Michigan Generation Skipping Trust Forms: Fill & Download for Free

Okay, maybe this question doesn't says it comes from lottery, but still, it is still related to sudden gotten wealth. Here's the story:Congratulations! You just won millions of dollars in the lottery! That's great.Now you're fucked.No really.You are.You're fucked.If you just want to skip the biographical tales of woe of some of the math-tax protagonists, skip on down to the next comment, to see what to do in the event you win the lottery.You see, it's something of an open secret that winners of obnoxiously large jackpots tend to end up badly with alarming regularity. Not the $1 million dollar winners. But anyone in the nine-figure range is at high risk. Eight-figures? Pretty likely to be screwed. Seven-figures? Yep. Painful. Perhaps this is a consequence of the sample. The demographics of lottery players might be exactly the wrong people to win large sums of money. Or perhaps money is the root of all evil. Either way, you are going to have to be careful. Don't believe me? Consider this:Large jackpot winners face double digit multiples of probability versus the general population to be the victim of:Homicide (something like 20x more likely)Drug overdoseBankruptcy (how's that for irony?)KidnappingAnd triple digit multiples of probability versus the general population rate to be:Convicted of drunk drivingThe victim of Homicide (at the hands of a family member) 120x more likely in this case, ain't love grand?A defendant in a civil lawsuitA defendant in felony criminal proceedingsBelieve it or not, your biggest enemy if you suddenly become possessed of large sums of money is... you. At least you will have the consolation of meeting your fate by your own hand. But if you can't manage it on your own, don't worry. There are any number of willing participants ready to help you start your vicious downward spiral for you. Mind you, many of these will be "friends," "friendly neighbors," or "family." Often, they won't even have evil intentions. But, as I'm sure you know, that makes little difference in the end. Most aren't evil. Most aren't malicious. Some are. None are good for you.Jack Whittaker, a Johnny Cash attired, West Virginia native, is the poster boy for the dangers of a lump sum award. In 2002 Mr. Whittaker (55 years old at the time) won what was, also at the time, the largest single award jackpot in U.S. history. $315 million. At the time, he planned to live as if nothing had changed, or so he said. He was remarkably modest and decent before the jackpot, and his ship sure came in, right? Wrong.Mr. Whittaker became the subject of a number of personal challenges, escalating into personal tragedies, complicated by a number of legal troubles.Whittaker wasn't a typical lottery winner either. His net worth at the time of his winnings was in excess of $15 million, owing to his ownership of a successful contracting firm in West Virginia. His claim to want to live "as if nothing had changed" actually seemed plausible. He should have been well equipped for wealth. He was already quite wealthy, after all. By all accounts he was somewhat modest, low profile, generous and good natured. He should have coasted off into the sunset. Yeah. Not exactly.Whittaker took the all-cash option, $170 million, instead of the annuity option, and took possession of $114 million in cash after $56 million in taxes. After that, things went south.Whittaker quickly became the subject of a number of financial stalkers, who would lurk at his regular breakfast hideout and accost him with suggestions for how to spend his money. They were unemployed. No, an interview tomorrow morning wasn't good enough. They needed cash NOW. Perhaps they had a sure-fire business plan. Their daughter had cancer. A niece needed dialysis. Needless to say, Whittaker stopped going to his breakfast haunt. Eventually, they began ringing his doorbell. Sometimes in the early morning. Before long he was paying off-duty deputies to protect his family. He was accused of being heartless. Cold. Stingy.Letters poured in. Children with cancer. Diabetes. MS. You name it. He hired three people to sort the mail. A detective to filter out the false claims and the con men (and women) was retained.Brenda, the clerk who had sold Whittaker the ticket, was a victim of collateral damage. Whittaker had written her a check for $44,000 and bought her house, but she was by no means a millionaire. Rumors that the state routinely paid the clerk who had sold the ticket 10% of the jackpot winnings hounded her. She was followed home from work. Threatened. Assaulted.Whittaker's car was twice broken into, by trusted acquaintances who watched him leave large amounts of cash in it. $500,000 and $200,000 were stolen in two separate instances. The thieves spiked Whittaker's drink with prescription drugs in the first instance. The second incident was the handiwork of his granddaughter's friends, who had been probing the girl for details on Whittaker's cash for weeks.Even Whittaker's good-faith generosity was questioned. When he offered $10,000 to improve the city's water park so that it was more handicap accessible, locals complained that he spent more money at the strip club. (Amusingly this was true).Whittaker invested quite a bit in his own businesses, tripled the number of people his businesses employed (making him one of the larger employers in the area) and eventually had given away $14 million to charity through a foundation he set up for the purpose. This is, of course, what you are "supposed" to do. Set up a foundation. Be careful about your charity giving. It made no difference in the end.To top it all off, Whittaker had been accused of ruining a number of marriages. His money made other men look inferior, they said, wherever he went in the small West Virginia town he called home. Resentment grew quickly. And festered. Whittaker paid four settlements related to this sort of claim. Yes, you read that right. Four.His family and their immediate circle were quickly the victims of odds-defying numbers of overdoses, emergency room visits and even fatalities. His granddaughter, the eighteen year old "Brandi" (who Whittaker had been giving a $2100.00 per week allowance) was found dead after having been missing for several weeks. Her death was, apparently, from a drug overdose, but Whittaker suspected foul play. Her body had been wrapped in a tarp and hidden behind a rusted-out van. Her seventeen year old boyfriend had expired three months earlier in Whittaker's vacation house, also from an overdose. Some of his friends had robbed the house after his overdose, stepping over his body to make their escape and then returning for more before stepping over his body again to leave. His parents sued for wrongful death claiming that Whittaker's loose purse strings contributed to their son's death. Amazingly, juries are prone to award damages in cases such as these. Whittaker settled. Again.Even before the deaths, the local and state police had taken a special interest in Whittaker after his new-found fame. He was arrested for minor and less minor offenses many times after his winnings, despite having had a nearly spotless record before the award. Whittaker's high profile couldn't have helped him much in this regard.In 18 months Whittaker had been cited for over 250 violations ranging from broken tail lights on every one of his five new cars, to improper display of renewal stickers. A lawsuit charging various police organizations with harassment went nowhere and Whittaker was hit with court costs instead.Whittaker's wife filed for divorce, and in the process froze a number of his assets and the accounts of his operating companies. Caesars in Atlantic City sued him for $1.5 million to cover bounced checks, caused by the asset freeze.Today Whittaker is badly in debt, and bankruptcy looms large in his future.But, hey, that's just one example, right?Wrong.Nearly one third of multi-million dollar jackpot winners eventually declare bankruptcy. Some end up worse. To give you just a taste of the possibilities, consider the fates of:Billie Bob Harrell, Jr.: $31 million. Texas, 1997. As of 1999: Committed suicide in the wake of incessant requests for money from friends and family. “Winning the lottery is the worst thing that ever happened to me.William âBud❠Post: $16.2 million. Pennsylvania. 1988. In 1989: Brother hires a contract murderer to kill him and his sixth wife. Landlady sued for portion of the jackpot. Convicted of assault for firing a gun at a debt collector. Declared bankruptcy. Dead in 2006.Evelyn Adams: $5.4 million (won TWICE 1985, 1986). As of 2001: Poor and living in a trailer gave away and gambled most of her fortune.Suzanne Mullins: $4.2 million. Virginia. 1993. As of 2004: No assets left.Shefik Tallmadge: $6.7 million. Arizona. 1988. As of 2005: Declared bankruptcy.Thomas Strong: $3 million. Texas. 1993. As of 2006: Died in a shoot-out with police.Victoria Zell: $11 million. 2001. Minnesota. As of 2006: Broke. Serving seven year sentence for vehicular manslaughter.Karen Cohen: $1 million. Illinois. 1984. As of 2000: Filed for bankruptcy. As of 2006: Sentenced to 22 months for lying to federal bankruptcy court.Jeffrey Dampier: $20 million. Illinois. 1996. As of 2006: Kidnapped and murdered by own sister-in-law.Ed Gildein: $8.8 million. Texas. 1993. As of 2003: Dead. Wife saddled with his debts. As of 2005: Wife sued by her own daughter who claimed that she was taking money from a trust fund and squandering cash in Las Vegas.Willie Hurt: $3.1 million. Michigan. 1989. As of 1991: Addicted to cocaine. Divorced. Broke. Indicted for murder.Michael Klingebiel: $2 million. As of 1998 sued by own mother claiming he failed to share the jackpot with her.Janite Lee: $18 million. 1993. Missouri. As of 2001: Filed for bankruptcy with $700 in assets.So, what the hell DO you do if you are unlucky enough to win the lottery?This is the absolutely most important thing you can do right away: NOTHING.Yes. Nothing.DO NOT DECLARE YOURSELF THE WINNER yet.Do NOT tell anyone. The urge is going to be nearly irresistible. Resist it. Trust me.1. IMMEDIATELY retain an attorney.Get a partner from a larger, NATIONAL firm. Don't let them pawn off junior partners or associates on you. They might try, all law firms might, but insist instead that your lead be a partner who has been with the firm for awhile. Do NOT use your local attorney. Yes, I mean your long-standing family attorney who did your mother's will. Do not use the guy who fought your dry-cleaner bill. Do not use the guy you have trusted your entire life because of his long and faithful service to your family. In fact, do not use any firm that has any connection to family or friends or community. TRUST me. This is bad. You want someone who has never heard of you, any of your friends, or any member of your family. Go the closest big city and walk into one of the national firms asking for one of the "Trust and Estates" partners you have previously looked up on http://www.martindale.comfrom one of the largest 50 firms in the United States which has an office near you. You can look up attorneys by practice area and firm on Martindale.2. Decide to take the lump sum.Most lotteries pay a really pathetic rate for the annuity. It usually hovers around 4.5% annual return or less, depending. It doesn't take much to do better than this, and if you have the money already in cash, rather than leaving it in the hands of the state, you can pull from the capital whenever you like. If you take the annuity you won't have access to that cash. That could be good. It could be bad. It's probably bad unless you have a very addictive personality. If you need an allowance managed by the state, it is because you didn't listen to point #1 above.Why not let the state just handle it for you and give you your allowance?Many state lotteries pay you your "allowance" (the annuity option) by buying U.S. treasury instruments and running the interest payments through their bureaucracy before sending it to you along with a hunk of the principal every month. You will not be beating inflation by much, if at all. There is no reason you couldn't do this yourself, if a low single-digit return is acceptable to you.You aren't going to get even remotely the amount of the actual jackpot. Take our old friend Mr. Whittaker. Using Whittaker is a good model both because of the reminder of his ignominious decline, and the fact that his winning ticket was one of the larger ones on record. If his situation looks less than stellar to you, you might have a better perspective on how "large" your winnings aren't. Whittaker's "jackpot" was $315 million. He selected the lump-sum cash up-front option, which knocked off $145 million (or 46% of the total) leaving him with $170 million. That was then subject to withholding for taxes of $56 million (33%) leaving him with $114 million.In general, you should expect to get about half of the original jackpot if you elect a lump sum (maybe better, it depends). After that, you should expect to lose around 33% of your already pruned figure to state and federal taxes. (Your mileage may vary, particularly if you live in a state with aggressive taxation schemes).3. Decide right now, how much you plan to give to family and friends.This really shouldn't be more than 20% or so. Figure it out right now. Pick your number. Tell your lawyer. That's it. Don't change it. 20% of $114 million is $22.8 million. That leaves you with $91.2 million. DO NOT CONSULT WITH FAMILY when deciding how much to give to family. You are going to get advice that is badly tainted by conflict of interest, and if other family members find out that Aunt Flo was consulted and they weren't you will never hear the end of it. Neither will Aunt Flo. This might later form the basis for an allegation that Aunt Flo unduly influenced you and a lawsuit might magically appear on this basis. No, I'm not kidding. I know of one circumstance (related to a business windfall, not a lottery) where the plaintiffs WON this case.Do NOT give anyone cash. Ever. Period. Just don't. Do not buy them houses. Do not buy them cars. Tell your attorney that you want to provide for your family, and that you want to set up a