Soon After I Moved to New York...

Soon after I moved to New York after graduation I found myself in an upper balcony of Grand Central station with a professorial looking man, probably somewhere in his 50’s. who was licking the bottom of my shoe.

This was not what I had set out to do that evening.  My goal was much more commonplace – only to type 50 words or more with less than two errors at the shorthand and typing class I attended most nights, since learning my BA in English from a prestigious University meant bupkes to potential employers.

I was waiting in Grand Central for my roommate Francine to finish her classes so we could go home to our walkup together.  I was wearing, what I can only say was an extremely sophisticated blue wool cape with black piping that I’d taken from my mother.  It was, I believed, an unusually charming garment, as well as jaunty,  that would set me apart from the other newbee New York girls and would grant me that je ne sais quoi mystery that eluded me back  home in Detroit.

As I waited for Fran, a large man wearing a raincoat and glasses approached me.  Noticing me carrying my books, he said, he realized I was a student.  What a coincidence!  He was a professor at Columbia, he explained.  Did I want to make some extra money by taking part in an experiment he was conducting with young graduates like me?

“I’m waiting for my roommate,” I said.  “Oh, it will only take a few minutes he said, to fill out a research form.   He was all set up with some other young woman on the balcony above us.  He gestured upward.  How much money had he said the experiment paid?  Was it $20?  I can’t remember now.  But as he said it would only take a few minutes to fill out the questionnaire and by then Fran would surely have arrived.  What did I have to lose?

If he said straight out that he was a nut job or a lunatic, I’m sure I wouldn’t have followed him.  But he said he was a professor.  He looked like a professor. I had learned at the University of Michigan that professors were much, much, much smarter than I was and this made me think that my cape, my books, and the fact that I’d graduated from the University of Michigan had probably erroneously made him think that I was much much smarter than I was.  To tell the truth, I was flattered. And since Fran still hadn’t shown up yet, well, why not?

Up on the balcony I looked around for the table with the questionnaires, the other young women graduates, the sign that said Columbia University and seeing none of that became suspicious.  “Where’s everybody,” I asked. “Show me your ID.”

With that he lay down on the floor on his back, grabbed my foot, and started licking the sole of my shoe.
 “Walk on me, step on me,” he pleaded!

“Let go of my shoe,” I screamed.  I think I kicked him.
“Come back, come back, you don’t understand,” he said, as I ran.
Whatever else he added, I was click, clacking down the stairs and away from him.  I rushed across the lobby and saw Fran.

“There’s a man up there who said he was a professor and he grabbed my shoe and asked me to walk on him.”

“We have to tell a policeman,” Fran said.  We had only been in New York a few weeks.  We knew New York was not Detroit.  But was this a common occurrence?  Did experiences like this happen a lot?  Was this man really a professor from Columbia?  Were professors from Columbia now and again deranged?  Could living in New York do that to you? Should we call our parents and go home?

The policeman listened and took the information. I told him that this man was a Professor at Columbia.  He told me he doubted that.   He told us to be careful and not hang around Grand Central.  He may have told me to wear another coat for a while.  I decided not to chance it ever and threw it and the shoes away.

On Retiring

After 48 years as an employee for hire, I am not aggressively looking for a new career path when I retire at the end of December. 

No more W2s for me, no siree.  Instead I’m looking ahead to a clearing of the decks, emptying the old belfry, and dismantling of the fine-oiled machine I have become over the decades.

But that doesn’t mean I am giving up the world of business entirely.  In fact, I plan to devote myself full throttle to an endeavor that I just thought up the other day.

As soon as it occurred to me, I shared it with Jed. With any luck, it will never falter, always prosper, and offer a spectacular ROI.   It’s called “The Business of Us.”

The Challenge is nothing less than keeping the two of us healthy and afloat for a period of years not so excessive that  we dribble and our kids no longer let us visit, nor so ridiculously short that we miss the season finale of “Mad Men.”

The Business of Us will never be traded on the New York Stock Exchange.  Still, for my money, it’s looking like a much better investment than, well,  Facebook.

The Justices Okay Strip Searches. Oy Vey!

I don't have washboard abs. Mine have slid downward like crumpled laundry down a laundry chute and have settled in a lumpy clump at my bottom. Sure, at times it's bothered me, but honestly, I've never been as concerned as I am right now. It seems that The Supreme Court has ruled that police can strip search people they arrest -- even when there are no grounds for suspicion. It's true that I tend be law abiding, and should not have too much to fear. Still, I find it disconcerting that my private body -- which at worst is a fashion sin but in no way illegal -- can be inspected by a stranger, at will. No disrespect, to be sure, but what's with these Justices? Even my gynecologist lends me a sheet. Just what is happening in America? Strip searching ruled legal for innocent-before-proven-guilty citizens! Plus, gun laws in Florida that protect both shooters' rights and concealed weapons and have led to the death of 17 year-old Trayvon Martin. I brood, until I have an epiphany. There is a vital and perhaps even beneficial connection hidden within these decrees. If everyone were to undress in common cause with the newly arrested there would no longer be the possibility of concealed weapons. As a result, the reflexive kill-rate would drop faster than my hips. What's more, if everyone disrobes, conservatives and liberals might find although they look at the world differently, to the world they look the same. This gives new meaning to the phrase, "Citizens United." Maybe the Supreme Court has done something really farseeing after all. In support, I've joined a gym.