January 2014: Brutalmente Frio!

I began to write a bloggy bit about the intense cold snap we had January 6^th through the 8th.  I never edited and finished the piece in time to post it when it was still frigid.  Thanks to Mother Nature I have another chance.  An equally cold spell occurred for January 27^th and 28^th.  Even though I had already posted something about Snow Days, I was compelled to make this piece on this very cold month in the era of global warming my monthly letter. 

January 6:  It was early December 1989.  I was in Louisville, Mississippi.  I was working for TRW Seat Belt Systems at the time and we had a plant in Louisville.  Louisville was a rural town and not an industrial or business center.  We used to stay at a vacation motel, not part of any chain, on small lake.  The rooms were modest but the restaurant was distinctively southern.  This motel and restaurant, whose name escapes me, most definitely had one leg one leg firmly rooted in the 1950s. 

It was unbelievably cold for that part of the country.  There was no talk of global warming back in those days.  If there was, I was oblivious to it.  Without internet we relied on the television and newspapers for the weather.  The local television news informed me that the temperature outside was 10 degrees.   After breakfast, at the checkout, the nice lady with a wonderfully pleasant Mississippi accent commented  "it is really cold weather for us down here, but I bet you are used to it up north where you live?"  I responded, "Ma'am, we may get a few more cold days in Detroit than you do down here but 10 degrees is cold for us too."

Today was the coldest day in Chicago for the past twenty years.  From sunrise to sunset the temperature did not get above -10 degrees.  The headlines of a local Spanish language newspaper simply stated:  Brutalmente Frio!  Yes, indeed.  It is brutally cold by any standard.  The weather is supposed to stay below zero until sometime on Wednesday. 

It snowed all weekend, but there was no snow today.  Yet, all schools were closed.  There was no mail delivery nor was there any refuse pickup. The roads were very lightly travelled because the television and internet urged everyone to stay home unless absolutely necessary.  People apparently listened.

I am not one to say we were of heartier stock back in my youth.  I only mention walking to school six miles both uphill in both directions through four feet of snow as an obvious joke to my students.  Yet, I do not recall missing school solely because of cold weather.  We would, of course, note the cold and then simply bundle and layer up more before going out. 

What freaked people out most was the wind chill which was reported to be between -25 to -60 degrees today.  There were reports that at these kinds of temperatures and wind chills, frostbite could begin in about 10-15 minutes.  While I did not test the frostbite theory, I did park in front of  a coffee shop and left the car without coat or gloves to go the twenty yards or so into the shop.  Yep... my hands were really cold when I got into the store.  Later, I heard a report that it was so cold that if you threw a glass of water into the air, it would turn into snow.  I had never heard of it being that cold ever before.  So, I tried it.  No snow.  The water did quickly freeze be only after being on the ground for a few seconds.  Supposedly I should have used boiling water.    I hope I do not have to wait twenty years to give this another shot. 

January 7:  What is the history of this wind chill factor?  There are many formulas for calculating what we call the wind chill factor or what is also called the wind chill equivalent.  The first formula was developed by a couple of scientists, Charles Passel and Paul Siple, working in Antarctica.  The conducted experiments on how long it took water to freeze based on initial temperature of the water, the ambient temperature, and the average wind speed.   I can only assume they used regression to develop an equation.  Their initial work was heat loss expressed in watts per surface area.  Other scientists built off their model to calculate an equivalent temperature with no wind.  The formula has been tweaked a few times over years.

Weather services began reporting wind chills in the mid-1960s.   That is exactly when I recall hearing it and everyone being terrified by the hyperbole.  Since then, on really cold days weathercasters have been reporting both the temperature and the wind chill equivalent.  Lately, I have noticed a newer habit of weathercasters only reporting the wind chill temperature.  I am not sure I like this change and I am also certain I will have little say in changing how cold weather temperatures are reported.  Source for the history of the wind chill factor:  Wind Chill: Love It or Hate It, The Term is Here to Stay.

