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West Village
There is no neighborhood like the
West Village (Greenwich Village, the village). Its a diverse neighborhood
that has a life of itself, flowing with artists and musicians, and actors.
Several generations of writers and artists have lived and worked here: in the 19th century, Henry James, Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, and Stephen Crane; at the turn of the 20th century, O. Henry, Edith Wharton, Theodore Dreiser, and Hart Crane; and during the 1920s and '30s, John Dos Passos, Norman Rockwell, Sinclair Lewis, John Reed, Eugene O'Neill, Edward Hopper, and Edna St. Vincent Millay. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the abstract expressionist painters Franz Kline, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Willem de Kooning congregated here, as did the Beat writers Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. The 1960s brought folk musicians and poets, notably Bob Dylan and Peter, Paul, and Mary.
Today, block for block, the Village is still one of the most vibrant parts of the city. Well-heeled professionals occupy high-rent apartments and town houses side by side with bohemian, longtime residents -- who pay cheap rents thanks to rent-control laws -- as well as NYU students. Locals and visitors rub elbows at dozens of small restaurants, cafés spill out onto sidewalks, and an endless variety of small shops pleases everyone. Except for a few pockets of adult-entertainment shops and divey bars, the Village is as scrubbed as posher neighborhoods.
Greenwich Village lends itself to a leisurely pace, so allow yourself most of a day to explore its backstreets and stop at shops and cafés.
Washington Square Area
Begin your tour of Greenwich Village at the foot of 5th Avenue at Washington Memorial Arch in Washington Square Park. Most buildings bordering the leafy square belong to NYU. On Washington Square North, between University Place and MacDougal Street, stretches The Row, two blocks of lovingly preserved Greek revival and federal-style town houses.
At the corner of Washington Square South and Thompson Street you'll see the square-towered Judson Memorial Church. One block east, at La Guardia Place, NYU's rebuilt student center stands on the site of a boardinghouse that had been nicknamed the House of Genius for the talented writers who lived there over the years: Theodore Dreiser, O. Henry, and Eugene O'Neill, among others. Another block east is the hulking red sandstone Bobst Library, built in 1972, which represents an abortive attempt to create a unified campus look for NYU as envisioned by architects Philip Johnson and Richard Foster. At one time plans called for all the Washington Square buildings to be refaced in this red stone; the cost proved prohibitive. On the east side of the square, you can take in a contemporary art exhibit at Grey Art Gallery, housed in NYU's main building.
From Washington Memorial Arch and the park, cross Washington Square North to the east corner of 5th Avenue, where there's a portico entrance to 7-13 Washington Square North. Beyond the white columns of this entrance is the small, attractive Willy's Garden. A statue of Miguel de Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote, stands at the far end. The likeness, cast in 1724, was a gift from the mayor of Madrid.
Another half a block north, on the east side of 5th Avenue, is Washington Mews, a cobblestone private street. A similar Village mews, MacDougal Alley, lies between Washington Square North and 8th Street, one block west. Continue up the west side of 5th Avenue; you'll pass the Church of the Ascension, a Gothic revival brownstone building. At 12th Street you can stop in the Forbes Magazine Galleries.
Backtrack to West 11th Street and turn right to see one of the best examples of a Village town-house block. One exception to the 19th-century redbrick town houses here is the modern, angled front window of 18 West 11th Street, usually occupied by a stuffed bear whose outfit changes day to day. This house was built after the original was destroyed in a 1970 explosion of a basement bomb factory, which had been started by members of the Weathermen, the revolutionary faction of the Students for a Democratic Society. Toward 6th Avenue, behind a low wall on the south side of the street, is the Second Shearith Israel graveyard, used by the country's oldest Jewish congregation after the original cemetery in Chinatown and before the one in Chelsea.
6th Avenue and West
Turn left on Avenue of the Americas (6th Avenue) and go south one block. On the west side of the street, the triangle formed by West 10th Street, 6th Avenue, and Greenwich Avenue originally held a market, a jail, and the magnificent towered courthouse that is now the Jefferson Market Library. West of 6th Avenue on 10th Street is the wrought-iron gateway to a tiny courtyard called Patchin Place; around the corner, on 6th Avenue just north of 10th Street, is a similar cul-de-sac, Milligan Place.
Next, proceed to Christopher Street, which veers off from the south end of the library triangle. Christopher Street has long been the symbolic heart of New York's gay and lesbian community. Within a few steps you'll see Gay Street on your left. Continue on to cross Waverly Place, where on your left you'll pass the 1831 brick Northern Dispensary building. At 51-53 Christopher Street, the historic Stonewall riots marked the beginning of the gay rights movement. Across the street is a green triangle named Christopher Park, not to be confused with Sheridan Square, another landscaped triangle to the south.
Across the busy intersection of 7th Avenue South, Christopher Street has many cafés, bars, and stores; several cater to a gay clientele, but all kinds of people traverse the narrow sidewalks. Two shops worth a visit are McNulty's Tea and Coffee Co. (No. 109), with a large variety of tea and coffee blends, and Li-Lac Chocolate Shop (No. 120), a longtime favorite for its homemade chocolate and butter crunch.
West of 7th Avenue South, the Village turns into a picture-book town of twisting tree-lined streets, quaint houses, and tiny restaurants. Starting from Sheridan Square West, follow Grove Street past the house at No. 59 where Thomas Paine died -- now the site of Marie's Crisis Cafe -- and the onetime home (No. 45) of poet Hart Crane. At the next corner you could choose to follow Bleecker Street northwest toward Abingdon Square. This section of Bleecker Street is full of crafts and antiques shops, coffeehouses, and small restaurants.
If you forego Bleecker Street, continue your walk on Grove Street. The secluded intersection of Grove and Bedford streets seems to have fallen through a time warp into the 19th century. One of the few remaining clapboard structures in Manhattan is 17 Grove Street. Around the same corner is Twin Peaks, an early-19th-century house that resembles a Swiss chalet. Heading west, Grove Street curves in front of the iron gate of Grove Court, a group of mid-19th-century brick-front residences.