series of trusts for them that will total 20% of your after tax winnings. Tell him you want the trust empowered to fund higher education, some help (not a total) purchase of their first home, some provision for weddings and the like, whatever. Do NOT put yourself in the position of handing out cash. Once you do, if you stop, you will be accused of being a heartless bastard (or bitch). Trust me. It won't go well.It will be easy to lose perspective. It is now the duty of your friends, family, relatives, hangers-on and their inner circle to skew your perspective, and they take this job quite seriously. Setting up a trust, a managed fund for your family that is in the double digit millions is AMAZINGLY generous. You need never have trouble sleeping because you didn't lend Uncle Jerry $20,000 in small denomination unmarked bills to start his chain of deep-fried peanut butter pancake restaurants. ("Deep'n 'nutter Restaurants") Your attorney will have a number of good ideas how to parse this wealth out without turning your siblings/spouse/children/grandchildren/cousins/waitresses into the latest Paris Hilton.4. You will be encouraged to hire an investment manager. Considerable pressure will be applied. Don't.Investment managers charge fees, usually a percentage of assets. Consider this: If they charge 1% (which is low, I doubt you could find this deal, actually) they have to beat the market by 1% every year just to break even with a general market index fund. It is not worth it, and you don't need the extra return or the extra risk. Go for the index fund instead if you must invest in stocks. This is a hard rule to follow. They will come recommended by friends. They will come recommended by family. They will be your second cousin on your mother's side. Investment managers will sound smart. They will have lots of cool acronyms. They will have nice PowerPoint presentations. They might (MIGHT) pay for your shrimp cocktail lunch at TGI Friday's while reminding you how poor their side of the family is. They live for this stuff.You should smile, thank them for their time, and then tell them you will get back to them next week. Don't sign ANYTHING. Don't write it on a cocktail napkin (lottery lawsuit cases have been won and lost over drunkenly scrawled cocktail napkin addition and subtraction figures with lots of zeros on them). Never call them back. Trust me. You will thank me later. This tactic, smiling, thanking people for their time, and promising to get back to people, is going to have to become familiar. You will have to learn to say no gently, without saying the word "no." It sounds underhanded. Sneaky. It is. And its part of your new survival strategy. I mean the word "survival" quite literally.Get all this figured out BEFORE you claim your winnings. They aren't going anywhere. Just relax.5. If you elect to be more global about your paranoia, use between 20.00% and 33.00% of what you have not decided to commit to a family fund IMMEDIATELY to purchase a combination of longer term U.S. treasuries (5 or 10 year are a good idea) and perhaps even another G7 treasury instrument. This is your safety net. You will be protected... from yourself.You are going to be really tempted to starting being a big investor. You are going to be convinced that you can double your money in Vegas with your awesome Roulette system/by funding your friend's amazing idea to sell Lemming dung/buying land for oil drilling/by shorting the North Pole Ice market (global warming, you know). This all sounds tempting because "Even if I lose it all I still have $XX million left! Anyone could live on that comfortably for the rest of their life." Yeah, except for 33% of everyone who won the lottery.You're not going to double your money, so cool it. Let me say that again. You're not going to double your money, so cool it. Right now, you'll get around 3.5% on the 10 year U.S. treasury. With $18.2 million (20% of $91.2 mil after your absurdly generous family gift) invested in those you will pull down $638,400 per year. If everything else blows up, you still have that, and you will be in the top 1% of income in the United States. So how about you not fuck with it. Eh? And that's income that is damn safe. If we get to the point where the United States defaults on those instruments, we are in far worse shape than worrying about money.If you are really paranoid, you might consider picking another G7 or otherwise mainstream country other than the U.S. according to where you want to live if the United States dissolves into anarchy or Britney Spears is elected to the United States Senate. Put some fraction in something like Swiss Government Bonds at 3%. If the Swiss stop paying on their government debt, well, then you know money really means nothing anywhere on the globe anymore. I'd study small field sustainable agriculture if you think this is a possibility. You might have to start feeding yourself.6. That leaves, say, 80% of $91.2 million or $72.9 million.Here is where things start to get less clear. Personally, I think you should dump half of this, or $36.4 million, into a boring S&P 500 index fund. Find something with low fees. You are going to be constantly tempted to retain "sophisticated" advisers who charge "nominal fees." Don't. Period. Even if you lose every other dime, you have $638,400 per year you didn't have before that will keep coming in until the United States falls into chaos. Fuck advisers and their fees. Instead, drop your $36.4 million in the market in a low fee vehicle. Unless we have an unprecedented downturn the likes of which the United States has never seen, should return around 7.00% or so over the next 10 years. You should expect to touch not even a dime of this money for 10 or 15 or even 20 years. In 20 years $36.4 million could easily become $115 million.7. So you have put a safety net in place.You have provided for your family beyond your wildest dreams. And you still have $36.4 million in "cash." You know you will be getting $638,400 per year unless the capital building is burning, you don't ever need to give anyone you care about cash, since they are provided for generously and responsibly (and can't blow it in Vegas) and you have a HUGE nest egg that is growing at market rates. (Given the recent dip, you'll be buying in at great prices for the market). What now? Whatever you want. Go ahead and burn through $36.4 million in hookers and blow if you want. You've got more security than 99% of the country. A lot of it is in trusts so even if you are sued your family will live well, and progress across generations. If your lawyer is worth his salt (I bet he is) then you will be insulated from most lawsuits anyhow. Buy a nice house or two, make sure they aren't stupid investments though. Go ahead and be an angel investor and fund some startups, but REFUSE to do it for anyone you know. (Friends and money, oil and water - Michael Corleone) Play. Have fun. You earned it by putting together the shoe sizes of your whole family on one ticket and winning the jackpot.Disclaimer: While I know this question doesn't says about getting sudden wealth from lottery, I think this helps too. Plus this is not my writing. It belongs to someone anonymous. So if this is yours and you want me take it down, I'll gladly oblige it.

Hello and thanks for the question Nadia, BTW I have two cousins named Nadia.I think it is fair to say that in our case there has been a strong shift from the previous generations views and attitudes, this maybe because of our diaspora experiences growing up in a peaceful wonderful country Canada 🇨🇦.Some history, both of my parents were born in Jerusalem, both experienced and lived through the Second World War, when they were very young around 5–6 years old so that shaped their views growing up. They learned to overcome great difficulties and learned to save and not waste anything. My mom I consider the great recycler as she cannot stand wasting anything let alone food. Growing up we had to finish all our meals, and we were always taught to be mindful of our privileges. They provided for us well, sacrificing their own luxuries so we could have things they never did. We were often reminded of the difficulties during privations they endured. Everything was to be taken care of.My mother’s parents went to live overseas, and so missed the 1948 war and the establishment of Israel and the Palestinian Nakba. Though their family were there, and had significant properties, they visited a few times before 1948. So that impact was less so on my mother’s side. My mother’s father had trouble with authorities and was even jailed sometime by the French during the Second World War, my mother in those years with my aunt and my grandmother ran his business, and kept food on the table. They were clearly involved in the black market, and both the despised French Authorities and local population partook of the goods offered wink wink, finally my grandfather was released. They lived after that with some difficulties, and actually sent their oldest son (who was apparently very intelligent) to the states for education. He passed away there and is buried in Detroit Michigan. Later before my grandfather passed, my grandmother suffered several miscarriages. This impacted them, and her in particular. She was in major depression, and back then no one really knew about the treatment it seems. So my mother and her oldest sister became the mothers and took care of the younger siblings and the other general household chores i.e. cooking, cleaning, etc. When my grandfather passed away his brother brought the family back to Jerusalem late 1950’s. My grandmother suffered all her life after that, she never recovered the loss of her son, the miscarriages, and the death of her husband. By all accounts they loved each other deeply. My mother said my grandfather used to tell her all the time how much he loved her, and he said I can lose everything, but you. Coming back to Jerusalem greatly impacted my mother, and she never really was comfortable with the Arab ways having lived overseas so long, independent. She could never get used to the thinking, mores and culture. Her oldest sister ( my godmother) fit in like a glove, and in fact lived all her life in Jerusalem. She traveled and generally had a good life until 1967, she just passed this last September. The younger ones were educated and lived off and on with them depending on where they went to school.My father was there through it all, and it greatly impacted him, his home before 1948 was in West Jerusalem long before the 1948 war, near what was once Deir Yassin. My grandfather was partners with a Jewish fellow before the great clashes to come. In fact it was this man that warned them to leave when the 1948 war broke and the Jewish militias were committed to clearing Arab homes. Later this guy or his family saved some photos and small things he retrieved in 1948, which were returned after 1967. Their home became part of the Green Line in a divided Jerusalem. My fathers family fled to Lebanon for a time, then came back after to Jerusalem and settled in the French Hill, where my parents later met and married. I was born in Jerusalem there. So there are significant scars my father carried because of this. His family was well off before, now things were hard. Nonetheless they managed to rebuild their livelihoods and soon had a travel business going, my father and uncle were tour guides, and my father even was the Icelandic Consul in Arab East Jerusalem. Because of the wars and difficulties none of the children were able to continue their higher education, and were disadvantaged because of that compared to the other members of the family who were better off.1967 changed all that, and once again my grandfather found himself without a means to take care of the family. The Israelis asked my father to remain and wanted him to stay and sign the occupation papers to accept it, we all know that would not have ended well back then. My grandfather refused it all and a great rift occurred, the office was gone, and my father and mother made arrangements to sell and leave, the Icelandic government secured our departure to Canada and we arrived in November 1967 as refugees. My grandfather’s, my uncle’s and my aunt’s family went to Jordan, and the rest of the family wound up all over, some stayed. It was to be seven long years 1974 before we ever saw them again, and the rift was slowly healed over years.There was some bitterness remaining when I went on my own in 1984–85, and my aunt in Jerusalem told me to watch out, when I went to Jordan, that no one spoke ill of my parents, especially my mother. That they did what was best for us, and they owed no one anything. Of course just as she said I encountered that mentality. I replied in kind, and we were called traitors and dogs because we left by my one cousin, my uncle said we had it all, because of your mother…. I exploded, and I finally ended with you all had a chance for a better life, you could have joined us, but you were too stuck in the past and lost the chance. You see my grandfather had forbidden them to leave and start new in Canada, believing one day he would return to Jerusalem. Of course that never happened. Ironically enough, In 1977 when he visited Canada and saw the life my folks built, he spoke to me while camping. He explained then that my parents had done the right thing, and my fathers success was due in large part to my mothers help and influences, not least of which was to provide us a better life in Canada. He repeated this comment on his deathbed, and told my dad how proud he was of him.With me so far? Sorry it is so long, but I don’t know how to write any other way.Okay so we arrive in Canada (me 4+, my sister 2, and my brother 21 days, my youngest brother was born in Canada) the one that was 21 days old was actually born in Jerusalem under the Israeli occupation. I have often told him he should apply for Israeli citizenship, which he said he does not want, I would a gladly trade that opportunity.The first thing my mother says, and I remember it well in Montreal, we are going to be Canadian now, we are going to live like Canadians, learn to live here and have a wonderful life. My siblings were too