It has been twenty years since we had temperatures this cold.  Will it be even longer until we see it again due to global warming?  Maybe, and there is no scientific basis for this, we should be calling it is climate disruption wherein we see the temperatures gradually increase but also see more and more extremes in terms of temperatures and storms.  It seems just seeing the bigger hurricanes, longer tornado seasons with more vicious storms, torrential rains and floods, tsunamis, early springs, mild winters, following by record setting brutal winters.  It seems more complicated than what most of us believe global warming. 

Yesterday in New York City, it was 50ish degrees.  It will hit a low of 7 this evening and be over 50 by the weekend.  It was -15 yesterday in Chicago.  Today it was -4, it will be in the 30s over the weekend and the forecast is calling for sleety rain.  If you ask me, those are wild swings in temperatures.

It will be interesting to see how the rest of the year develops.

January 24:  Shortly after this throw back cold spell, people around here do what people do.  They started complaining about the cold and wishing for summer. 

I am not complaining.  I am really enjoying this frigid month.  It reminds me of winters I experienced growing up.  It feels right. I am less happy when we have the winters that aren't really winters.  Those winters are extended falls that then morph directly into spring. 

This is not to say that I have not gotten weary of winter in years past.  I recall a couple winters growing up where it seemed like it was gray and overcast for like a month.  It was dank, damp, and dark.  I definitely wanted those winters to end. 

For me, there is no need to fed up with winter.  It has snowed.  It has been really cold.  But, the really cold days were sunny and the skies were clear.  It was very nice.  Furthermore, it is the 24th of January.  March is only 34 days off.  Spring is 55 days away.  It is almost time to think about getting my bicycles tuned up. 

Oddly and not very well publicized, this past Tuesday, January 21st, was Chicago's Annual Winter Bike to Work day.  Really?  It had snowed that evening.  There were a couple of inches of snow on the ground.  The car commute took over an hour when it is normally 30 minutes.  Even worse, it was five degrees.  I could imagine taking any kind of bike ride in those conditions.  I did not see any bike riders until I walked to the Starbucks across from North Park University.  A young man came out of the store with a cup of coffee to his bike leaning against the wall.  I asked how he would ride in these conditions while carrying a cup of coffee.  The young fellow said he was planning to walk.  He was a student at the Northside College Preparatory High School about a half-mile from where we were.  When I asked if he was participating in the Bike to Work Day said this was the first he had heard about it.  He commented that he rides his bike to school every day; I guessed out of necessity.

At the campuses I frequent, I do not see students in sandals or shorts this winter.  Not this year.  Everyone is bundled up.  I love it.  Heavy coats, layers, hats that cover the ears, and insulated gloves are the uniform of the day.  Folks from warmer climes are wrapped in scarfs with only a slit open for their eyes.  We have had several snow storms varying from a few inches to outright blizzards. 

January 23:  In a white out this week in the lake effect region at the south end of Lake Michigan by Michigan City, there was a horrible accident involving 40 cars and eighteen wheelers.  Three people were killed.  It took the authorities more than 24 hours to clear the road for traffic.  I had read about such accidents in Alps.  I have never heard of such an accident in the US. 

It was a horrible accident.  While we are closing schools because of the cold, drivers do not heed the advice when told to get stay off of the roads. 

January 27-28:  Schools were all closed including the two colleges I teach at.  There was no appreciable snow, but still the schools were closed.  I imagine that school kids were enjoying their unanticipated time off.  Again the schools were closed because of the brutal cold.  The temperatures did not get above 5^o F and were as low as -115^o F. 

I have to admit.  I enjoyed the unanticipated time off and was certain I was going to get a lot done with the windfall of free time.  Sheepishly, I have to admit that I did not get that much done.

I did redo the science experiment that didn’t quite work out.  I put boiling water in a mug, went outside and threw the water up into the cold air.  Voila, a large part of the water turned to a very fine snow.  Cool.

January 29:  The Chicago Tribune had an online poll:  Is this Chicago’s worst winter?  They asked folks to rate select the worst winter from this year, 2011, 1985, 1983, 1982, and 1979.  Because people are feeling the here and now more than remembering the then and when, 2014 was the clear winner in this ad hoc poll.  

This poll made me curious.  I looked at the average January temperatures in Chicago from 1950 to 2014.  The average temperature was 15^o F this month.  This is the coldest January since 1985 when the average monthly temperature was also 15^o F.  In the 64 year span, there were four Januaries when the average temperature was colder than we experienced this year: 1982, 1979, 1977, and 1963 when the average temperatures were 12^o F, 13^o F, 11^o F, and 12^o F respectively. 

