Cedar Cedar Pumpkin Eater

    Hey parents! Yeah you, you all know who you are. Remember those days when you decided you wanted to have a kids or 2? Maybe 3 or 4 if you were in a decent enough tax bracket for either tax dodging or food stamps? As you went through pregnancy and then infancy, there was one glorious thought on your minds likely...WHEN THE HELL CAN WE KICK THIS KID(S) OUT OF THE HOUSE SO WE CAN HAVE A LIFE BACK?

   We all know those lucky moments don't happen that often, especially if  a handy dandy grandparent or aunt isn't so handy dandy in town. Luckily for us, Vickie's mom is nearby as is her brother and his family. That generally works for a one-nighter if we need it.

   When Natalie was just 6, my dad arranged for her to fly solo to spend time with him. That was all fine and good...except that he didn't really get a confirmation from us that it was ok before paying for the ticket. That set off a little panic from us, as we weren't quite ready for that. In the end, though, we decided to go ahead with it, knowing in our hearts that the on-board crew would see to her if and when needed. 

   If you've ever flown your child by themselves, it's not that easy. Well, sometimes it is. If you see how far they can fly from the porch door to the back wall and they're under 70 pounds, sure they aviate fairly well once your foot initiates propulsion. No, I mean in terms of dealing with the airport. If you just drop your child off at the ticketing counter, he/she/pick a pronoun will likely seek the luggage loading facilities a la John McClane in Die Hard 2 just for kicks.

   Depending on the airline, some require your child's birth certificate, some require their immunization records, others require their latest FBI dossier. Luckily for us, Southwest merely required the proof of birth. Unluckily, at McCarran Airport, if you park instead of merely depositing the flyer, you have to walk a ways past baggage carousels and one of many mini-casinos before you hit the ticket counters. Then once you find your airline (the furthest one down ALWAYS) then it's a long line as the one who paid for the ticket always uses the most popular and cost-effective and least accident prone airline for some reason. 

   Once you reach an actual agent, then it is another long process getting the birth record verified, blood type confirmed, parents' SAT scores pulled up...these folks are THOROUGH!  Afterward, the minor gets a lanyard with all of their info inside. Then it is off to security where one parent each will forget one of the following:

Wallet

ID

Child

Shoes

Phone/device

The first 4 happen all of the time and get a warm-hearted chuckle for the oops. after you get all the way to the gate. The fifth one, however is a matter of life and death. This happened to Vickie once when all 3 of us went to her cousin's wedding in Houston, and she didn't realize she didn't have her iPad until we were at the gate and by the time she got back to security, it was long taken.

   Afterward, it is just a wait until boarding time and the time she was 6, it was a tearful departure for all 3 of us. Of course, Natalie was good once she was in the plane and pampered by all she charmed. There were a lot of unaccompanied minors on that flight, so she was in good hands.

   This past week we had the same situation except for a few things. This time I skipped the suspense and left my wallet at the ticket counter (recovered by Vickie) and then my ID got shuffled at security's scanner, but was recovered. Also, Natalie is now almost 12 and really could have handled it all without us. She is THAT independent. However, as she is still 11, we had to accompany her one last time. On this flight she sat with another girl her age and they just partied all the way to San Diego. The girl's grandma talked our ears off while we waited for the jet to pull out. I don't know what it is about me and my wife, but we are natural magnets for strangers' life stories and there is no known steroid to treat this. After losing the grandma, we got out of the airport and headed for Utah. 

   There is something about that state that is just magical to us. If you have not been there, chances are you are avoiding it on purpose or just have no reason to cross the Susquehanna River (my Berks County friends know who I mean!). I have written about Utah previously, and there is just so much beauty about the state that one really doesn't know where exactly to start. Now, there is a very good chance that you associate the entire state with Latter Day Saints...you know, the Mormons. Have no fear, you stand a very good chance of not running into one for at least fifteen seconds upon crossing the state line! Just kidding, more like seven seconds. Seriously, I have made good friendships with many a Mormon at work over the past nineteen years, good people, they take their faith IN good faith more than other church-goers I know.

   The neatest way I have found to enter Utah is on I 15. After leaving Nevada, you cross the Arizona Strip, which is the very northwestern sector of the state and inaccessible to the rest of Arizona unless you are on a horse. What is neat about this stretch of highway is that you go through a very narrow canyon for a bit and after emerging from it, you gaze upon a GORGEOUS panorama of mountains and red rock cliffs that left you know you are entering a very different desert from the one behind you...actually that desert behind you tried to pull and pull at you to stay but once you emerge from the canyon and had only 2 miles of Arizona left, it practically kicks you out!