Return to Bedford Street, turn right, and walk until you get to No. 86. Behind the unmarked door is Chumley's, a former speakeasy. Continue a couple of blocks farther to the oldest house in the Village, the Isaacs-Hendricks House. The place next door, 75½ Bedford Street, at 9½ ft wide, is New York's narrowest house. Bedford Street intersects Commerce Street, one of the Village's most romantic untrod lanes, and home to the historic Cherry Lane Theatre. Across the street, past the bend in the road, stand two nearly identical brick houses separated by a garden and popularly known as the Twin Sisters.
Turn left onto Barrow Street and then right onto Hudson Street, so named because this was originally the bank of the Hudson River. The block to the northwest is owned by St. Luke's in the Fields. Writer Bret Harte once lived at 487 Hudson Street, at the end of the row. If your feet are getting tired, you can head north on Hudson Street for four blocks and take a rest at the legendary White Horse Tavern, at 11th Street.
Two blocks south of Barrow Street, turn left at St. Luke's Place (this is Leroy Street west of Hudson Street), a one-block row of classic 1860s town houses. Across 7th Avenue South, St. Luke's Place becomes Leroy Street again, which terminates in an old Italian neighborhood at Bleecker Street. Because of all the touristy shops and crowds, Bleecker Street between 6th and 7th avenues seems more vital these days than Little Italy does. For authentic Italian ambience, step into one of the fragrant Italian bakeries, such as A. Zito & Sons (No. 259) and Rocco's (No. 243), or look inside the old-style butcher shops, such as Ottomanelli & Sons (No. 285) and Faicco's (No. 260). In a town that's fierce about its pizza, some New Yorkers swear by John's Pizzeria (No. 278), the original in a chain of four branches citywide. Be forewarned, however: no slices; whole pies only.
Head east on Bleecker Street to Carmine Street and the Church of Our Lady of Pompeii, where Mother Cabrini, a naturalized Italian immigrant who became the first American saint, often prayed. When you reach Father Demo Square (at Bleecker Street and 6th Avenue), head up 6th Avenue to West 3rd Street and check out the basketball courts, where city-style basketball is played in all but the very coldest weather. Turn down West 3rd Street and check out the illustrious Blue Note, where jazz greats play. The next intersection brings you to MacDougal Street, once home to several illustrious names. The two houses at 127 and 129 MacDougal Street were built for Aaron Burr in 1829; notice the pineapple newel posts, a symbol of hospitality. Louisa May Alcott wrote Little Women while living at 130-132 MacDougal Street. The Provincetown Playhouse at No. 133 premiered many of Eugene O'Neill's plays.
Head south on MacDougal to reach Caffe Reggio (No. 119), one of the Village's first coffeehouses. Its interior hasn't changed much since it opened in 1927. At Minetta Tavern (No. 113), a venerable Village watering hole, turn right onto Minetta Lane, which leads to narrow Minetta Street, another former speakeasy alley. Both streets follow the course of Minetta Brook, which once flowed through this neighborhood and still bubbles deep beneath the pavement. The foot of Minetta Street returns you to the corner of 6th Avenue and Bleecker Street, the stomping grounds of 1960s-era folksingers (many performed at the now-defunct Folk City, one block north on West 3rd Street). Partly because of the proximity of NYU, this area still attracts a young crowd to its cafés, bars, jazz clubs, coffeehouses, theaters, and cabarets.
Greenwich Village isn't what it used to be." When I started this book ten years ago, I knew that would be its first sentence. And when I soon discovered that the phrase had been used as early as 1916, I knew the history of the Village would be in large part the ever recurring birth and death and rebirth of bohemia. Youth, romance, adventure -- joy, poetry, rebellion -- what so quickly recedes into our past? -- what more often begins again?
The Village has been called "the most significant square mile in American cultural history," "the home of half the talent and half the eccentricity in the country," "the place where everything happens first." As a young journalist named John Reed said in the teens, "Within a block of my house was all the adventure in the world; within a mile every foreign country." The young scholar named Lionel Trilling declared in the twenties, "There seemed no other place where a right-thinking person might live." And a young actress named Lucille Ball put it in the forties, "The Village is the greatest place in the world."
Many major movements in American intellectual history began or were nurtured in the Village -- socialism, feminism, pacifism, gay liberation, Marxism, Freudianism, avant-garde fiction and poetry and theater, cubism, abstract expressionism, the anti-war movement and the counterculture of the sixties. And nearly every major American writer and artist lived in the Village at one time or another. What other community could claim a spectrum ranging from Henry James to Marlon Brando, from Marcel Duchamp to Bob Dylan, from Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney to Abbie Hoffman?
But though the Village has had a richer, more exuberant, and more fascinating history than any community in America -- its story told in dozens of guidebooks and tangentially in the hundreds of biographies of its major figures -- only two histories of the Village have been published, Allen Churchill's engaging The Improper Bohemians forty years ago and Terry Miller's charming but perfunctory Greenwich Village and How It Got That Way in 1990.
The Village has held such a mythic place in the American imagination that it has often served as kind of iconographic shorthand. A novelist only needed to write "then she moved to the Village" to evoke an entire set of assumptions -- she's a bit rebellious, artistically inclined, sexually emancipated, and eager to be on her own. The mythology of the place has been created in large part by those who moved there from elsewhere, of course, but also by the multitude of novels, plays, and movies set there, and by the perceptions of the media, which over the decades have alternated between titillated accounts of fun-loving, sexually uninhibited, and bizarrely attired bohemians and fulminating attacks on the blasphemous, un-American, and unhygienic enclave of nonconformists south of 14th Street. It has, in fact, had two parallel mythologies. It is the community where irresponsibility, naïveté, and self-indulgence are transformed into virtues. It is the magnet that attracts young men and women from all across America to assert their independence. It is the refuge for social misfits. It is the home of poseurs, eccentrics, and drifters, and a romantic alternative to mainstream society. It is a metaphor for iniquity.