young to really remember much of anything, but I recall it all. I was the first to see the tanks in the French Hill, recall the fighting, the end, and coming to Canada. It is in flashbacks and my councilor/therapist helped me to sort my feelings and memories many years later.One thing that I would like to say here, is war is trauma, it deeply scars people, and my therapist helped me to, if not erase the scars, heal them in a way that they don’t keep getting reopened every time a traumatic event occurs. The pain remains though.We were immersed in Canadian life, we all learned to: ski, swim, skate, participate in sports, dance, music (we all had to learn an instrument), etc. you name it we learnt it, whether we wanted to or not. You see my mother explained, I don’t care if you do it later or not, but if you go to school or attend a function and they ask that “can you do this?”, you all will be able to say you know how to, at least on a basic level. So like it or not we did.I had much difficulty growing up, and never did really fit in well, I was a hothead with a quick temper, and so I learned to fight back and grew up much differently than my siblings. My siblings adapted and assimilated much better. They had a much more normal childhood.So my parents had the traditional views of Arabs at that time and the hatred of all things Israeli and Zionism the only way that they knew to express it was saying the Yahud (Arabic for Jews) did this or that, there are no words (I know) in Arabic to express hatred of Zionism, or Israel. The only thing was here in Canada that is not the way, and people live together. Slowly my father made business contacts, opened his own business, and became very successful. Along the way, he made friendships and business dealings with many people, and amongst them were many Jewish peoples. In fact one man was very nice to me, had a business called Canadian Furniture, right across from the court house. Me being a frequent visitor to that institution he allowed me to park there often. He even employed me for a time. He was a nice man, and would joke as I went to pay fines and stuff, I see Joseph you are making more payments on police cars for the city. He constantly told me to be smart, to not let them get the best of me and to stay out of trouble. I was too young and foolish. None of my siblings were ever so much trouble as I.We grew up knowing our culture, food and traditions, but we also lived full lives as Canadians.I don’t recall my siblings having much political or feelings that were too strong on the Israeli Palestinian Conflict. We always had it in the background, and I recall my parents anguish and fears as each conflict or uprisings occurred, for the families left behind. The 1973 war was the worst and my mother cried all the time, worrying about her family in Jerusalem. Finally the phone lines opened and I recall her tears of joy knowing everyone was safe. My dad used to keep up with the news via short wave radio, not like today, back then governments could cover things up much more easily and the truth was much harder to find out about.I had made friends with at least a few Jewish kids my age over the years, they were always short lived, my parents never told me not to, but always told me you cannot trust them, you will see something will happen. And it did, usually because the topic of Israel Palestine would come up, and on who’s fault it was. The few girls I met that were Jewish, always ended the same way, usually they would go to Israel come back and not want to have anything to do with me again. It was confusing and hard to deal with. Friends only knew the story in the media, and usual all efforts to explain would fall on deaf ears. Back then no one really knew about Palestinian peoples or the events that led to our catastrophe.As for myself, I had some experiences like in grade school when we went to a synagogue and the teacher wanted us all to wear Kippahs, I refused, the teacher was going to discipline me, but the Rabbi bless his soul said let him be, and allowed me to stay. Same thing when we covered the Holocaust in religion class, in my later years. I objected and when I asked about the Palestinians the teacher kicked me out of class, sent me to the office. My exasperated mother was asked did you tell him to do this? She said no, we tried to get him to fit in, but he always has these problems. I was suspended for a few days. That was grade 10, I dropped school shortly afterwards, and I went to work in automotive mechanics, and gave up on school.Then something extraordinary happened, the economy tanked, and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon happened. My grandfather passed away in Jordan, and my father went to attend him and his funeral. I could not go, I had a criminal record by then, was on probation, and the night he passed, I cried alone in the empty football stadium all night. Frustrated that I would never see him again, I screamed at God all that night, cursed the day we left, and hated being stuck here. My dad lost his business again, in later years we would open another office together.Slowly it dawned on me I needed to finish my education, and I enrolled in a public high school, my siblings remained in the Catholic system and finished there. I had terrible experiences in the Catholic system and was bullied, and got into fights all the time. What hurt me most then, I realized later, was these were Catholic schools teaching about Jesus and God and I was born in the Holy Land. Being called rug rider, camel jockey, sand nigger, and most hurtful when I told them I was Palestinian they would call me “Paki” short for (Pakistanis), even though I was not one. That occurred for a long time, over the course of years Junior High right through to when I left in grade 10.When I went back to high school in Grade 11, in the public system, it was so different, and I was not to be messed with, I was tougher, and now also had like minded friends. My siblings were asked, isn’t that your brother? Even though some still knew me, no one ever approached me again. Happily by then I made friends and had a somewhat better experience. I almost finished there. I got kicked out in grade twelve just before graduation. I was over 18 by then, and I recall the vice principal smiling as he handed me my papers, now you are an adult you can never come back. If you want to finish do it in adult education. I would end up getting my high school diploma as a mature student, in my second year of university, under a program that provided a high school equivalency diploma. That was after my nine months in the Middle East, because of my aunts and grandmother (my dads side), urging me to be at least one Saad from the family that got an education. My goals back then were to get educated, become something, and go back to get married and hopefully stay there.Growing up was difficult back then, few teachers took the time to assist troubled youth like me. I recall a few teachers who made the effort, because I was such a loner, ostracized, and yet they recognized my talents they made special efforts.Two big things I recall back then:We had to do a project called ‘Me, the unfinished masterpiece’ and also explain who was our greatest hero. I chose my father. I worked hard on that project, it was grade 8 or 9, and the teacher was really impressed with the presentation as I explained the reasons. I finished by telling the students how lucky they were to live in a country where war does not exist and that they should be grateful for it. Well right after class in the hallway (a number of boys and girls) confronted me and challenged me to prove my words. Later it was revealed that they were just jealous of the good grades I had received. We were fighting, me and one of the tough guys, and I became surrounded with echoes of take a poke at the paki in my ears and I fought and lost. The teacher that was nearby heard it and we were in the principles office. A place I got to know quite well.In English class we had taken reading comprehension tests, and it was revealed I was reading back then at a university level. So the teacher knowing I was reading material that none in my peer group were, allowed me to write book reports on books of my choosing, after he checked them. I felt so grateful and special. Most kids back then picked the easiest books so they would not have to work too hard.Those were the only teachers I recall that made an effort.Three religious figures were instrumental in helping me, two nuns in separate occasions, and one priest. They alone talked to me over the course of years, and counselled me. The first sister in my young years helped me to learn to socialize, learn how to make friends and most importantly how to know how to approach a girl and talk to her. All three were very empathetic to what it is like to be refugee and struggle in a new country. The priest and that first nun had been to Palestine in the past, worked with Palestinians, and it was the first time I met someone who really knew what it was all about. Remember this was the late 1970’s and terrorism had reared its ugly head, the kids had a new moniker‘PLO Joe’ even though my name is Joseph. By then though name-calling did not bother me as much, only the threat of violence did. One day I skipped the whole day, I just said I am not doing this, I spent the whole day at the university, looking at all the books, the place, and said one day I will get here. I just wanted one day away from fighting and taunts. My therapist later told me that was a coping mechanism. They never even knew I was gone, no one called my parents or anything. In later years when I told my mother about this, she said she never knew about that.All the things we went through as a family, and me individually, my mother never lost faith in this country. Even when the teachers and principals failed to do the right things. She was always confident they did the right thing to start over here. My dad would go through tough times, sometimes get mad and curse her for bringing us here, but always in the end would realize that the best thing they did for us was get us out of that situation in the Middle East.After coming back from the Middle East in 1984–1985, I was determined to get my education completed, and that was when I started changing my views. I had reaffirmed my faith in God, and the church, all due to a visiting American priest who saw my pain. It was in a Tel Aviv hotel, just before supper, we went to his room and he urged me to confess, telling me I would feel better. We talked I confessed, and then things changed. I saw things differently. I also had met a visiting Jewish student from New York, while dropping off the tourists and that priest at the airport. We talked briefly I asked him do you think it is fair I was born here and cannot live here, you can just come and live here and have never been born there? He said no, it is not, but do you think it is fair we have to live in fear of terrorist attacks, that you hate us? I replied no, but I don’t hate you. We ended up agreeing the only way peace ☮️ would come is when the old leadership is gone, and our generations get in power. At that time Yitzhak Shamir and Yasser Arafat were hated on each side vehemently.I was involved briefly with a Jewish student and Arab student group that worked on a peace plan of sorts, right after the first Gulf War. It was short lived, but it had exposed me to new ways of seeing the Israeli Arab conflict. It was also then I realized that the Palestinian people had to speak out on their own, and begin new ways to engage the Israelis.As I got more educated, and broadened my views, I started challenging my folks and no longer tolerated them saying Yahud when criticizing Israel, I told them to say Israel or Zionism, or Zionist. Not the Jewish peoples and explained how there were many people who happen to be Jewish who oppose what is going on there. I extended that to all members of my family, and the numerous Arab and Palestinian groups I engaged with. I admit there were many times I was shunned from groups, or told I did not know what I was talking about. No matter, even when Israel would do something terrible, like in 2002 (Operation Defensive Shield). I lost faith, but then again found my desire for peace and reconciliation was greater. This was a pattern that would repeat over and over again.At least for me, and I can only speak for myself, I find that I cannot give up this dream of achieving peace and reconciliation. I see so many possibilities and positive effects of having two peoples sharing the land, with all the talents that they possess.My trip last year, only reinforced that. I am more concerned about the establishment of a Muslim State (nothing against Islam), but growing up the PLO had always maintained that the goals was the establishment of a democratic secular state, that protects all minority rights. It seems to me that an Islamic state (with Sharia Law), could not do this. I for one want a secular state. Furthermore if I had to choose between being an Israeli, or a citizen of the Palestinian Authority (stupid name for a government, who names themselves thus, and who signs away their own citizens in Jerusalem anyway), I choose Israel. Criminal Hamas does not count in my view, and I just wish they would be gone, so the people of Gaza can be truly free.A few last points, my parents had to make choices that were tough, no one willingly leaves their homelands and families for nothing. They genuinely wanted us to have better lives and we did. My mother always had this to say, when my father was having difficulties, or was upset, at least we live in a country where we can say what we want, do what we want, and live the lives we want. As long as one lives within the confines of the law, and respects other peoples rights, that is what freedom is, at least in my view.So sorry it was so long, and I hope that answers some of the questions or most.No need for consolations or sympathy, it’s all gone now, I am ok with it. It was a different time, we were the first generation to settle here, and I see my own children now having a great life. I tried to teach them well, and I believe the next generation will make things right. The kids of today everywhere are much more globally oriented, social justice, and equal rights are important to them. They will not allow this continue (InshAllah God willing), I have faith one day the conflict will end.Best wishes, thanks for your patience.Joseph or Yousef (as you wish) ☮️🇮🇱🇵🇸✌️🤞🙏

