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My wife and I met in Japan. We ran a school together in Okayama one Shinkansen stop away from Hiroshima, the site of the first use of an atomic weapon.In May 2016 President Obama was in Japan visiting Hiroshima. It was the first time a sitting President had ever visited the city.Kumiko and I were married May 28th, 1994 near Fayetteville, Texas and held our reception in Cat Spring Agricultural Hall. We honeymooned in San Antonio and to our amazement we found a stone monument in the Alamo Garden, a gift from a Japanese professor in 1914. We had started a school months earlier but it had no name so the timing was perfect - we named our school Alamo in honor of the memory of the Alamo heroes and also the Japanese professor who had honored them with a gift.Fast forward to 2016. It’s our 22nd anniversary and President Obama is in Japan visiting Hiroshima. It was the first time a sitting U.S. President had visited the city. Upon learning of his visit some victims wished to hear an apology from the President.Shizuka Kamei, who lost his sister in Hiroshima and went on to become a powerful, conservative cabinet member told a group of journalists: "If President Obama’s not coming with an apology, he should not come at all."The President did not apologize but he offered this statement, "We have a shared responsibility to look directly into the eye of history and ask what we must do differently to curb such suffering again. Someday the voices of the hibakusha will no longer be with us to bear witness," he said, using the Japanese term for survivors of the nuclear blasts.As Memorial Day Weekend approached, Donald Trump tweeted,The fact that there are such hard feelings coming so many years after the event speaks, I believe, not to the fact that we have over discussed the issue. Quite the opposite. We need to discuss it. It should involve Trump. It should involve Kerry. It should involve people such as my wife and I who have lived many years together running a business in Japan while bridging the language and cultural divide. The conversation should involve the victims of Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Banka Island, Nanjing and Manunda.The fact is that this very important conversation between Japanese and Americans has taken place and with amazing success - only the rewards of this conversation were never shared with the American people or the Japanese people. It was bottled up; kept hidden; silenced by a system that is, in Trump’s words, “absolutely rigged.”And now we have two talented people who the American people have become somewhat disgusted with. I’m talking about Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. For all their talents, and experience, the slugfest is taking its toll on the American people. Why? Because we are tired of this game in which politicians make themselves out to be forsaken embattled heroes at the expense of real battlefield heroes.When they’re gloating over the leadership capabilities of a North Korean dictator or a former Iraqi dictator….when they’re too soft on Hamas and too hard on Israel, when they’re _____________________(please fill in the blank) they aren’t doing a good job for anybody. How many are afraid when we finally see Hillary and Donald go after one another in debate it’s going to look more like a catfight over NON-ISSUES? That’s why we need to bring the debate to San Antonio. Because being there will remind them what the real issues are. We not only have the shrine of Texas liberty to remind them but also the Rosetta Stone, that lone* surviving pock-marked stone tells a story. We don’t need your favorite dictators dictating to us. We don’t need your incompetence. What we need is your vote for us. For the Alamo. That’s right. We want you to vote for us. Not cry for us to vote for you. We want you to vote for us, to represent us, not yourselves! Can you talk without babbling about your favorite dictators? Can you actually visit the Alamo when you come to San Antonio, and not just your biggest donors?If the U.S. election were won by the celebrity who has most clearly demonstrated a love and passion for the Alamo he would be disqualified for lack of citizenship. His first visit was in 1973 and he has been back many times. He has donated a significant collection of artifacts related to the Alamo. He is, of course…future U.S. President Phillip David Collins. Admittedly I am perhaps being a bit tongue-in-cheek when I suggest that unless his mother had moved to Hawaii, applied for a home-birth certificate, then flown to London to have her baby, this scenario is probably not possible. But it does have a nice ring to it! A good man with a favorable rating. Is that too much to ask for? Are we being greedy? Of course, not.Trump and Clinton do fly into the Alamo City for fundraisers but that’s about it. Clinton has walked the Alamo grounds - once but not as candidate. Trump: I don’t know; I’m still looking for evidence.Hillary, Trump: We hear that you care. We hear you can fix the rigged system. We hear you are for justice. Okay, then. Let’s put all your belly-aching about e-mails and Trump U aside and let’s see what you two very talented leaders can actually do for your country right here and right now. Please tell Hofstra thanks for the invite but no thanks and instead…Come to the Alamo. Let the Alamo’s brilliant history and the city’s incredible beauty rise and shine!And no, don’t come here to demand an apology for this or a shaming for that. We can’t change yesterday. But we can change today. We can look at the facts, and learn not to repeat the same mistakes. This is what our military is counting on us to do. To provide leadership so that we aren’t arming and funding Rebels who could not stop themselves from beheading a child with a dull knife. The public has had it up to here with you politicians. We have had enough, and we aren’t going to sit and take it anymore of your bullshit funding to Islamists. No more. Presidents’ return all your gold chains back to sender. How do Presidents accept a gold chain from a country which stones women to death? I have to pinch myself to