The Village has had such a multiplicity of meanings that it has served as a testing ground for many of the major issues of American history, among them the relationship between individual and community, the link between cultural and political revolution, the adversarial stance of writers toward their society, the value of marginality as a spur to creativity, the necessity for a safety valve for social disaffection, the definitions of success and failure, and the role of iconography in cultural history.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum started in the Village, ASCAP and the ASPCA were founded there -- and a claim can be made for the YMCA and the YWCA as well. Unlikely as it sounds, it was where yet another American institution was born -- the National League. Even more unlikely -- a fact both parties would be happy to deny -- The Reader's Digest began beneath a speakeasy at 113 Macdougal Street in 1922. (The lead article in its first issue was entitled, with unconscious obeisance to its birthplace, "How to Keep Young Mentally," and the article about the theater was headlined "Is the State Too Vulgar?," a typographical error perhaps attributable to a free-spirited Village proofreader.)
Displaying the same kind of small-town chamber of commerce chauvinism they came to the Village to escape, Villagers are no less proud of "firsts" than any other community -- not all of them dubious. The first night court in America was held in the Village, and the first theater devoted exclusively to films (the 8th Street Playhouse). The first pizza served in America was served in the Village, also the first spaghetti dinner and the first ice cream soda. More in keeping with its mythology, the first labor demonstration in America took place there in the 1830s, when local stonecutters protested the use of Sing Sing convicts to cut stone for the construction of New York University (the nation's largest private university). And where else could the Unitary Household have been founded in 1859 (the first free-love community in the country), or, for that matter, the American Civil Liberties Union? The first musical comedy, the first theatrical cliffhanger, the first cabaret, the first American production of a play by Oscar Wilde. John L. Sullivan had his first fight there and George M. Cohan made his stage debut. The first theatrical agency (William Morris), the first salon, and, naturally, the first professional women's organization.
That quintessential American, the inventor, also had his place in Village history. For a time Thomas Edison had his office there (his son Charles was a Village poet, a fact he didn't dwell on, years later, when he was elected governor of New Jersey). Samuel Colt invented the Colt .45 there, and Samuel F. B. Morse invented the telegraph. Bell Laboratories in the West Village (now an artists' housing complex called Westbeth) was the site of the first commercial radio broadcast and the first TV broadcast. The PA system was developed there as well as the sound-on-disc projector, which made talkies possible.
And speaking of movies, two young Village furriers, Adolph Zukor and Maurice Loew, started their dynasties at the corner of 14th Street and Sixth Avenue with Biograph Films, where Mary Pickford and the Gish sisters made their first pictures. Hundreds of movies were set in the Village in the following years, including Scarlet Street, Daisy Kenyon, On the Town, My Sister Eileen, Barefoot in the Park, Funny Face, Next Stop, Greenwich Village, The Group, and Desperately Seeking Susan. In Wait Until Dark, Audrey Hepburn awaited assault at 4 St. Luke's Place, and Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly solved the murder in Rear Window from an apartment overlooking 125 West 9th Street.
The trial of Harry Thaw for murdering Stanford White (who designed the Washington Square Arch) took place in the Jefferson Market Courthouse, and Clement Moore is said to have written "The Night Before Christmas" while a minister of a Village church. Howdy Doody was developed in the Village and the USS Monitor was built on a pier over by the Hudson River. The buffalo nickel was designed in the Village, as were the giant balloons for the first Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. The narrowest house in New York City, only nine and a half feet wide, its occupants including Edna St. Vincent Millay and John Barrymore, is on Bedford Street, and the smallest parcel of private property in the country, a twenty-five-inch triangle, sits on the corner of Christopher Street and Seventh Avenue. In the only Shakespeare riot in American history, the adherents of the English actor Charles Macready and the followers of the American tragedian Edwin Forrest came to blows in the Village. And Lindbergh's legendary flight? One of the reasons Lindy took off was to claim the $25,000 offered by the French-born owner of the Brevoort Hotel on lower Fifth Avenue.
The founder of the New York Times came from the Village, and Tammany Hall -- another institution with an aversion to everything its residents stood for -- had its headquarters there. One local organization, in Little Italy in the South Village, has even less connection to the spirit of openness to diverse points of view -- the Mafia. One claim Villagers can be proud of is that 8th Street has been called "the most integrated street in America."
John Wilkes Booth and his co-conspirators held several of their meetings in the Village, which was also the home of the minister who presided over Lincoln's funeral service. And Eleanor Roosevelt maintained an apartment at 20 East 11th Street during the White House years and lived at 29 Washington Square West after FDR's death.
Several popular phrases in the Village entered the language. The Old Grapevine, a roadhouse located at the corner of 11th Street and Sixth Avenue and so named for the gnarled vine that covered its facade, was a thriving hangout in the nineteenth century, leading to the expression "I heard it through the grapevine." And in the 1880s, Fleischmann's Model Viennese Bakery on the corner of 11th Street and Broadway donated its unsold products to the poor at the end of every day, originating the phrase "bread line."
The list of novelists who called it home at some point in their lives is a complete pantheon of American literature. James Fenimore Cooper, Louisa May Alcott, Herman Melville, Mark Twain, William Dean Howells, Stephen Crane, Jack London, Frank Norris, Edith Wharton, and Henry James. Upton Sinclair and Sinclair Lewis. Ford Madox Ford and Sherwood Anderson. John Dos Passos and William Faulkner. Henry Miller and Anaïs Nin. Henry Roth and Katherine Anne Porter, Mary McCarthy, Nathanael West, James T. Farrell, Richard Wright, James Agee, James Baldwin. John Cheever, Saul Bellow, E. L. Doctorow, and James Jones. Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs. Louis Auchincloss and Joan Didion and Gore Vidal. J. D. Salinger and William Gaddis. William Styron and Donald Barthelme. Hubert Selby and Thomas Pynchon. Norman Mailer, of course -- who wrote "The Time of Her Time" about a sexual marathon in the Village. And the five novelists who have sections in this book -- Willa Cather, Theodore Dreiser, Thomas Wolfe, Djuna Barnes, and Dawn Powell.