North vs. South“The South” is a difficult region to pin down, and I think that the tendency of most Northerners (like me) is to use the term to generally refer to anywhere south of the Mason-Dixon Line. To most New Yorkers, Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Georgia are exactly the same. It's the South but tell someone from Mississippi that they are exactly like someone from Georgia and it might be considered fighting’ words. Mississippi is the existential truth of the ‘real’ south while Georgia is so much ‘Yankee Land’ what with its Atlanta orientation and fancy black political structure. They don’t even fly the Confederate Flag from the state house anymore and they are trying to tear off the Confederacy greatest monument carving of General Robert E Lee on Stone Mountain. And yet Texas is not “the South” in the same way that Mississippi is the South. It isn't Deep South, which is another difficult term to pin down. Texas - half Confederate, half Western, and half New York – that damn state’s culture is everywhere in Texas. I lived in Virginia for ten years and was never considered a southerner. Virginia is northern south Yankee country. I think of Virginia as more “Southern” than Texas in most regards. Yet the Texan concept of what it meant to be “Southern” was different from the Virginian definition.Where does the south end and begin? It’s never a matter of pure geography, but rather culture, and there are a number of historical developments which blur those lines. Most people call the south the “slave states” but then you’re must include Delaware, Missouri, Kentucky, and even then-territories such as present-day Oklahoma and New Mexico/Arizona. If, though, you’re going by the states which actually seceded in 1861 and fought on the side of the “South,” well then your answer won’t include Delaware, or Maryland, or West Virginia (exactly) Missouri and Kentucky.I think that, culturally, the Civil War and their resultant belief systems - isolation, oligarchy, slavery, Jim Crow - that went with it helped to define the South as a region to a greater extent than the north who doesn't even think about it. Losing that war and dealing with the policies that followed gave those states something in common in a way that the rest of the Union didn't have. It was unity in defeat. Now, culture and identity are two different things. It would be great to see the leaders of the South let go of the anger, fear and hate and the symbols (flags and monuments) that continue to hold back their region.The south is vastly different than the north - It’s not really strictly a Northern vs. Southern thing. It’s much more related to being an urban vs. rural thing, although that’s not everything. There is also the southern extreme religiosity, slave and Jim Crow history and resultant Civil War where 650,000 people were killed leaving deep feelings in the south. There is a saying in the south "The War ain't over."The two regions developed differently - the north was an industrialized, immigrant driven, infrastructure built part of the USA while the south had none of that in order to keep the slaves constrained from escaping and to support its oligarchy style of government. This affected how the USA was built over time. Northern homes are usually built near major cities, where the costs of land, materials, and labor are considerably higher than in the southeast. In addition, weather-proofing housing in the North has to account for considerably greater temperature variation than in the South. For example, the Twin Cities in Minnesota can experience -35 degrees F in the winter and 95 degrees in the summer. South Florida rarely gets colder than 60 degrees in the winter and 95 degrees in the summer.The North has, since the foundation of the United States, been the most densely populated region of the country. Cities and towns are older there, and even rural areas have had more time to be settled and develop. If you drive through small towns in rural Pennsylvania, Maryland, or Massachusetts, you’ll notice they still feature lots of houses (often old, from the 1900s, 1800s, or even 1700s) smashed really closely together. Even the cost of land in the northern states is higher. With more time to develop farming and a higher population causing higher demand on the land (plus, in many cases, a topography that doesn’t make for lots of wide-open space), most, if not all, of the empty land has been claimed and domesticated.The South, in contrast, developed much later. While port cities such as Charleston and Savannah have dense historical districts, large swaths of the South, including most of what now make up the largest cities in the region, were empty and undomesticated until much later in our country’s history. With room to spread out and ample unsettled areas available for the taking, land was not at a premium as it was in the North. Even to this day, large cities in the South like Atlanta (the 9th largest metropolitan statistical area in the country), not to mention even larger metro areas in Texas like Houston (#5) and Dallas (#4) feature a much more spread-out, less-dense population, and with undeveloped land still being available, the demand of land is significantly less than it is in the denser Northern states. The availability and lower cost of new land to develop means that the cost of building new homes is less, which means the demand for existing houses is less, translating into a lower cost of ownership.Southern society is based on ultra conservative REPUBLICAN beliefs and evangelical religious practices that justifies all sorts of evil transgressions and refutes evolution, global warming, cosmology, modernity and the genome of DNA. And I will never understand the southern obsession with guns, it just doesn't square with biblical teaching. The south is an intolerant society that is loaded with fears of diversity and modernity. They try to keep things the same, and between political gerrymandering, voter suppression of minorities, constant messaging from conservative and religious ideologues, there are very few mechanisms for getting another opinion much less the truth. It's so bad that there’s not a day that goes by where I don’t see some conservative going on and on about how the Republican party is the party of “good Christian values” and everyone else (specifically liberals) is waging some kind of war on religion."The North" -I lived in the North most of my life; was born and raised in 1930s - 40s Milwaukee, then spending ten years in the south during my Navy and IBM Naval Base career. I think most people have fond memories of where they lived as young children. Milwaukee was a great place to grow up in but its bitterly cold in the winter. It's one thing to know about the cold, and another to have to get up every morning and put on six layers of clothing to stay warm. I didn't think an average summer temp of 80-85 degrees sounded so bad either, until I got to Georgia and got smacked in the face with humidity like I had never experienced before. Trust me when I say that I abhor hot summer weather in the South. I'm never out during the day because of it. I'm dead serious when I say that I have gone a week without leaving my house during the day, primarily because the weather sucks. I will gladly take the colder winters over the brutal summers. I don't know what it is, but I find the heat worse than the cold since it feels more oppressive for some reason.Northern culture is very different from the Southern Culture. Did I say Northern culture? No such thing! Northern society is way too varied to have a singular culture. "The North" is kind of a default concept created by Southerners. They define it as "any place but the South." The north is really at least two separate regions, the Northeast and the Midwest. The culture of Grand Rapids Michigan is completely alien to someone living in Boston, Ma. In fact a thick New England accent may be tough for someone in the Midwest to even understand.The values of the two regions are different, as are the ethnic makeup's of them. The northeast is far more urban, far more politically liberal, while the Midwest is slower and less densely populated, it's considered traditional America. It is funny that southerners do not see this fact, as they are constantly lumping all northerners together as if they share a common culture. I challenge any southerner to travel to upstate New York, Vermont, Maine, rural Michigan or Wisconsin and still claim that the north is one big fast paced concrete jungle where people talk fast. I think most of them would be shocked at what they saw there. No skyscrapers, no rude fast paced people, lots of guns, lots of gigantic lakes, deep water fishing, big slew woods big game hunting, farms everywhere and yes far better fishing and hunting than they could ever hope to see down south.I Fell in Love with NYC - Cruising Times SquareI got my start in NYC in the 1950s when I was in the Navy spending many weekend liberties in Manhattan. For a sailor from Milwaukee stationed in the segregated and dismal 1950s south, Times Square was an euphoria of delight, a paradigm of exoticness coupled with the world's diversity of peoples and life styles all wrapped in one package. During our annual 'Fleet Week' when my Battle Group visited New York City and my Destroyer anchored in the Hudson by the George Washington Bridge, I stood Military Police in Times Square before we were deployed to the Med for six to eight months. Compared to dismal Norfolk, Manhattan was like comparing Paris to Calcutta.There were actually thousands of delights, with tens of thousands of people walking about, and no question about it, the best girl watching in the world was available in Manhattan - particularly in midtown along its many avenues, lined with skyscrapers, building ledges and street cafes to sit around. A particularly good area was in the fifties on Sixth Avenues where many water fountains abounded and granite veranda patios filled with tables, chairs and sitting ledges. Whatever your fancy, blond, brunette, redhead, Asian, White, or Black, the woman of you dreams would pass by every five minutes - or oftener! The beautiful people of the world came to Manhattan for fame, fortune, and excitement. Careers in show business and the business world topped the list as reasons so many bright and attractive people moved to Manhattan. And for some like me, it was for freedom!For lunch, every kind of food is available, with hundreds of Delis, street cafes, ethnic restaurants, Halal street carts, and fast food eateries every two blocks. Eat a New York pizza and you are doomed to never be satisfied for a slice anywhere else. Manhattan is also the Happy Hour and dance capital of the world, and everyone loves to party heartily in one of those 12,000 some odd night clubs, juke dance joints and dive bars in the City, the Irish ones being the best. So after work, Happy Hour is a must to relax and become acquainted with someone new while you search for your heart's desires of a soul mate. There is so much to choose from, every type and color hue that making up your mind is a problem, but choices are stimulating, and Manhattan has tens of thousands of personal prerogatives, and a neverending supply of life styles are available. Nothing in the world beats the night life in New York, which includes various types of hang out places like Bars, Cocktail Lounges, Billiards, Comedy Clubs, Dance Clubs, Hotel Bars, Comedy Clubs, Music Clubs, Sports Bars, Piano Bars, Jazz & Blues Clubs.Yes, in New York you can always hear any type of music, from plenty of jazz, pogoing punk to thumping hip-hop on any night of the week the live music scene very well reflects New York's diversity. If you are looking out for some dance clubs with Caribbean, Brazilian, African tastes, or even cheesy numbers or hard hitting drum tunes, you can get that too. Crazy things happened all the time. I bought beef jerky sticks from a street cart, an Amish man, in Union Square park on a gorgeous sunny day in Gotham after a business meeting. There were hundreds of people milling about enjoying the day as I was. As I sat eating my jerky sticks, I saw an attractive big busted woman wearing absolutely nothing above her low cut jeans; her beautiful breasts on full display. It made my day. What a delightful vision of splendor! All the New Yorkers pretended not to notice but, I like to smile and luxuriate in spiritual feelings so, I was most happy she walked by, breaking up the routine of another day chasing a buck in New York. Now you see the bold and the beautiful, the famous and discover they are just like you, scared of the notoriety and needing a small space to hide in. That is the biggest lesson you learn in Manhattan that we are not so different, all the races, colors, ethnicities and religions types are so much the same. Yes, the best time of my life was working in Manhattan; the total freedoms, the people and place were perfect for me, all exciting and highly glamorous. It was all for me! But to be honest, I moved to Manhattan in the last innocent time, the time without AIDS. Like many of the adventures in the 1960's and 1970's it was "risk on" as no sexual act, no sexual conquest, no ethnic adventure was taboo - as it had been for generations before. In the 1960's the call to arms: "If it feels good do it" became the credo to live by for millions of us who grew up listening to the music and the message. The rebellion of Woodstock and social revolution in Greenwich Village permeated the American scene. All the old fears were thrown aside.Whereas NYC had everything, from tough water front bars, girls of every color and ethnic type everywhere anxious for attention from loved starved sailors, to ritzy nightclubs, the south had no social life, just military bases, guns and churches that preached Martin Luther King was a communist. And the 'War ain't over', the Civil War