Friday, November 26, 2021

The City at Thanksgiving

When I still worked, Thanksgiving Day was always a holiday, and the following day, Friday was always a non-working day. This gave us all a four-day weekend. Enough to digest all the food eaten previously. Very few people work on that Friday, except retail stores who plan to make big money for pre-Christmas shopping.

On this Friday the traffic is usually lighter than usual but, the City keeps regular weekday rules as far as parking. This misunderstanding leads to a record number of parking tickets. We, the regular drivers assume that because today is a non-official holiday the parking regulations are suspended. But oh no! Not in New York.

New York is absolutely non driver friendly. They instituted, this idiot mayor did, a very low speed limit where one literally has to hold the car back form going too fast. There are cameras everywhere recording speeds and then tickets are issued. The only good, if it is good, that camera tickets are just money penalties and there are no points involved. Still, they cost about $75 each time. 

Right now, as I am writing this, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is going on. It is interesting but extremely commercial. Last Year it was not held but today it is on. They are very lucky because the weather is great. Because the last float is Santa's arriving at 12 noon this thing is very much controlled by the TV. They have stars on some floats who sing (or lip sing) their popular songs. Because of the time control many times they have no chance to finish before their floats move on. It is crazy, but I guess necessary.

They used to have a Thanksgiving Day Parade in Philadelphia sponsored by Gimbels. But when Gimbels folded that parade also went by the wayside. I don't know if there are any cities in the US that hold such parades.    

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