see if this is reality because it makes no sense to me.San Antonio would be a beautiful spot for a Presidential debate, don’t you think? Currently there are three Presidential debates and they are scheduled for:1.) Monday, September 26, 2016 Location: Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY) (changed from Ohio due to “budget” issues)2.) Sunday, October 9, 2016 Location: Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO3.) Wednesday, October 19, 2016 Location: University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NevadaThe first scheduled location was changed from Ohio to Hempstead, NY at Hofstra University. I think Hofstra University is unqualified for holding the debate for the following reason:The university sponsored a pricey lecture series in which credits could be earned called, “Lawyering at the Edge” featuring disbarred attorney and convicted felon Lynne Stewart as speaker/lecturer. The draw to the lecture was to hear her describe what it was like defending Islamic terrorists. How did she defend them? Using illegal means, that’s how. Stewart was convicted in 2005 of providing material support to terrorists after a jury found that she had conspired with her client, the Islamist “blind sheikh” Omar Abdul Rahman, to smuggle out messages to his followers.In 2000 and 2001, I was a plaintiff in a lawsuit. During this time, I appealed for help to stop the airliner plots. I was aware of the plots through Japanese media reports however there were several personally compelling reasons why these media reports (including a Boston-based report on airliner screening failure) affected me quite deeply and personally and it had everything to do with my line of work through Japan and my educational background as well as the experiences I had lived through. The pipe had a hook on the end which had penetrated through my skull. My wife who witnessed the attack said that she could see my brain. I had multiple seizures.This is what brought me to the center. Lawyers from the company I was suing interfered with my pleas to stop the airline plotters by making themselves the recipients of information gleaned from my therapy. I pleaded with the therapist to make certain law enforcement was receiving my direst concerns after the therapist revealed to me that the law firm had contacted the center and had requested my signature for the transfer of the notes to them. Exactly a year after 9/11 - during the law firm’s deposition of me - I discovered that the purpose of their obtaining my notes was to target my wife. My wife had also been the object of harassment by my company’s managers.As another example of “lawyering at the edge” I discovered at this time that an attorney - John Riley had sued United Airlines and won a settlement of 3 million award for discrimination and wrongful termination on behalf of his client Abu-Aziz who claiming a stewardess had unfairly discriminated against her co-worker Aziz by commenting that he fit part of a terrorist profile. United Airlines had accused him of stealing alcohol and generally not being a good employee. I called and spoke personally with John Riley to express my foreboding that the award was sending out the wrong message. My heart was in my throat but I was direct and sincere in tone.I discovered John Riley’s case after lawyers had asked me what kind of settlement offer I would be willing to consider. I said I had no idea. They recommended I conduct an online search. In less than a minute I found his case.It is not uncommon in cultures with a strong tradition of alcohol consumption that being drunk is seen as a legitimate excuse or at least a special circumstance that tends to take the piss out of arresting and prosecuting such offenders. Japan is a country where alcohol is only a vending machine away and an intoxicated person if not behind the wheel is simply ignored or directed to a taxi. Low speed chases are a common occurrence while high-speed chases are very rare. But the streets are not without risk especially if you are a foreigner. Being a foreigner demands extra caution. I was attacked my second year in Japan by four drunken pipe-wielding construction workers who were caught by police but escaped prosecution because their victim was a foreigner and they had been drinking.Prior to Pearl Harbor the Japanese embassy in DC apparently got a telegram from Tokyo to be forwarded to the U.S. basically saying negotiations were going nowhere - war was imminent - but it wasn't received and delivered to the U.S. until after the Pearl Harbor attack supposedly because the diplomats had been out drinking. It’s a plausible story. But then again, it doesn’t make any sense that the Japanese would have done anything to compromise the secrecy of their sneak attack killing thousands of Americans. Even today lawyers in Japan knock themselves out arguing over the finer points of the law such as whether such-and-such a person or department had attempted to meet the requirements of a formal declaration of war before the onset of hostilities. It all kind of makes you want to throw up.Perhaps the closest America came to thwarting Pearl Harbor, 9/11 and the August 2006 airline attacks came from the ALAMO's Rosetta Stone, a gift from Professor Shiga Shigetaka who was moved by the story of the Alamo heroes. He died in 1927. He was a more pragmatic personality than his student Noguchi who was swept up defending Japan's campaign in China. In 1938 - 11 years after his former teacher, the gift-giver’s death - Noguchi engaged in a very public exchange of letters with Rabindranath Tagore in an effort to bring about international sympathy for Japan's China campaign. He failed miserably as Tagore excoriated his arguments soundly. It was, at least, an eye opener: Noguchi was no Shigetaka and he rambled on about suppressing the weak and old and one's own doubt (I think he called it ‘intrigue’) to make way for the new and strong - a common theme in Nazi ideology. The exchange represent the pivotal moment Japanese intellectuals adopted a course turning their backs on America, India, and England, in favor of an alliance with Nazi Germany. If, after Nanking in 