which was like a mountain range that guards all roads into the South: you can't go there without encountering it. Specifically, you can't go there without addressing a question that may seem as if it shouldn't even be a question - to wit: what caused the war? One hundred years after the event, the Confederate Flag still flies south of the Mason Dixon line and southerners don't think the Civil War had anything to do with slavery - regardless that Jefferson Davis and all the seceding states stated slavery was the reason for the war. It was the 1960s and African Americans were waging epic struggles for civil rights that altered white Southerners' worlds who reacted with hostility. They feared social and political change, and grappled uncomfortably with the fact that their way of life seemed gone for good.Then in 1968 I moved to Manhattan to escape the segregated South and all its social primitiveness. The Ku Klux Klan was running about lynching people and no one got arrested. No southern Sheriff would arrest a white murder, no white jury would convict, it was utter mayhem and chaos - the south was barbaric and lawless, they became a pariah in the world and didn't care. They were defending their confederate flag and all it stood for, hate and white supremacy. What I found in New York was much more than freedom, a wonderful city with lots of grand life styles, a chance to be all I could be and have international friends.As a new person to Manhattan, I performed the obligatory Staten Island Ferry ride and then caught the subway to Clark St Brooklyn, as advised by others, to walk toward the Manhattan skyline across the Brooklyn bridge after getting a slice from Grimaldi's Pizza. On any given day visitors from all over the world stream across the walkways to spy the towers of Manhattan and Lady Liberty from high above the East River. The melting pot begins here. Visitors should know that the rather narrow walkway is shared with a large number of bicycle commuters so keep your eyes open and respect the dividing line. I would highly recommend walking from the Brooklyn side because then you have the beautiful Manhattan skyline to look at on your walk. I just finished walking the Brooklyn Bridge going from east to west and saw the City Hall of New York, and my tourist map said Chinatown was nearby. I asked two Chinese ladies sitting on a park bench the direction and they said just follow "Central St." True enough, before me were several Chinese restaurants and bargain stores after a short walk. Shirts were being sold for just $2, and great caps for three for $5, but I came here for the food! I wanted to eat some beef Chop Suey like my dad got from the Chinese restaurant in Milwaukee every Friday night. It was notable that there were also lots other Asian restaurants, like Vietnamese. All the stores here target to Chinese people as customers, the newspaper and signs are in Chinese. I walked for a while in the small streets and barely met with anyone other than Chinese people. I drunk something at Hon Café where nobody could understand in English that I just wanted a milkshake so I drunk something else! Then I returned back to the small alleys and visited the central park of the area which is Columbus Park. The Chinese community gather there for socializing. I noticed many ladies under their colorful umbrellas chatting and playing cards and the men in different tables playing an unknown to me domino game. Some interesting points to see here are the two Buddhist temples I saw, probably there are more but those are the ones I saw on the map. On Mott Street I found many accupressurist charging $5 for 10 minutes.I enjoy the weird and unusual and while walking 8th Avenue poked my head into the Terminal Bar, its notoriety drew artists and punks and the curious. I found that straights like businessmen in pin striped suits and high class women in furs and high heels went there to experience the 'other world' once in while, to get dirty and hang out around 3 a.m. after working or nightclubbing all night and having double eggs and bacon breakfast around the corner at the 11th Avenue Diner where Mickey Spillane and Jimmy Breslin got their story book characters from. But, it wasn’t really welcoming to slumming business engineering hipsters like me or bush league adventures looking to make nice with Terminal bums. You needed tattoos, earring, being unshaven with long hair, having a worn out - been through a war and barely survived look - to enter without provocations coming back at you. It was still an enclosed society with it’s own brutal code, not easily cracked by the voyeuristic aesthete.I decided not to walk Manhattan in an orderly manner but, rather, to walk wherever I happened to be in the city on a particular day or what appealed to me according my mood. If I felt like open spaces, I would walk the upper part of Manhattan; if I wanted streams of people milling around, it would be midtown or lower Manhattan. I didn't skip any streets because I learned from my first few walks that you never knew what was around the corner. When walking around Manhattan, you learn the city's quirks and niches, the things that make New York what it is. This is great if you have never been to NYC, or if you have been to an area and never truly explored it. I learned this my first day out: Why do Brownstones have tall stairways? To avoid the smell of manure before the car was invented of course! A few days ago I walked down to the Wall Street area. Leaving the West Village, heading south along Greenwich Street, I could see a change in architecture . . . the pretty brownstone streets were soon replaced with rows and rows of old warehouses. Real old ones, the kind that are begging to be restored into vibrant, new loft spaces young people would inhabit. I’ve always wanted to restore an old warehouse. On I walked as the landscape transitioned again. Taller, newer buildings sprung up amidst the old ones. So many interesting rooftop habitats (am dying to go into some of these places). One can only imagine how creatively decorated they are on the inside. I stopped for lunch in Tribeca and had my first real street meal today from a Halal [i.e.: Muslim] vendor. For $5, which include a coke (I mean a soda), I had one of the most delicious meals I’ve had in a long time. REALLY! It included something that resembled a hush puppy, but it was seasoned totally differently. I was enjoying my meal until the pigeons arrived. And folks, let me tell you, these New York pigeons are REAL aggressive. That bird came within six inches of my lunch and would not back off at all.Something told me I was nearing the financial district because of all the starched white shirts walking down the street. Girls in high heels and dark suits, men with ties and their hair all in place. No tattoos and dreadlocks on this side of town. There were a lots of voices that sounded angry, so I followed the sounds. I sure didn’t want to miss a good story, it was a group of New York Telephone employees picketing in favor of some new work rules. I met a young lady at Trader Joe's, a sweet eyed, brown skinned vixen from Tunisia. She flirted with me and wanted to go dancing. New York City is full of immigrants, who left their nation(s) and culture to pursue a better life in the Big Apple.Lately I have been walking up the avenues to 42ndstreet to explore Manhattan. What I found were diversity in neighborhoods, architectures, and ethnicity. Yesterday I walked uptown on Fifth Avenue to Grand Central because it was so beautiful; a crisp air bright blue afternoon sky and I love to walk the streets of New York because there is no need to be crammed and sweating in a subway car. Each time I’ve wound up at Grand Central station. I’ve taken a different avenue or have zigzagged my way uptown. I like to get a feel for each avenue, see how they’re different, see what’s around me. Today I took Lexington Avenue and I’m glad I did. Besides how narrow it was, compared to other avenues, it was beautiful. Old buildings, more residential on the stretch I walked than other avenues. But the main reason I was so happy to be on Lexington was because, as I was stopped at a corner waiting for traffic to pass, I heard a little voice call out, “Mr. Luenzmann?” Had I heard the voice say, “Jerry” I probably wouldn’t have turned around because no one yet knows me by my first name in New York City outside of the New School. But because my ears are so trained to small voices calling me by my last name, I turned around immediately and there in front of me was one of my students. She was getting out of a cab with her mother right where I was, and after a few surprised seconds, they invited me up to their building’s roof! It was the first rooftop I’ve been on in my life in New York, and I couldn’t have chosen a more beautiful vista or two more lovely people to be up there with. The building has a view of the East River, where Macy’s 4th of July fireworks explode before their eyes, and, better yet, the Empire State Building basically leans over them. We were so close I could almost see the people in the building’s offices. I exaggerate of course, but the view was really beautiful. Being up so high in the late afternoon, watching the shadows grow long and deep purple across the city while Queens remained golden in the distance brought such calm to my day that had been agitated by some work stress. It was so nice to be up there with my student and her mom; the conversation flowed so easily, and I learned more about their family. I left the roof feeling patient and forgiving.Some times I took a subway to explore somewhere and then walk around. I remember seeing horse-drawn carts with the last of the rag-pickers and the gradual shift of the area south of us from Italian to Puerto Rican. I passed a an Italian butcher shop, carcasses hanging in the window, and the fish monger, the dead bodies of fish, heads and tails intact staring up at me from their bed of ice; a little daunting to a six year old. The Italian grocer on the corner, narrow and dark, redolent of those smells only an Italian grocery has: Parmesan cheese, olives, prosciuto and more; funky smelling to a young, untrained nose.I remember the bodega where the Puerto Rican owner spoke no English full of newspapers and candy, Smarties, miniature wax Coke bottles filled with dark syrup, red wax lips, candy cigarettes, Necco Wafers. It was hot and I was sweaty and wanted something sour, I stood with a dime in my hand to buy a big sour pickle. I picked on from the barrel on the street then, task complete, walked out into the sunshine, extra bright after the darkness of the store, hands full of candy and a smile on my face. Across the avenue, Lanza's, an Italian restaurant, occupied the same spot since the 1920s. It seemed so old: small white octagonal tiles on the floor, wainscoting and mirrors and pictures of Italy on the wall, bent-wood chairs at the tables. It was a little more expensive than the other Italian places I went to. It was the first place I ate Veal Marsala and I remember the sensation of the buttery meat melting in my mouth. The Italian ice place next-door was an important stop after dinner at Lanza’s on a hot day. The soothing lemon ices, smooth and tart, were served in a pleated paper cup. You’d squish it to get the ices to come up where they could be licked, I can still feel and taste them on my tongue.Walking Harlem on Sundays was very uplifting as you could hear singing in the air from all the churches. There are dozens of them in Harlem, some large, some as small as a one-door garage. One time when I had gotten off the train at 125th street, I stopped outside the station to stretch my legs before beginning a long walk downtown. A man in a wheelchair rolled over to me and asked if I was O.K.. When I told him I was just stretching my legs, he said, "O.K, as long as you're alright," and rolled away! On another occasion, a young African-American was sitting in front of a brownstone next to it and as I passed him he asked me if I was going to buy the house. I told him I wasn't but that if I were his age, I would seriously consider it. Manhattan has so many kinds of people experiences I wondered what kept me so long from enjoying them. There was always a show to see in Manhattan whether it was the sidewalk stores in Washington Heights, the quaintness of Greenwich Village, the "busyness" of Chinatown and the lower East Side, or the multitude of activities going on at Harold Square, Columbus Circle, Union Square, or Madison Square Park.People want to know what area I liked the best and I always have to dodge that question because I had no favorite. Manhattan is like twenty different countries - you appreciate each one for what you learn from it whether it's the Latino influence in the north or the Chinese in the south. I guess my favorites are Times Square for its grittiness and exhibitionism of neon lights and people and Greenwich Village for its intellectual contents and people. In looking back, I realize that the walking was mentally stimulating as it motivated me to get out of my comfort zone each week. Walking in Manhattan was like living in the moment, very spiritual on many levels as you were alone with the world without being alone. The contrasting neighborhoods gave life to the meaning of the Golden Rule, not like in the South that was racially segregated and had none of the ethnic diversity of Manhattan. Again I thought, “Why did it take me so long?”New York City occupies a special place in the American consciousness as the tumultuous seat of our financial markets and the buzzing capital of our culture. New York is celebrated for its wealth of nationalities, ethnicities and languages. But why would anyone want to live in NYC? It's insanely expensive, there are too many crazy people, it's bundles of energy and famously, "If you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere." And lots of people love the challenge! Most important, it’s the city that exemplifies American pluralism, the “melting pot” that attracts new immigrants looking for work and college graduates drawn from their hometowns by the promise of excitement and opportunity. Its appeal hangs on its image as a city where everyone