From The New Yorker, James Thurber, E. B. White, S. J. Perelman, Dorothy Parker, and Joseph Mitchell. Among the dozens of playwrights who followed Eugene O'Neill were Tennessee Williams (who hung out at the Cedar Bar), Edward Albee (who saw a graffito asking "Who's Afraid of the Virginia Woolf" in the men's room at the Ninth Circle), Sam Shepard (who worked as a busboy at the Village Gate). Kahlil Gibran, the moony Lebanese mystic whose perennial best-seller The Prophet evokes the mysterious Middle East, actually wrote the book at 51 West 10th Street, where he lived from 1911 until his death in 1931.
Among the poets, the Village was once home to Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, William Cullen Bryant, Edwin Arlington Robinson, John Masefield, and Louis Untermeyer. Conrad Aiken, Carl Sandburg, and Vachel Lindsay. Stephen Vincent Benét and William Rose Benét. Allen Tate and Wallace Stevens -- Mina Loy and Louise Bogan and Elinor Wylie. John Berryman and W. H. Auden. Even Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot lived in the Village for brief periods, and for a longer time Galway Kinnell, John Ashbery, LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka), and Allen Ginsberg. A list of poets who didn't live in the Village would be shorter. Amy Lowell and Robert Lowell visited the Village so often they could be called honorary residents, and Sara Teasdale, sadly, committed suicide in a Village hotel.
The roster of Village intellectuals would include Walter Lippmann, Carl Van Vechten, Randolph Bourne, Van Wyck Brooks, Waldo Frank, Malcolm Cowley, Frances Perkins, Paul Rosefeld, and Kenneth Burke. Add Carl and Mark Van Doren (who told his roommate Joseph Wood Krutch what a liberating act it was, in his first days in the Village, to paint his floors black), Margaret Mead and Meyer Schapiro, Roger Baldwin and Will Durant. Paul Goodman, Dwight Macdonald, Michael Harrington, Alfred Kazin. Jane Jacobs and Susan Sontag.
The list of artists is equally long. In the nineteenth century, Albert Bierstadt, Frederick Church, John La Farge, Albert Pinkham Ryder, Winslow Homer, and Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Stirling Calder and his son Alexander. Diego Rivera and Isamu Noguchi. And of course most of the abstract expressionists, and most of the pop artists who followed, from Andy Warhol to Robert Rauschenberg.
Make a list of the major American photographers and compare it to the list of photographers who have lived in the Village: Mathew Brady, Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, Jessie Tarbox Beals, Man Ray, Berenice Abbott, Walker Evans, Weegee, Margaret Bourke-White, Robert Frank, and Diane Arbus.
Hundreds of legendary figures in the performing arts either lived here or began their careers here. Norma Shearer worked as a hat-check girl in a Village nightclub, Jessica Lange as a waitress at the Lion's Head. Bette Davis was a leading Village actress, and Lauren Bacall, who lived at 75 Bank Street, was named "Miss Greenwich Village of 1942." Not just Brando, but also James Dean, Montgomery Clift, Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman, and Martin Sheen were once Villagers, as were John Houseman and Martha Graham, Leontyne Price and Joan Sutherland. Thelonius Monk, Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein, Lenny Bruce, Erwin Piscator and Joe Papp, John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
George Gershwin was born a few blocks from the Village and spent many a Saturday night pounding the piano at Village parties, including the party after the premiere of Rhapsody in Blue -- and his brother Ira married one of "the Strunsky girls," the three daughters of the legendary Village landlord Papa Strunsky.
I can't ignore the most unlikely Villager of all, Leon Trotsky. Temporarily exiled from Russia, Trotsky briefly settled in New York in the late teens, for a time in the Bronx, then on St. Mark's Place. Village legend claims he worked as a tailor, as a dishwasher, as a movie extra -- but like every Villager, he had larger things on his mind.
Iconography is the essence of the Village's history -- what it stands for has always transcended what it is. To say that the myths should be disentangled from the "reality" -- the usual obligation of the historian -- is to ignore the fact that their entanglement is its history. If iconography is born at the intersection of reality and myth, and if belief in the myth is itself part of the reality, then it's less important to expose the disparity between them than to explore their connections. The story of the Village is, in large part, the stories old Villagers have told new Villagers about former Villagers.
This version of the Village will no doubt disappoint some readers -- old-time Villagers in particular -- who expect lengthy descriptions of famous hangouts, or legendary Village publications, or fabled "characters" (I myself miss Maurice, the intrepid, white-haired "Prince of Bohemia" -- onetime photographer, poet, lover, now only philosopher with a tinkling bell, who picked up stacks of The Village Voice from the circulation department to sell on the subway). And there's no anthropological arcana here either, no architectural details, no walking tours -- dozens of guidebooks provide everything anyone would want to know. If some readers complain about the omissions, where were they when my wife and my editor said the manuscript was already too long?
What I hope I've achieved is something best described by the word "synthesis" -- in other words, to examine the lives of the leading figures of the Village and the legendary anecdotes of Village mythology in a new context. As for the absence of what is called "scholarly apparatus," I will claim a good deal of what is called "original research," and have included an extensive bibliography.
A word about what may seem an overemphasis on the sex lives of the major figures. The Villagers' commitment to self-fulfillment and the personal as the political were inextricably linked to their attitudes about sex. From the first, sexual emancipation was central to the Villagers' vision of an emancipated society -- and indeed, it could even be argued that the degree to which the Village is no longer the locus of bohemia is the degree to which the Village has contributed to winning that battle, from the early days of insistence on the right to premarital sex and access to birth control information to the more recent days of feminism and gay liberation. One of the central convictions of the Villagers' insurrection was the belief that cultural and social change would follow only after personal and sexual liberation. It is easy to forget that throughout most of American history sexual freedom was a taboo rather than a right.
A brief explanation of my use of first names throughout the book. Not an insignificant aspect of what the Villagers called "a revolution of consciousness" -- and parallel to their commitment to self-fulfillment -- was an emphasis on informality and intimacy. So a usage that might be overly familiar in other contexts seems perfectly appropriate in the case of the Village.