1937, there was any hope of an about-face in policy it would have had to come in the form of an appeal to the legacy of Shigetaka. And the appeal would have had to have had to come from many sources of influence within Japan herself to have been broadly accepted.When Shigetaka came to America with his stone gift and his entourage he did not know with absolute certainty it would be accepted. Of course, there were letters exchanged, newspaper articles foretelling the event but even still, there was uncertainty in the air if for no other reason than Shigetaka was well-versed in Murphy’s Law. *For example few know this but he actually made three stones in case the other two broke. Unfortunately not everyone is a fan of Murphy’s Law, of preparing for every outcome while assuming nothing. And even if you are a fan of it, it doesn’t mean you’re good at it.ISIS loves Toyota trucksSan Antonio is home to a Toyota factory. But it bothers Texans that while the US/Japanese relationship is so economically connected Japan can’t figure out how to keep their brand new Toyota trucks from finding their way to ISIS?9/11 plot: The airliner plots’ first victim was Haruki Ikegami murdered on a flight en route to Tokyo in Dec. 1994, the same year my wife and I visited the Alamo. I attempted to reach Ms. Oishi at the US embassy to express my concerns after news reports revealed a 10–12 plane plot to use some planes as guided missiles. After returning to the U.S. I pleaded for help to stop the “Bojinka” airline plotters. I had nightmares of falling from a tower and seeing another man just yards away falling alongside me. “They (the airline plotters) are in our flight schools, aren’t they?” I asserted. “You want the plot, stopped,” she replied. “Yes!” I confirmed.This is OUR country. We don’t need to settle for second or third or fourth best.We can take it forward.It’s time. Time for the Alamo to shine. Hofstra, if Ohio can decline “for budget reasons” I am sure you can guys can think of something, too. Our best hope is to help educate the public and whoever will be our next President that we can look to the past for the inspiration to move ahead.

Why is Hofstra a poor choice of locations for the 2016 Presidential Election?My wife and I met in Japan. We ran a school together in Okayama one Shinkansen stop away from Hiroshima, the site of the first use of an atomic weapon.In May 2016 President Obama was in Japan visiting Hiroshima. But before I get to that, let me tell you that Kumiko and I were married May 28th, 1994 near Fayetteville, Texas and held our reception in Cat Spring Agricultural Hall. We honeymooned in San Antonio and to our amazement we found a stone monument in the Alamo Garden, a gift from a Japanese professor in 1914. We had started a school months earlier but it had no name so the timing was perfect - we named our school Alamo in honor of the memory of the Alamo heroes and also the Japanese professor who had honored them with a gift.Fast forward to 2016. It’s our 22nd anniversary and President Obama is in Japan visiting Hiroshima. Upon learning of his visit some victims wished to hear an apology from the President.Shizuka Kamei, who lost his sister in Hiroshima and went on to become a powerful, conservative cabinet member told a group of journalists: "If President Obama’s not coming with an apology, he should not come at all."The President did not apologize but he offered this statement, "We have a shared responsibility to look directly into the eye of history and ask what we must do differently to curb such suffering again. Someday the voices of the hibakusha will no longer be with us to bear witness," he said, using the Japanese term for survivors of the nuclear blasts.As Memorial Day Weekend approached, Donald Trump tweeted,Does President Obama ever mention the sneak attack against Pearl Harbor when he's in Japan? Thousands of American Lives LostThe fact that there are such hard feelings coming so many years after the event speaks, I believe, not to the fact that we have over discussed the issue. Quite the opposite. We need to discuss it. It could involve Trump. Or John Kerry. Or even people such as my wife and I who have lived many years together running a business in Japan while bridging the language and cultural divide. The conversation should involve the victims of Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Banka Island, Nanjing and Manunda.The fact is that this very important conversation between Japanese and Americans has taken place and with amazing success - only the rewards of this conversation were never shared with the American people or the Japanese people. It was bottled up; kept hidden; silenced by a system that is, in Trump’s words, “absolutely rigged.”And now we have two talented people who the American people have become somewhat disgusted with. I’m talking about Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. For all their talents, and experience, the slugfest is taking its toll on the American people. Why? Because we are tired of this game in which politicians make themselves out to be forsaken embattled heroes at the expense of real battlefield heroes.When they’re gloating over the leadership capabilities of a North Korean dictator or a former Iraqi dictator….when they’re too soft on Hamas and too hard on Israel, when they’re _____________________(please fill in the blank) they aren’t doing a good job for anybody. How many are afraid when we finally see Hillary and Donald go after one another in debate it’s going to look more like a catfight over NON-ISSUES?That’s why we need to bring the debate to San Antonio. Because being there will remind them what the real issues are. We not only have the shrine of Texas liberty to remind them but also the Rosetta Stone, that lone* surviving pock-marked stone tells a story. We don’t need your favorite dictators dictating to us. We don’t need your incompetence. What we need is your vote for us. For the Alamo. That’s right.We want you to vote for us. Not cry for us to vote for you. We want you to vote for us, to represent us, not yourselves! Can you talk without babbling about your favorite dictators? Can you