Enotes

Why does the ice cream man have the market cornered on driving trucks around the neighborhood, selling his wares? Think about his clientele---six-year-olds, who aren't exactly loaded. How much disposable income does a first grader have? This may seem like a strange time to bring this up, because we're hardly in ice cream truck season, but I say this is the perfect time to discuss this. With ice cream no longer a viable purchase option at your curb, why not consider other items that a grown up would run out of his/her house to snatch up? Liquor, for one. Can you imagine if there was a liquor truck that cruised the neighborhoods? The driver would make a mint. Adults would be lined up down the street as far as the eye could see. The possibilities are endless. How nice would it be if you could purchase an apple pie from a truck in front of your home? Or a dozen doughnuts? The items for sale wouldn't have to be limited to food stuffs. I'd have killed at tim...

The corner video store has turned into the city video store. Time was that you couldn't walk much more than 500 feet in any direction without running smack into a joint that rented VHS tapes. Then, you couldn't walk much more than 2,000 feet without running into a place that rented DVDs. Now, you can drive for most of a Sunday afternoon without seeing more than a couple video stores. They close all the time these days, but locally there is a closing that might tug on some heart strings. I used to go out of my way to venture into Thomas Video. So did everyone else, because there was only one Thomas Video---literally and figuratively. Thomas Video, the favorite of the intense B-movie fan, is closing up shop. To many, this is like the news of a loved one with a terminal disease passing away. You knew it was coming. Thomas Video has been located in Royal Oak since 2009, but I remember visiting when it was on Main Street, south of 14 Mile Road, in Clawson. Like I said,...

Why stop at 8:00 p.m.? Why not just be open the whole damn day? Pardon me, that was a strange lede, I know. I'm talking about Thanksgiving Day, by the way. Macy's announced last week that it was opening its doors at 8:00 on Thanksgiving evening, as the ridiculous "Black Friday" monster gets bigger every year. Dawn openings weren't cutting it, I guess, nor was a midnight blowout. Now, we give you shopping while the turkey hasn't even cooled off. JCPenney followed suit on Thursday, announcing its own 8pm opening on Thanksgiving. “Obviously, we were one of the last to open (last year),” said Tony Bartlett , Penney’s executive vice president of stores, referring to last year's (gasp!) 6am opening the day after Turkey Day. But, this year, “We’re all in," Bartlett said. Well, his employees are all in. OK, they're in---how about that? I'm sure the cashiers and stock folks are thrilled with the prospects of moving through their holiday m...

I don't know that I have ever been more frightened in my life, as I was when I had to sell candy bars. I was 11 years old. It was a school-related fundraiser, natch, I believe for an after school program I was involved in where my grade school partnered with the YMCA. They sent a bunch of us munchkins out to sell candy bars---door-to-door. The bars came in cardboard boxes with convenient handles. Yippee. So I'm 11 and I'm going door-to-door, unescorted, and you could never get away with this now. Can you imagine the dangers in today's world of sending children to strange people's houses? Of course, those dangers were there in 1974, but I suppose we didn't pay as much attention. Or maybe the world wasn't as mentally bent then as it is now. Anyhow, I hated the gig. I had a script I was supposed to follow, but I'm sure I strayed from it---like, as soon as the door opened. I'm sure I mumbled something about candy bars and supporting us, and t...

I think that if we wanted to wrap the world with receipt tape, we'd only need to buy a couple of loaves of bread and a gallon of milk for maybe a week. That ought to do it. If we ever run out of firewood in this country, I am blaming America's retailers. Their receipts surely must be killing trees by the truckload. Have you looked at receipts lately? I could decorate our Christmas tree with one trip to Target. Receipts are getting longer by the day. In fact, receipts are about as long as the day is long. At my local CVS, the spitting out of the receipt by the register is tantamount to a winner at a slot machine. It keeps going and going, to the point where I am expecting to hear sirens and bells go off, and a spotlight shine on me from the ceiling. You think you're the store's lucky customer of the week, as the receipt flows out of the register and spills onto the floor until the clerk is covered in white paper from head to toe. But alas, 95% of what is on t...

