Good evening, 919 Gang. Last night I wrote about a fellow at the grocery who insisted on paying for our weekly purchase. As I mentioned, it might have been because we were disguised as old folks.
GLENN GRANT writes:
My wife and I also wear our "old people" disguises proudly. Twice in the past few months, other people have helped pay for our purchases. At a bagel shop, my wife was seated outside with our dogs while I was trying to pay for our meal. Turns out the store didn't take Apple Pay and I didn't have cash or credit cards with me. I said I would walk a block to a 7-Eleven and get some cash back from a small purchase. When I went to tell my wife I would be back in a few minutes, a young man and his wife tapped me on the shoulder and said, "We got you." They were paying for our purchase and wanted nothing in return. I offered to transfer some cash to them online, but they refused.
Just last week, we were at an optical shop, where I was buying a spray bottle of lens cleaner. It cost $5 but I only had $3 in cash, my wife had none, and the shop didn't accept credit cards or Apple Pay under $10. A customer sitting at the fitting desk said, "Here you go," and gave me the $2 I needed. Again, I offered to repay her some way, but she refused.
I wish the "old people" disguise had bigger benefits, but this is a start, and I'll take it.
ERNIE COWAN writes:
Two comments RE: last night’s column.
“Free Groceries” brought tears to my eyes. There are so many good people in the world.
For those of you in or around North County, the old Quail’s Inn at Lake San Marcos was torn down and replaced with a beautiful new venue on the lake called Amalfi. Upstairs is a high-end dining venue, but downstairs, extending out over the lake is the Dockside Bar.
The owners are Italian, and many of the staff speak Italian as their first language. They serve pizza with all imported Italian ingredients. It is the best I have ever had. Add some wine, and the beautiful view of swans on the lake, and it’s become my new favorite place.
They may even be able to arrange a Poochie Delivery!
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REBER: Penny Lingo asked about getting the employee’s rate on a U-T subscription.
ROGER CONLEE writes:
Penny Lingo, I had a great experience getting the ex-employee discount. A woman named Dawn was very accommodating and readily gave me the discount. Dawn is called an Escalation Support Specialist (who thinks up these titles?) and her email address is: ess@latimes.com.
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ANITA PALMER writes:
Lots of 919 posts are past-oriented, and it's fun to reminisce. Raised by an old wire-service reporter and newspaperman and trained in the traditional model of "objectivity," I have been challenged to take a deeper look at other approaches.
I just came across a Nieman Lab report that examines an academic study about 155 collaborations between traditional news outlets and civil society organizations in 125 countries, and what those collaborations produced. It's fascinating.
I bet members of this list would have thoughts.
Here's the Nieman Lab piece:
"Journalists are increasingly partnering with outside organizations. A new report offers a glimpse at how that’s going," by By Laura Hazard Owen
Here's the original study from the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University:
“Cross-field collaboration: How and why journalists and civil society organizations around the world are working together,” by Sarah Stonbely, Ph.D. and Hanna Siemaszko looked at 155 such collaborations, involving 1,010 entities across 125 countries
https://collaborativejournalism.org/cross-field/
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DAVID FARMER writes:
The suffix -ery can refer to the product of an occupation or the place where it's practiced. Some of the jobs described by -ery are obsolete. For example:
Haberdashery (shop selling men's clothes), cordwainery (old word for shoemaker), fellmongery (seller of animal pelts or hides), ironmongery (maker and seller of hardware like nails or tools), drysaltery (seller of dried, canned or salted foods), microbrewery (very small person who brews beer ((joke)), fallalery (seller of showy clothing), chandlery (dealer in supplies for ships), colliery (where coal is dug), swannery (where swans are raised), knackery (slaughterhouse), grindery (where tools and cutlery are sharpened), cutler (maker of cutting instruments), farriery (maker and fitter of horse shoes), fullery (cleaning and thickening wool), joinery (carpentry), coopery (maker of barrels and casks), beanery (cheap restaurant), turnery (shop of a lathe operator), nunnery (convent), cattery (where cats are kept and bred), mercery (seller of textiles), ropery (where ropes are made), bowery (farm of early Dutch settler in New York), napery (table linen).
Mopery, a different kind of word, meant violation of a minor law or rule. Jim McVicar, a Union reporter long since deceased, used to joke around in the city room, accusing staffers of such offenses as "second-degree mopery." I didn't know at the time that such a violation really existed.
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