can try, get, and be anything. It has been my home for more than 40 years and I love it for its social and economic freedoms. My education and computer technology background fit right in and I found great career and social successes. Am I wrong or what?But NYC is not a panacea, it has its own problems just like any other city. First of all, it's terribly expensive, living costs are very high, you live in a small apartment that cost a fortune or commute from far away distances. Taxes are high to pay for all the social services, city employees and infrastructure support. The New York City government's budget is the largest municipal budget in the United States. In 2016 the NYC city government had a budget of $80 billion a year.The best jobs are in NYC and unless you are wealthy, you must commute and the hours required while being stuffed on packed trains and subways which are actually a frustrating second job. Second, the City is densely crowded. People are piled on top of one anther. Third, you will never get a good job unless you have a great education, NYC is comfortable for skilled and educated people only. Others scrape by! NYC is also being seriously gentrified, wealthy people move in to replace poorer people who are moving out. On the other side of the coin, NYC is certainly a playground for adults. There's never a dull moment in NYC. It's the city that never sleeps. It offers a thousand different interesting things to do every day. Besides high paying jobs for the talented in the business, banking, financial, advertising, business, performing art’s world, there is Broadway, Greenwich Village, China Town, Little Egypt, parades galore - St. Patties Day, Halloween, Macy's Thanksgiving, street theater and theatrical Flash Mobs, thousands of restaurants, bars, night clubs, museums and parks to pleasure your life away. Living or commuting to NYC is like being a member of Delta Force. It ain't for everyone but if you can do it life is great and you are a very special person.New immigrants do not simply replace old residents in the same jobs. They alter the economic mix. Look at the way Italians shaped the construction industry or, more recently, how Koreans have changed greengroceries. The succession of wealthy and skilled Blue Collar European groups who founded New York and dominated it for centuries have now become a racial minority. Whites are the racial minority residents in NYC itself. And they tend to be wealthy too to afford the expensive skyscraper multi million dollar condos and $3000/month apartments being built by the hundreds to accommodate the huge world migration to NYC. People have their priorities and if one of the top ones is living in Manhattan then they make it happen. Lots of people live in 2 bedroom apartments with 2 or 3 other people they don't know so they only pay $1,000 month each. I don't know how people move to NYC from anywhere else because the amount of living space you'll end up having is just a fraction of what you're probably used to . . . but for us NYers it's just what we are used to. It's also a very different lifestyle. There are a lot of singles and couples, it's exciting, active, socially diverse, people get along, tons of things to do any day with lots of entertainment choices, Very few families live here (in Manhattan).Lots of the people renting are struggling actors or such and they sacrifice space for location. I have friends who live in only a small room and share bathroom and kitchen. I know people who commute 2 or 3 hours to work . . . I am one of them, which is ridiculous but I have six kids and wife Upstate in the Catskill’s mountains, so its worth it. If you know the right spots to look and the right people you can get something affordable in this town . . . but for most people you're better off moving somewhere else. It sounds crazy but it's just life here.Most New Yorker's don't own, they either rent and/or live in the burbs & commute. When I first moved here, I lived in Hell's Kitchen in Midtown Manhattan and then moved to Jamaica, Queens. I worked in the Village and spent one hour on the F Train each way to and from work. The average rent for a Manhattan apartment was more than $2500 in 2005 and it's only gone up since. It would be more realistic for you to look for a studio, deep in another borough and even then you will have a hard time finding something acceptable that is that cheap.There is an affordable housing crisis in NYC and things are bad for everyone. Luxury skyscraper condos are sprouting up for sale everywhere but nothing affordable to rent. You could always try renting a bedroom in a share situation. It's possible that you won't find much less than $700/800 since you don't want to get shot or have an hour commute.NYC is a commuting culture. Millions of people commute to Manhattan every day, they ride trains, take ferries, subways or buses to Manhattan and there are tens of thousands of amenities to accommodate them. They come from Westchester, Long Island, Connecticut, Hudson Valley, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Upstate. This Metro area is more than 30 million people. Consequently, transportation is everything in NYC. But if you live in Manhattan, don't even consider a car unless you're wealthy, because you'll have to pay big time to keep it in a parking garage which cost around $800/month. You can get around by train, subway, taxi and bus. Subways go everywhere but are full of smelly homeless, hot, dirty, loud with rude people, constant beggars and candy sellers etc. But the entertainers at the stops are great. The A Train travels the entire length of the city, from the Bronx all the way through Brooklyn. It is quite the ride . . . a bucket list thing. Busses aren't bad but it tends to be slow. Living in Manhattan or Brooklyn and having a car is suicidal. A car is needed if you live on Staten Island. In Queens a car is helpful, and not a pain. For most of the Bronx, forget it, except for Riverdale. Manhattan and parts of other boroughs have alternate side parking, which means you have to move your car every day except Sunday and find a new parking spot. Loads of metered parking also.Speaking of commuting, New York City has one of the most extensive public transit systems in the world. The New York City Subway System is one of the largest subway systems in the world with more than 700 miles of tracks covering the four out of five boroughs of New York City. It is the only subway system in the world that operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Penn Station is the busiest railroad station in the world, with more than 800,000 commuters in it every day. In addition it hosts the Long Island Railroad, which bring million of the commuters from the eastern suburbs into the city daily. Grand Central Terminal is the largest railroad station in the world. The GCT is home to Metro-North Railroad, which operates train from this fame rail hub to the Hudson Valley, the northern suburbs and Connecticut. And now also the Long Island Railroad to Manhattan's east side.Other form of transportation operates to and from New York City, they included The PATH, NJ Transit, Amtrak, and both national and regional buses departing from and arriving to the Port Authority Bus Terminal. There also five airports, (Newark, LGA, JFK, Newburgh, and White Plans), as well as an extensive ferry system that include the Staten Island Ferry. So there is definitely no way you'll need a car to get around New York City. Manhattan squeezes people in skyscrapers and more are built every year for business, condos and apartments. Most people who work in those tall Manhattan skyscrapers of Manhattan live in Brooklyn, The Bronx, Queens, or even the NJ cities. Asking whether the City or New Jersey right across the Hudson is better is like asking if surfing is better in the Great Lakes or the Pacific. Stay away from Long Island, New Jersey, Hudson Valley, etc. if you're not looking to start a family, or simply do not prefer some of the most exciting activity in the world.NYC is heavily minority but overall, whites are much better off - they are better educated, have significantly less out of wed lock births, suffer less drugs, idleness and do much less crime than minorities. The evil doer whites steal unethically at the top in Wall Street and the blacks steal violently at the bottom on the street. Social progressives are always trying integrate the neighborhoods and schools, but it is the old story, how do you mix poor minorities with educated affluent whites? So the melting pot image belies the reality that much of the city remains divided along racial or ethnic lines. In dozens of neighborhoods, a single racial or ethnic group predominates, at rates of 70 percent to nearly 90 percent.New York schools are the most segregated in the country according to a new study. More than half of New York City’s public schools are more than 90 percent black and Latino, But these numbers don’t mean very much when placed in the context of the demographics of the school system as a whole - more than 67 percent of all students in the NYC system are black and Latino to begin with and live in their own neighborhoods. There just aren't not enough white kids to go around and integrate. And the white kids come from a different demographic too - more wealth, better educated and less dysfunctional homes. Sounds like Atlanta to me too! This is the worrisome inequities hidden beneath the New York’s glowing facade.Moving South From New YorkSo, this Yankee is back down South again, and this time the experience is more pleasant. I like the South now, it has changed for the better, it is easy living, but it is nothing like the more sophisticated northern style of multi cultural living, where people are better educated and more tolerant, and where there is more to do, but it’s cheaper, and that is what I need now on my Social Security budget.In Georgia, I am in the land of religious zealots and Tea Party conservatives and closed minded thinking and it's not a good fit for me. These days, it's hard for me to relate to people who insist that they are right, right, right and right, and even more right! They are full of - mostly mean and nasty - opinions without facts. They are supported by their media outlets like Fox News and conservative talk radio. They are only looking at their "side"... and their "side only!" All justified because their Bible tells them so! Especially when their view is so bigoted and hateful . . . that is so un Christian to me but normal religiosity to them.The south is antiquated, still hung up on its very one dimensional conservative religious and political culture and is very backward compared to the rest of the USA. But it is also the land of comfort, low speed ease, warm weather, tradition, good friends and hospitality. Today it's different, more normal, but always so hot and humid, and everyone is so polite, they say "Bless your heart" which makes it OK when followed by a verbal bomb, like "Your breath stinks. " But while it is all giving with warm fuzzys on the surface, I still felt underneath it was like a bomb waiting to go off. There is so much 'anti' feelings exhibited toward people not like them. I felt southern culture was kind of ridiculous. Sweet tea. Lots of churches. Religious judgmental attitudes out the wazoo. Ugh It just seemed so phony. But every corner I turned, there was an voluptuous white or black woman in a spring, floral-print dress with big hair and too much makeup, smiling and telling me, "Bless yer heart." I kinda liked that! Made me feel good and welcome.It's a completely different culture and belief system! In New York people ask what school you went to and here in the south they ask what church you go to. And their evangelical [Baptist, Methodist] church has a lousy record of following the Golden Rule; they help set up slavery, supported Jim Crow and fought against the 1960s Civil Rights to the death. Pastors still tell you from the pulpit that Obama was the anti Christ, to vote Republican, New York Values and homosexuals are evil, and the Confederate Flag represents southern tradition. And southern public education does not include a true picture of slavery, the Civil War and Jim Crow. The result is that southerners are on a completely different page of world understanding on religion, American history and how the USA was founded. You only get elected by being an evangelical Christian, ultra conservative, gun loving, immigrant and homosexual hating, Wall building Tea Party Republican.For example, down south, I like Charleston and Savannah in Georgia and St. Augustine in Florida. They are quite cosmopolitan for their size, so you won't give up too much in the way of culture. They are very touristy, full of history, and definitely more middle class and laid back, which is a plus in my book. There are more Protestants & fewer Catholics and very no Jews, but the objectionable judgmental fundamentalist evangelical religion thing is really easy to avoid in my experience. I also like Gwinnett County in the Atlanta metro area, the second most diverse county in the USA, the first being Queens, NY, is quite a nice place to live. It's sophisticated, with lots of new residential and commercial development, is filled up with immigrants and Yankees, has mostly good schools and hundreds of great neighborhoods - and is middle class affordable. It kinda reminds me of Westchester County in NY on the cheap. I think Atlanta is way over rated, in the USA it ranks in the bottom five of states for its horrible violent crime, worst traffic and lousy schools. There are too many hoods next to nice neighborhoods too.Yes, Blacks and whites get along fine today in the south, maybe better than the north. I guess after 400 some odd years of slavery and Jim Crow, practicing the same kind religion, living together and getting to know each other, they discovered there wasn't that much difference in the races. But that doesn't mean the South in general doesn't have a serious problem confronting its deeply embedded culture of racism.However, I always felt the South, that beneath the smiles and southern hospitality and politeness were a lot of guns and liquor and fear. Look at who they elect to