T. Buckingham Thomas Archive 2023 September

SEPTEMBER 28, 2023 MEET HIM IN NEW JERSEY?

I realize TV comedies aren't required to be realistic, but for some reason I was particularly bothered when I happened across a contrived situation from the final season of 2 Broke Girls.

The character Max Black works at a diner in the hip Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn. A view from above Newark, New Jersey, is shown at the right. I've located Max with a tiny magenta symbol far away — across the East River from Manhattan.

After making a giant cake with hot dog filling (!), she gets a text from old flame Randy mentioning that tomorrow, he'll have an hour layover at the Newark airport. Is he hinting that she could meet him there?

Should she go? I'm thinking that because of traffic, a round trip to the airport would require her to take at least half a day off. She'd have to clear security without a boarding pass. And an hour's layover is barely enough time for Randy to get from gate A28 to gate C73. If his first flight arrives late, he'll be even more rushed. Highly impractical!

Of course, she does go to the airport. And of course, Randy had not been hinting. When he sees her, he reacts with my favorite sitcom line: “What are you doing here?”

When, in the course of television dramatizations, it comes to pass that the sound of a ringing telephone dissolves the bonds of imagination that have long connected me with the fictional narrative, I feel an instinctive obligation to answer the phone.

That's not normally a problem in the course of TV documentaries. In particular, the ones dealing with archaeology lack audio recordings from ancient times. Instead, they make do with a serious narrator and mysterious background music. Traditionally these documentaries have used a mock-Egyptian tune played on a mournful solo flute. I feel no need to answer the flute.

However, a more recent program told of the Greek port city of Helike, which was destroyed by an earthquake and tsunami in the winter of 373 BC. The city disappeared under the waters of the Gulf of Corinth and was buried by sediment.

This may have inspired Plato to write 13 years later: “In a single day and night of misfortune, all your warlike men in a body sank into the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner disappeared in the depths of the sea.”

The Helike documentary chose to establish the mood with muted electronic music. Unfortunately, that music included an intermittent warbling tone, on, off, on, off. Every time it warbled, I wanted to pick up the phone.

Incidentally, Dutch digital artist Thomas Kole has depicted a different rich, famous island which did not disappear beneath the water. Instead, invaders made the water disappear. They captured Emperor Moctezuma and drained the lake around his capital Tenochtitlán, which we now call Mexico City.

When the Richwood Gazette from my old hometown arrived this week, it included an article reprinted from a century earlier.

In 1923, there were 206 kids enrolled in the local elementary school. Each grade had about 26 students and one instructor. The eight teachers included these four: Anna Jones (1st grade), Ruth B. Weller (3rd grade), Lois Lowe (6th grade), and Lucille Smith (7th grade).

I myself didn't enroll until three decades later, but according to the above photos from the 1954 Tigrtrax yearbook that my parents saved, the ladies I named were still teaching!

There had been a couple of changes. Miss Smith was now teaching 5th grade. Because the district had grown to include the town of Claibourne as well as Richwood, there were now two classes for each year. And because my friends and I had set off a postwar “baby boom,” my 1st grade now consisted of three classes; I was in the room where the venerable Miss Jones presided.

2024 UPDATE: Back in those days, instructors were single females: Miss Smith, Miss Jones, and so on. Possibly from the example of nuns, a “marriage bar” had been the rule since the late 19th century: married women should not be teachers. In 1940, 87% of American school boards would not hire married women. Why not? Being supported by their husbands, they didn't need jobs or careers. Instead, they ought to stay home and tend to their own families.

However, several of my teachers were married females, and the discrimination against them was officially outlawed by the passing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

And now the tables have turned. Conservatives have decided that single women should not be teachers. After all, such unmarried non-homemakers might be non-Christian liberals!

In 2021, Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark) railed against a labor leader, the president of the American Federation of Teachers. “Randi Weingarten is a joke. Randi Weingarten does not even have children of her own. What in the hell does she know about raising and teaching kids?”

“If she wants to brainwash and destroy the minds of children,” added Senator JD Vance (R-Ohio), “she should have some of her own and leave ours the hell alone.”

