Richard Nixon departed the White House in ignominy after resigning the presidency on August 9, 1974. The Watergate scandal had finally done him in. (Even today, a political scandal is labeled “-gate.)
Since Nixon’s leaving, the Electoral College has given the U.S. several Republican presidents. With an exception or maybe two, each was lazier and oversaw an administration more corrupt than his predecessor.
But I digress.
President Nixon signed into law the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) on New Year’s Day, 1970.
With all that has happened/is happening in 2020, most of us are looking forward to moving into a new year. But not every event was bad. The city of Florence on the Oregon coast dedicated a new park.
To generate enthusiasm for the park’s opening, the city solicited suggestions from the public for its name. A hundred and twenty submissions were winnowed to nine that were submitted to the public for a vote. The winner: “Exploding Whale Memorial Park.”
The COVID pandemic has affected everything else, so of course it will have an impact on Thanksgiving dinner. Family gatherings will be small, intimate affairs. Smaller gatherings mean less demand for twenty-four-pound turkeys. Supermarkets are ordering more small turkeys, more hens and fewer toms. Growers are slaughtering their birds earlier.
Does this mean distributors’ freezers will be filled with unsold twenty-pound birds? Taking the Wayback Machine to 1953, we see ten railroad cars filled with 260 tons of frozen turkeys the Swanson Company had not been able to sell by Thanksgiving. Refrigeration only worked when the cars were moving. The train rumbled back and forth between Swanson’s headquarters in Nebraska and the East Coast while executives figured out what to do.
The solution was to put slices of turkey on partitioned aluminum trays along with sweet potatoes and cornbread stuffing. Thus was born the TV Dinner. In the first full year of production, Swanson sold ten million frozen dinners, turkey, beef, chicken and others. The company’s timing was good; by 1954, sixty-four percent of American homes had television. (A decade later, it was ninety percent, in time for the Beatles’ appearance on the Ed Sullivan show.)
If a frozen holiday dinner is not appealing, Williams-Sonoma is taking orders for Willie Bird free-range turkeys. Prices start at $139.95 plus shipping.
During my twenty years in Santa Rosa, planning a turkey feast usually included a short drive to the Willie Bird store. Willie Bird’s farm was in the hills behind the store. Family-owned for four generations, Willie Bird was woven into Sonoma County life. The county fair or farmer’s markets or most other outdoor events typically included Willie Bird’s barbecue, grilling drumsticks. Willie Bird’s restaurant was a mainstay in Santa Rosa for years.
Diestel Family Ranch, also in California, purchased Willie Bird this past summer. The new owner says the Willie Bird name will continue. The restaurant was sold last year and now operates as “The Bird.”
Take a break from the 2020 campaign and reminisce about previous presidential transitions. Bill Clinton in 1997 and George W. Bush in 2001 limited contributions to their presidential inauguration festivities to $100,000 from any one donor. Bush upped the limit to $250,000 in 2005. Barack Obama did not accept contributions from corporations, labor unions, PACs (political action committees) or lobbyists for his 2009 inauguration celebration. Individual gifts were capped at $50,000. Still, he set the record with a $53 million haul.
The current occupant of the White House had no such limits. Thirty donors contributed $1,000,000 or more to the total of $107 million. What’s still in question is where all that money went.
Surprise! A lot of it went into the Trump Organization.
Fifty years ago, Congress voted against funding supersonic aircraft. The result was massive layoffs at Boeing and the not-so-tongue-in-cheek billboard adjacent to I-5 on the way out of Seattle.
Things are different now. Microsoft, Starbucks and Amazon—along with Nirvana and grunge—changed the Queen/Jet City’s image. The working-class town became hip and synonymous with tech.
Seattle’s metamorphosis continues in the twenty-first century. With a median home price of $750,000 and median household income above $150,000, the city has become a place for the well-off and not-so-well-off/homeless with not-so-much in between.
Boeing is contracting again, shutting down 787 Dreamliner production. Amazon is giving mixed messages about continued growth in Seattle.
And another Seattle landmark is about to disappear. Elephant Car Wash, the first automated car wash in the city, announced it was closing after seventy years at the triangular block bordered by Denny Way and Battery Street. Soon to disappear is its iconic garishly-pink neon elephant sign. The company will continue to operate its fourteen other car washes in the Puget Sound area. The property owner has not announced any plans for the property that’s now surrounded by high-rise condominiums and office towers that may or may not be occupied by Amazonians.
An earlier victim of urban progress was the Lincoln Towing Company’s landmark truck—also pink—on Mercer Avenue. In the age of GPS smart phones, nobody needs directions anyway: “Take the Mercer exit from five and turn right at the toe truck.”
Way back in the mid-twentieth century, if you lived in proximity to the border, finding Canadian coins in your pocket or coin purse was common. Even rolled coins dispensed by banks likely had a Canadian coin or two. Because of a difference in weight or metal content, vending machines had to display notices that Canadian coins could not be used. The exchange rate typically favored the U.S. but not by much. Many merchants would accept Canadian currency, but at a discount.
When I operated a retail business on the northern Oregon coast, occasionally a customer would refuse to accept a Canadian coin in change and I thought, Oh, you’re from California. Over time, the exchange rate widened and Canadian coins no longer were generally accepted anywhere.
Canada, unlike the U.S., stopped circulating pennies a few years ago because the cost to produce a copper coin was more than one cent. Also unlike the U.S., dollar and half-dollar coins are commonly in circulation. They also have a two-dollar coin. The smallest currency denomination is five dollars. The Canadian dollar coin featured the image of a loon, so it became known as a “loonie.” The two-dollar coin, naturally, is a “toonie.”