    So this is the coldest January in 29 years.  It is clear why the Chicago Tribune Poll turned out like it did. Approximately half of the people alive today weren’t born then.  The half that were, probably do not remember those cold Januarys in the 70s and 80s as the this year’s which is front and center in our consciousness.

Since I collected this data, I wanted to see if global warming was at play, so I ran a regression.  The slope of the regression line was .044 ^o F which means the model says that the temperature is rising .044 ^o each year.  That is not a lot but it is an increase.  Further analysis shows that this liner model is only accounting, however, for a paltry 2.4% of the variation in average temperatures.  I am, therefore, not very excited about this model.  

Let's see what February has in store for us...

 

No Handgun Signs

     I was at the College of Lake County for a little prep work for the upcoming semester. As I was about to enter, I noticed new decals on all of the doors: a black silhouette of a handgun with a red circle with a diameter going from 1 o'clock to 7 o'clock. OK... no handguns or guns of any kind. Gee, did we need a decal to re-enforce the obvious? Does this mean knives and machetes are OK? Why only guns? The door could have been littered with stickers. No battle axes. No chainsaws. No spears, lances, swords, hatchets, shovels, picks, or anything else that could be used as weapon. Why are there no stickers on the doors for these things. I suppose because they did not specify, I would be within my rights to to drive an M1 Abrams Tank into the building… there is no sign telling me not to.
     Who is this sign supposed to deter? Sensible, law abiding people, the 99.99% (totally my guesstimate) of us would never consider carrying any weapon into a public building like a school. How about the .01% of criminals, evildoers, or deranged men that we keep reading about not only carrying weapons into schools but then shooting people indiscriminately. Would such a sign deter them? Would someone at the end of their rope, intent on doing harm, and armed to the teeth stop in his tracks by this sign and mutter: "heck I was unaware. I guess I will just turn around and go home." Of course they wouldn't.
      Thus, the sign deters no one. Then why put them up? It seems like a small waste of money and time.
      Well, there is something in Illinois called the Firearm Concealed Carry Act. It was passed in July and allows for anyone with Firearm Owner Identification Card ( FOID Card) to get a concealed carry license for $150. It seems that Illinois is the last state in the union to pass such a law. The results of a federal court case gave the state until July 9th to enact such a law.
     Again, mostly law abiding citizens whom I would trust carrying a concealed weapon will bother to apply and pay for such license. Nefarious characters with malintent will simply carry a concealed weapon. No law or sign will deter them much from this.
     Here is a blurb from the College of Lake County’s website that kind of explains the stickers.
The College of Lake County board of trustees passed a new gun policy prohibiting anyone but sworn police officers from carrying a firearm on college-owned or controlled property. The action was taken during the board’s regularly scheduled monthly meeting on Dec. 17.

Under the new policy, enacted to comply with Illinois’ Firearm Concealed Carry Act, anyone with a concealed carry license coming to the Grayslake or Southlake campus in Vernon Hills must store their weapon, unloaded, in a secure case or locked container out of plain view in their parked vehicle.  

At the Lakeshore campus in Waukegan, where CLC does not own a parking facility, those with a concealed carry license must comply with the laws and regulations of the city, but as at the Grayslake and Southlake campuses, they cannot carry a weapon on campus.The College of Lake County board of trustees passed a new gun policy prohibiting anyone but sworn police officers from carrying a firearm on college-owned or controlled property. The action was taken during the board’s regularly scheduled monthly meeting on Dec. 17. 

Under the new policy, enacted to comply with Illinois’ Firearm Concealed Carry Act, anyone with a concealed carry license coming to the Grayslake or Southlake campus in Vernon Hills must store their weapon, unloaded, in a secure case or locked container out of plain view in their parked vehicle. At the Lakeshore campus in Waukegan, where CLC does not own a parking facility, those with a concealed carry license must comply with the laws and regulations of the city, but as at the Grayslake and Southlake campuses, they cannot carry a weapon on campus.