Returning to the front page of the newspaper, I read a current article apologizing for the fact that the Union County Agency Transportation Service, budgeted for eight van drivers, now has only four. The Human Services Director said the department recently created a part-time position to help with the staffing issue, but even that has been difficult to fill. It's a “sign of the times,” she said.

There's a shortage of bus drivers and teachers and Arby's closers all across our nation.

Our unemployment problem involves more than merely people without jobs. It also includes jobs without people.

SEPTEMBER 21, 2023
WINNING TITLES?

As I surf through my cable TV channels, I notice that individual series episodes usually have names that try to be more informative than merely “Season 4, Episode 12.” Many series, going back as far as the days of network radio (I have cassette tapes), hinted what that week's chapter was about.

Later, Friends episode titles included “The One Where Underdog Gets Away” and “The One with the Sonogram at the End.”

Old Westerns sometimes inserted colons in episode titles, like present-day Lifetime movies. What am I talking about? Well, consider “Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story” or “The Girl Who Escaped: The Kara Robinson Story.”

Wagon Train titles in 1962 merely named the anthological character of the week: “The Caroline Casteel Story,” “The Madame Sagittarius Story,” “The John Augustus Story,” “The Lisa Raincloud Story,” “The Shiloh Degnan Story,” and so on.

Some titles quoted odd snippets of dialogue. Two and a Half Men featured “A Bag Full of Jawea” (from a character's misunderstanding of Sacagawea) and “Gorp. Fnark. Schmegle.”

And sometimes they're even less decipherable, at least to haoles like us. From Hawaii Five-0: “A'ohe Pau ka 'ike i ka Halau Ho'okahi” and “Ua 'eha Ka 'ili I Ka Maka O Ka Ihe.”

Whatever. I merely look forward to the day when we'll be able to see titles of new scripted episodes.

My father was an automobile dealer, so I noticed three slightly awkward shot compositions involving vehicles in the 1960 movie Psycho.

At 55, 64, and 75 minutes, director Alfred Hitchcock positions a car in the foreground at the Bates Motel. The left-hand door is nearest the camera so we can see the driver clearly. But the actor is instructed not to use that door. Instead, he opens the door on the passenger side, sliding with some effort across the full width of the front seat. By taking this shortcut, he spares us from having to wait for him to walk halfway around the vehicle.

This was possible because in those days, cars had “bench seats.”

There were no contoured bucket seats. And other than the slight hump on the floor for the transmission and driveshaft, there were no obstacles (like floor-mounted gearshifts, or center consoles, or buckle holders for seat belts) that would force a person to use only one particular portal.

2023 UPDATE: Let's flash further back to the 1929 Laurel & Hardy movie Perfect Day. The car does appear to have a driver's door, but it never opens! Stan Laurel has to do some awkward climbing to get behind the wheel.

According to this rather wordy blog post, a friend had noticed that “in a lot of old movies, people seemed to be getting into their cars on the passenger side, and then sliding over.” He couldn't figure out why.

Someone else noted that vehicles did not always feature keyless entry, and “Lots of cars and trucks in the 50s and prior did not have door locks on the driver's side, so you had no choice but to get in from the passenger side. For instance, my '52 truck doesn't have a key on the driver's side. It was done because it was deemed safer to get in that way.”

Most motorists back then parked parallel between the sidewalk on their right and the traffic lane on their left. In many jurisdictions it was illegal to get out of a car by opening the driver's door into oncoming traffic. Even today, bicyclists worry about getting “doored.”

The blogger speculates that even after keyholes in drivers' doors started appearing, “it may be that it just stayed the tradition for a while to get in a car on the passenger side, even if you didn't have to.”

