Another true story originally posted in 2012, one of my classics in the New York series: “Macy’s.” Click the link above.
Joe
Uncategorized
Glimmer of Hope?
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!
Two Funerals
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.
The World Is Weeping
Confession: the news is getting to me. I fear reading The Washington Post and The New York Times. Every day there is reporting about a new atrocity that is happening due to Trump and facilitated by the gutless Congressional Republicans who cower in fear that Trump will have them “primaried out” in the next election, and a compliant Supreme Court. Today (Saturday, October 25) there was particularly tragic news in the Post and the Times—thousands starving in Somalia due to US AID food support being terminated and many thousands of others in poor countries in Africa, now at risk of starvation and death, who had depended on US medical and food support. Some 41.7 million Americans—12 percent of the US population— have been cut off from SNAP (food stamps), and food pantries are running out of supplies. Starvation is now a risk for thousands of Americans. Most people affected are children. Health care premiums are skyrocketing for those using insurance under the ACA, making it unaffordable by many with lower incomes. Medicaid is soon to be terminated for many more. The military is bombing small boats coming out of Venezuela that are accused of carrying drugs but with no proof or evidence. Thousands of immigrants including many US citizens are being roughed up and arrested by masked ICE police. Trump has destroyed the East Wing of the White House to make way for a 90,000 square foot ballroom paid for by his billionaire buddies. He has ordered the conviction of Comey and James and others who opposed him on completely bogus accusations. Now he is declaring Canada an enemy because of a Canadian TV ad quoting Reagan about the stupidity of tariffs….
And that is just a portion of the grim news reported today. Tomorrow there will be more, probably worse.
Friends, the Five Alarm Fire is happening. The pain and suffering that Trump is unleashing on poor people in poor countries and on poor people in the US is now a reality as is the pain he is trying to inflict on his political enemies at home. And it will only get worse. Trump is ordering every red state he can to gerrymander to protect the Republicans in the 2026 midterm elections.
So what are we to do? The No Kings protests were certainly a start and a good one. But they must be the beginning, not a one-off. Massive resistance must happen. We Americans aren’t bad people. Most of us want to do the right thing. Trump’s popularity is plunging. He appealed to the alienated (mostly) white working class by promising lower prices and preaching a populist message. Many of the people who voted for him will be hit the hardest. Bait and switch, big time. People will figure this out, but will it be in time?
I have also wondered from time to time how oppressed people in major countries tolerated terrible dictators–the Germans under Hitler, the Italians under Mussolini, the Spanish under Franco, the Russians under Stalin and now Putin, the Japanese under the emperor/military coup, and the Chinese under Mao and now Xi Jinping. Embry and I have been to every one of these countries and have found the ordinary people we met welcoming and kind. They are not bad people, but many in those countries went along with the program when terrible dictators were in power. We are not exempt. To our credit we have a constitution and were founded as a country based on laws, not personalities. But will the U.S. Constitution hold?
What is it about us Homo sapiens that most of us fall in line even when our leaders are bad people? The answer, of course, is that we are basically herd animals. That is why we were the only species–out of many human species–to survive and beat out the competition like our cousins, the Neanderthals. We follow a leader. Without a leader communities fall apart. Look at what is happening in Hati. The kind of leader that you have, of course, makes all the difference. Now it is our time to deal with a terrible dictator as other great countries have had to do. In many instances it took wars and violent revolutions for the regime change to happen. I hope and pray that this will not be the case for our republic, but it will depend on us fragile humans to muster the strength and courage to get through this, battered but not destroyed. How that will play out I do not know, but I am hopeful it will.
Now that I have ruined your day, you can cheer up a bit by going to my Substack where I am retelling true (and funny) stories, which should brighten your day. My latest one is now posted and is about our experience taking in a homeless family.
Substack Links
Profile: https://joehowell.substack.com/
Subscribe: https://joehowell.substack.com/subscribe
Profile: https://joehowell.substack.com/
Subscribe: https://joehowell.substack.com/subscribe
No Kings in Bowie
Bowie, Maryland, is the jurisdiction in PG County where Collington (the senior living community where we now live) is located. It comes as close to representing “Middle America” as any Washington metro area community with the exception that the county is racially integrated with a high percentage of middle and upper-middle income African Americans.
On the day of the No Kings protest, some 60+ residents of Collington gathered in front of our community to wave signs at the cars passing on a heavily used road. Embry took the Metro to join members of All Souls Church participating in the mass gathering of several hundred thousand near the Capitol. I went to the Bowie Library with two other Collington residents to join a racially integrated crowd (though still mostly white) of many hundreds spread out along a major highway on both sides of the road, waving their colorful signs and cheering. The atmosphere was festive and up beat, and it did not hurt that the weather was drop-dead gorgeous.
