Click the link above to get to Substack. This post is entitled “Thanksgiving 2025” but is really about the world we find ourselves in as the Trump era unfolds. If you are having any trouble getting to the Substack post, please let me know. joehowell476@gmail.com.
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Here is one of my favorites from my childhood. Click on the Substack link to read “Rocket Ship.”
Since this one is personal, I am including it here and also in Substack, so no need to go there. It is closing out the New York City stories.
You may be thinking that given my job experiences in New York City, a poor soul would give up, throw in the towel, crawl into a hole and announce early retirement. You could also conclude my New York experience was dismal and hopeless, and the best bet would be to head south where people are friendly, at least on the surface.
But no. The years of 1967 -1968 could very well rank right up there at the top. Embry and I loved New York. In fact we loved just about everything about the city—the friends we made, our tiny apartment, the excitement, diversity, energy, grime, dirt, and the in-your-face-nobody-is-important attitude. It was and still is a microcosm of the planet Earth with all the good and the bad that the world has to offer.
And for Embry and me it was a year of freedom. I finally had a year off from Union Seminary with all its angst, introspection, and self inflicted pain for carrying the world’s troubles on its back. I did make enough money in my various, mostly ill-fated jobs to allow us to go out to eat occasionally and even attend a few plays and concerts, most of which were freebies made available to Union students by its wealthy, bleeding heart supporters. Embry was enjoying her senior year at Barnard, and we explored Central Park and Riverside Park where you could spend a lifetime of walking and people watching and never get bored. It was a year we really got to know each other and enjoyed being together and being married. In fact if I had one year to live over, it could very well be those years when we were young and in love and the whole world seemed to sparkle.
And there was Shelly’s All Stars. After the various false starts in employment that year, I saw a classified ad in the New York Times for a “counselor driver,” which turned out to be with a fledging, after school, childcare program called Shelly’s All Stars. In fact it was just Shelly and me. Shelly, a thirty-something, outgoing, ambitious New Yorker with a passion for kids drove one huge station wagon and I drove another; and between the two of us every weekday we picked up between 15 and 20 kids, all boys, ranging from first grade through sixth grade in the various fancy private schools they attended, mainly in Greenwich Village and the Upper West Side. I had the little ones, mostly second and third graders. A typical day would involve picking up everyone at their various schools and driving to Central Park, and in my case hunting for the dinosaur or dragon that had escaped from the Bronx Zoo. I would usually start off with the question to my six or seven young charges, “Anyone read the Times headlines today?”
Some budding seven year old would burst out, “Yeah, Joe, it’s happened again. Loose, and this time a big one. Last seen in Central Park!”
And off we went, across bridges, through meadows, over rocks, sometimes stumbling over couples embracing. “Err, pardon me,” I would say, “have you seen a very large green creature, with scales and horns and breathing fire?”
“A what?”
Then after a moment’s pause and a wink, “Oh yeah, I did see that creature and he went that way.”
And off we charged, looking for footprints.
This was the time I came up with my Freddie M Freenball stories, which I told each afternoon on the way to drop off the kids, being careful to end each chapter just before a drop off and then to start another. The Freddie M Freenball stories continued with our own two children, and later with our four grandchildren, when they were the same age as those wonderful, spunky New York kids from the Village and the Upper West Side. Shelly offered me a full time job and a new career track though I decided to stick it out and finish Union. He grew the company and a few years later took ownership of a very successful summer camp in upstate New York.
The worst thing that happened that year was that someone broke into our apartment and cleaned us out. Actually, this was something of a badge of courage in New York because practically everyone we knew had been robbed or mugged at least once. We were now part of the club. I called the insurance company to report the tragedy, exclaiming that everything of value we had was gone and that we had been totally wiped out and destroyed. There was a short pause followed by a remark with a grim, here-it-comes tone, “Ok, so how much do you think the claim will be? I will arrange to have an adjuster come over tomorrow.”
“Five hundred dollars!”
Another short pause. “Five hundred dollars? Forget the adjuster. I am writing out a check right now and putting it in the mail today.”