actually visit the Alamo when you come to San Antonio, and not just your biggest donors? I guess the Alamo does'nt make your bucketlist if you are the kind of person who thinks that losing a battle makes you a loser. The kind of person that thinks lost battles and the men who fought in them shouldn't be remembered. That we Texans should celebrate San Jacinto maybe...but not the Alamo...If the U.S. election were won by the celebrity who has most clearly demonstrated a love and passion for the Alamo he would be disqualified for lack of citizenship. His first visit was in 1973 and he has been back many times. He has donated a significant collection of artifacts related to the Alamo. He is, of course…future U.S. President Phillip D. Collins. That's right, Phil Collins. Admittedly I am perhaps being a bit tongue-in-cheek when I suggest that unless his mother had moved to Hawaii, applied for a home-birth certificate, then flown to London to have her baby, this scenario is probably not possible. But it does have a nice ring to it! A good man with a favorable rating. Is that too much to ask for? Are we being greedy? Of course, not.Trump and Clinton do fly into the Alamo City for fundraisers but that’s about it. Clinton has walked the Alamo grounds - once but not as candidate. Trump: I don’t know; I’m still looking for evidence.Hillary, Trump: We hear that you care. We hear you can fix the rigged system. We hear you are for justice. Okay, then. Let’s put all your belly-aching about e-mails and Trump U aside and let’s see what you two very talented leaders can actually do for your country right here and right now. Please tell Hofstra thanks for the invite but no thanks and instead…Come to the Alamo. Let the Alamo’s brilliant history and the city’s incredible beauty rise and shine!And no, don’t come here to demand an apology for this or a shaming for that. We can’t change yesterday. But we can change today. We can look at the facts, and learn not to repeat the same mistakes. This is what our military is counting on us to do. To provide leadership so that we aren’t arming and funding Rebels who could not stop themselves from beheading a child with a dull knife.The public has had it up to here with you politicians. We have had enough, and we aren’t going to sit and take it anymore of your bullshit funding to Islamists. No more. Presidents’ return all your gold chains back to sender. How do Presidents accept a gold chain from a country which stones women to death? I have to pinch myself to see if this is reality because it makes no sense to me.San Antonio would be a beautiful spot for a Presidential debate, don’t you think?Currently there are three Presidential debates and they are scheduled for:1.) Monday, September 26, 2016 Location: Hofstra University,2.) Sunday, October 9, 2016 Location: Washington University in St. Louis3.) Wednesday, October 19, 2016 Location: University of NevadaThe first scheduled location was changed from Ohio to Hempstead, NY at Hofstra University. I think Hofstra University is should not be the site the debate for the following reason:The university sponsored a pricey lecture series in which credits could be earned called, “Lawyering at the Edge” featuring disbarred attorney and convicted felon Lynne Stewart as speaker/lecturer. The draw to the lecture was to hear her describe what it was like defending Islamic terrorists. How did she defend them? Using illegal means, that’s how. Stewart was convicted in 2005 of providing material support to terrorists after a jury found that she had conspired with her client, the Islamist “blind sheikh” Omar Abdul Rahman, to smuggle out messages to his followers.In 2000 and 2001, I was a plaintiff in a lawsuit. During this time, I appealed for help to stop the airliner plots. I was aware of the plots through Japanese media reports however there were several personally compelling reasons why these media reports (including a Boston-based report on airliner screening failure) affected me quite deeply and personally and it had everything to do with my line of work through Japan and my educational background as well as the experiences I had lived through. The pipe had a hook on the end which had penetrated through my skull. My wife who witnessed the attack said that she could see my brain. I had multiple seizures.This is what brought me to the center. Lawyers from the company I was suing interfered with my pleas to stop the airline plotters by making themselves the recipients of information gleaned from my therapy. I pleaded with the therapist to make certain law enforcement was receiving my direst concerns after the therapist revealed to me that the law firm had contacted the center and had requested my signature for the transfer of the notes to them. Exactly a year after 9/11 - during the law firm’s deposition of me - I discovered that the purpose of their obtaining my notes was to target my wife. My wife had also been the object of harassment by my company’s managers.As another example of “lawyering at the edge” I discovered at this time that an attorney - John Riley had sued United Airlines and won a settlement of 3 million award for discrimination and wrongful termination on behalf of his client Abu-Aziz who claiming a stewardess had unfairly discriminated against her co-worker Aziz by commenting that he fit part of a terrorist profile. United Airlines had accused him of stealing alcohol and generally not being a good employee. I called and spoke personally with John Riley to express my foreboding that the award was sending out the wrong message. My heart was in my throat but I was direct and sincere in tone.I discovered John Riley’s case after lawyers had asked me what kind of settlement offer I would be willing to consider. I said I had no idea. They recommended I conduct an online search. In less than a minute I found his case.It is not uncommon in cultures with a strong tradition of alcohol consumption that being drunk is seen as a legitimate excuse or at least a special circumstance that tends to take the piss out of arresting and prosecuting such offenders. Japan is a country where alcohol is only a vending machine away