   Our destination was Cedar City...a town named for the tree which was THOUGHT to be cedar but was actually juniper...ah those pioneers had been on the trail a bit too long. Before Cedar City, though, we passed through the town of St George, which is quite Vegas-like in terms of climate and traveler services. After that town, though, I 15 climbs about 3,000 feet for 50 miles and the weather gets a bit cooler in the daytime AND nighttime.

   After getting to our room at the local Ramada, we headed for Rusty's Ranch House and had a good dinner, then headed back to town and caught a gorgeous sunset. We also put our windows down as the temperature was no longer Vegas-like.

   The next day, we headed out (after getting dressed) and ate breakfast at Amber Kay's, then did some shopping along Main Street. One thing we noticed is that pretty much everyone was really nice, even nicer when you buy something.  While there we learned about the upcoming Pioneer Day, which is a major holiday in Utah. We then headed up the mountain to Cedar Breaks National Monument and caught some really spectacular views. It was also thundering and lightning quire a bit so the views were enhanced. Rain and temps going down to the 50s just confirmed we were in a different land altogether. After Cedar Breaks, we had some lunch in Brian Head, went on a deep decline downhill, and got back onto 15 in Parowan and drove the 16 miles back to Cedar City. 

   For dinner, we settled for Sizzler...and yes I do mean settled...as in the food settled in our stomachs after a desperate struggle to not exit back through the mouth! Like other chains, Sizzler is not what it used to be...meaning it used to be great when I was young and didn't discern between quality and crap.

   The next day, we got up and checked out of the Ramada. It was a sad departure, for we really enjoyed the atmosphere, temperatures, and the people. I really could live there if provided the opportunity. On the way back we checked out Kolob Canyon, which is part of Zion National Park. It was pretty spectacular, though I question the $35 fee. The best thing to do there is check our Kolob then go to the main part of Zion right after to make the money spent worthwhile. However, we missed our home and cats and BED! 

   We will check out Pioneer Day perhaps next year. I'd like to come back sooner, maybe experience some snow, which I know falls regularly in the upper elevations. Until then, I will try not to lose my wallet.

Election Meh

    I am proud to claim that I have voted in 8 Presidential elections...and oddly enough, am proud to say I voted for the loser in more than half of those. Even at the young age of 19, I had some sense of principle and wanted to have the right man in. In that first election during 1992, I voted for H. Ross Perot. It was at that time maybe an odd move for me because I had been a Republican in youth, not so much for belief but because I was a follower in the vain hope I would be accepted into the "crowd"...so glad the hell of identity search in high school is long over!

   However, in 1992 I could not bring myself to vote for George H.W.X.Y.Z. Bush. Despite the fun times his presidency brought to Saturday Night Live for 4 years, and the quick action he brought against Saddam Hussein in 1990-91, I didn't see a bright future there. I didn't have anything against Bill Clinton, either, other than he was a Democrat (a big hurdle for me then). Perot, on the other hand, represented something new. Even after he dropped out and came back in at the last minute, I figured what the hell. I lost.

   In 1996, I did vote for Clinton because the nation appeared to be going in a good direction. My politics had also changed quite a bit after being in northern California for a while, and Bob Dole just didn't ring a a good bell...in the back of my mind I was wondering about a sales tax hike on pineapples with a name like that!

   In 2000 I voted for Al Gore, loser move #2. Quite frankly I was not enamored with either  parties' main ticket, and Gore just seemed the lesser of 2 evils. To be honest, I think either was a bad move for our country and I was getting the idea that the U.S. Presidency was losing its steam. Four years later, I voted for John Kerry, loser move #3. Bush was scaring me and the nation was heading down a dangerous direction in terms of never-ending war. That said, I was not all that sure about Kerry, either.

   Then came 2008. I voted for Mitt Romney. His words made a certain amount of sense and he seemed to have a good vision. Same in 2012. Once again, I had nothing against Barack Obama. In fact I really liked his eloquence and intelligence.. to me he seemed what Bryant Gumbel could have been if he'd gone into Ivy League instead of sportscasting!

   And then came 2016. After 24 years I'd come to understand a LOT about the swing of the nation, and the pendulum in that swing was not nearly as low and rhythmic as I had once imagined it to be. Here was how I saw it:

1996-2001- fairly liberal, but with enough checks and balances that Clinton was often able to work WITH an opposing party Congress to get things done.

2001-2009- more Right-leaning and a lot of war-profiting going on at taxpayers' expense despite no end in sight. 9/11 had become more a political tool than national tragedy. A shame nobody of use got it into Bush's head our economy was in trouble.