The most amazing thing to me was the constant cacophony of honks of automobiles passing with people rolling down their windows, waving and giving us thumbs up and victory signs in support of the effort. This went on for at least two hours and was still going strong when I and my two friends from Collington returned to the campus to share our experience with others here who had demonstrated at the entrance to the community. There were similar No Kings protests in other parts of the county.
By now you have probably seen the estimates. Between seven and eight million people demonstrating all across the country in close to 3,000 locations and in every state in the Union. This would make it the largest coordinated mass demonstration in US history. There were few incidents or arrests and the mood elsewhere all across the country has been described as mostly upbeat, hopeful, and focused on the dangers Trump has wrought on our nation. Many were waving American flags.
Will this make a difference? Will it change the hearts and minds of the spineless Republicans in Congress who are afraid of standing up to what many of them must know in their heart of hearts that much of what Trump is doing is wrong? Is this the beginning of something greater or just a flash in the pan? That is, of course, yet to be decided. Trump, Vance, Johnson and the Republican leadership continue to describe us No Kings participants as Marxists, Communists, Anitfas, thugs, criminals, and people who hate our country. Really? All of us? My guess is at least some of them must know that something is brewing here that could–and I believe will–get our country headed back on the right track. But the No Kings effort on Saturday must be the beginning not the end. As the old saying goes: never give up, never, never give up. We shall overcome.
Standing by for what happens next….
Corrected info on Substack link
Apologies for the faulty link to Substack. If you click below (“Visit me…”) , that link will take you to the Substack site. I have already posted two stories that I call “Gullible’s Travels” and a new is in the works. These are all true stories, perhaps “artistically embellished” a tad, but they all happened. Several more will follow.
In the meantime I will continue to post on this photo blog website my rantings and ravings about our current situation and will have a post on Monday about my experience in participating in the NO KINGS event near where we now live.
I hope that you will subscribe to the stories but you are not expected to pay anything. Several people already have subscribed for an annual fee, an action for which I am honored and grateful but these stories are available for free. Just push the bottom button and it will take you to the post as an unpaid subscriber.
New story on Substack
I have published the second true story about another experience that happened in the early 1980s and which I wrote about on my first website promoting Civil Rights Journey. More will follow providing further evidence that, yes, I am an idiot. The link is provided below and I encourage you to subscribe so that you will receive an email when the story is published:
https://joehowell.substack.com/p/gullibles-travels-chapter-two
Transitioning to Substack
Friends and blog followers,
My children persuaded me to post on Substack, which I have resisted up to now but will do for my longer posts and if this works out, eventually all of them. I am starting with some classics posted almost 15 years ago. The only thing is to be able to read a Substack post you have to subscribe (at no cost to you in my case).
Here is the link that you need to click on:
https://open.substack.com/pub/joehowell/p/the-gullibles-travels-stories
Once you do that the first time then you will get notices of all the future entrees. Let me know if you are having trouble or if this does not work for you. Some of the oldies are a tad longer than my recent ones, but I think you will enjoy them. Let me know what you think about the new arrangement. New josephhowellphotography.com/blog/ posts of course will continue as long as it makes sense. Also I am planning to podcast on Substack the best stories and will keep you posted….
And thanks again for your loyal following! This has meant a great deal to me.
Joe
DEI Pushback Explained
We Democrats are continuing to struggle to figure out how we lost the support of the white working class. Most now realize that part of the reason rests with their perception that in general we libs look down on them and part rests with “political correctness”, including our emphasis on “diversity, equity and inclusion” or DEI, which naturally I am in favor of. There are certainly more reasons, but these two are important—especially DEI.
I confess. I am one of casualties of DEI orthodoxy. In the early 2000s I was fired by the University of Maryland for being “a sexist and a racist” and was warned by the Department of Public Policy where I was a lecturer never to set foot on, or even come close to, the University of Maryland campus again.
Here is my story:
When I sold Howell Associates in 1998 (which provided technical assistance to developers of affordable housing and seniors housing), I began to slow down and was looking for some ways that I might make a contribution. I had done some college level teaching before (when in 1981 I was the Benjamin Banneker Professor of Washington Studies at GW, a one-semester, temporary assignment, and enjoyed the experience) and thought I might be able to somehow get back into academia. Someone suggested the University of Maryland where I was able to land a position as lecturer in the School of Public Policy where I lectured on affordable housing finance as part of a larger course on housing. I only lectured a few times a semester but enjoyed the experience and liked the students, many of whom were already working and taking the course as part of their required continuing education.