     CLC did the right thing per the Illinois law. The whole thing seems absurd to me: the law, the reaction to them, and the stickers on the door. I generally support the right to bear arms. I also would like to eliminate mass shootings in schools. Not sure what this law, FOID Cards, and stickers will accomplish.
     OK then... This is why these useless stickers adorn all the doors of the CLC campus. I suppose we will see them so often at all kinds of buildings and businesses. In a matter of no time, we they will be so numerous we won’t even notice them.

Snow Days

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It is a snow day in Chicago.  From the little bit of news I caught on TV today, it is a snow day in large parts of the Midwest and the Northeast.  The snow fell lightly but steadily from dusk on New Year’s Eve through noon on January 2.  The official accumulation in the town next to ours is 13.9 inches.  The temperature has been in the teens so the snow is very powdery.  The clean white landscape is beautiful and even more so when the skies cleared and the sun shined making everything whiter.

There were lots of cancellations today.   Some businesses closed.  Many schools and colleges were already closed for the holidays.  I imagine all school kids were excited by the snow storm.  They were probably a bit disappointed as well.  They probably felt cheated out of a snow day.   Even as an adult, I used to love the occasional snow day, but with computers and internet, there are no real snow days for adults anymore unless the electricity is out… and then it is not a very pleasant snow day at all.  Today was scheduled as a work in the home office day and that is exactly what I did.

Snow days were few and far between when I was a youngster, but they were wonderful and welcome surprises.  We seemed to get somewhere between zero and two days a year.  Even cooler, our more irresponsible, back then was the fact that they did not tack on days at the end of the year to make up for lost classroom time.  I do believe the Detroit Board of Education budgeted a few snow days into their schedule.  

To have snow days back then, we had to have what we used to simply call a “Big Snow.”  These were memorable storms that to this day are referred as The Blizzard of Fill in the blank with a year.  Being from Detroit, I recall one from the late 1960s and certainly the Blizzards of 1974, 1977, and 1978.  Back then there was no internet, no video games, and the TV had only four channels.  In those days, we didn’t have snow removal service nor did we have snow blowers.  We had heavy steel snow shovels and the family to clear the snow from the driveway and the sidewalks.  So, on snow days we played inside and when it stopped went outside to shovel and enjoy the snow and weather.  

The most recent old fashioned snow day I recall was in the 1990s in CT.  It was a massive snow storm that turned into a work and school snow day.  I began to clear off our massive driveway with the hope that the Kevork, our lawn and snow guy, would show.  Even when he did come there was a lot of shoveling to do but we got the job

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done.  Snows in CT tended to be wet and heavy so I was glad when that job was done.  

Ever since I have had four wheel SUVs, I loved to take them out on the snowy roads and see the winter wonderland that CT could be.  My daughter, Armene, also wanted to go sledding so we put the sled in the back of the 4Runner and drove around for awhile ending up at the Weston Historical Society where there was a wonderful hill.  Armene and Aram had a blast.  It was a great day.  That is the kind of snow day I kind of longed for today.

I noticed that recently, like this year, they have started naming winter storms.  This current storm is called Winter Storm Hercules; a most appropriate name.  I didn't get the memo.

Happy 2014

It is a quiet New Year's Eve.  The days of going out and performing at New Year's Eve Dances are either behind me or in a lull that feels like they are long behind me.  

It is funny that even in the heyday of playing every New Year's Eve, we used to call it amateurs' night.  It is more laughable now than it was years ago.  In our twenties and thirties, we thought we were such world class partiers.  We weren't.  At least I wasn't.  We did have fun and the fun was, for me, primarily because we were playing music. 

There is a trend that I have noticed to have lower key New Year's Eves.  When I was growing up it seemed like almost everyone went out.  Hotels and restaurants advertised New Year's Eve galas throughout all of December.  I believe every Armenian church had New Year's party.  it was an important night on the social calendar.  People got dressed up and went out.

A quick Google of this hypothesized New Year's Eve trend and voila... confirmation that I am again stating the obvious.  There were several postings of the same article:  Staying in is the new going out this New Year's Eve.

According to a survey by American toy company Hasbro, for the second year running, the majority of Americans will find themselves at home when the clock strikes midnight, with 79 percent of women and 76 percent of men shunning a night out.

