tend to eat later. During dessert, some migrate to another room to play guitars and sing (a lot of 60s and 70s stuff), while others hang out at the dinner table and talk, and the kids go off to do their things.
You know what’s odd? As far as I can recall, we’ve never taken any pictures. That’s why I had to snag a picture of the Amtrak train to illustrate this blog post! Among our group of late Boomers through Millennials, with smartphones abounding, Thanksgiving dinner has never been a photo op. Hey, maybe we don’t need to post photos to our social media pages to remind us about what this gathering means.
Of course, I also enjoy walking around New York City during the holidays. I’m not big on the festivities — during the 12 years I lived there, I never even went to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade(!) — but there is something about New York during this time that activates my nostalgia buttons.
For some reason I have an especially sharp memory of my first Thanksgiving in New York. It was during my first year of law school, and several of us waifs from the Midwest decided that we would make our own Thanksgiving dinner. However, it became clear that no one had actually ever done this before when we learned that you cannot start to defrost a turkey on Thanksgiving morning and expect it to be ready to eat later in the day. So we did what many New Yorkers do and splurged on a nice restaurant for our holiday dinner.
Given that my cooking skills have not dramatically improved over the decades, it remains a good thing that my Thanksgiving role is more about enthusiastic consumption than preparation. Such is my happy place at the table. Here’s wishing a bountiful meal and great company for you, too.
Musings of a Gen Joneser 
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