First baseman Justin Morneau, who had spent his entire career with the Minnesota Twins, was traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates on a Saturday at the end of August. He immediately caught a plane to Pittsburgh, where the Pirates were scoring five runs in the third inning against their division rivals, the Cardinals. His flight landed almost an hour after the game started that evening. He immediately headed for the ballpark.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported, “He said the view coming through the Fort Pitt tunnel, with PNC Park lit up in front of him, was a moment he won't forget. ‘You look up and see the stands full. I knew what the score was, I checked the score when I landed, and we were listening on the radio on the way in. To see the boys up big and to come into that situation against the team you're battling with for first place was pretty special. Something I'll probably never forget.’”

Ah, yes. The view coming through the Fort Pitt tunnel. Every new arrival calls it an unforgettable sight. A columnist once declared that Pittsburgh is the only city in America with a front door.

You drive in from the airport on a four-lane suburban expressway. It’s called the Parkway West, perhaps because rush-hour traffic is so jammed, you might as well be parked. You feel that you must still be miles from Pittsburgh. The city is nowhere in sight. You see no tall downtown buildings, no skyline. But that’s because Mount Washington is blocking your view. The Parkway tunnels through the mount, and when you emerge from the other side, suddenly the city is right there!

All first-time visitors to the ’Burgh remark on being smacked in the face by this dramatic revelation.

In front of you is the golden span of the Fort Pitt bridge. Across the river to the right is Downtown; to the left are the sports stadiums.

But I think the experience is somewhat overrated. Unless you’re sitting in the passenger seat, you have only about two seconds to be dazzled by the view. If you’re the driver, you’re immediately confronted by rows of signs.

You’re faced with six possible destinations, five exit numbers (old and new), four highways (two numbered interstates and two boulevards), three orange barrels, two huge trucks, and a pigeon in a traffic cone.

Two of the exits are on your left, using lanes that have unexpectedly been added to the two lanes you had in the tunnel.

It’s not a long bridge, so you have only seconds to make your choice. From the first sign to the first exit is only an eighth of a mile.

On the lower level of the same bridge, drivers leaving the city face a similar challenge, as Ian Richards has pointed out in this illustration.

Somehow we manage to weave carefully into the proper lane, rarely colliding with other vehicles trying to execute the opposite maneuver.

To truly appreciate the scene, it’s better to get yourself up to the top of Mount Washington and get out of the car. There at sunset you can see a panorama like this one, with that perplexing Fort Pitt Bridge on the far left. Gaze upon our Downtown-between-the-rivers for as long as you like.

My father was born in 1909, my mother four years later. Their generation imagined collegiate life as consisting mostly of football fight songs and silly hats and coeds who wouldn't dream of staying out past 9:00 PM.

When I had attained the age of 18, I arrived on a college campus in 1965, ready to do some serious studying. However, it was also necessary for my classmates and me to live in dormitories and eat in dining halls.

As part of our Freshman Orientation, older students wanted to teach us some ancient traditions. For example, we could no longer refer to ourselves as boys and girls; we were now men and women!

Now my class and two others are planning to hold a reunion during homecoming weekend. Some of us have been exchanging emails recalling that long-ago Orientation. I've added pictures and sheet music while pondering Bonnie Wishne's question, Did It Really Happen?

Well, to be honest, we didn’t do it. The Major-League-Baseball-team-that-plays-its-home-games-in-the-same-county-in-which-I-happen-to-reside, they did it. With a 1-0 victory last night in Texas, the Pittsburgh Pirates won their 82nd game of the 2013 season, guaranteeing a winning record for the first time since 1992.

The Pirates had already broken their embarrassing record of 20 straight losing seasons, the worst in the four major North American sports, when they recorded their 81st win last Tuesday. That ensured that they would finish no worse than 81-81. Now, having finally recorded another win six nights later, they can finish no worse than 82-80.

2013

This can be depicted on my Diamond Brick Road display.

The graph for 2013 is shown on the left. Even if the Pirates lose all their remaining games (the dotted diagonal line near the top), they will maintain an actual winning record for the rest of the season.

The graph on the right represents the previous two years, in both of which the team was above .500 for a time but collapsed in August and failed to finish in the gold.

2012 2011 .