I guess Hasbro conducted the survey to sell more games to stay at home revelers.  Don't they make Twister? 

The article made it seem like a tend that is just taking place this year.  I have sensed it for years.    Since 2001, we have mostly been part of this trend.  75-80% of the people staying at home this year did not happen overnight.  It has to be the result of a thirty year trend.

How did we spend our New Years?  We got some take out ribs and went to Judy's Mom's house and had dinner.  It was very good.  We Face Timed with the Gavoors of Washington DC and the Kapamajian's of Pasadena.  We also talked to the Gavoors of  Livonia, MI.  We came home and fired up our new Apple TV and Netflix.  When we stay home for New Year's Eve, Judy likes to watch Fred Astaire movies.  She was kind of hoping for Top Hat but Netflix seems to cater more to newer films and stars than older ones.  There was only Fred Astaire movie and it was the 1955 Daddy Long Legs with Leslie Caron.  After that she felt like a Cary Grant.  There were five movies starring Cary Grant which is more than the Fred Astaire offering but further evidence that Netflix does not favor old movies.  We chose Charade with Audrey Hepburn

Tomorrow, or rather later today, there is football.  I am only interested in the Rose Bowl which pits Michigan State against Stanford.  My daughter and son in-law will be at the game.

It is a cold Chicago night.  It is a frigid 8 degrees Fahrenheit and snowing.  It is a perfect night for staying home and ushering in the New Year by watching old movies and blogging.   

Wishing that  2014 is a healthy, happy, and prosperous year to you and yours.

December 2013: Christmas Letter

My habit has been to write this Christmas letter early Christmas morning.  I am beginning the letter on December 23 at 9:30 pm and will continue crafting it through Christmas morning. 

It is Christmas Eve Eve.  The house is decorated.  We, rather my wife, put up and trimmed four trees.  The house inside and out is aglow with holiday cheer.  We need this warmth and cheer of the season tonight because it is incredibly cold on this second night of winter. 

The weather app on my phone is reporting -1 degrees Fahrenheit which for my friends around the world is -18 degrees Celsius.  It has snowed and it is old fashioned bitter cold.  In these days of global warming, it is a great throwback.  Cold and snow is so central to the Christmas tradition around these parts.  It is just great to see. 

Christmas is about the birth of Christ.  The most important carols are definitely religious from Adeste Fideles to Silent Night.  There is a lot more buzz this year about people insisting on wishing people Merry Christmas as opposed to the more politically correct Season's Greeting or Happy Holidays.  There are even t-shirts being sold in the US that say "'Happy Holidays' is what liberals say" and "I am not afraid to say Merry Christmas."  I understand the sentiment but really wish I could more easily know how everyone I meet wants to be greeted.  Maybe we can all wear buttons that just states which holiday we want someone greeting us to acknowledge:  Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, Festivus, or perhaps Nothing.  To me this makes more sense.

I do believe there is some older more visceral holiday that Christmas has overlaid in these northern climes.  There is something about the solstice, the shortest day of the year, and celebrating it with lights that just seems right.  Christ was not born in a cold and snowy place, yet the celebration of Christmas in such places involves trees and lights beyond the one guiding star. 

We know that in the early days Christianity would move holidays around a bit

to overlay other, pagan, holidays that were popular with the masses.  I am conjecturing with absolutely no research involved here how important light was on the shortest darkest days of the year.  I am talking bonfires, lamps, candles, or whatever they had centuries before the invention of electricity.  

Of course, this all have been distorted by the mass merchandising around the hype of Christmas shopping.  People 1,000 years from now may look back and simply look at this time of year as a celebration of mass consumption and retail profitability.  While we are fumbling around trying to figure out how to greet each other, retailers know full well that the bulk of their revenue is coming from people shopping for Christmas decorations and gifts.

Speaking of Gifts:  In the past few days, I have been privy to a few conversations that made me realize some differences in how we experience Christmas today compared to in the days, or daze, of my youth.  There are many obvious aspects to point out.  These include how early the season starts and extends to the amount we spend on decorations and gifts these days.  These are obvious changes and have been noted by so many others.  Just this week, there was a story on NPR Morning Edition interviewing people who worked in retail and how they are coping with listening to Christmas music over and over for the past several weeks.  I can only imagine.