One of the best parts of the MUST program (“Metropolitan Urban Service Training”) that I participated in that year was the Episcopal priest who was the rector of a small church on the edge of Harlem and who moderated discussions among us five or six seminary participants every Wednesday evening. He was around forty, a kind and gentle person, very bright, with a twinkle in his eye, and a great sense of humor often accompanied by a belly laugh. His brand of Christianity focused on what I would call “Christian humanism,” soft on the creeds, “belief,” and theology and heavy on trying to make the world a kinder and gentler place. He had a major influence on me in my own religious journey. He was also street smart and helped us seminarians manage living in the Big Apple. One of my favorite stories is when he asked our group, “If you have a problem or complaint with the New York City government, do you know how to get it fixed, guaranteed? When the first person you talk to can’t help you, just ask for his or her employee number, and the name and telephone number of the person’s supervisor. You will be immediately transferred and when that person can’t help you, go through the same routine. Eventually, if no one can help you, you will end up talking to the Top Dog, maybe even the mayor.”
I tried it once and succeeded with supervisor number three, not having to go all the way to the top.
After the MUST year, I returned to finish Union and Embry graduated from Barnard. But I was already headed in a different direction. I took city planning courses at Columbia and worked as a student intern for my fieldwork at the New York City Department of City Planning. For my senior thesis I wrote a paper about how imaginative playgrounds were improving life for public housing residents in the city. I still can’t believe Union let me get away with that. But it was also a tough year. Robert Kennedy was assassinated in the fall and Martin Luther King in the spring and before my final semester was over Columbia, Barnard and Union had been shut down by student protests. Those times were unsettled similar in some ways to the times we are in today though with more optimism than we have now and a belief that goodness would prevail.
Another true story originally posted in 2012, one of my classics in the New York series: “Macy’s.” Click the link above.
Joe
Let’s hear it for the Big Apple and Virginia and New Jersey! And California! Too early to breathe a sigh of relief, but, hey, cherish the small election victories when you get them. With good candidates who focus on the economy and the cost of living and point out the cruel failures of Bait ‘n Switch Trump, we Dems can win in purple states and maybe even make some inroads in red ones when the pain that Trump is inflicting on middle and low income people becomes painfully obvious.
The Washington Post carried a front page article today (Nov 5) saying that Trump is planning to stiff all federal employees who were furloughed during the shutdown. Well, that should not go over too well with the more than 100,000 public servants who have been locked out for over a month. While SNAP funds may be released due to a court order, at best they will only be half of what people previously had, and there is no certainty when people will actually receive them. There are over 42 million Americans who depend on food stamps to keep from starving, mostly children, the disabled and old folks. Premiums for those using the ACA are doubling. That amounts to another 45 million people. And the brunt of the tariffs will continue to push prices up for everyone. And then there are the brutal ICE arrests and the lavish over-the-top parties at Mar a Lago and the demolition of the East Wing to make way for a $300 million ballroom funded by his billionaire buddies looking for favors. Do Trump and his sycophant minions really think no one will notice? And how are Republicans in the Senate and the House going to explain all this to their voters? Do they really think that that is what people voted for? That no one is paying attention?
Yes, friends. There is a glimmer of hope.
Now regarding the blog. First, thank you, thank you for following me. I am not sure how many of you are out there, but on a typical post I will get around 200 hits over a two to three-day period. Compared to many bloggers, I know that does not sound like a lot, but it sure means a lot to me. I am truly grateful!
And also thanks to those of you who have also started following my stories on Substack. I have enjoyed telling stories all my life and began writing them down in 2012 when Authorhouse set up a website to promote my book, Civil Rights Journey. When the website folded a few years later, all those stories were lost on the web. But I recently discovered that I had draft copies on my computer of some of them and those are what are now appearing on Substack. They are all true though some who know me would add “somewhat embellished.” Most are funny and most have a point, admittedly subtle at times. I have enough of these to last for a while and plan to continue adding new ones. For some reason, at my ripe old age of 83 I find writing to be therapy. I am posting these stories under various categories, the first being “Gullible’s Travels.” Several “New York Stories” will follow. I will have some which I will call “Early Education,” some about my polio experience, civil rights involvement, work stories and lots about sailing. If you haven’t given them a look, I hope that you will.
And thanks again!