Every summer, I wonder the same thing. What might it be like to drive an ice cream truck? Can you make any money doing it? Is it boring? Or is it among the most fulfilling things to do in life? I don't know anyone, personally, who's commandeered a roving vehicle, selling frozen confections out of the back. So I can't draw on anyone's experience. Maybe you're reading this and are acting like Arnold Horshack from "Welcome Back, Kotter"---bouncing out of your seat, raising your hand and shouting, "OOH! OOH!" Maybe YOU know someone who has driven an ice cream truck. Maybe you yourself have. Maybe you do currently. Hey, I'll just be thrilled if you're reading this, period. I think about ice cream truck driving every summer because, of course, we have such trucks roaming our streets these days. The thing that strikes me though---and this would be a big negative for me---is the ad nauseam repetition of the truck's music. The ...

Kevyn Orr is just like any Washington, D.C. bankruptcy attorney who is black, who has a strong resume, and who oozes confidence. Except that he's been plucked from the vine to save a city that some say is beyond saving. Orr is Detroit's new Emergency Financial Manager (EFM). He is unique in that, while he's a bankruptcy lawyer and has been a part of many such restructurings, he actually would prefer not to lead the city into bankruptcy as a way to cure what ails it. "Frankly, I'd like to avoid it," Orr told the Detroit News' Nolan Finley . "Bankruptcy can certainly have benefits to what the emergency manager would have to do, but I would like to think of that as a last resort as opposed to a first option. No, I don't think we're inevitably headed to bankruptcy, but people have got to be realistic, reasonable and focused on changing the architecture of the finances of the city so they can go into a sustainable model for the future." ...

The U.S. Postal Service says it will discontinue Saturday mail delivery, possibly as soon as this summer. Why stop with Saturday? I wouldn't mind not getting mail on Tuesdays or Thursdays, either. Mondays and Wednesdays I might be able to do without as well. So I guess just deliver mail to me on Fridays---maybe every other one. Have you looked at your mail these days? Is anything grabbing you? It seems that all we are for a bulk of this mail is to be the middle man between the sender and the landfill. How much mail doesn't even get opened? The question is asked everyday at our house---usually by me, since I'm the one not home during the day. "Anything good in the mail?" The question is a red herring, because what I really mean is, "Anything bad in the mail?" Let's face it, how much "good" mail is there, anyway? My question says "good," but what I really mean---and my wife is on the same wave length---is, anything b...

How long before video stores go the way of travel agencies? Remember the local travel agent? They'd advertise on local TV and they had tiny offices with globes on the signs and maps on the walls. You'd ring them up if you wanted a surrogate to get you the best deal on a hotel in Chicago or a rental car in Boston. Then the Internet struck, with its multitude of websites, and the American traveler became his or her own travel agent. The middle man, as so often has happened after the Internet, was cut out, like a tumor. Why pay someone to do something that we could do for free, and still get discounts to boot? So I wonder about the fate of the corner video store. Actually, you may have to drive past quite a few corners before you find a video store these days. NetFlix, the Red Box kiosks, the Internet (of course) and more people owning BluRay discs than DVDs, are all contributing to the slow death of the local video store, I'm afraid. But some of it is the vid...

The sandwich board is making a comeback. I'm not talking about literal sandwiches here, like the kind you eat. I'm talking the term often used for the signs those poor folks are holding or wearing these days, hawking a variety of retail outlets, from cell phone stores to oil change places. The sandwich board was so named because of its original incarnation, which was usually two pieces of wood, connected with rope or twine, which the wearer would sling over his shoulders, advertising on the front and back, creating a sort of human "sandwich." The sandwich boards started showing up in earnest in the late-1920s and early-1930s, which were, not coincidentally, the days of the Great Depression. But in those days, often the human sandwich was promoting himself, not any company. The sandwich board is back, but in a more streamlined fashion. It used to be that the only businesses in recent years who commissioned people to stand on the curb and wave people in, holdi...