Finally, a word on why the book begins in 1910 and more or less ends in 1960. In 1912 the Village became "The Village," a self-conscious bohemian and radical community, and since the sixties -- with the nationalization of bohemia, the replacement of geographic community by electronic community, the blurring of cultural boundaries, and the disappearing hegemony of "the normal" -- the Village, in that familiar phrase, actually hasn't been "what it used to be."
Copyright © 2002 by The Estate of Ross Wetzsteon


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Thu Feb 21, 2013, 09:14 PM
SugarShack (1,635 posts)
We didn't have the "green thing" back in our day....(a most enjoyable read!)
'Checking out at the store,
the young cashier suggested to the much older woman, that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment.
The woman apologized and explained, "We didn't have this 'green thing' back in my earlier days."
The young clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations."
She was right -- our generation didn't have the 'green thing' in its day.
Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled.
But we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.
stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags, that we reused for numerous things, most memorable besides household garbage bags, was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our schoolbooks. This was to ensure that public property, (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribbling. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags.
But too bad we didn't do the "green thing" back then.
We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.
But she was right. We didn't have the "green thing" in our day.
Back then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throwaway kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 220 volts -- wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.
But that young lady is right; we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.
Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana . In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.
But she's right; we didn't have the "green thing" back then.
We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.
But we didn't have the "green thing" back then.
Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service in the family's $45,000 SUV or van, which cost what a whole house did before the "green thing." We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from
satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint.
But isn't it sad that the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the "green thing" back then?
Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smartass young person...
We don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to piss us off...especially from a smartass who can't make change without the cash register telling them how much.
The end !'
No link....sorry!
39 replies, 34780 views
|39 replies
We didn't have the "green thing" back in our day....(a most enjoyable read!) (Original post)
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Response to SugarShack (Original post)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 09:16 PM
PM Martin (2,660 posts)
1. kick
Response to SugarShack (Original post)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 09:24 PM
loyalsister (11,424 posts)
2. Yeah
It wasn't the smart ass who did away with many of those things in the name of convenience. It was the greedy members of the baby boom generation.
Response to loyalsister (Reply #2)
Fri Feb 22, 2013, 02:08 AM
starroute (12,977 posts)
24. No - it was the parents of the boomers who went wild for disposable everything
Paper plates, paper towels, paper napkins, plastic knives and forks, TV Dinners. That was the shape of the future from the 1930s to the 1950s, and the boomers didn't invent any of it. It was that sweet little old lady who bought into it, and the rest of us are paying the price.
Response to starroute (Reply #24)
Fri Feb 22, 2013, 02:27 AM
loyalsister (11,424 posts)
27. It continued
Dishwashers, disposable diapers, I remember having milk delivered in 1975. PLASTICS! Baby boomers did pick them up and ran. It was the industries run by Baby Boomers who replaced milk, soda, and other drinks with plastic bottles, etc.
Response to loyalsister (Reply #27)
Fri Feb 22, 2013, 06:36 AM
progressoid (41,242 posts)
29. Yeah because boomers invented and promoted plastics
Oh, wait...no, they didn't
Response to progressoid (Reply #29)
Fri Feb 22, 2013, 01:14 PM
loyalsister (11,424 posts)
32. You understand he's talking to a boomer, right?
Boomers most certainly did promote plastics. The were running the show when soda and milk bottles, butter tubs, disposable diapers, plastic shopping bags - rather than paper began to be widely used.
Whatever the previous generation ushered in related to plastics, the baby boomers expanded. I was 5 yrs. old in 1975 when we were still getting milk delivered in glass bottles. More of my toys were made of wood and metal than plastic.
Response to loyalsister (Reply #32)
Fri Feb 22, 2013, 02:47 PM
progressoid (41,242 posts)
35. Yeah.
They promoted a product already being promoted by the previous 'Mad Men' generation.
The chain email implication that the Greatest Generation was already green is hogwash. If that were the case, they would still be doing it. But they aren't. Our parents and grandparents didn't do the things listed in the email to be stewards of the environment, they were doing those things out of necessity. When cheaper, more convenient alternatives were available, they happily joined the disposable world (broad brushly speaking).
No generation is without blame for our current predicament.
I'm eight years older than you by the way.
Response to progressoid (Reply #35)
Fri Feb 22, 2013, 03:03 PM
loyalsister (11,424 posts)
38. That would make you a "tween"
"The chain email implication that the Greatest Generation was already green is hogwash"
I fully agree with that. I received that email from a couple of boomers who resent calls for practices that avoid damaging the environment. My point was that the annoying woman could have been from either generation. My boomer parents happily abandoned the more unintentional conservation oriented practices for convenience despite Jimmy Carter's call for more.
Gen Xers are largely responsible for some of the landfill problems pending because of electronics.
You're absolutely correct- no one is blameless.
Response to SugarShack (Original post)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 09:26 PM
Ron Green (8,714 posts)
3. Nostalgia
just ain't what it used to be.
Response to SugarShack (Original post)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 09:31 PM
abelenkpe (9,933 posts)
4. How long has this been floating around the internet
Seems like it is posted every once in a while. Serves no purpose except to stir up resentment between generations and discussions where each side spew forth generalisations and hateful comments about one another.
Response to abelenkpe (Reply #4)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 10:30 PM
sammytko (2,480 posts)
9. Too long. Gah!!!
Response to SugarShack (Original post)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 09:46 PM
antigone382 (3,682 posts)
5. You may want to check out this thread:
This was posted just a few days ago.
The story makes some interesting points but a lot of people feel it takes an unnecessarily hostile tone towards younger people. Many of those of us who care about environmental issues are very well aware that things were done more sustainably in the past and that older people who remember those times have knowledge that is a precious resource for us today.
I highly doubt any cashier would actually say such an insulting thing to a customer in the first place, as it would cost most any customer service worker his or her job.
Response to SugarShack (Original post)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 09:53 PM
fishwax (27,534 posts)
6. Here's a link
I don't care for the story, personally. It might have something interesting to offer, but it would be a more enjoyable read (and more effective) without the gratuitous generational conflict.