I am talking about more subtle changes that only matter to people my age and probably only really matter to people my age that reflect on such things... like me

I was with some guys this week and they were talking about what their kids wanted.  Each of them referred to a list their sons had given them.  One of the sons wanted an Xbox and new computer and the fellow was complaining a bit about the cost and the presumption that his son asked for and was expecting such expensive gifts.  It was pretty clear that the son would get both of the gifts.  I suggested that he get his son a Play Station to kind of give him what he wanted but not exactly.  It would be a life lesson for the college sophomore (yes college sophomore) that, as the Rolling Stones extolled, “you can’t always get what you want.”  The fellow liked the idea but realized it was not feasible all but admitting that his son just would not be happy with anything but what he wanted.

This fellow was not alone.  I do believe my own son exhibited some of this behavior.   It is not that it is a bad thing.  It is just different then I recall behaving as a kid.  Maybe it was socio-economics, perhaps it was something else.  I certainly wanted things but I do not recall making any lists and certainly not sharing it with my parents.  I was always surprised at what I got, sometimes positively and other times not so much.  I never thought about what I would have rather had and I never thought about exchanging what I got for what I might have really wanted. 

I have been thinking this way for as long as I can remember.  This is how I operate today.  If someone tells me what to buy them, I may do it but I am not so excited to present the gift to them.  While I know it is always better to get gifts people will want and value, I would rather present them with something I have put a tad of thought into and want them to have.

I am not one to talk about kids these days being different.  They aren’t really.  It is not the kids at all.  It is the way we have marketed this holiday to everyone.  It takes stronger parenting than most can muster to overcome the marketing machine.  But, it is worth the try.  Get them what they don't expect.  Get them not exactly what they want.  Be creative.  Your children, nieces and nephews, and grandchildren just might remember you more fondly for it. 

The Whole Shopping Thing:  In recent years, the shopping pace the days after Christmas is just as brisk with it all being in returns, exchanges, and upgrades.  Most presents come with gift receipts as a testimony to the dramatic increase in this behavior.  It is probably just a function of having too much and thus becoming incredibly picky about what we want and what we want to keep.   The stores are just as busy the few days after Christmas as they are leading into the holiday.  It is full of people taking things back and then shopping the after Christmas sales for things that better suit their tastes.  To this day, I only take back and exchange things if they do not fit or if I already have the item.  For fit, I try to get a similar as possible item because that is what the gift giver had in mind for me.  Even if it is something I already had, I try to get a different color. 

On Christmas Eve, I got an email from Jos. A. Banks, a men's clothing store.  This is not so rare because if you ever have bought anything from them, you will receive several emails a day for perpetuity.  This email had the title:  “Starting at 10pm Tonight... Christmas Day DOORBUSTERS with FREE Shipping!”  Yay... let’s celebrate Christmas by shopping for the bargains created due to the trouble retailers have with forecasting accurately!  The new Sylvester Stallone and Robert De Niro movie also is opening on Christmas Day.  I recall, clearly, that back in the day everything, EVERYTHING, was shut down on Christmas.  This change bothers many folks I know, but I take the change in stride.  I simply choose not to shop or go see a movie on holidays when I would just rather chill with family and friends.  Or...  just maybe... I avoid the stores at all costs.

Going to See Santa:  Going to see Santa used to be a big deal.  My prime treks to see Santa were in the late 1950s and early 1960s.  It was the cusp of the era of the Christmas Story movie and the commercialism that seems to have fully taken over. 

We used to see Santa a few times.  Santa would be at our church, maybe he would show up at Cub Scouts, my uncle's Masonic Lodge, or a few other community venues.  We enjoyed seeing Santa at these events, these secondary sightings of Santa.  We knew they weren't "the real Santa."  We could tell because we might recognize the man under the amateurish beard.  If we didn't recognize the man, we might notice just how fake the beard or hair was.  We might catch glimpses of dark hair under the hat or hair.  It did not matter.  We knew these were people playing Santa to help out because Santa could not be everywhere.