I have this crazy, mixed up thought that the politicians we elect are supposed to represent those of us who elected them. Yet there is one man who has a Svengali-like hold on the Republican wing of Congress, a hold that I'm not sure is disturbing, annoying, reprehensible or all of the above. His name is Grover Norquist, and apparently Grover's interests and marching orders trump those of the electorate when it comes to the GOP members of Congress. Norquist, back in 1985, started Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), apparently at the behest of President Ronald Reagan. Norquist has never held political office, nor has ever run for so much as city councilman. Yet he has somehow managed to convince dozens of Congressmen (and women) to be his lapdogs. Norquist is the originator of The Pledge, which holds to the fire the feet of every member of Congress (and Senate) who has taken it. It's a pledge to never raise taxes, under any circumstances. From Norquist's Wiki page :...

Ever wonder what happened to Winkelman's? Jacobson's? Uniroyal? What about Farmer Jack? Great Scott? A&P? Stroh's? Twin Pines? Pants Galore? Fretter Appliance? Belvedere and Bond-Bilt? New York Carpet World? Highland Appliance? Sanders? Kresge? Cunningham's? Red Barn? Burger Chef? To name a few. And that's just a percentage of the businesses, mostly local, that no longer exist but which I remember in my days growing up in Livonia in the 1970s. I remember the commercials for many of the aforementioned as well. Ollie Fretter promised us a five pound bag of coffee if he couldn't beat our best deal. Mr. Belvedere's phone number was TYler 8-7100. TV newscaster Marilyn Turner did commercials for Carpet Center, flashing her gams. The Highland Appliance spots were legendary, often featuring local (and sometimes national) celebrities. Irving Nussbaum proudly said that New York Carpet World was "the better carpet people." Mel Farr...

I'm a man who actually doesn't mind going shopping at Target. I know I'm in the minority. I know a trip to Target, for most men, is one that is commonly accompanied by kicking and screaming. But I have an ulterior motive for treks to Target: popcorn and soda. It's a hidden gem, I tell you. At Target---at least the one near our house---you can get a decent size bag of popcorn and a medium-sized drink for $1.99. Yep---one ninety-nine. So while Mrs. Eno grabs a shopping cart and sets out to cross off her list, I make a beeline for the snack counter to grab my deal of the century. For $2.11, after tax, I can munch on fresh popcorn and sip an icy cold drink, like a child, while my better half shops. Oh, I'm not stodgy or protective. I absolutely offer my wife popcorn and pop throughout our shopping visit. So I'm sharing the wealth. Popcorn and a pop for $2.11. I bring this up because a similar combo, at your neighborhood movie house, would set you back about $8-10. E...

Detroit, once upon a time, was a bustling, thriving city---an international port with industry coming out of its ears. They made cars in Detroit, and better than anyone else. But Detroit also was a huge component to the WWII effort---building tanks and other items of importance. It was a riverfront city with a brand new convention complex (Cobo) built by 1960 and was even considered as a host city for the Olympics. President Kennedy, no less, appeared on film, making the case for Detroit to host the Games, which was shown to the selection committee. Detroit had well over a million people living within its boundaries. It was a media market that was just a notch below the New Yorks and LAs of the country. It wasn't unusual for Detroit on-air talent to vamoose to New York, with no stops in between. But now? Detroit is crumbling. Its infrastructure is a joke. The money is gone. It's a city that can't adequately protect its citizens, pick up the trash on time, or change a busted...

A less scrupulous parent might encourage his daughter to drop out of high school before her senior year. Or a poor one. I'm about to be the latter, because I'm not the former. Confused? Sorry. Our daughter is entering her senior year of high school, or as it's otherwise known to parents, The Shakedown. The schools have us senior parents between a rock and a hard place, and don't think they don't know it. My wife registered our daughter this morning for the school year, and being a senior is not only a very special year, it's also very expensive. There are the senior photos, of course. Those were taken this summer and while the proofs are absolutely beautiful, the packages begin at over $500. I graduated high school in 1981, and I remember making a very understated trip to the Olan Mills studio in Livonia in the summer of 1980 with my polyester, three-piece suit and a comb. We snapped a few head shots and I was probably on my way back ...