Response to SugarShack (Original post)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 09:56 PM
virgogal (8,374 posts)
7. As an old person I'm thrilled with the post. Thanks----a real keeper for me.
Response to SugarShack (Original post)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 10:19 PM
tarheelsunc (1,834 posts)
8. As a (relatively) young person, you really brought my attention to things I knew but didn't realize
I always knew and understood the "way things used to be," but never thought of it in an environmental context. After reading this post, I fully understand your point. My generation (I am 22) is extremely wasteful in general, and you can see this in our reliance on cars to go somewhere that would only take 20 minutes to walk to, elevators to go down 1 floor (I admit I have done this a couple of times), eating half a meal and throwing the rest out as "scraps" (my wife, who is native Chinese, wasn't very happy with me the first time she saw me eat a chicken wing and not get all the meat off the bone), and continual consumption of beverages from plastic bottles. I know I can be very wasteful at times, but it feels like in modern society, you can't help but be wasteful.
Response to tarheelsunc (Reply #8)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 11:01 PM
Curmudgeoness (18,177 posts)
11. Actually, that isn't true.
You really can help but be wasteful. I know that younger people have grown up with all these disposal things, and that they just don't realize how much they can do. Read the story again. Read it several times if you have to. There are so many things, even in today's society, that can be done. And you can do it. You are our hope.
Response to SugarShack (Original post)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 10:48 PM
Warren Stupidity (48,181 posts)
10. Sorry but "back then" was the 50s and thats when we invented the disposable consumer culture
this Idiotic Internet Essay is bemoaning. After the depression and the rationing of WWII, people couldn't consume enough shit fast enough. The essay fixes itself in time in the 50s by claiming the shitty black and white tvs of that era as an exemplar of frugality. It then proceeds to make all sorts of idiotic claims about that era.
Escalators have been around since the Otis Elevator Company built one in 1899.
Ballpoint pens, seriously? Ever used a fountain pen? A real one, not the disposable cartridge kind?
Why stop with the horrors of disposable razors compared to disposable razor blades? Real home-towny mainstream old fashioned Americans used straight razors and a stropping leather.
Homes had more than one outlet per room. I lived in one. So did all my friends. They indeed did not have enough outlets. They also had extension cord trees that routinely caused fires. Best we should go back to that system and fuse boxes too. Plus coal furnaces, those were pretty nifty.
The anti-green motif of the essay betrays its rightwing faux nostalgia for a recent past that never was.
Who exactly is bemoaning the fact that people 50 years ago didn't recycle? How about nobody?
Response to Warren Stupidity (Reply #10)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 11:20 PM
UnrepentantLiberal (11,700 posts)
12. All these RW email memes read like they were written by the same person.
Response to SugarShack (Original post)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 11:22 PM
Lex (34,105 posts)
13. Wow, really? TWICE on DU in just 2 days?
Response to Lex (Reply #13)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 11:39 PM
Phentex (13,170 posts)
14. Back then, we checked for dupes...
DU 2 that is.
Response to Phentex (Reply #14)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 11:53 PM
Lex (34,105 posts)
15. .
Response to SugarShack (Original post)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 11:59 PM
harmonicon (12,008 posts)
16. Get off my lawn. (nt)
Response to harmonicon (Reply #16)
Fri Feb 22, 2013, 02:23 AM
Skittles (113,934 posts)
yes INDEED
Response to SugarShack (Original post)
Fri Feb 22, 2013, 12:36 AM
DEMTough (90 posts)
17. This is Kinda Harsh
I get a right-wing subtext when I read this (And I'm glad others have gotten the same type of thing.) that says, "We've been doing the green thing for years!" Add that to the right-wing doctrine of "It's not man-made, it's natural/not happening at all."
Put those together, and you get that this essay sends a message that says, "Global Warming isn't really happening, and if it is, we can't do anything about it, so why bother?"
And then there's the generational warfare aspect to this, which I'm also grateful others have brought up. I'm 18 now. The stock market crashed when I was 14, of no fault of my own, nor the fault of most people my age. Here I am, entering the job market, making less that what the minimum wage was in 1962. (inflation adjusted of course.) I hear news stating that my generation is the first ever that will likely have to make due with less than those who come before us. Education spending and spending for colleges is being slashed almost everywhere, and you have a party that almost entirely denies the existence of climate change. And to sum it all up, you get one republican who goes out and finally says what we've always thought they believed. "I won't be around for it."
This really rails on us young people. We're doing the best with what we've got here. I'm not asking for a break, I've just gotten started, but for god's sake, give us a foot up. New technologies, thank goodness, are being found and used. Little steps like the usage of reusable bags, and I'll admit, some of the old ways, are/were a good step.
Response to DEMTough (Reply #17)
Fri Feb 22, 2013, 01:15 AM
pamela (2,933 posts)
20. Good post.
I can't believe people are cheering this OP. This is something I would expect to read on Free Republic.
I remember some of the things in the OP but I also remember how filthy the air and water were in the 60's and 70's because that generation "didn't have the green thing." People have very selective memories.
Posts with a "these kids today" meme make me want to puke.
Response to pamela (Reply #20)
Fri Feb 22, 2013, 01:35 AM
DEMTough (90 posts)
21. Thank you!
That's a good point! thank goodness for the clean air/water acts.
Response to pamela (Reply #20)
Fri Feb 22, 2013, 02:14 AM
Mariana (4,630 posts)
25. Around where I live, there are some ponds with fences and signs
warning people to stay away because they're STILL so toxic that swimming in them or eating fish out of them is dangerous.
I also remember seeing the scuz in the air over the cities, and the nasty yellow-brown stuff coming out of the smokestacks. I remember the nauseating foul stench from the local paper mill, and that the waste from it was discharged directly into the bay.
Those returnable bottles? A whole bunch of people just tossed them out of their cars, because there sure were always plenty to be found on the side of the road, among the rest of the garbage that people just threw on the ground wherever they happened to be.
To this day my father pours used motor oil, old paint, and solvents and such out onto the ground - in the vacant lot next door, of course. He won't be talked out of it, because he's always done that way.