2009-2017- As perhaps a negative reaction to that right-sided war-profiting and resulting economic plummet, the nation turned to the left quite quickly. Well, not ALL of the nation. While our economy had a slow climb out of a dark hole these 8 years, our government was also developing a new social policy that demanded tolerance of anybody and everybody in terms of self-identity. It also created a health care reform that raised costs on the middle class while low income paid little to none and the high income folks paid whatever (they also didn't care about how much they paid to fill up their cars). In short, that left a LOT of folks unhappy who were used to life being a certain way, and one part of that way was having a white guy as President at all times! That's just being honest. So while the nation was being led by a well-spoken and well-educated African American gentleman, a lot of folks in very conservative parts of the nation didn't take to him or his 'voodoo' ways at all. 

   It's important to understand that so that one may comprehend what has been happening since 2015, when Donald John Trump threw his hat into the Presidential ring as one of his many publicity stunts. Many people thought the idea was funny, for really he was a funny man with a mildly amusing 'reality' show. Yet, the idea took hold and before anyone knew it, he won the 2016 primaries after doing a verbal hatchet job on his Republican contenders...and if you really look at it closely, the whole GOP contest was a show for our benefit. There was no way Cruz or Jeb Clampett Bush or any of those also-rans were true contenders...just like the Dem debates of 2019!

   So in November 2016, my wife and I voted for the also-ran named Johnson. Many said it was a wasted vote that helped Trump. Whatever! I never took Trump seriously even when he was all over the media in the 1980s, and certainly not when he was firing 'apprentices' on TV. Hillary Clinton had bothered me for a long time, and it wasn't for being a woman. Her involvement in foreign affairs over time took a nasty tone and, personally, I thought we as a nation had gone too left. The pendulum had swung way too high. 

   I felt good about my 2016 vote. Still do.

   2017-21- It is frighteningly amazing what can happen when a lot of ducks are in a row party-wise, even when midterms strike a blow to the agenda. It wasn't so much what happened as opposed to what was said. The touted wall was a failure, but the tax cut wasn't. I guess neither really affected me with the exception of gradually declining tax refund amounts. Eh, whatever. In reality, the Trump era really didn't affect me or my family personally. But we come back to the words...words spoken in press conferences and rallies. The people attending those rallies and just reacting to whatever bullshit came out of his mouth were the truly frightening ones...and still are. 

   My mind drifts to Caddyshack where Rodney Dangerfield's character Al Cervik is the center of attention wherever he goes. Most just laugh at him and don't take him seriously at all, he just likes being the big voice in whatever space he occupies, and he knows at heart he is just a big if big RICH blowhard. Donald Trump is  Al Cervik times ten. And he has a following of dangerous people who act on his words. These people are dangerous because they felt betrayed and left behind during Obama's time, their values were ignored. 

   Now, in the old days before social media, it wouldn't have been so bad. Some newspaper and magazine articles and interviews, along with some televised speeches and press conferences and that would have been it. Some violent debates at the local bar followed by a night in the tank, and the next morning a bad hangover or loose jaw. Social media, however, has created an eerie number of shadow groups who bond online and share hatreds and plans to act on them. Of course, social media also has fan pages for old soaps, so there's something for everyone! Fox News has also fed the fish with a lot on non-news and opinion (to be fair, Fox isn't alone in the TV department on opinion) When you have a pretty large group (or rather GROUPS) of disenfranchised people, many in the South and Midwest who are armed without legal license, and they decide to bond over their common goals and dreams, find some online space,and you have a man spouting rhetoric in elementary school vocabulary and logic all over the place, some bad shit will happen. And it did, on January 6. 

   Now we are 6 months past Joe Biden's inauguration. I am no longer part of Facebook partially because of a bad hack job on my account but also because the hatred and bad-mouthing of anyone with a certain view was just getting worse all the time. The memes were getting pretty bad as well. I get some news from a site called Raw Story. Not as raw as they'd like it to be, there is still lots of opinion in those articles. That said, it looks like a scary time ahead. Right now the only ones who can stop Trump from running (and winning) in 2024 is the New York state prosecutors. January 6th is being downplayed a lot, and that invites further violence in my mind.

   However, in closing I must repeat that his four years were meh for me, didn't hurt or help me one bit.  If he is in again, all I ask is that he gets new face makeup and a new hairpiece. If he isn't in ever again (my preference), so much the better. The only thing that will make America 'great' again is moderate political debate in D.C., a removal of owned politicians, and roads without potholes.

The End of the Chain?

    When you think of American culture, what comes to mind? Kardashians? Velveeta? Gas station sushi? Well, actually somehow those 3 seem to meld together in some sick form of Play-Do anyway. But no, what I am thinking here is the chain restaurant concept...and I am thinking that my generation may be seeing the end of that basic concept...and that might not be a bad thing.

   All right, you know how I work....that's right, it is time to, well, go BACK in time and see exactly where the chains got started and developed.

