So the forecast was rain...GREAT...that is when the crowds come to browse and buy. Well, it rained. The crowds didnt come. They were afraid the rains might be toxic, and they might melt. Or whats worse, they might break down and spend money! GOD FORBID!
Well, luckily, we had a "BE BACKER" In business, a be backer is a person who browses and buys nothing and says "OH, I will beback" and you might see them in 40 years, if you are lucky. Most "be backers never ever return..they just evaporate into thin air...I was begining to think, that all the "be backers over my 43 years in business, either were zapped up to "be backer heaven" and kept prisoner their by some "retail spirit", or they all were a fig newton of my Imagination....they really were hallucinations....and all dealers of antiques are familiar with "these be backers"
BUT... low and behold (what ever the hell that expression means) yesterdays be backers were back.....The woman said she would bring her husband...and that she did...and he loved what she loved and they made an early morning purchse of a gorgeous bedroom set. Another "bebacker" soon arrived to pick up a BEDROOM SET she bought last SUNDAY....(I am not sure if she is considered a be backer...becuase she only returned to pick up something she bought.....but her friend who was with her the first time....CAME BACK (that makes the friend a be backer-right? who bought a roll top desk"....so two bebackers and two sales....the day was off to a fabulous start....then two young ladies bought some glassware......and then...IT DROPPED DEAD by 1PM.....until 5, when a regular bought a nice chinese table.... The interim was filled with deadly silence. You could here the rain, playing a tune on our tin roof...it was empty...we could have run naked thru the store for hours and no one would have seen it to call the police for public indecency.... I guess if no one saw it...it wasnt public... or indecent?
Glen and I went to visit BOB at home for the second night. He was more cheerful..and getting stronger every day. He cracked his first joke...since he got sick....
Then GLEN and I went to the NEW FAIRWAY SUPERMARKET IN PARAMUS...They advertise they they are cheaper than any other supermarket anywhere. BULLSHIT. They do have a few bargains. But Chicken is more expensive...and you cant buy rice in the LARGE SIZE..so you have to pay 2.68 a pound for the small box, when its more like 1.66 a pound if the large...so I will assume, that is their game...you cant save by buying in quantity.... The store has a fabulous array of veggies and organic veggies and displayed in such a way.....it is ART. Prices seemed good...... They have a very large and unusual coffee and tea dept....and the aroma if breathetaking....as if the fish department......they had shrimp large enough to power the Queen ELIZABRTH..or at leas harness these shrimp to pull the ship like a tug...The were as long as a dollar bill and very thick..and only 25.00 a pound.
They have the largest selection of OLIVE oil I have sever seen...litterally hundreds of different brands and type of olive oil..in small jars and tins...to barrels...and some are very very expensive...especially those that were hand squeezed by vestil virgins atop of Mount Olympus, while wearing gowns spun from real gold and platimum..well the expenisve ones have a story why they are so expensive..and as rediculous as my story
I got home to find an email of my upcoming 50th annivery of my highschool graduation....my immediate response was that I dont want to go..who cares...then, a sadness set in, and I almost felt like crying....where in hell did 50 years go? What things didnt I accomplish that I set out to do? DID i waste my life? The what is life all about? and my mind becasme w hirlwind of thoughts and emotions....and then it boiled down to wondering how much time is left to fulfill what ever it is that I am supposed to do....and exactly WHAT AM I SUPPOSE TO DO?
tHEN, WHEN I SETTLED DOWN FROM THIS SUDDEN RUSH OF EMOTION AND THOUGHT....I REALIZED... that my own definition (if I would read my own writings) is that the meaning of life (as I proclaim to others) is what ever you want to to mean. And to me, I want it to mean, that I leave the planet a little better than it was when I was born. Now, I am not that egotistical enough to think I can change the entire world (hey you never know?) but make some changes.....touch some people, make some people more educated (as I did as being a teacher) Make some people more sensitive...to the needs of others, the plights of others,,(which in my life time included animals-supporting sog shelters almost singlewhandedly) ......write books on poetry and philosphy....and a NOVEL.....so I guess, I have made some accopmplishments, none of which are earth shattering (yet),but I am working on it.. If my Novel gets published.....look out world.
You see how I can go off on a tangent...back to the 50th reunion of my highschool graduating glass. Clifton High School 1960. 1100 and something kids graduated..... A few of them had their emails sent to me....and there was one, of a GRAMMAR School friend, that I was told died of cancer years ago. His name was Bob Bonamini...we were friends from Kindergarden.......one night, when we were in the 7th or 8th grade, we decided to be very naughty.....I stole a pack of PALL MALL cigarettes...from my mothers drawer... and we went down to the park....NASHPARK..to smoke our first. I didnt know how to smoke, nor had I watched and studied other people how to smoke and inhale.....or even an explanation why people smoked.....nothing made sense....I only did it because...we would be emulating our parents...and to do something forbidden was wonderful and fun filled. After two cigarettes, it tasted like someone crapped in my mouth and I wanted to puke. I was green... Bob and I went back to house.... My mother, somehow new we had her cigarettes and when she saw me, the color of SHREK......she made some funny comment....I admitted taking the cigarettes....she just said that she would have given them to me had I asked....there was never a need to steal anything..She and my DAD were very cook about it...Then they took me to their liquor cabinet.....they asked me if I wanted a drink...I said no. I didnt like the taste of it....in the past at BAR MITZVAHS they always let me taste their drinks..and I didnt like them....so the last lecture of the evening...was that if I wanted to drink ...just ask,, and they will give me what ever I wanted......
So...from that day forth, I never smoked again....I just didnt like it....I had their permission to smoke....and I probably saved 100,000 dollars in cigarettes and myh right lung. And as far as drinking......I drink a little now and then..and when I say a little....very little....
Back to my smoking friend BOB.....Time went on and we went to high school. We moved to the other side of town, and I made didferent friends in the neigborhood....and we drifted apart..we then had different things in common, and lived on opposite side of a large town,and didnt have the same teachers or classes....50 years later, I saw his name...with an email. I thought he had joined out maker long ago....but I just got an email, and unless they have computers in heaven, Bob is alive and well and on a hunting trip in NY State....he emailed me back immediately....so he probably had schlepped his wireless computer inside his tent....life and technology is amazing....
Then, if that wasnt shocking enough, minutes later, I get an email from a college friend...that I havent seen since my days at Fairleigh Dickinson in Rutherford...C 1960-1962,,,,,,and she mentioned named of my other freinds that I havent thought of in all those years....how wonderfully emotional....two people from the distant past in a matter of minutes. FACEBOOK another wild way of finding friends.....
ANd then....let me catch my breath, an employee of over 25 years ago contacts me ,also from FACEBOOK.......3 people fom my past...all good memories...in a matter of minutes... My smile is from ear to ear......
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