Lots of folks just don't like young people and will take any opportunity to put them down, even if they have to make shit up to do it.
Response to SugarShack (Original post)
Fri Feb 22, 2013, 01:05 AM
alp227 (29,802 posts)
18. You know what else didn't exist "back in the day"?
-laws that protect against discrimination
-laws that criminalized marital rape (seriously in some states as late as the 20th century a husband could get away with raping his wife!)
-some public schools could have teacher-led prayer or creationism in science class
-environmental regulations; look up the Cuyahoga River fire for instance
Also consider Lawrence v. Texas that SCOTUS case from '03 that overturned anti-sodomy laws that were definitely enforced "back in the day".
I hate these phony baloney nostalgia chain mails. There's this other one posted as "a generation of risk takers" or "to all the kids who survived the 40s-70s" (link is to a DU discussion, don't worry) that basically puts out a bunch of anecdotes and concludes it was the time "before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good."
Response to alp227 (Reply #18)
Fri Feb 22, 2013, 01:08 AM
Zoeisright (8,339 posts)
19. I hate those too. That stupid blind nostalgia for "the good old days"
completely ignores reality. Like: leaded gasoline back then, lack of recycling, Lake Erie on fire, acid rain, etc. etc. If everything was so hunky-dory back then, why are there laws against pollution now?
Response to SugarShack (Original post)
Fri Feb 22, 2013, 01:42 AM
lynne (3,118 posts)
22. When plastic bags were introduced at grocery stores -
- we were told we were "saving trees" by using them. Guess someone didn't look at the long-term repercussions for that idea.
Response to SugarShack (Original post)
Fri Feb 22, 2013, 01:56 AM
Hissyspit (45,773 posts)
23. Somebody put this glurge out of it's misery, please...
Response to SugarShack (Original post)
Fri Feb 22, 2013, 02:39 AM
Drunken Irishman (28,492 posts)
28. Not this shit again...
Why is it we must pit generations against one another? I don't see the point to it. It's clear this story is fiction, as I highly doubt such a conversation took place, so, if it's trying to drive home a point ... why not do it in a better way than making the Millennials look like assholes?
I don't think I've ever come across someone my age completely disrespecting an older person. I only see it in movies and on TV shows.
Or in lame chain letters like this.
Response to Drunken Irishman (Reply #28)
Fri Feb 22, 2013, 10:29 AM
Mariana (4,630 posts)
30. There's a whole lot of hostility toward young people
going on in this country. That's why bullshit chain e-mails like this one are so popular, along with those movies and TV shows you mentioned. Many older people (and I am one) will gleefully believe - or pretend to believe - almost anything negative about young people so they can feel superior.
Response to SugarShack (Original post)
Fri Feb 22, 2013, 10:33 AM
MineralMan (96,651 posts)
31. Anything you get as a forwarded email is almost certainly bogus,
and is most often created by conservatives to spread their propaganda. At the very least, try searching on Google for a quoted passage from the first paragraph. If you find it posted on countless websites, then everyone's already seen it.
That is the case with this unfortunate piece of writing. See the Google search link below:
Or this one:
Response to SugarShack (Original post)
Fri Feb 22, 2013, 01:29 PM
stlsaxman (9,213 posts)
33. Some of us "much older" people INVENTED EARTH DAY!
It was "much older" people who were the "dirty fucking hippies" who saw the throw-away culture of the 1950's and "invented" environmentalism.
But yeah- the Military Industrial Complex gave us "Up With People", "The Brady Bunch", "Flower Power" and turned the whole counter-culture movement into stale chalk laced with sacharin and shoved it down our throats after being scared to death by the Woodstock Generation and the Yippies... this whole urban folk legend makes me wanna pull an Abbie-
Yeah, little miss sales clerk- the dirty fuckin' hippies were RIGHT!
Response to SugarShack (Original post)
Fri Feb 22, 2013, 02:29 PM
flobee1 (870 posts)
34. every person that sends me this email
will get the same response from me.
"Since you are obviously not in need of all these things that you are railing against, I am on my way to your house to pick up your 300 horsepower machine, your oversized tv, your dryer, and any computers or cellphones you might have.
you are truly a generous person and see you in a few minutes"
Response to SugarShack (Original post)
year of the cat Message auto-removed
Response to SugarShack (Original post)
Fri Feb 22, 2013, 02:56 PM
KG (26,880 posts)
37. the never-ending 'wasn't everything better back when' memos...
Response to SugarShack (Original post)
Fri Feb 22, 2013, 03:49 PM
Javaman (48,804 posts)
39. This was posted the other day and this is how I replied...
What was old is new again...
My parents generation (pre-baby boom) recycled everything because there wasn't this level of gross consumerism that was foisted upon the American public until the post WWII years.
The babyboomers exploited the worlds resources on a much grander scale that could have never been imagined before. In the 19th century, resources were squanders, exploited and torn from nations via robber barons and the ultra-wealthy. It was only after successive panics that corporations came to the forefront to replace the Carnegie's, the Vanderbilt's etc.
WWII allowed corporations to suddenly exploit all the worlds resources under the guise of "we need to win a war" and the post war mantra, "we deserve it because we won a war". Out went much of the "old fashion" concept of recycling and in came "new is better" because if people are recycling how on earth are you going to convince them to buy more new stuff?
I was born on the tail end of the baby boom generation (1963). I missed most of what was considered the "golden age" of Post War America. I came of age during Watergate and when the first Earth day occurred April 1970.
We had all sorts of programs going on in elementary school to become "Ecologically" minded. But frankly, not much really occurred after that nationally for many years. Don't get me wrong there were protests against nukes and the national news of the Love Canal disaster, etc, but it really didn't catch on fire until, in my opinion the late 1980's.
My parents being of the depression era generation and of the "greatest generation" (a term they both hated), had always taught my brother, sisters and I to try and be creative about reusing things and fixing things instead of buying new. As a result, I used that same skill set when I renovated my home (built in '72) and reused much of the old growth timber 2 x 4's in the walls. (which still smelled fresh when I cut them a few years ago)
No one owns the concept of recycling, no one generation is better than the last. It's all a matter of perspective. The baby boomer generation gets a lot of well deserved guff for a lot of todays problems, but on the flip side of that, it was the "greatest generation" that gave birth to them and raised them. So who is to blame?