   To my knowledge, the first real American chain restaurant was Howard Johnson's. The man in question was first a drugstore operator, then ice cream innovator, then moved into the restaurant biz in Massachusetts in the 1920s. He first had 1, then 2, then expanded to 41 by 1936, and then 107 all along the east coast by 1939. In fact, when the Pennsylvania Turnpike opened in 1940, all of the service plazas along the road were operated by Howard Johnson's in terms of food service, as well as on the New Jersey, Ohio, and Connecticut Turnpikes.

   How was all of this done? It wasn't the man himself running it, no way. It was all through franchising. For those who need a basic lesson (like me), franchising is where someone takes a look at a successful business and says, "Hey, I want in on that!" and proceeds to give money to the owner for the right to operate a business with that name and use some, most, or all of the business practices associated with that particular, well, business!

   In fact, franchising was the key in the expansion of many American restaurant chains, fast food in particular. McD's, Burger King, Taco Bell, Arby's, KFC, and others made themselves known nation-and world-wide. It wasn't limited to fast food, though. Vast amounts of sit-down-and-be-served-for-a-tip-or-else eateries began popping up in the mid-to-late 20th century. Many of them became pretty trendy tote bags on their own, others flopped.

   Thinking back to my youth in Pennsylvania, it was a major event in little ol Berks County when we got a major chain in our kingdom. All I knew for the longest time were the McDonald's and Burger King kitty corner from each other in Sinking Spring and the Arby's in the Berkshire Mall. Wendy's didn't come until 1985 in Wyomissing. I'm not sure, but KFC and Taco Bell might have been in Muhlenberg when I was little. 

    It was big when Big Boy arrived in 1985, but like many Big Boy re-emergences in America, it did not last very long. Red Lobster was a huge hit and was equated with upscale yet casual (pricey but you can wear a t shirt) seafood. Chi-Chi's came along and represented upscale yet casual Mexican dining with fried ice cream.

   When I moved to California I got a glimpse of other chain concepts like Applebee's, Chili's, Olive Garden, Outback, Claim Jumper, Islands, Mimi's and a few others.

   What is interesting, to me at least, is that while some restaurant franchises are nationwide, others take a while to reach certain states. For instance, it wasn't until about 4 years ago that Chik Fil-A came into Las Vegas. I am not sure why this happened, but it may have had to do with a closed-on-Sunday operation opening in a 24/7 town.

   So we have a lot of successful businesses in America vying for Americans' hard-earned dollars. Great, perfect, competition is what a capitalist economic system thrives on...and for a long time, many of these places were thriving. And then they weren't.

   What happened?

   Well, that's not an easy answer. For one thing, many chains like McD's and Starbucks thrive because heart-endangering greasy food and caffeine remain an American obsession, for better or worse.

   In other instances, tastes change. The trouble with being a trendy business is that trends always change and it is almost impossible to keep up constantly. And then there is a portion of the population that wants to eat healthier in this century and no longer want to guess what is being cooked on that grill. 

   In a city like Las Vegas, who wants to get fajitas at Chili's when there are dozens of authentic Mexican eateries that give you a more authentic version?

   And then we had the Pandemic...and for many eateries, it was a game-changer! The first casualty that I remember was Sweet Tomatoes, a soup/salad bar place that was good for healthy eating as long as you avoided the delicious muffins and brownies.The businesses that thrived were the ones that offered curbside pickup and/or connection to a meal delivery service like Grubhub, Doordash, Grubdash, Doorhub, GarageWarp, Food Stalkers, and others.

   To tell the truth, I think the big reason many chains have kicked the bucket is simple: food and service quality. 

   There's a reason Vickie and I don't frequent Applebee's, Chili's, Olive Garden, and Reb Lobster like we used to. The quality of dining in those places has gone down significantly. Why hit dark drab Olive Garden when for a few extra bucks we can do Buca di Beppo that is lit up like Christmas? Why do Red Lobster when a local place called Crab Corner does the seafood better and fresher? IHOP and Denny's don't agree with me anymore, but local single-unit Lou's Diner offers good food and great atmosphere.

   That's just us, of course, but I have talked to people (other than myself!) and I hear similar vibes about the old haunts...they're haunted and nobody wants to eat at a haunted house.

   All that said, what is the future of the restaurant chain? Who can tell? Some may bounce back, at least for a time. Others will lose out when the losses become too much. New businesses will pop up, of course, but I believe the era of nationwide chain eateries is closing due to people always being on the go. Not only that, but there is also a political stigma attached to places like Chik Fil-A, who apparently support things others don't in this divided watchful eye society we live in. 

   In closing, I look back in fondness at some of the restaurants I used to frequent, occasionally feeling a tinge of stomach acid burn and a touch of gout in my foot.. It wasn't always that way, though. In my youth I could (and would) eat just about anything. Now I look out for the low carb options that don't involve ground beef. To each his/her/its own, though.

Here's to the 20th Century restaurant chain gang, rest in peace!