I am still trying to figure out how to post so that my 200+ blog followers can get the Substack posts. But for those who have been following only on my photo website, this post is an exclusive. For now I am using Substack for stories and this blog for more “serious stuff.”
Like death.
At my age of 83–and now living at Collington, a senior living community–death is the elephant in the room that no one talks about. That is not only understandable, in my view it is welcomed. We all know it is coming, and here at Collington a high percentage have already lost spouses as is the case in most retirement communities. They know what the experience to lose a loved one feels like firsthand. Yet death is a fact, not only for all life on our fragile planet, but throughout the universe. There is a beginning and an end to everything. Do we need to be reminded of that? At Collington, the focus is on getting as much out of our few remaining years as we can, squeezing the last drops out of the lemon.
I have just been to two funerals, one yesterday (Friday, Oct 31) and one today (Saturday, November 1). Both people who died were very good friends at the Kennedy-Warren, the apartment house next to the National Zoo, where we lived before moving to Collington in April. Both were much loved by family and friends. Both were almost 90. Two lives well lived. One—Susan Stamberg—was even famous (host of “All Things Considered” on PBS for almost 50 years).
The service on Friday was in one of the “cardinal parishes” in the Episcopal Diocese of Washington–wealthy, vibrant, with strong clergy and lay leadership. The service today for Susan was Jewish, which included a Mourner’s Kaddish led by a rabbi, and was held in the Kay Spiritual Life Center at American University. Both venues could accommodate about 250 people and both were packed full of friends and mourners, mostly older people, including many who could be considered part of Washington’s elite.
That is where the similarity ends.
Now I am what is called a “cradle Episcopalian,” which means my parents were Episcopalians and that for better or worse, I have stuck with the Episcopal Church my entire life. At one point I even thought I wanted to become an Episcopal priest and graduated from Union Theological Seminary in New York City (not an Episcopal seminary), though for a variety of reasons I was never ordained. Given my background, I confess that I am biased: nobody can put on an ecclesiastical show better than Episcopalians. The service leaflet was 20 pages long. The surroundings were impressive: the gothic architecture, gorgeous stained glass, and beautifully adorned alter. There was a full choir (mostly paid professionals), extraordinary music, five participating clergy and a full liturgy including the Confession, the Apostle’s Creed, all the Eucharist prayers, followed by Holy Communion—it does not get much more impressive. The mood was somber and respectful. The sermon was short and (mostly) a eulogy, and there were no other speakers though grandchildren read the lessons. The only thing lacking was incense. A bit heavy on the Christian theology, I thought, especially for those who were there who were not Christian—and there were several that I knew from the Kennedy-Warren– but if you did not pay all that much attention to the words, it was fine. The service was followed by a very lively reception with great food, a slide show of my friend’s life, and lots of conversation and high energy. Well done!
The service for Susan was in a modest auditorium at American University. Not knowing how long it would take me to get there from Collington, I left early and arrived about 40 minutes ahead of time, thinking I would be one of the first to arrive. I was surprised to find the auditorium full of people, standing and embracing and hugging with much laughter and exuberance. It felt more like a college reunion of old friends than a somber service. Everyone seemed to know each other. I assumed that everyone Susan knew during her 50 years at NPR had to be there– and they all loved Susan! In contrast to the 20-page Episcopal service leaflet, the service leaflet for Susan was a two page fold out, mainly with photos of her. Her son and only child, Josh, who is a successful actor living in Los Angeles, officiated. Her two young granddaughters were there, and one read a poem. A rabbi Susan had known since the 1950s led the Mourner’s Kaddish and other Jewish prayers in Hebrew and five people spoke, mainly telling stories about the person they loved. Each speaker was different, but each ignited boisterous laugher from the congregation—not an occasional chuckle, but old fashioned, spontaneous bursts of loud belly laughs. Given the lousy acoustics and my bad hearing, I missed hearing the content of most of the stories that sparked the audience, but that did not keep me from smiling. You did not have to hear the story to know that this woman was deeply loved. And that those gathered deeply loved each other.
Such different services, yet both genuine and beautiful in their own ways.
Which did I like best? Well, there is a place for both. Both were inspiring. As for me, however, I am considering switching religions.