In my fifth or sixth year of lecturing, I got a voicemail message from an administrator overseeing the program which stated the following: “Mr. Howell, there is no place at the University of Maryland for racists or sexists. You are fired! Do not come to class and do not set foot on university property again.”
I immediately dialed the callback number and was put into her voicemail. I said that I enjoyed the classes and sorry to hear I had been fired but could she please explain why I am a racist and a sexist.
The next day I received another voicemail message from her stating simply that it was because of the racist and sexist story I told in class this week. Having no idea what she was talking about, I immediately got her voicemailbox again and said, “What story are you talking about?”
The following day I received another voicemail message from her stating, “I am not sure but think it was the racist story you told about the Chinese people.”
I immediately returned the call and got her voicemailbox again. “Why was the story racist and sexist?”
The next day I received her reply in my voicemailbox, “I don’t know, but call the student that complained about you and do not bother me again. You must apologize to her, and do not come on campus again. Ever! And do not call me again!” She gave me the name and telephone number of the student, whom I called immediately. She actually answered the phone. What a relief, I thought, at least I am getting a chance to talk to a real human being. I started off by saying that I understood that I had upset her about something I had said in my class and would like to apologize and then asked her to tell me exactly what I said that offended her. She replied that she would not accept my apology and that what upset her was the racist and sexist story that I had told in class.
This story is the story I had told:
I was at a board meeting of one of my clients, the Chinese American Retirement Enterprise Nonprofit or CAREN Inc. There were six or seven people at the meeting, all Chinese Americans, all young, in their late 20s and 30s, and very enthusiastic and very smart. After I explained to them what one of the obscure HUD regulations was attempting to say, I added, “I know it may sound confusing, but it is not all that complicated. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure this one out.”
One of the people, a young women, smiled, blushed and replied, “Mr. Howell, don’t worry. We get it. We actually are rocket scientists, all of us. We work at NASA.”
I could not help asking her what about the story made me a racist. She replied that it is a racial stereotype that the Chinese are smart. “Ok,” I replied, “I guess I understand why I am a racist but why am I a sexist?”
“You are a sexist because you said a young woman asked the question. You should have said young person. And you can apologize all you want to, but I will never accept your apology.”
I tried calling the Maryland administrator back to assure her I had done my duty and understood why someone as racist and sexist as me should never be allowed on the Maryland campus but of course only got her voicemail. We had never talked in person or over the phone during the entire ordeal.
But as luck would have it, a couple of years later I got a desperate call, not from the administrator but from her assistant, saying that the person who replaced me had quit and they were having trouble finding someone to lecture about affordable housing finance. She was pleased to report that they had concluded that by now I must be rehabilitated enough to come back. Could I be there for the class next week?
I chuckled, accepted, and soldiered on for several more years. Eventually the administrator and I reconciled though neither of us ever brought up the unpleasant ordeal but I have resisted her demand never to tell the “racist and sexist story” again.
It is too good a story not to share.
Now who does not understand why some think we libs might have taken the DEI stuff a little too far?
Fascist Police State
A lot of people are warning that under the unhinged President, we are inching dangerously close to becoming a fascist police state. Well, this is not the first time that the fear of fascism has raised its ugly head. Here is my retelling of a true story (now lost) that I posted in 2012 when I first started blogging. Enjoy.
In 1967 Embry and I were living in New York City. She was in her senior year at Barnard College and I was taking a year off from Union Seminary to participate in a program designed for worn out seminary students to give us a breather. It was long overdue for me and looking back on that year I count it as one of the best I ever had. I had several secular jobs, met regularly with a half dozen other seminary students in a program where we talked about our experiences, and we lived off campus in a rent-controlled apartment on Riverside Drive a short block away from 125th Street and Harlem.
We loved out tiny studio apartment. The one window opened onto a fire escape in an air well and the only way that you could figure out what the weather was like was to make a call to the weather lady. But it was perfect for us, and for the first time we were away from Union and all the angst that went with it. And we were still battle scarred from our summer working with SNCC in Southwest Georgia in 1965 in the civil rights movement and all the demonstrations going on as the Vietnam War was heating up and the various protests responding to injustice were continuing. One tends to forget that in those days the grass roots energy was from the Left, not the Right as is the case today. Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the Weathermen, the Black Panthers and various other radical groups were getting all the attention. We were glad to be free from all this, to have a chance to live a normal life, and to take advantage of all the great things to do in the city.
