The wind-down of this political season? Our government is a nonprofit organization. They don’t mean to be, but they are.
Parents want kids to share in their businesses? Please. The feds will beat them to it.
At the Republican mishmash, I learned a businessman can’t win. Do something wrong, he’s fined. Do something right, he’s taxed.
Democrats brought a realization that every time the American entrepreneur comes up with a new idea, a month later Russians invent it, Koreans claim it, Japanese copy it and Chinese sell it to us.
Republicans don’t think how to get rid of unemployment. They only think how to get rid of Obama. And the Democrats’ lone interest is advocating a new welfare doll. You wind it up, and it doesn’t work. By the next presidential election, pros insist a third party — not a Tea Party offshoot but another concept — will be born.
Also. Politicians of both parties are boring. You take a senator with you when you want to be alone. Some I’ve met you’d throw a party just not to have them.
At a delegate breakfast, the speaker spoke and spoke even when he had nothing to say. Unfortunately, you had to listen a long time to find that out. Dull? He probably looked forward to dentist appointments.
Oh, was I ready to return to civilization.
Leaving Oz, Dorothy said: “There’s no place like home.” Leaving Charlotte, Dorothy might’ve burped: “Oy, no place like New York.”
The afternoon I departed Charlotte bad weather delayed my plane. It was coming from Denver so late that by then Hillary would’ve been president.
With no time to phone airlines who’d tell me: “Press 1, push 2, shove 3, stick 4” to reach someone in this country who might speak a little English, I rang my contact, a lifelong local resident, and asked, “Can you call another airline for me?”
This executive in his 30s replied: “I don’t know how.”
“What’s that mean? Your whole airport is smaller than my compact. What’s the problem?”
“I’m not familiar with airplanes. I’ve only been on one.”
Right. OK. No sense asking if he’s getting the new iPhone.
The problem: Thursday’s presidential speech had changed from outdoor space to a smaller indoor one. They claimed it was “due to last-minute inclement weather.” No! Not last-minute inclement weather. My toes had dry rot. Even White House geniuses knew it poured all week. Dispatching buses to neighboring states, they still couldn’t fill the venue.
Result? Shut out of the smaller arena, many flew home early, at the same time I was. Translation: couldn’t get a flight. Eventually, managing a seat on another carrier, I called him back to say: “Charge it to my credit card.”
He said: “We don’t know to do things like that.”
Right. OK. Forget the new iPhone. This guy probably answered on a party line. With a stand-up instrument. With a live operator. With a rotary dial. With Alexander Graham Bell in person on the other end.
The airport was in North Carolina. My hotel? Don’t ask . . . it was in South Carolina. Like I say, don’t ask. And no room service. Zero. The nearest food was in Trenton. As I starved, I packed. And for car and driver service, a public thank you to First Corporate Sedans’ Avi Bacalu and Khalida Fisher, who arranged Tampa and Charlotte’s tough-to-get transportation.
At the airport? Geraldo. On my plane, Charlie Rose and Fran Drescher.
The people in that town were loving. Kind. Helpful. My hotel manager hugged me when I left. Staffers offered to carry something to my room for breakfast. Cops escorted me when I was lost.
And me, happy to get back to New York.
Why?
We’re so friendly? Before shaking hands with a stranger here, a New Yorker first checks the location of his wallet.
Late at night, my kind convention driver personally accompanied me upstairs to my room so I’d feel safe. Imagine that here? A friend in Manhattan told me: “Security is lax in our building. I lost my apartment key, and a burglar loaned me his.”
But it’s NewYork! Noisy, crowded, rude, streets not polished like Naples, Fla. Filled with animals, but unlike those nice geese and otters swimming in Jackson Hole.
New York. Where you get takeout taken in anytime. Dine on French, Italian, Swedish, Turkish, whatever. Grab a hot dog off a corner cart or buy it semi-fresh from a deli at 3 a.m. Same-day bagel? With or without seeds? With a schmear? With lox cut from the middle complete with onion and heartburn?
How about a zoo? Aquarium? Museum for old relics, new artists, antique jewelry, 1920 subway cars, Native American artifacts. Want streets full of diamonds? UN full of diplomats? Mayoral candidates full of whatever?
Where else to get a cabbie who displays his manicured middle finger? Subway without air conditioning? A $13 per person movie theater that plays commercials? Sales lady busy on a personal phone call and ignoring you? Three-hundred-dollar tab on a dinner for one? A street person who answers, “You tawkin’ t’ me?” Buy a nice apartment for $75 million? Grow old waiting for a repairman?
New York, New York. It’s good to be home.