Fifty cents to add sweetener to iced tea. Thirty cents for extra sauce on a Big Mac. We aren't being "nickeled and dimed" anymore; we're being quartered---and drawn. The two examples above happened to my family recently. Our daughter wanted a sweetened iced tea at Starbucks and it cost us four bits. A couple days later my wife asked for some extra "special" sauce at Mickey D's on her Big Mac and the tab was three dimes. The markup on some sweetener for a 12-oz. glass of iced tea, at 50 cents per, must be a gazillion percent. Same with 30 cents for another splat of sauce on a hamburger. Again, these are only two examples. Lord knows how many more there are, of food and drink establishments gouging us for "extras." It's a lose/lose proposition, in my book. The asking price should be negligible, like a nickel. But then, when you ask for a nickel for something, you look petty (probably because you are). The answer? FREE...

Self-promotion time---sort of. I've added a new link to the Blogroll---the official, re-launched blog from my employer, Hansons Windows and Siding. But it's not what you think, I don't think. Yes, there will be articles about home improvement and tips about how to maintain your home, but there are also going to be human interest pieces like the one from August 8 , which tells of 98-year-old Keiko Fukuda, who recently became the first woman (and fourth person overall) to achieve the rank of tenth-degree black belt, in Judo. We'll also blend in some guest bloggers to pontificate, some of whom will have instantaneous name recognition. So drop on by and check it out !

When I was a child and used to visit my grandparents who lived in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, one of the things I remember doing was sometimes hopping into the car and grandpa driving several miles into the little town near where they lived---to get the mail. Every day they made that trip, unless it was winter time---then the mail could wait until the roads were passable. For most of us, a check of the mail means nothing more than padding to the front door, opening it, and peeking into the box. Being fully clothed isn't even required. Can you imagine getting into your car and driving 10-15 minutes each way---just to check the freaking mail? I wonder what will happen to those small, out of the way post offices, in light of the news that the U.S. Postal Service is closing 3,700 offices in order to cut costs. And they have to do a lot of cutting. The Postal Service needs to close a $20 billion gap in revenue by 2015. The 3,700 offices that will close are spread out over all 50 s...

The first thing I notice is the smell. It's not an odor, it's a scent---tickling the olfactory nerves with its blend of the newly minted, the newly printed. Then there's sometimes a hint of coffee wafting from somewhere in the back. I love walking into a bookstore. The used bookstore has its own scents, and that blend is appealing, too. But today I talk about the new bookstore, where nothing has been pre-owned, and the books have only been read by the patrons sitting in overstuffed chairs or on hardbacks as they sip their lattes. The big box bookstore is dying a slow, agonizing death. It reminds me of the gradual yet pervasive disappearance of the drive-in movie theaters, "back in the day"---which was less than 20 years ago. The announcement that Borders is liquidating , severing over 10,000 jobs across the country and over 400 in Ann Arbor alone, is sad beyond the job loss, which this economy hardly needs. This isn't just a chain closing; it's maybe the h...

What happened to being a gracious winner? What of the civil courtesy between states, when it comes to our elected officials? John Kasich must have been that kid who whooped and hollered whenever he won anything, from Chutes and Ladders to a game of H-O-R-S-E on the driveway. Kasich, a Republican, is the governor of Ohio, but he also has been a political commentator on Fox News, hosting a show on the network for some six years (2001-07). He's a neighbor of ours in Michigan, but he's the kind that you hope to avoid, going from your car to your house. If he's mowing his lawn, you wait until he's done before you mow yours. Kasich has taken the low road when it comes to landing goodies for his state, specifically when it comes to being the lucky recipient of Michigan's apparent move away from its film tax incentives, thanks to new Governor Rick Snyder's seige on them. Kasich's state snapped up "The Avengers," which was initially scheduled to be filmed i...