and an intoxicated person if not behind the wheel is simply ignored or directed to a taxi. Low speed chases are a common occurrence while high-speed chases are very rare. But the streets are not without risk especially if you are a foreigner. Being a foreigner demands extra caution. I was attacked my second year in Japan by four drunken pipe-wielding construction workers who were caught by police but escaped prosecution because their victim was a foreigner and they had been drinking.Prior to Pearl Harbor the Japanese embassy in DC apparently got a telegram from Tokyo to be forwarded to the U.S. basically saying negotiations were going nowhere - war was imminent - but it wasn't received and delivered to the U.S. until after the Pearl Harbor attack supposedly because the diplomats had been out drinking. It’s a plausible story. But then again, it doesn’t make any sense that the Japanese would have done anything to compromise the secrecy of their sneak attack killing thousands of Americans. Even today lawyers in Japan knock themselves out arguing over the finer points of the law such as whether such-and-such a person or department were blameless because they atleast had attempted to meet the requirements of a formal declaration of war before the massive attack. It all kind of makes you want to throw up.Perhaps the closest America came to thwarting Pearl Harbor, 9/11 and the August 2006 airline attacks came from the ALAMO's Rosetta Stone, a gift from Professor Shiga Shigetaka who was moved by the story of the Alamo heroes. He died in 1927. He was a more pragmatic personality than his student Noguchi who was swept up defending Japan's campaign in China. In 1938 - 11 years after his former teacher, the gift-giver’s death - Noguchi engaged in a very public exchange of letters with Rabindranath Tagore in an effort to bring about international sympathy for Japan's China campaign. He failed miserably as Tagore excoriated his arguments soundly. It was, at least, an eye opener:Noguchi was no Shigetaka and he rambled on about suppressing the weak and old and one's own doubt (I think he called it ‘intrigue’) to make way for the new and strong - a common theme in Nazi ideology. The exchange represent the pivotal moment Japanese intellectuals adopted a course turning their backs on America, India, and England, in favor of an alliance with Nazi Germany. If, after Nanking in 1937, there was any hope of an about-face in policy it would have had to come in the form of an appeal to the legacy of Shigetaka. And the appeal would have had to have had to come from many sources of influence within Japan herself to have been broadly accepted.When Shigetaka came to America with his stone gift and his entourage he did not know with absolute certainty it would be accepted. Of course, there were letters exchanged, newspaper articles foretelling the event but even still, there was uncertainty in the air if for no other reason than Shigetaka was well-versed in Murphy’s Law. *For example few know this but he actually made three stones in case the other two broke. Unfortunately not everyone is a fan of Murphy’s Law, of preparing for every outcome while assuming nothing. And even if you are a fan of it, it doesn’t mean you’re good at it.9/11 plot: The airliner plots’ first victim was Haruki Ikegami murdered on a flight en route to Tokyo in Dec. 1994, the same year my wife and I visited the Alamo. I attempted to reach Ms. Oishi at the US embassy to express my concerns after news reports revealed a 10–12 plane plot to use some planes as guided missiles. After returning to the U.S. I pleaded for help to stop the “Bojinka” airline plotters. I had nightmares of falling from a tower and seeing another man just yards away falling alongside me. “They (the airline plotters) are in our flight schools, aren’t they?” I asserted. “You want the plot, stopped,” she replied. “Yes!” I confirmed.This is OUR country. We don’t need to settle for second or third or fourth best.We can take it forward.It’s time. Time for the Alamo to shine. Hofstra, if Ohio can decline “for budget reasons” I am sure you can guys can think of something, too. Our best hope is to help educate the public and whoever will be our next President that we can look to the past for the inspiration to move ahead.

AN ILLUSTRATED GUIDE TO GILMORE GIRLS’ CONNECTICUT. NOT FOR REPRODUCTION IN ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM. If you don’t like long answers, stop now, for your own sake.My daughter and I were fanatics about Gilmore Girls and to this day occasionally watch an episode to relax.Annie Lausier gave a very good answer, but let me add a few things.CT ain’t Greenwich.As a life-long resident of CT, along with the suffering that entails, it also makes me the ultimate authority in judging things CT. (let me have my joke)The Palladinos and Pavone wrote top notch scripts, and their work shows an attention to details someone living in CT would notice. They did not make CT look as wildly and tastelessly wealthy as the average Fairfield Co. town.They also created two memorable women who were extremely independent and intelligent without being didactic about it. Two! What about Lane, Mrs. Kim, Emily, Paris et al.?The supporting cast was an excellent match.CT Geography 101:Some misperceptions about Connecticut. It’s a really tiny state to y’awl there in the west.I currently live in far northern CT, and were I still working at the Yale-New Haven medical complex (about 10 blocks from the Yale undergrad campus) I would be driving about 2 hours a day to go 90 miles.If I were driving to Boston, it would be about 10 miles more, and probably take slightly longer.I realized this when I was blathering to my daughter’s BF who is from Austin. His family thinks nothing of tear assing across the state to visit kin on the pecan ranch in Missouri. To him, a 40 mile drive was NOTHING.What isn’t accurate is the ready availability of public transit from one town to another. Public transit is extremely limited, and would never be as available as it is in GG.The geography…so boring.Where IS Stars Hollow?My daughter and I think it most resembles Chester, a small town