July 2003 Archives

By Vincent Safuto staff writer

July 19, 2003

One of the great contradictions of our system of life and government is that Americans are free to make decisions on how they will lead their lives, but elites in academia, media and government invariably criticize them no matter what they decide.

I've tried to avoid that, believing that everyone has the right to decide how their life will be. Criticizing people for wanting a better life is counterproductive, but some people believe it makes them socially and culturally superior.

In few areas has the debate been more vehement than over suburban life.

The rhetorical war over suburbia has been raging for a half-century, and shows few signs of abating. For the academic and the elitist, the efforts of many people to buy a bit of land for themselves and have a nice house is the end of civilization. Better that they remain in crowded cities, stacked atop each other in apartment buildings like cargo containers at a seaport, the "logic" runs, than living in "cookie-cutter" developments with identical houses one right after the other.

During my college years, I took an American history class and sat next to a woman who had moved to one of those allegedly awful suburbs just outside New York City in the 1950s. The professor talked about the horrors of life in places like Levittown, N.Y., and the drenching and soul-wasting conformity on those streets.

But my classmate, having lived there, had a different view. She and her husband liked their little "Levitt" and the community they moved into, and didn't feel the suburban angst the merchants of mediocrity in Hollywood foist on us through movies and television shows.

When I lived on Long Island after leaving the Marines, I dated a girl who lived in a Levitt house in the town of Hicksville. Sure, it was tough to find your way around the circuitous streets, and I had to call from a pay phone on our first date to follow her father into the neighborhood, but I had to do that in a lot of other places before I learned the roads.

The house had been modified and added to in the years since being built, as were almost all the houses on the street. No one seemed to feel that they were living in the suburban hell some people claim exists all over the country. They were living the life they wanted to live, where they wanted to live.

I've owned and lived in two houses in my adult life, both in suburban developments. Neither house was identical to the one next door, and in neither development did people believe that they'd accidentally walk into someone else's house.

Sure, many of today's suburban dwellings are similar in appearance, but if the price of affordability is little architectural individuality, that's a price that I — and many other people — are willing to pay for the privileges and responsibilities of homeownership.

Anyone who has a problem with that needs to get a life.



Vincent F. Safuto is a copy editor for the Press Journal. Reach him at (Vincent.Safuto@scripps.com).


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By Vincent Safuto staff writer

July 12, 2003

Where were you, and what were you doing, 25 years ago?

I was living in New York City, and counting down the days until I left for Marine Corps basic training at Parris Island, S.C.

It was the summer of 1978, and I was fresh from high-

school graduation. The outlook for high-school and college graduates that year was "grim," as it has been since Socrates and Co. built the first teachers' lounge in ancient Greece. But my course was already plotted and had been since December 1977. I was going to be a Marine. Well, actually, a Marine recruit.

Whether I'd actually survive Marine boot camp was another matter, and one that — along with my 17-year-old sanity — was in serious doubt among my family and friends.

In the aftermath of Vietnam, the military was not exactly the top career choice among soon-to-graduate students or their parents. One relative, who had been drafted to serve in Vietnam, was enlisted to try to talk some sense into me since I liked him and spent a lot of time hanging out at his house trying to help him with his antique car.

But something else happened that year. I learned that the best way to get your way was to dig in your heels and refuse to back down. Hitherto, I had been very passive and obedient to everyone; now I was standing fast. No amount of threats, promises or stories about wild goings-on in the military could dissuade me.

Part of it was marketing. I was idealistic and wanted to serve my country. Maybe I was a throwback to the JFK concept of taking on a challenge for the good of the nation, but there also was the "me-centric" component: I wanted to be different. The brochures and films talked of "the good life, in and out of uniform." I wanted to be a part of something, and the Marines seemed to offer that.

My friends were content to drift into college, while I wanted to test and prove myself against the toughest system out there. I had considered joining the Navy, but the Marines seemed to offer the challenge a 17-year-old needed.

New York City's schools' budget had been cut to the bone, and there were few, if any, extracurricular activities or electives left once the ax fell. Job training was nonexistent and the Marines said they'd teach me everything I'd need to know for the job they had for me.

The kicker was that they'd pay me. Three hundred ninety-seven dollars and 50 cents a month (before taxes) sounds like a fortune when you're on a $5-a-week allowance from your parents.

My departure day was scheduled to be Aug. 2, 1978, though a delay later appeared, and I didn't actually leave until Aug. 3, 1978.

That I'm writing this, and have mentioned my Marine Corps service in past columns, indicated that I must have survived, but how — and countless other details — must wait for a future column.

All I can say is: It was an experience I've never regretted, but it's not for everyone.



Vincent F. Safuto is a copy editor for the Press Journal. Reach him at (Vincent.Safuto@scripps.com).


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By Vincent Safuto staff writer

July 5, 2003

I did something 16 years ago that is causing me to lose a lot of sleep today.

No, I don't have some deep dark secret never unearthed by an employment background check, but something far more prosaic: I signed papers and made a 30-year commitment — better known as a mortgage — to buy my first house in 1987.

Had I known that years later, and even after the house was sold and the mortgage satisfied, I'd be tormented by this loan, I would have continued to rent. But I wanted the tax benefits and the status of homeownership, and, with a little help from the Veterans Administration, the cat and I had a place to call our own.

The torment is this: Mortgage refinancing companies are telemarketing me relentlessly in an effort to persuade me to refinance that old, paid-off mortgage.

I've tried a variety of responses, from genial hospitality to curt replies to snarling rage — all to no avail. I've explained to just about every call-center worker in the United States and India that the mortgage is no longer active, but still the calls come.

One company in particular that calls me two to three times a week has been the subject of enforcement actions by the state of Oklahoma for illegal telemarketing calls. But the company just pays the fine and keeps dialing.

When telemarketing executives impugn the values and patriotism of people who just want to stop being called about things like long-ago mortgages, they ignore the fact that it's annoying to have to explain again and again why that mortgage can't be refinanced.

The telemarketers like to hit me at about 9:30 a.m. This is close to my wakeup time on workdays, so I've considered ditching my alarm clock and simply putting in wakeup calls to the telemarketer.

I imagine the operation is akin to the "scare floor" in the animated film "Monsters, Inc.," complete with a supervisor shouting "Eastern seaboard coming online in five, four, three, two, one, zero!"

You have to admire the telemarketers' persistence, though. Through two changes of address and telephone numbers in the past two years, they've successfully found me and hounded me. Maybe the telemarketers should be running the Department of Homeland Security. Then again, maybe they are.

I guess it's my destiny to repeat past mistakes, because, last year, I became a homeowner again. I suppose that eventually the news of my new mortgage will reach the telemarketing industry and the phone — and my poor ears — will again be ringing with offers to refinance that loan.

I've already mentioned one way telemarketers can make themselves useful to society: providing wakeup calls to people. Along with the do-not-call list the federal government is initiating, there could also be the call-at-a-certain-time list for those who don't mind the sound of a ringing phone awakening them, and a pleasant voice on the other end telling them it's time to get up, and it might be a good time to refinance their mortgage before they hit the shower.

Vincent F. Safuto is a copy editor for the Press Journal. Reach him at Vincent.Safuto@scripps.com.


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