Happy Birthday to me                       

I am 74 today. I’ve been alive for over 27,000 days. I’ve been with myself everyone of those days. Actually, I probably lost a few in college and again in the late 70’s. I’m good with myself; we rarely argue. On the day I was born, my mother was 24 years old; my father 26. They were kids, although no one who went away to war came back a “kid”. I was born at St Mary Hospital in Hoboken, New Jersey. We lived at 802 Washington Street in a first floor railroad apartment with hot water. The term railroad meant three big rooms between front windows facing the wide street (Hoboken’s Main Street) and back windows overlooking low roofs. Kitchen and a fourth room were to the right of the big three. I mention hot water because about 20% of Apartments did not have hot water (hard to imagine today, but true). There were 20 stairs leading up to our apartment. I know because I regularly fell down them and would count as I hit everyone. Rent at some point was 77 dollars a month (I overheard a mom/dad conversation)

My brother Thomas was 3 years older. My earliest memory was waiting for Thomas to get home from school. “Don’t leave the block” were my mom’s last words as I either ran or fell down the stairs and out. Below our apartment was a Hardware store and next to that on the corner a bar. Hoboken in the 50’s was proud to have over 250 bars in a town only one square mile in area. There was a vestibule downstairs so you had to open a door, come into a little room with three mailboxes (one for each apartment) and each box had a pushbutton that rang a bell upstairs and the door would buzz and you’d be in. Occasionally, my mom would have to chase a sleeping Bum out of the vestibule area. I know they were Bums because my mom called them Bums.

The best part of living on Washington Street was parades. They went right by our apartment. My mom would open the windows and put blankets on the sill, and we could sit up there and watch the parade go by. I usually went downstairs and watched from the street. For a few parades there was this VERY OLD guy in a strange uniform marching and people would point and say “he was in the Civil War”. He soon disappeared. But I kept the memory of an old guy marching. There was a laundromat next door and from an early age I was the laundry guy. Yes, my first time, I pissed-off the lady in charge by over-sudzing and making a mess. But I got the rules now quickly and have been doing laundry ever since. In 1964 someone bought the building we lived in and wanted our apartment, so they kicked our sorry ass out. The Kyle family moved to “the sticks” of New Jersey. A town called Park Ridge. I was 14.   

Goodbye Netflix Red Envelope             

Until this week, Netflix was the fifth largest customer of the US postal service. No more. Since it’s first movie was shipped on  March 10, 1998  (it was Beetlejuice), the Company has shipped 5 billion movies. I can account for 2500 of those. How do I know? Netflix sent me a spreadsheet with EVERY movie I ever rented from them. What I am going to do with 56 pages of movies is unknown except for the fact that my FIRST rental from Netflix was I. Robot on January 18, 2005. That’s appropriate given my SciFi slant. The book (of course) was better.

I was originally wary of Netflix’s business model. I thought the postal costs would prevent them from making a profit. Besides, at the time, I was a Blockbuster customer. My son was small and we would weekly visit our local Blockbuster and search the tapes for inspiration. We watched the transition from VHS to DVD in our local Blockbuster. Then something happened. Blockbuster probably realized they were missing a significant source of income with LATE FEES. I’d return a tape on Monday morning (on time) and Friday when I wanted to rent a movie the clerk would say, “You have a late fee from your last movie.” It got so bad I changed stores and the SAME THING happened. I went with Netflix not because I liked them but because I came to hate Blockbuster.

Our town had an independent Video store we also frequented because it was owned by Ed who was the Soccer coach at the Community Center. Ed and my son would kick a soccer ball around his tiny store and my job was to pick up all the empty video boxes they would knock off the shelves. They had a ball; me? not so much. Ed’s store and Blockbuster eventually disappeared, and Netflix succeeded. My last 2 Netflix movies, which I have not yet watched are Shane (1953) and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022). First in my Queue was Disney’s The Brave Little Toaster  –  I don’t think I’ve ever seen it!! And now I might not. I’ll miss you, Netflix Mailers.