office, all fear mongers and isolationists. I think it is safe to say that while the South is hardly Christ-centered, it is most certainly Christ-haunted. And if you want to see what life was like years 50 years ago, go south, everything happens in the south later than in the rest of the civilized world. It is backward and behind the curve on modernity . . .I go to church and volunteer here, and everywhere I go in the south there is a negative feeling about New Yorkers and the great city where I spent my life. With bad attitudes toward New Yorkers and being called a “Yankee” (like it’s a dirty name) once too often, and with my contemporary feelings on social issues like abortion, gay rights and racial integration generates conflicts among some church members, who saw nothing wrong with slavery and Jim Crow and still think 'Neegras' need to know their place,In metro Atlanta, the people are far more progressive and have experienced major northern immigration with commensurate cultural concessions like social integration. But those multicultural areas are repeatedly reviled by many of the rural people where we live, who are very socially conservative and uncomfortable living with multiple ethnic cultures and have a far different understanding of history.Southerners love their region and its culture; they don't think anything bad about it, no even slaver and Jim Crow. Once, when Bettie and I sat at a Sunday School luncheon table with a father and his daughters, who attend (private school) George Walton Academy, and he wondered why I immigrated to the north in the 1960s. I looked at him in astonishment. Southern legalized segregation and its evils didn’t even cross his mind as a barrier to my living in the South. Wasn’t it obvious that Bettie and I could have never lived in the South in the 1960s, but to him the south was the best place to be and he thought of the north as a culture of infidels. I told him that leaving the south and moving to Manhattan was a blessing to me and for the first time in many years I breathed the fresh air of freedom. Manhattan was good to me as I experienced a great career, economic and social freedoms, and international friendships, all of which were unavailable in the South. I was committing the unpardonable sin, bragging on New York and he wasn’t very happy with my conversation and quickly left the table.Yes, it's is a different world in New York where critical thinking "brain-storming sessions" was the way we got things done. Where there is very little race, religion or ethnicity issues, but where people are measured on character, where people work together to come up with creative and novel ideas to solve long-standing problems. New Yorkers are definitely better educated and a highly competitive international bunch, that live in a highly diverse environment and consequentially are very tolerant, and that all seems to rub many socially conservative southerners to no end who deplore New York values and call New York "Decadent" because we allow Gay Marriage.And the South is Trump country where he and his Republican alt right base have normalized bigotry, misogyny, racial hatreds and ignorant low brow thinking. They have not condemned the Nazis, white nationalists and KKK who support the extremist 'alt right.' They have become America's "Hate Group" and created the "US vs. "THEM" in American politics. And they are blaming America's problems on Mexicans, immigrants, liberals, homosexuals, abortion and anyone who disagrees with them being an educated and thinking worldly person. It's gotten into religion too, evangelicals standing against abortion and Gays and for "Religious Liberty" which allows them to discriminate against whom they disagree with, like Gays, Muslims, blacks, inter racial marriage. Conservatives used to stand up to religious crackpots like Alabama's Roy Moore, now many are defending him and he is sure to win election to the US senate in Alabama. Trump protects violent fascists by dispersing the blame in Charlottesville to "many sides." He has emboldened fascism around the world and white nationalists and Nazis in the USA. And the once truly great Republican Party has become the voice of hatred and thugs. It is perhaps the first time in American history that the racist far-right sees the elites in the White House as its allies.Why is the Country so divided?Since turning 80, I have not felt a shrinking but an enlargement of mental life and perspective. Having a long experience of life, I have seen triumphs and tragedies, booms and busts, revolutions and wars, great achievements and deep ambiguities, too. One has seen grand theories rise, only to be toppled by stubborn facts. One is more conscious of transience and, perhaps, of beauty and God. At 82, one can take a long view and have a vivid, "I have almost a century" and developed a sense of history not possible at an earlier age. I can actually imagine, feel in my bones, what a century is like, which I could not do when I was 40 or 60. I feel the north is more optimistic, exhibits critical thinking, thinks through facts rather than jump to some religious dogma like in the south.Since the beginning of recorded history, people have disagreed on everything and when societies were run by demigods (and many still are), getting agreements were simple, the ruler kills the ones who disagree, you know, the ones who are different, the ones who belong to other groups, have different agendas, believe in something radical to the norm. After all, life is so much simpler when all agree on everything! Then came democracy for the few people with enough nerve to stick their necks out and suffer debate, disagreement, and disorder.Today, in the 21st century, our knowledge on history has increased ten thousand times with the advent of computers and hundreds of thousands of new scientific and archaeological / cosmology / geophysical discoveries and with critical thinking we are capable to absorb all this new information and not get stuck in the past. But there are those who want to disregard modernity, science and our ever increasing understanding of history, they are afraid of change because it disturbs their comfort zone and/or are stuck with religious / political dogma. Change is natural and good, but people's reaction to change can be unpredictable and irrational. It can become a phobia for some and often being recognized as irrational. Resistance to change comes from a fear of the unknown or an expectation of loss. In reality, fear of change is one of the most common reasons for resistance to change because it stops you taking any action at all.The Religious Right extremists want to rewrite history, in much the same way as holocaust deniers are, they want us to believe our country (USA) was founded as a Christian country when in reality it was founded as a secular country. One of the principals of our founding was based on a desire for religious freedom and freedom from religion, and therefore the founders established a secular government focused on the personal freedom to be and equality - southern states excepted [sic] slavery.None of the Founding Fathers were atheists. Most of the Founders (Washington, Madison, Jefferson, etc.) were Deists, which is to say they thought the universe had a creator, but that he does not concern himself with the daily lives of humans, and does not directly communicate with humans, either by revelation or by sacred books. They spoke often of God, (Nature's God or the God of Nature), but this was not the God of the bible. They did not deny that there was a person called Jesus, and praised him for his benevolent teachings, but they flatly denied his divinity. The Founders were students of the European Enlightenment. The attitude of the age was one of enlightened reason, tolerance, and free thought. The Founding Fathers would turn in their graves if the Christian Extremists had their way with this country.I say all this to shout my dismay at the conservative right wing who have left their traditional bastion of reasonable advocacy for running a common sense - business like show. They have gone to religious and political extremes, advocating fear, mistrust and hate for anything or anyone not like them. They have been subjugated to extremist dogma and misconstrued history to their own ends (like the Nazis and Communists did), especially when it comes to what being a true American and Christian is all about, and facts about the philosophies attendant in the founding of our country and the Civil War. They see the world in a very puritanical - black and white - light.Trip to New YorkI went to the Colonial diner several times and looked at the crowd streaming in, diners being a famous New York habitat for the local yokels and also the rich and famous. New York diners are huge, seating around 500 plus people, and offering up a variety of menus but always serving 24 X 7 generous eggs and bacon breakfast with home fries, toast and orange juice for around $4.00. Waitresses always seem to be the wise cracking chesty blondes in short dresses with black fish net stockings who serve you flawlessly, but with endless jokes, local antidotes and are the best authorities on local politicians. Yes, New York always has that edge of Mickey Spillane grittiness and toughness about it, but New York is the land of the immigrants and the neighborhoods are always swapping from one group to another and people are very tolerant of different life styles. Man, I wish I was young again and could go out in the world and do SOMETHING! In NY there are jobs all around for a old retiree, driving local truck for parts dealers is a common one.But I nearing 83 and feeling my age. Once a 175lb lean and mean fighting machine, my biggest problem now is that I am fat, and at 210 pounds, a little bit of a porker, and all in the belly. I took several Internet tests on “How long will you live” and they all came back saying I would live to be 95. Well, that I doubt very much! I am constantly working on my “Navy” and “Working in Manhattan” memoirs, going over them again and again, adding, editing, embellishing [I do that really good] and come away with a feeling of thankfulness for the life I have led.I have discovered this retirement life is for the birds, it’s too boring and I yearn for exciting things to do, like living and working in Manhattan again, going to the museums, becoming Irish again and watching the St. Patrick or Ticker Tape parades, where millions watch and hundreds of thousands march, crawling around the bars and night clubs at night, getting real ugly, looking at the tens of thousands of pretty women that fill Manhattan streets, thinking maybe someone remembers me from the good ole days, but I can’t drink or dance anymore and my old friends are passing. My dear friend and drinking partner from the Peppermint Lounge, Joe Fraiser, just died at 66. I remember attending his championship fight of the century with Ali at the Garden in 1971, what a thriller.Talking about visiting much less working or living in Manhattan drives evangelical Southerners crazy as they hate the place, too many liberal Obama loving Yankees with those damnable "New York Values," and humanists, you know the kind, those classic liberals that believes in equality and fairness, besides, they all have unhappy times when they visit Manhattan, most people are having too much fun to pay much attention to them and they hate all those Obama look-a-likes, you know cultured, smart, educated and classy Black men. Decrepit as I am, I would get out of breath (old and thankfully extinguished smoking habit, but it has done the dirty on me), collapse on a street corner, and Emergency Services would take me to Bellevue, where I would be housed with the crazies for even thinking such thoughts about living in Manhattan, ugh, an old poor, albeit good looking me, in Manhattan.Upstate NYMiddletown New York is a 28,000 population city surround by a 29,000 population Town of Wallkill which I lived in and served ten years on the Planning Board, approving all strategic real; estate development, which included shopping and strip malls, hospitals, large residential housing developments, factories, distribution warehouses, big box stores (Wal*Mart, Lowe's, Home Depot), and any sewer, water enhancements within town boundaries. The whole area is full of bi-level ranch homes, is a regional mega-shopping center with hundreds of new apartment/condos complexes for New York immigrants who came upstate to the Catskill Mountains foothills for better housing and schools.Recently, Kiplinger Magazine billed Middletown as one of top ten small cities to raise you children in the Unites States. The magazine cited several reasons; Middletown’s good schools, median family income is big enough to live comfortably at $68,000, low crime rates, affordable median housing at $220,000, plenty of parks and pools, a culturally and racially diverse population, located in the beautiful Hudson Valley with a plethora of performing arts and sophisticated cultural activities, near the Catskills Mountains for skiing, canoeing and fishing, and closeness to New York City for the big paying jobs and all connected with multiple mass transit systems ending in midtown Manhattan subways, trains or bus station.It is not the gargantuan size of the New York Metro 20 million population region, or the crushing and suffocating commuting to Manhattan through a few tunnels and bridges that defines New York City, it is the diversity of people and everyday experiences that generate the excitement of living or working in the Big Apple. Just think, 45 per cent of New York City residents are foreign born and each ethnic group has its own colorful neighborhoods, restaurants, Bodegas, social styles with its own ethnic parades like St. Patties Day that millions watch and hundreds of thousands march in on 5thAvenue.There are similar parades for Halloween in Greenwich Village, the Caribbean, Asian, Middle Eastern peoples and that grand daddy of all, Wall Street Ticker Tape Parades. New York is not about whom to hate but who to love, because hating would be fruitless in this widest expanse of diversified humanity on earth and loving is so much fun . . . and Godly!It is because this gigantic