This year, since reaching 70-44 on August 8 — their high point of the year, marked by the little outlined diamond on the left graph — the Bucs went into their annual slump. However, at 12-17 it’s not nearly as bad as usual. And they had built up more of a cushion by winning 61.4% of their games at the high point, as compared to 53.7% and 57.3% in the previous two seasons.

Not only have the Pirates achieved a winning record for the first time in two decades, they’ve almost assured themselves a spot in the postseason playoffs, at least as a wild card team. But they hope to do better than that by winning the National League Central Division.

For 51 days (the blue and green parts of the graph), they’ve held at least a share of first place in the division. They even were the “best team in all baseball” for part of that time. The Pirates boasted the highest winning percentage in both major leagues for 23 days (the blue part of the graph) between June 26 and August 8.

They achieved this success mostly with pitching. Their team ERA is 3.29, 3rd best in the majors, while their batters are hitting only .246, which ranks 24th.

It’s important to win the division. If the Pirates make the playoffs as a mere wild card, their first opponent will be the other wild card team in a playoff series consisting of a single game. Should they lose that game, they’re done. And there’s a good chance that pitching will make the difference.

That’s worrisome. The Pirates’ ace, their only pitcher with double-digit wins, is Francisco Liriano (15-7). But he’s been inconsistent lately, with an alarming number of bad outings. Consider his last ten starts.

Should Liriano start the wild-card game and have one of his bad nights, the Pirates season will be over.

But we can’t worry about that now. We need to relegate St. Louis and Cincinnati to playing the wild-card game against each other, by winning the division ourselves. Let’s go, Bucs!

2023 UPDATE: Ten years later, Pittsburgh fans think the magic has returned!

Well, they don't think that any more. They did last spring.

Back then, the Pirates were actually in first place in the National League Central, denoted here by the green squares. They lost only once during the last half of April. Their 20-9 record was their best start in three decades. The team led the league in runs scored, and their 41 stolen bases were the most in baseball.

But then they won only once during the first half of May. By the 17th of June, the Pirates had dropped below .500 and were out of first place, never to return. They appear to be headed for a 75-87 finish.

This year's inconsistent starting pitcher has been Mitch Keller: 3-0, 2.90 in April, but 4-8, 4.95 since the first of June.

Pittsburgh fans have had to turn their attention back to the Steelers.

Economists worry whether abandoning the office to work from home will result in an “urban doom loop.” For example, this week Rachel Siegel of the Washington Post mentioned Minneapolis. “In March 2021, Target announced plans to vacate a major complex there, roughly three-fourths of space available in the entire building. The move was a massive blow to downtown Minneapolis. ...Chicago and Boston have large office footprints and rely heavily on property tax revenue. Philadelphia, meanwhile, depends more on wage taxes from commuters than on real estate, and that revenue could dry up if people are not venturing into the office.”

“While the amount of work in the U.S. being done remotely is down from its pandemic high,” writes Stephanie H. Murray of The Atlantic, “it's been holding steady near 28 percent for about a year now. In August, the White House ordered Cabinet members to ‘aggressively’ prioritize a shift back to the office this fall so that ‘all of us will benefit from the increases in morale, teamwork, and productivity that come from in-person work.’”

Flexible work policies are under constant discussion. Does everybody still have to be at headquarters for eight hours? On average, half of office workers nowadays are in for only six hours or less.

Does everybody still have to come in five days a week? Can't we interact using our home computers and phones instead, at least on a hybrid basis (some days at the office, other days remotely)?

However, it occurs to me that working from home isn't possible for most of us. If you stock shelves or pick lettuce or clean hotel rooms, if you drive a truck or a tractor or a tugboat, if you're a nurse or a welder or a firefighter or a prison guard, you have no choice. You must physically commute from where you live to a separate location where you work.

How many of us have no choice? A 2020 study from the University of Chicago reported, “Due to COVID-19, many employees are unable to travel to work. We find that 37 percent of jobs in the United States can be performed entirely at home, with significant variation across cities and industries. These jobs typically pay more than jobs that cannot be done at home.”

They pay more? Ah, there's another reason why the elite newspapers, the Post and the Times, are obsessing over remote work. It's only an option for higher-salaried white-collar workers, the 37%. Hourly and low-salaried workers? If your job is at McDonald's, you've got to leave your house!