with activity clustered in the center of town and permanent residents. Chester has lots of activity, but it’s not for the middle class or poor. Nor is it sweet, cuddly, and neighborly. It’s not a place where Miss Patty, Babette, or Gypsy would easily fit in. The majority of small towns in Conn. are similarly friendly and sweet. They’ll love you if you just can manage to be white, educated, prosperous, Protestant, and dull. Would it kill you to be white and bland? Have no interest in movies, books, culture, urban life? You’ll love CT.Chester:Yes, it has its own fife & drum corps. And NO town in CT is complete without its own road race.Wethersfield, very near where I lived a large proportion of my life, would be a runner-up. It’s less snobbish than Chester, has inordinately large Halloween displays, as well as for other holidays, and has an historic center with green. It’s got many pre-Revolutionary houses, and an actual event there was the basis for the book, The Witch of Blackbird Pond. The downtown is cutesy but has a bar, a pizza place, and a few shops which change from year to year.Stars Hollow is widely believed in CT to be based Washington Depot, a small town in rural CT. Personally, I don’t see any likeness. Washington Depot is less of a town and more of an area that attracts people with weekend homes from NYC. There is no cozy center. Although when I look at recent pictures post-GG days, it’s capitalized on its reputation as Stars Hollow and made an effort to cute-ify itself. On the few trips I made there earlier, I remember it as having a seedy bar, a post office, and a hardware store and many expensive houses. Some pix:Mayflower Inn:Ah…Wikipedia confirms Washington Depot. Ridiculously, Amy Sherman-Palladino picked the town after staying in the Mayflower inn there. The Mayflower is not the Dragonfly. My very successful cousin had her wedding reception there. The Rolling Stones have been known to rent out the Inn for weeks at a time when they prepare for tours. It’s sure no little B ’n B.Would geography make a difference?Washington Depot would be closer to Yale, but anyone with daughters, IS a daughter in college, etc., knows that it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference if your mother lived next door. Most kids going to college want to be on their own, if for no other reason than to show they can.Having Rory go to Yale also moved the plot along nicely without cutting out most of the characters fans wanted to continue in the show. My two role models were Mrs. Kim and Emily, that lovable pair.Another downside to Harvard was having Chris, Shelly, and GiGi in Boston. Most fans found them a pretty creepy pseudo-family, and it would have been hard to leave them out of more episodes.Emily and Richard supposedly live on Prospect Ave., the street that divides slummy Hartford from ritzy West Hartford. The block they live on could only be the one with the governor’s mansion on it. The good block of Prospect Avenue:governor’s mansion.Kingswood Oxford school, a reasonably good prep school near Prospect Ave, fits the geography of GG, but the school of choice would have been Choate Rosemary.Choate is a co-ed boarding school where the likes of the Kennedys and Astors attended school.aN old but still accurate article (except costs) on CT prep schools:With Applications Jumping, Going Private Gets Tougher; Strong Demand Means Independent Schools Are Becoming More PickyChanging times:Despite their relative youth as grandparents, Richard and Emily belong to a social group that has been extinct in Hartford for some decades. Yes, there are still small pockets of well to do people in Hartford. The ladies’ clubs, cotillions, and men’s groups were extinct by the end of the 50’s. Downtown Hartford has lost almost any commercial outlet or restaurant of any size.Lorelai would have never had to turn into Emily, as that part of Hartford was gone before she was born.Rory’s relationship with grandparents:Another writer quite dismissively diagnosed Rory with Stockholm syndrome in her effort to please her grandparents. He also trashes fans for failure to admit this.Pal, you obviously don’t have in laws.Patti Hearst was Stockholm syndrome. Joining the SLA, robbing banks, cutting off ties with her past.Rory doesn’t change her relationship with Lorelai at all. Do you see her wearing Talbot’s (equivalent of Laura Ashley) suits and sniffing at Lorelai’s kooky friends? No.Another fact you don’t know: although you may not get along with your parents or in laws, they may adore your kid anyway. For years my mother in law and I sniped at each other, inflicting heavy damage at times. She didn’t have a good word to say about me.When my daughter was born late in our lives, my mother in law was gaga and remained gaga about her until the day she died. My daughter violated every principal of recessive genes to the point one schoolmate told her I could not possibly be her mother.My daughter never talked much like a baby. She and my mother in law would disappear into the kitchen in their manorial house, and spend hours talking as they mooshed bread, water, and food coloring together, which got mashed into madeline trays.My father in law, with whom I had a much more cordial relationship, was old and failing, and did not live long enough to get to know her.One day my mother in law pulled out a photo from 1922. My daughter was dressed up that day in a white linen frock she’d been given. It was a summer holiday. “Who’s in this picture?” she asked Isabel.Isabel looked at it for a second. “Me, of course.” Back to business. I studied it carefully. They could have been identical twins, born 70 years apart.Fran (my m-i-l), had other grandchildren, but none of them interested her the way Isabel did. None of them spent hours talking endlessly about weather disasters, projects on the Martha Stewart show, and which farm animals would be best to have.Having a baby in the exact image of my mother in law took a lot of heat off me.On occasion, my mother and I got a laugh out of some of the crueler realities in our lives. I was the only person she knew with a similar sense of both bitterness and skepticism. We howled