May 7, 1992
Dear Everyone:
The first casualties in a war are always the
newsstands.
During the
Persian Gulf War,
and even before it, protesters were venting their wrath by throwing the
newsstands out into the streets and/or through large windows.
The Company buildings had
barricades set up in front of them. One
by one, the newsstands started moving behind the barricades, huddling
against the garden fence like so many refugees.
(Thank goodness they can't blame
last week on the xxx companies; unless
Rodney King
happened to have Company xxx in his xxx when the whole thing started.)
Last Thursday, when "protesters" began running
rampant in downtown San Francisco, they once again picked on the poor,
defenseless newsstands, lining them up in the streets and setting fire
to them to slow down the police. (You
will notice that they never pick on newsstands that know karate and other
martial arts.) However, not all
were lost. When I arrived at work
Friday morning, there was a crowd of newsstands
inside the lobby of my
building, neatly lined up against the right wall.
One can almost see the guards the night before,
opening the door to let them in, as long as they behaved themselves and
stayed out of the way.
As for the "protests" Thursday and Friday nights,
they seemed to be not so much a response to the infamous verdict; but
rather, a response to the response in Los Angeles.
A sort of, "Hey!
If they get to riot and loot,
then so should we." This lasted
just until the new mayor, a former up chief of police, issued a curfew,
ordering citizens to stay indoors after 9:00 pm, and allowing the police
to arrest violators, which they proceeded to do quite cheerfully.
Not like the "good old days".
In other news…
We got hit with a bit of a bombshell earlier this
week. Remember the IDI Project?
The one where IDI was going to
develop a "records management" software program?
With help from Company, mostly
“Ashley” and me, in return for a deal on the package when we bought it?
Well, as of Thursday morning,
they pulled the plug on it. We
are officially back to Square One.
Only this time, I hope we can learn from past
lessons, to wit:
· Don't hang every bell and whistle imaginable on it.
·
Who says the mainframe is the only way to
go?
On the home front…
My lights keep going out.
No, not the electricity itself,
thank goodness, or all my clocks would be flashing "12:00".
Individual light bulbs.
Of course, light bulbs burn out
from time to time; but three in as many days?
Obviously, I've got a 60-watt
gremlin in my walls somewhere.
What's worse, he's gotten into my lighted makeup
mirror. I've had this mirror for
a long time. So long, in fact,
that the 10-watt "night light" bulbs that it uses aren't on the market
anymore. The closest I've been
able to find are 7-watts, which are infinitely better than no-watts.
That's the trouble with things that are built to
last a long time. By the time
they finally start to break down, you can't find parts for them.
Remember the jukebox?
[When we were
children, we had an “antique” jukebox, which played 78-rmp records.]
Ashland
Update…
Since our last day in Ashland has only a matinee in
the afternoon and nothing in the evening, Mother and I decided to try to
get tickets to the
Britt Festival for that night. We
both requested that information about the Britt be sent to me and I got
the brochure on Tuesday.
The program for July 31st is the
beginning of their Classical season, a little
Mendelssohn,
a little Dvorak.
And general, "lawn seating", is
only $14 per person, picnics permitted. So
I sent the order off by fax yesterday afternoon.
Within an hour I got a call from
Medford,
informing me that they had received my order and were already processing
it. The tickets are available and
we're all set. Also, they told me
that they already had me in their computer and wanted to know if my
"former address" was "000 East Nees, Apt 000, Fresno, California".
I quickly explained that, no,
that's my brother, “Marshall”, and to keep him in their computer as well
as myself.
I didn't try to explain how two of us in the same
family have virtually the same name because I've never been able to get
the straight story on that myself.
Love, as always,
Pete
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