collage of differentiating humanity is thrown into a bucket and stirred around and mixed up really well, the result being a salad bowl with political opinions and life styles that are so different and varied that the typical ideological wars between Republicans and Democrats or Whites and Blacks seem like child's play, like confrontation 101. Believe it or not, everyone gets along, because they want to keep the peace and because they have learned to enjoy each other.New York’s life style has always been to “Live and Let Live.” They work together, socialize at the dance or night clubs, date and marry, go to church with each other, and now you can understand New York City Region, it’s all about connecting to the world in a small peaceful space. The funky culture of New York City extends well into the 100-mile radius of the commuting region with its performing arts, academic intellectual curiosity and liberal social life styles.The next day Bettie and I went to our old church, the First Congregational in downtown Middletown. It was great seeing our old friends, a diversified collection of Upstaters of different nationalities and political persuasions. During the 28 years I lived in New York, I was a registered Republican, even got elected on that ticket several times, and at church after the sermon during coffee hour, enjoyed debating among my church member friends the days current events. This year my Republican friends are not voting the ticket in this election, they have been turned off by the extremism in the Republican party, the effort to tie religion to its principals and the virulent, without real thinking, anti Obama harangues. They see the world differently and look for problem resolution rather than the constant ideological confrontation coming from the current Republican candidates whose primary debates were an absolute turnoff for their meanness. It was great getting with my old friend Presley Cannady again.Back in the day we were on opposite sides of the political spectrum, but this day we seemed to have both moved to the center of reason, at least within screaming distance among the libertarians. Is it us or have the times changed? I liked the way my friends could discuss issues with some intimate knowledge, like they had studied the facts and were not intimidated by rapid opinions of such entertainment news outlets like FOX or Rush Limbaugh. Interesting!The next day Bettie and I drove to Connecticut to visit with her sisters and extended family living there. During our trip, I had been bragging about my great health situation, not having a single problem since my last heart by pass in 2000. Well, God must have heard me and decided to show me He is in control and He put a hurt on me I will never forget. Having the worst time in my life, I started having extreme vertigo and couldn’t stand, sit down or navigate in any way and wound up in the Yale emergency room in New Haven. I was there overnight and they ran every test known to man on me, concentrating on my heart and scans of the brain. I hope Medicare and my backup insurance policy pay for it as I am living on Social Security and can whistle only a little - pucker problems you know!While I was in the Emergency Room, I talked with the doctors and nurses. One PA nurse, was an ex US Marine who served ten years as a Scout Sniper and did several tours in Iraq. Another was a doctor who served there and we all talked about the desert, the Arabs and the primitive conditions of the Persian Gulf where I also served in the 1950s relieving the British fleet. The Marine said it all, the region lives in the 15thcentury and is so violent and that it breeds sociopaths who are willing to be suicide bombers, mass murdering their own people and be world terrorists murdering innocents to make their deranged religious points.A doctor came in to examine me, there were so many who did get a piece of me I wondered if I was something special; he asked me if Bettie was my wife. I said yes and he started discussing his personal his history, born and raised in New York City, went to North Carolina for medical school and got disgusted with Jim Crow and social conservatism, came back to Columbia Prysbertiaran in New York City for social freedoms and his residency and then on New England to set up his Neurology practice. He didn’t like the South.He said the culture in New England, basically upper class and a mixed ethnic/political region with a small minority population, was far different from the South, where most people held very right wing conservative political opinions and many still hang onto the old views of the Confederacy, saying the North started the War of Northern Aggression (Civil War) and what was wrong with slavery and Jim Crow anyway, after all, it’s all in the Bible. Worse, they dam Yankees for immigrating South with their liberal points of view and making them feel very uncomfortable. He further opinioned the racial situation in the South is slowly improving but still is way behind the dynamic diversity and extensive community touching that is found in the North, especially in New York, the diversity capital of the world. He said the rural South is still shamefully segregated, socially primitive and an anathema to any free thinking Northerner. Gee, where have I heard that before?One of the evening Doctors attending to me was a Nigerian woman and when she asked me where I was from and I said the Atlanta area she asked me how I like living there. I told her I preferred the north and later when she finished examining me she wanted to talk personally. She explained that she lived in the Atlanta area and didn’t like it, the old South and Confederacy an all, so she moved north and got an apartment in Manhattan, felt it was much freerer and offered more economic opportunity and she loves the big Apple city life. She wanted my opinion on Obama and asked lots of questions and offered opinions on politics. She sounded like a middle of the road voter, and I thought could be an Independent, but she was really turned off with the Republican party extremism.Living past 80 in GeorgiaI still have those “Wild Days” fantasies from my old Navy life when I rode my Harley all over the East Coast. I thought about buying another motorcycle at Cycle World in Athens, but the salesman was short of a foot and hobbling around with two aluminum crutches with several missing front teeth and a patch on his left eye, he just had a motorcycle accident with a truck and the truck won. Kinda of scared me, I didn’t want to spend my elderly days crippled.But just for a lark, being the epitome of manhood and devil dare, and for something crazy to do and brag about later, I tried enlisting in the Marine Corp again, I am pretty smart you know, can figure out really strategic things, and they were so nice last time I tried, they gave me a sticker to put onto my car, I thought maybe they were hard up now, but there is almost a two-year waiting list to get in - the economy sucks and young people are looking for good jobs. One smart ass Marine in dress blues with a chest full of medals said if I could do a hundred push ups they would consider me for a dishwasher assistant in the enlisted commissary at the base. Well, you know how that went! They paid for the ambulance, Medicare didn’t have to pay a dime, and I got another nice sticker for my car. They put me in a hospital with some pretty Jamaican nurses with big breasts and long legs and I got a date next Saturday night at Wendy’s - They liked me, I have coupons. But my real heart is with the Navy you know, but they couldn’t accommodate my need for afternoon naps and stinky severe methane episodes, those cramped sleeping quarters aboard ship you know, and it takes more than two years to get in there. Hell, by that time I might be in a nursing home farting and sleeping peacefully. So, I write stories about Growing up in Milwaukee, The Navy, Working in Manhattan, Living in upstate New York, little ditties and political commentary - I am mad at everyone, those politicians, they are all a bunch of crooks, and I feel good about ratting on them and contributing something worthwhile in life.While I write stories, Bettie is busy with her quilting and visiting her mother who is in Hospice in Birmingham. Judi is working on her Master’s, Neil just got his, Jeanne just had surgery, Jada is visiting Italy again to visit her husband’s parents in Turin. Lynn and Keith are fine, Morgan works at Longhorn, Skylar is going to private school now, Darilyn graduated NYU, Nick is in college in Dobbs Ferry, and Ariana (our great) is cuter than anything, and life goes on. All is well.Living in Georgia has been comfortable but cantankerous, what with the social conservatism and uniformity of right wing politics and Bible thumping absolutism so often indicating a basic intolerance of many of societies’ members. There is so much bigotry in the South on anyone who is different; it's not a black vs., white thing of the past. Christians in the South are not the nice people as the Bible would lead you to believe. People are so sure about things; there is no in depth understanding or shades of gray. The Home Owners Association in our development zeroes in on any decent from their elevated perception of a photo perfect neighborhood, they believing they can control your home with intrusive bylaws. It can get really foolish, before the bylaws were changed, you could not park in your driveway, all vehicles must be in the garage, even your pickup truck. I think southerners are really different that northerners, coming from high anxiety - highly educated - competitive and diverse New York, you notice it right away.I am getting reflective, just got thru looking at my old photo albums from 2000 to present and what a tour de force in history and good times, summarizing our life living in upstate New York to our life in Georgia thru 2012. It was all there, in extroverted vivid photographic detail; the world Trade Center attack by Muslim fanatics and the USA response in Afghanistan, my heart surgery and Bettie’s breast cancer, our extensive Caribbean, South America, Mexican, Northern Europe and Mediterranean cruising, our children and grandchildren graduating from High School and college, my thirteen years in (really enjoyable) semi retirement making $10 bucks an hour doing various sale’s jobs in upstate resort areas, Bettie’s PTA and my School Board / Planning Board activities.Fixing up the old Crane Road homestead and spending enjoyable summers at our Lake Wallenpaupack cottage, endless family gatherings at our house, Pennsylvania’s Knobble Amusement Park (no admission or parking and rides are just $1.00). Then there was our Motor Home camping in New York’s Niagara Falls, St. Lawrence Seaway, 1000 Islands in Alexander Bay, Lake George and Yogi Bear campgrounds. However, the greatest memories from all those years came from Bettie and our children and grandchildren. It makes one so thankful for life and our family! Yes, life was a neverending pleasure trip . . . what a ride!Which brings me to another point, I turned 82 this year and am feeling aged for the first time. What with getting tired easily and needing those afternoon naps, getting fatter and a little jowly, and often feeling like a truck has run over me for no reason at all, that ‘old age’ feeling has finally crept upon me. That and the feeling of my immortality slipping away has given me a pause for serious reflection, as most of my high school buddies, Milwaukee family and many of my Manhattan working friends have passed. I am thankful for my generally good condition, for I look much younger (most say late fifties - early sixties) and feel better than most of my acquaintances of the same age and I thank God for every new day! He certainly has been good to me!Then I think back to living in the Northeast for 40 years (3 in New York City, 7 years in New Jersey, and 30 years in New York). I would say those years were exhilarating albeit often stressful, and they had those great people living exciting life's to befriend, job opportunities and social freedoms, but those high - socialism inspired - taxes were outrageous! Yeah, there were so many life styles available without judgmental religious types around wagging their fingers, the north being a “Live and Let Live” environment, and then there were the characters and exciting experiences I encountered that were even better, but those taxes!? Ugh! And the cold weather and snow! Double UGH! Thank God I was young and could shovel five feet of snow because if I had to do it now, it would be heart attack time. I ranted about politics when I lived up north too, about the unions, the free lunch crowd, the jobs for life as long as you worked for the government. But then there were the great schools, best mass transit in the USA, the wonderful transformational life experiences working in Manhattan (Greenwich Village and Midtown) and living in Queens and Upstate, the excitement of Times Square, the multi culturalism, and more than anything, the thrill of Greenwich Village’s bohemianism, intellectualism and cultural artistic leadership. New Yorkers don’t complain. They enjoy life! And if you’re a little weird, it’s even better!I know that if given a choice, and I lived my life over again, I would definitely still live and work in New York and think twice about moving south when I retired. In the Hudson Valley where I lived, there was just more freedom, with more religious, political and life style choices available, where people are not the same and think differently, and we celebrate the differences, and there is tons of fun, a thousand things to do and the Delaware River valley is 15 miles away, the Catskills are just up the road, and the Pocono’s are an hour away and New York City is just a train ride away. It’s a low mountain area, with tons of lakes and rivers dotting the area with the Hudson River and West Point 30 miles a way, and the towns, those beautiful small artistic / university towns, are all over the map. I would still go into the Navy, the March on Washington and Woodstock, get involved in Civil Rights again, and have the same academic, business, Hollywood / artistic and Wall Street friends. It was a very good life!