the day her youngest son had been tested for his IQ by a professional (he was in his 30’s then). “Nine???” Fran read the letter disbelievingly. “How could they….come up with….nine?” “Right,” I cheerfully agreed. “By their standards, it could be 4.5, or 18.” “Nine,” she repeated, laughing.David had severe Down syndrome. Any test would have been meaningless, as he had no verbal skills, partly due to physical deformities. David could walk, feed himself, remember where every snack in the kitchen lived, even though they constantly were moved; he had severe OCD, like my MIL, daughter, and husband. He washed clothes. T shirts. Only t shirts. He dried them and then proceeded to spend hours carefully arranging them in a pile which had to be exact. He could perform his ADL’s if he felt like it. Obviously, his IQ was much higher. No where in the letter was an explanation for 9 given.When my MIL pulled out the picture, I finally said to her. “Thanks. My worst fears are confirmed. I’ve given birth to my own mother in law.” She found this hilarious. She knew I wasn’t complaining about my daughter’s looks, as my mother in law had been a very attractive woman when young, and even as an old woman.Family relationships are very fluid. When you have a child, it’s hard to hate someone who loves your child to death, even if you would never have spent a second you didn’t have to in this person’s company before.Lorelai does not spend every second hating on Emily and Richard for welcoming their daughter. Yale’s obviously a hot button, but she gets over that, too. While Lorelai doesn’t want Rory to have her life, she realizes there are opportunities she had as a girl that Rory did not. During crisis scenes she openly admits that no one adores Rory as much as Richard.In a great episode, when Richard’s mother is being an unequalled mother in law jerk to Emily, Lorelai gives Emily a lesson in dealing with her. Emily succeeds in driving her bossy MIL nuts by cutting a green bean into 9 pieces. Lorelai is proud of her.And Rory often stands up quite firmly when Emily is being a jerk.So the reason fans don’t admit to the Stockholm syndrome is because it isn’t there.Real Yale:Although Lorelai despised Yale, it remains one of the most legacy-oriented schools I know of. I worked for several Yale legacies who graduated in the 50’s. None of them would make it into the CUNY system these days. Hell, none could get hired on a competitive exam for the NYC Sanitation Dept.Legacies still abound, and building a new cancer wing is a great way to get your dingaling twin daughters into Yale. Richard is less offensive than the legacies I knew, and had an intelligent grand daughter—so his desire was a forgivable offense.But to have a character as dumb and rich as Logan? That’s pure Yale legacy.Most people unfamiliar with Ivy League schools assume that admission to Harvard or Yale endows the student, especially undergrads, with an almost magical intelligence. What distinguished these kids from my daughter’s friends was purely financial.I don’t completely hate on Yale, and know some very nice undergrads whom I admire. But on the whole, I’d rather be in Queens or at Columbia.Many Yale myths are pure bullshit. I taught adjunct faculty at Yale’s graduate nursing school, and as a whole liked the school of health graduate students. The kinds of behavior my daughter and I witnessed, and the pretentious, overweening self-regard of the undergraduates was an endless source of entertainment to us, and on occasion horrified us. However, with enough money and connections, your stupidity, drunkenness, rudeness, sense of superiority and irresponsibility can be OK.In real life, Yalie conversations were moronic compared to the kinds of things my daughter and her friends were concerned with in public school. Public school in CT ranges all over the place, and hers was large, with only a modest average income, and newly turned into Little Queens. It was no knife and gun club. The teachers could barely keep up with their possessed students.Her girlfriends studied with all the intensity you’d see in the YA room at Flushing library. Life was ALL study to immigrant children. I found Amy Chua’s book Tiger Mother particularly offensive. She taught at Yale, but raised daughters who were quick to adopt American culture, and felt no need to excel. The hell with Tiger Mom.She hasn’t met Mummy-Ji (Indian mothers), Chinese mothers from Guangdong Province, who would personally yank their child out of a magnet school’s chess club for wasting time that could be used to study. God knows, she didn’t know about the hispanic mother’s power of the chancleta.She hasn’t met academically oriented Italian-American mothers, or short, apparently sweet tempered Vietnamese mothers. These women (and I was one) wouldn’t hesitate to point out what wonderful job opportunities were available to a girl who slacked on her schoolwork.What mother doesn’t take her skinny, timid, 3.9 daughter on a ride past American Cyanamide, the heat treat plant, and metal dipping factories? Oddly enough, Mrs. Rana, Mrs. Bui, the many Mrs. Patels and I were all doing this without knowledge of each other.I found her book extremely disrespectful to other cultures. God knows what she would have thought of Rory.Why not Harvard?My knowledge of Harvard is much less thorough and personal. I don’t particularly like Boston, and while Harvard’s turned out some impressive grads, it seems like an oasis of academia in endless blocks of hideous buildings.Boston is no longer Academic Mecca in the US. More students are going to school in NY, and to increasingly competitive public schools.Close friends of mine and relatives who attended school in Boston had every possible kind of theft happen to them personally. Apartments were routinely broken into. Cars stolen. Bikes—don’t even try. One friend was robbed at gunpoint at an ATM, held hostage for days and raped. Two friends had cars stolen. One found his when he was riding the bus down Comm Ave. He got out and called the police. They were too busy to bother, so he just started it up and drove it home.The other abandoned his car in a junkyard and had it filed as