Our apartment was in a five story aging structure, which was poorly maintained due in part to rent control (our rent was $75/month including utilities) and to poor management, and ruled over by a superintendent—or a “super” as they were called–who lived in the basement with his wife, and was feared by everyone who lived in the 40-unit building. His name was Joe Poitras. Poitras spoke with a heavy accent of unknown origin, was balding and overweight, probably in his mid 50s, had tattoos on both arms, an unshaven, perpetually frowning face, and always wore dirty blue jeans and a grease-stained undershirt. No one ever saw him smile but everyone in the building heard him shout, mostly at his wife, often accompanied by loud noises caused by pots and pans being thrown, which we could hear from our apartment on the fifth floor. He was such a feared person that hardly anyone asked him to fix anything for fear of being yelled at. The streetwise Episcopal clergyman that hosted the weekly discussions of our seminarian group gave me the advice to give the guy a generous Christmas tip, which I did, and from that time on, I did not get the scowl that most others got, who presumably did not understand the rules.
In the apartment next to us lived Don, a tall, skinny graduate student at Columbia who had a huge crop of very curly hair making him look a little like a young Art Garfunkel. Occasionally we would chat; and when his door was open, I could see that the only furniture in his room was a mattress and box springs. Except for a guitar next to his bed, there was nothing else that I could see in the room. Across from Don was Mrs. Finklestein, an aging widow who must have been in her mid to late eighties. She was very quiet, frail, and shy and left her apartment only to go shopping occasionally and to do her laundry in the basement. These were the only two people we knew in the apartment house.
In the spring of 1967, I smelled what I thought might be smoke and ventured out into the hallway to see what was going on to discover that smoke was coming out of the trash chute. Oh, my goodness, I concluded, the building was on fire! Don was standing beside the trash chute and looking down the stairwell trying to figure out what was happening. I immediately asked if he had called the super.
“Are you kidding me, call Poitras? He hates my guts. The guy would kill me, and besides the smoke seems to be dying down.” Then without missing a beat he turned to me and said, “You know, we live in a goddamned fascist police state.”
“Excuse me?” I replied.
“Yeah, a fascist police state. Last night around midnight I was not bothering anyone just practicing on my guitar and sitting on my mattress, and I hear a banging on the door. I opened the door and in come two cops. I go up against the wall, arms out and spread eagle, but there was not much to search since I was in my jockey shorts. The cops saw me but didn’t search me and went straight to my bathroom and started flushing my toilet over and over. Then they turned to me and said ‘you no good motherfucker, hippie creep, you try a trick like this again and your ass is going to jail. In fact, you are damn lucky we aren’t locking you up now. Then they slammed the door and left.”
“Good heavens,” I responded. “Sounds pretty weird to me.”
“Weird, maybe, but if this is not fascism, I don’t know what is. We live in a goddamned fascist police state. How else can you explain it?”
By this time the smoke from the trash chute had died down and I was relieved that the apartment building was not going to burn down after all. When Embry returned from doing the laundry, I immediately told her the story, concluding that America in 1967 was becoming a fascist police state. How else could you explain it?
She immediately broke out in laughter.
“What is so funny about that?”
She then told me her story about her experience in the laundry a few minutes earlier talking with Mrs. Finklestein, the elderly lady with an apartment directly across from Don’s.
“Mrs. Finklestein was in tears and told me that she had lived in New York City all her life but had never had such a terrible experience. In the middle of the night her toilet started to overflow, and she did not know what to do. She was afraid to call Poitras, so she called the police and pleaded for help. She waited and waited, flushing the toilet all night to keep it from flooding her apartment, but the police never came. ‘They had always come before,’ she said, ‘but not this time. The police just do not care anymore. Nobody cares. That is just what the world has come to. This is the way America now is. Nobody cares.”’
The next morning, she had gotten up her nerve and called Poitras, who begrudgingly fixed the toilet. As far as I know, neither told the other about their experience. Don apparently left the building for good the next day and Mrs. Finkelstein was either too weak or too afraid to answer our knock on her door. We departed from the city the next year for Chapel Hill where I would get a masters degree in city planning and Embry a masters in biostatistics, not having a chance to talk to either person, who presumably went through the remainder of their lives believing that that America was a fascist police state or a country where nobody cares.
If only the fears of a fascist police state that many think may be happening today could have a similar happy ending.