Black Friday: The Pot Calling the Kettle Black

             I’ve listened to the first news loop of NPR. With the repeat on the hour, I switched to my “Pandora Station” which I call “Cowboy Celtic”. Over the years listening to this “station” Pandora has fine tuned the music to where it is so relaxing and personal to me. It is pretty much all acoustic, kind of new age, and traditional at the same time. I’d like to strip the bed and wash the sheets and pillowcases, but my Stumpy is curled up asleep waiting the morning sun to shine through eastern exposure windows. I will not disturb him. He needs his sleep!

According to my homepage the temperature is 26° at 7:15 a.m. I’m glad I covered up the ferns and outside plants last night. Stumpy had been outside for hours when I went looking for him. As I opened the heavy gate to the driveway he went running through, turned around and the came to rub my legs. That smooch boy! I draped him around my shoulders and we covered and locked up for the night.

My “Stumpy boy” and I had a nice quiet Thanksgiving day together. I had invites for dinner, but I relish my solitude. The city seemed pretty deserted. I ventured out into the afternoon sun and was able to gather up more pecans.

This early cold to me is unusual for Tuscaloosa. Don’t remember these chilly temperatures being this early since I’ve lived here. The furnace continues to properly function so I’m not complaining.

This morning in my news blogs I’ve read about the lines and fights in the stores Thanksgiving night into early this morning. What a sad reflection upon our culture.

When I went to trade school back in the very early 1970’s in Lancaster, PA I was amazed in how the downtown stores were open on Tuesday and Friday nights. My hometown of Lockport, NY the downtown stores were only open on Friday nights.

Between Thanksgiving and Christmas the stores were open every night which seemed to be such a big deal at the time. Everything changed in the 1970’s when the shopping malls took over.

Lancaster, PA like pretty much all cities of that size had a thriving central business district when I lived there back 1970-1973. However the winds of change were blowing. In 1971 ParkCity opened up. This was a huge indoor shopping mall. What a big deal this was. Typical of mall design there were four large “anchor stores” with “spokes which met at a center hub”. In this center there was a huge fountain, supposedly the only one like it in the world. Fountains were a big draw in the 70’s! The entire mall was carpeted, and there were closed circuit TVs in the hallways. What a big deal this all was back in the day.

I’ve got to slap myself to realize this all happened over 40 years ago. If I use my life as an example, I went from shopping in a thriving central business district, to the sterilized mall, to the present where I shop from the convenience of my home online anytime I want.

How I detest shopping malls. The last time I was actually in one to stroll around and check out stores was in 2005 when killing time before attending the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Ol

d Style’;”>, TN. My friends and I joke how I break out in “Mall Twitch” when in one of those places. My “mall twitch” was full blown that afternoon!

It has to be that because I don’t want for anything my shopping urge has been pretty much extinguished. It always seems that when I do need something it is so out of the ordinary traditional shops don’t carry it. It is so efficient to track those items down on the “innertubes” over driving and schlepping around “Hells Half Acre”. My recent varnish and curtain purchases are proof of that.

Reading about people camped out for days to be first in line for Best Buy had me shaking my head. My first instinct is to call them assholes for wasting their lives to save some money. As so often happens the pot should not be calling the kettle black.

When the airlines deregulated there was a surge of low cost airlines in the late 1970’s that sprung up. Peoples Express had $29.00 no frills flights from Buffalo, NY to Newark, NJ. The big deal was you had to actually pay for coffee on the flight. Nothing was “free”. They had the best brownies. I have a theory one of the reasons Buffalo suffered so in the first wave of AIDS was: the boys could go the NYC for all the adventure and sex, get satisfied and then return back to the respectable closet of Buffalo with nobody being the wiser.

In the early 1980’s I was working in Dept 833, known as the “blue line”. One night a co-worker mentioned that a new Airline, Apple Air was starting up and they were selling the first 200 round trip tickets to NYC for .29¢ the next morning. I was not keeping my journal at the time, and Google has not been helpful, but I’m thinking it was back in early 1982. I called this Airline on my break and sure enough, this was a legitimate deal! After I got out of work I went home, picked up my down sleeping bag, a pillow, and drove my Yamaha 500 to the BuffaloAirport. There was a rag tag group already in line. What a night! Naturally there were news cameras on site. I was told I made quite a picture walking into the terminal wrapped up in my sleeping bag! I bought my ticket with a quarter and a nickel. The agent insisted on giving me my penny back in change!

That was my only experience to compare to what the “Black Friday” campers go through. I think the fact I was about 30 years old at the time had a lot to do with it. You would never get me to do a similar action at this point of my life!

Apple Air did not last for long. I’ve tried a couple different searches to research its history with no luck. If I were really serious I’m sure I could at least turn up something in newspaper files.

Katie is home for Thanksgiving. She will be stopping by at 2:00 p.m. and we will work out at the “Y”. I have to get my meters going as the Concept 2 Challenge started yesterday. I need to get 200,000+ meters in before Christmas to earn my pin! With Thanksgiving being so late this year my time frame is diminished from past challenges. Hopefully I’ll get my challenge accomplished and cross the 5,000,000 meter mark before the first of the year. That will be the best way to usher out 2013!