scrap. It was stolen from the junkyard and used in several violent crimes. He got used to being awakened by the police and showing them his certification of non-ownership after a while.I also know Southie (and that’s Southie, not the South End) very well. If town gown relations in New Haven aren’t great but both realize they need each other, that’s something. Yale’s the largest employer in New Haven, and keeps it from becoming a slum.Harvard is much less important to Boston. Boston, intermittently the scene of all kinds of racial hostility, has no love for entitled Harvard students. It was true a decade ago that the poor Irish in Southie rarely crossed the Fort Point Channel unless it was to shoplift. Matt & Ben write a good story, but these things don’t happen in real life. The Winter Hill gang is gone, but southie now has epidemic drug use, in addition to the traditional drinking.Moving Rory to Harvard would have disrupted the casting sooner, and placed her in a dull, isolated campus surrounded by a lot of hostile city. Since it’s her intent to be a journalist, Boston would not be the place to go. The Globe or the Herald? Compared to the NY Times? Pleeezzee.When I took my daughter to Harvard to check it out, she barely looked at it. Right outside the main gates on a hot August evening, nauseating sewer gas poured out of a grate. It was a major bad hair day, sticky, gritty, damp. “Yuck.” was all she said.Unanswered questions:After Dean, Rory was written to pick the most obnoxious, rude, disrespectful collection of boyfriends on the face of the earth. Why the Pallones never let her have a sweet and considerate boyfriend after Dean still puzzles us.The idea of her having a child with Logan is just plain horrifying.Rory dislikes the culture of Chilton from the minute she arrives. Most of her fellow students are bratty, dumb, entitled and drunken kids. She must have realized at some time these were not the people she was most comfortable with.Paris, who’s a real scene stealer, is great to watch just because she’s both so awful and pathetic. She ends up as Rory’s best school friend. Why???Why does Rory compound this by attending an Ivy League school where she is sure to meet more of the same? By this time it was no secret that one could go to non-Ivies and become extremely successful in life without enduring pretentious jerks.Obvious indicators you’re not on the planet CT:The vegetation is all wrong. Some roads aren’t paved. The snow falls in cute, manageable amounts. No one ever gets a terrifying blizzard with 7′ of snow.Highways are named in the CA way, as in “the 405” “the 101,” etc. It sounds like a translation to a native. They’re called 91, 95, 8, 9 and 84, or your own more colorful name. For me, I fondly call I-95 “the shithole.”It took several years after CT changed the coloration of its license plates from dark blue and white to catch up with the gradation of tone.Cash never exchanges hands on the show. Unusual. Expect to pay for your restaurant food (AND TIP!!!) and for all other purchases.CT is hideously expensive, even where it’s hideous. The idea that a single mother could have ever afford a house as large, well maintained, and attractive as Lorelai’s is laughable.There may be towns in CT which have town meetings attended by people other than those wanting to inflict some egregious real estate blight. Town meetings in GG are usually great entertainment, but make CT look like a Thornton Wilder play from the 30’s.It’s not a political show, but there’s never any mention of the huge amount of corruption, graft, political conniving, and fraud in CT. Too many public officials have done jail time, and then run for office again to count.THERE’S NO WATER IN THE SHOW EXCEPT THE SCUMMY POND NEAR THE HIGH SCHOOL. Usually, CT is extremely humid, and almost every town has a stream, pond, lake, etc. GG was filmed on a set in the desert. There are NEVER any days in CT that show dry hills and air blasted to Santa Ana temps, which you DO notice if’d you’re huddled under 3 blankets and 4 sweaters, watching the show in the winter.Summary:My daughter and I were Lorelai and Rory before the show was even written. Minus the money.Our reaction was similar to that of most Italian-Americans when the first few episodes of the Sopranos aired. “They’ve written a show about MY FAMILY,” Italians announced from coast to coast.I was taller, dark haired, and outspoken. Until her mid-teens, my daughter was short and thin, with a very round face and blonde hair. We lived to read and make goofy jokes. One line from the show particularly summed us up: “And we like to have fun at others’ expense. Are we not mockers?”Either one of us could (borrowing from the Sopranos), “spin 20 minutes of bullshit out of a 5 minute walk to the store.”Rory never pulled a book out of her backpack that we didn’t recognize. When they settle down to watch the original “Grey Gardens” with the Bouviers, we knew every line in the story.Of course we knew the show was not about us, but the product of unusually gifted writers and directors.Every one of my daughter’s nerdy classmates watched every single episode with their moms. Chinese and Korean mothers in particular found Mrs. Kim much too lenient. Indian mothers found her weird.Rory’s somewhat contained lust for academic achievement matched theirs. We both had reputations as independent thinkers.The show had a wonderfully positive effect on girls who watched it when it first was on.I hate to even mention it, but TV has become so misogynistic and male dominated that a shows that glorifies laziness, no direction, no independence, wildly extended dependence on parents, and an extreme lack of academic accomplishment was more recently the show of the moment. I can’t even name it. It’s written and directed by some of the most misogynistic men in the business. Women are shown as passive sex receptacles without self regard. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, there’s no need for you to ever find out.As with my other theses, I tend to drift off subject, but as you’re not my thesis advisor, too bad. I won’t be getting grades from you. Just don’t read what you find boring.