We did, however, know where the real Santa was.  We would make the official Santa visit to that special place.  Primo locations in Detroit were the Hudson's Department Store Downtown or the Ford Rotunda in Dearborn.  We used to get a little dressed up for this visit.  We would wait in line to see Santa and he was magnificent with snow white hair and beard and a rich looking well tailored red and white suit that we expected the great man to be wearing.  The surroundings were equally spectacular with Santa mounted on a throne as he should be. 

The Ford Rotunda was a magical place.  It was originally the Ford Pavilion at the 1934 Chicago World’s Fair.  After the World’s Fair, it was dismantled and moved to Dearborn, MI.  After being closed in World War Two, it was remodeled, modernized, and the open court was given a geodesic dome.  In the 1950s, it became the 5^th largest tourist destination in the United States.  It was an amazing testimony to the strength and power of the US Auto Industry after WW2.  Per Wikipedia:

In 1953 the annual Christmas Fantasy was held for the first time at the Rotunda and nearly half a million people visited that first year. A giant 37-foot-tall Christmas tree was displayed. An elaborate Santa’s workshop and a life-size nativity scene that the National Council of Churches called the “Largest and finest” in the country, as well as animated characters from children’s stories, a 1/2” per foot scale 15,000-piece miniature circus with 800 animals, 30 tents, and 435 toy figurines of circus performers and customers. The Christmas Fantasy was held for nine years at the Rotunda and in that time nearly 6 million people visited.

We used to go to the Christmas Fantasy at the Ford Rotunda.  It was a highlight of the Christmas season.  In early November of 1962, workers were waterproofing the roof and a fire started that burnt down the building.  No more Rotunda, no more Christmas Fantasy.  It was heartbreaking and to this day, part of me does not understand why they did not rebuild it.  They could have

and should have.  Another part of me, now looking back, saw that event as a major chink in the armor that foretold the troubles Detroit would encounter. 

It will come as no surprise given the above comments on gifts that I never knew what to ask Santa for.  Usually, when I got up to Santa, I just rattled something off.  At this writing I cannot recall anything specific that I asked Santa for in any of those visits.  I think I just wanted to be surprised.

Old friends:  I am always inviting the readers of this Christmas letter to stop by for a cup of Christmas cheer.  I thought I would show the warm glow of our home in the photo.  Our home is open both Christmas Eve and Day.  While the house will be full of relatives, there are friends here too and there  is always room for old friends to stop by. 

While I would love to see everyone whose friendship I value, I would love to see those that I got to know in Latin America.  I get to see friends in this country more often.  When it comes to my Armenian circle, I tend to see them at various functions and our annual Labor Day gathering.  I have not been to Mexico, Central, or South America since 2006.  I have not seen many of these friends for the most part since then. 

Case in point,  I got a Christmas greeting from an old friend, Julian Gutierrez.  The opening line of his message summed the reality of it.

Another year is gone, and we have had very little chance to be in touch, distance is a killer, but I hope we will continue to stay in touch in 2014.

We used to see each other on a regular basis when we worked at Colgate.  We met in the Latin American Division where we were both part of the Division staff.  Then Julian did stints in Venezuela, Mexico, and Europe.  When I would visit the subsidiaries in Venezuela and Mexico, Julian and I would work together and catch-up.  We had the same values eschewing politics for hard work and doing what was right and lament at how important the political component was.   Julian is very bright and very hard working.  For sure, I paled in comparison to him in the hard working part.

Andres Maleplate called me today from Montevideo.  He has called every year since I moved here.  We keep in touch throughout the year but the Christmas call is special.  I was online earlier with Angel de la Puente from Mexico.  We do not keep as well in touch as well as we should but it is great, always, to hear from him. 

Some friends, however, fall through the cracks.  Even with social media, we lose contact simply because we do not see each other with any regularity.  It is a little sad but truly the way of world especially when our friends and family are spread out all over the world.  I think I must have some genetic vestige in me that still lives in some ancient village where the cast of characters around changed only by birth and death.  There is certainly good and bad in that.  People dear to you are always around.  On the flip side, the people that irritate the living daylights out of you were always around too.

Our best wishes to friends and family all over the US and the world for a wonderful and warm Christmas Day.  More so, may 2014 be healthy, happy, and prosperous for one and all.