Interesting letter to baby. McDonalds was the center of teen socialization when I first came to Northport HS in 1974. Kids stood outside it on 25A, and a pizza place in the shopping center next door to find each other. Once, when I was moving from Levittown to my first house in Northport, Dec. 1978, I was driving a large rental truck and decided to pull into that parking lot. Unfortunately, I bumped into a curb as I entered the lot and dozens of kids, some my students, howled. "Hey Mr. White. You need to go back to drivers ed." Actually, I prefer BK to McD for reasons of taste. And nowadays, I made a vow to myself, a personal boycott of McD because they let trump into one of their stores for the famous photo op of him with apron, pretending to actually be serving customers, like he's ever had to work a minimum wage job, or struggle. I wonder how many votes that McD op was worth on Nov. 5. 100,000? 500,000? A million? Wonder if it was a tipping factor?
I just learned so much about you in this short piece of writing. I can't help but feel slightly elitist. I ate at McDonalds once after we returned from Belgium on a babysitting gig — the poor parents took me there with their progeny before leaving us for the afternoon and I promptly vomited on the return trip to their house. maybe too much information for a Sunday morning, but let's say I was cured for life. I do hear the French Fries are superior ... but then, I did say I grew up in Belgium and nothing, I do mean nothing, compares to theirs — even if the French claim to have invented them. If you ever have the chance, and it should absolutely be with 'baby', go to the Place Jourdan near the EU in Brussels — there you will savor fries like no other. Of course, your text deals with far deeper topics than french fries and I appreciate the meditation on democracy. It's good to know there are melting pots that continue to thrive.
Louise, you are a cosmopolitan in the very best sense of the term--which among other things involves an instinctively generous willingness to appreciate things beyond your ken. Never been all that much of a traveler (I'm a provincial at heart, albeit one who spent Saturday afternoon at the Met), but I do hope to get to Brussels someday.
Interesting letter to baby. McDonalds was the center of teen socialization when I first came to Northport HS in 1974. Kids stood outside it on 25A, and a pizza place in the shopping center next door to find each other. Once, when I was moving from Levittown to my first house in Northport, Dec. 1978, I was driving a large rental truck and decided to pull into that parking lot. Unfortunately, I bumped into a curb as I entered the lot and dozens of kids, some my students, howled. "Hey Mr. White. You need to go back to drivers ed." Actually, I prefer BK to McD for reasons of taste. And nowadays, I made a vow to myself, a personal boycott of McD because they let trump into one of their stores for the famous photo op of him with apron, pretending to actually be serving customers, like he's ever had to work a minimum wage job, or struggle. I wonder how many votes that McD op was worth on Nov. 5. 100,000? 500,000? A million? Wonder if it was a tipping factor?
I just learned so much about you in this short piece of writing. I can't help but feel slightly elitist. I ate at McDonalds once after we returned from Belgium on a babysitting gig — the poor parents took me there with their progeny before leaving us for the afternoon and I promptly vomited on the return trip to their house. maybe too much information for a Sunday morning, but let's say I was cured for life. I do hear the French Fries are superior ... but then, I did say I grew up in Belgium and nothing, I do mean nothing, compares to theirs — even if the French claim to have invented them. If you ever have the chance, and it should absolutely be with 'baby', go to the Place Jourdan near the EU in Brussels — there you will savor fries like no other. Of course, your text deals with far deeper topics than french fries and I appreciate the meditation on democracy. It's good to know there are melting pots that continue to thrive.
Louise, you are a cosmopolitan in the very best sense of the term--which among other things involves an instinctively generous willingness to appreciate things beyond your ken. Never been all that much of a traveler (I'm a provincial at heart, albeit one who spent Saturday afternoon at the Met), but I do hope to get to Brussels someday.