Way back in 1991, I calculated coefficients of correlation between various baseball season statistics. If the players on a team have a high Average Salary, do they also hit a lot of Home Runs?

Pessimists assume that leaving a lot of runners on base is a bad thing. Because of poor clutch hitting, the team is failing to drive in those potential runs. On the other hand, because of poor hitting in general, they might not have many runners on base to be stranded!

In 1991, Left On Base had almost nothing to do with Winning Percentage. There was a tiny negative correlation coefficient of –0.04.

In 2023, through the first five months of this season, I calculate the coefficient as +0.21. Left On Base now bears a positive relationship to winning! But it's only a weak influence, less important than other categories like Triples.

A stronger correlation links Left On Base with Being On Base In The First Place (or, as it's usually called, On-Base Percentage). LOB vs OBP had a coefficient of +0.55 in 1991 and +0.53 today.

Frances Hagberg Graham, a retired attorney (and more) who graduated from Oberlin College a year ahead of me, passed away one month ago today following a stroke.

In July 2022, Frankie posted a long message on her class reunion website. I've edited it into the version below.

There seems to be a huge group of sort-of "well-off" but economically not-so-secure people. These folks have nowhere to fit politically. I sense they feel they have been lumped in and categorized, even demonized, with the wrong economic group — labeled as though they have the resources of a tiny group of people who have far more than they have.

Some people born into the liberal blue-collar world made it professionally and became Trump supporters, while others have generally been Republicans all their lives. Now there is an emotional component, and they have nowhere else to go. They will vote for Trump over anyone from the "other" party. There is so much ignorance. It seems pretty depressing.

My parents were liberals their entire lives. My pleas about Howdy Doody notwithstanding, the reason my dad finally bought a TV was the televising of the McCarthy hearings. When my dad [a Christian Church minister] spoke out about something, I used to answer the phone at our house in Massillon, Ohio, and receive nasty calls. Someone breathed in a deep voice that we "dirty communists" should "watch it." That hateful mindset lasted in our country many years after McCarthy was finally debunked.

When I lived in NYC in the 1970's, the local news was full of Donald Trump, and he was disgusting in so many ways those long-ago years. How did my ex-husband who was an Oberlin grad, for a time a liberal Democrat, turn into a proud Trump-supporting Republican long after we parted ways? Was it the impact of his second marriage into a different family from a small town in the conservative part of the state?

I've memories of previous generations of family arguing about politics; one uncle told me, long after I'd lost both my parents, that my father had far-out ideas and didn't understand running a business. Is it worse now? Has the meanness of that old Red Scare era returned with a vengeance? (PS: How the meaning of the term "Red" has changed!!)

My very extended family has more than one Trump fan, including one younger sibling who is irascible and refers to some of us in the family in harsh ways and thinks we are naïve idiots. There is literally no possible discussion, and he hints at cutting off contact if sent articles from news sources he dislikes. He wants to live in his bubble. His grown children hid their getting vaccinated from him and his wife as long as they could.

One of my cousins has a husband who has always been a Republican and has not listened for several years to another news channel than the "Non-news news channel." He and my cousin have families with deeply divided views, and among them they avoid any discussion whatsoever of issues that could otherwise lead to vehement disagreement in order that grandparents can continue to see grandchildren.

I perceive there are many liberals who do not take into account the variety of people who populate the "Republican" landscape and the variety of experiences that motivates them to stick to a voting pattern. It might soften the dialogue and lead to better word choices among candidates. I think of a person I know who was a single mom who struggled, a hard worker for years and lifelong Republican. After Hillary Clinton used the word deplorables, I saw my friend and her husband out East. I was shocked that they were "wounded," saying they personally had been called names and branded as deplorable. They sounded defensive and entrenched — in 2015, and no less so today. They only watch Fox News.

People have backed into positions, gotten defensive, and identify with something and can't get beyond it. Unless the more liberal elements can appeal to this group, we are in for trouble.