Whether you are a gen X'er, Y'er, etc. We are all a victim of marketing, propaganda and group think.
Castigating one generation because of their problems as the cause of another generations problems is just ridiculousness. Because not everyone is the same and blanket statements serve no one other than to inflate ego.
While this chain email has been around for a while and reeks of the "get off my lawn", it's only purpose is nothing more to demean the current generation for what? I don't know, because while the older generation did in fact recycle many things they also left us with a very much polluted world that is still being polluted via out modded thinking, but yet is still, for the majority of the world, still encouraged.
The bottom line is this: we all can learn from each other. I learned from my parents and am choosing to pass on that which I have learned and at the same time, keeping a very much open mind to new ways of doing things.
While the older generation did recycle a lot of things, todays generation has made recycling a part of life as it once was long ago.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
The Magic of the Cities.
Zen promotes the rediscovery of the obvious, which is so often lost in its familiarity and simplicity. It sees the miraculous in the common and magic in our everyday surroundings. When we are not rushed, and our minds are unclouded by conceptualizations, a veil will sometimes drop, introducing the viewer to a world unseen since childhood. ~ John Greer
She was a photographer, model, silent film actress, and leftist who once playfully described her profession as "men." She acted in several silent movies in the early 1920s and later became a model for prominent photographers and artists of the time.
… Modotti is thought to have been introduced to photography as a young girl in Italy, where her uncle, Pietro Modotti, maintained a photography studio. Years later in the U.S., her father opened a similar studio in San Francisco, where her interest undoubtedly developed further. However, it was her relationship with Edward Weston that was to allow her to gravitate upward to become a world class photographer. Mexican photographer Manuel Alvarez Bravo divided Modotti's career as a photographer into two distinct categories: "Romantic" and "Revolutionary." The former period includes her time spent as Weston's darkroom assistant, office manager and, finally, creative partner. Together they opened a portrait studio in Mexico City and were commissioned to travel around Mexico taking photographs for Anita Bremmer's book, "Idols Behind Altars." During this time she also became the photographer of choice for the blossoming Mexican mural movement, documenting the works of José Clemente Orozco and Diego Rivera. Many of her pictures of flowers originate from that time.
Taking a photo of a person from the waist down.
If you want to see this theme all over the world click on any of the participating sites below:
Sharon, CT, USA | Porto, Portugal | Albuquerque, NM, USA | London, UK | Seattle, WA, USA | Edinburgh, UK | Stayton, OR, USA | Greenville, SC, USA | Budapest, Hungary | Antigua, Guatemala | Alexandria, VA, USA | Manila, Philippines | Twin Cities, MN, USA | Szentes, Hungary | Paris, France | Portsmouth, UK | Ryde, UK | Sydney, Australia | Oulu, Finland | Singapore | Santiago, Chile | Melbourne, Australia | Dubai, UAE | Bandung, Indonesia | Copenhagen, Denmark | Sequim, WA, USA | Singapore | Tenerife, Spain | Tuzla, B&H | Jakarta, Indonesia | Rotterdam, Netherlands | Brussels, Belgium | Stavanger, Norway | Aliso Viejo, CA, USA | Oshawa, ON, Canada | Vantaa, Finland | Trier, Germany | Newcastle upon Tyne, UK | Hong Kong | Shang Hai, China | San Diego, CA, USA | Sydney, Australia | St Paul, MN, USA


text:
by Staff Writers
New York (AFP) Feb 21, 2012
A group of New York legislators on Tuesday unveiled a draft law banning trade in shark fins, saying the practice, which serves the market for Chinese shark fin soup, was decimating the ocean predators.
If enacted, New York would join California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington as US states outlawing the sale, possession and trade in the fins, which fishermen slice off, often before tossing the rest of the much less valuable shark back in the water.
"The decimation of the shark population is a serious concern as it has a detrimental trickle-down effect for the entire oceanic food chain," New York state senator Mark Grisanti said in a statement.
"With the shark population in serious peril, and other countries and states passing legislation to protect sharks, New York should be a leader in extending protection to these magnificent animals," he said.
"Action to ban the barbaric practice of shark fining is long overdue," said state assembly member Alan Maisel. "Sharks occupy the top of the marine food chain and are a critical part of the ocean ecosystem."
Maisel said he hoped ultimately for a nationwide ban on the trade.
Last week, President Barack Obama was criticized by environmentalists for getting take-out from a Chinese restaurant in San Francisco that has shark fin soup on the menu. The White House said he had not ordered the soup.
Environmentalists say that tens of millions of sharks are killed each year as fishermen slice off their fins for dinner tables, leaving them to die in the water. Sharks have few offspring, compounding risks to their survival.
The United States banned finning in its waters in 2000. Obama in January 2011 signed the Shark Conservation Act that toughened regulations by banning imports of fins that are not attached to corresponding shark carcasses.
Michael Hirshfield, chief scientist with Oceana, which is campaigning for the protection of sharks, said demand for the delicacy was "responsible for the slaughter of these magnificent creatures so essential to the health of our oceans."
"Oceans without sharks are oceans out of balance, which means trouble for everyone who depends on oceans for food, jobs and enjoyment," he said.
Marie Levine, executive director of the Shark Research Institute compared the practice to mutilating other animals.
"If we found dogs and horses with their legs severed, bleeding and dying, the public outrage would be deafening. The difference is that finning takes place at sea, out of sight," she said.
Water News - Science, Technology and Politics
Comment on this article via your Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail login.
Wild west approach to claiming the oceans' genetic resources must end
Vancouver, Canada (SPX) Feb 21, 2012
New international agreements are required to ensure nations benefit equally from medicines, foods and biofuels derived from the ocean's untapped genetic riches, according to a panel of University of British Columbia and European researchers presenting at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Vancouver. "The reservoir of genetic diversi ... read more
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text:
Real Estate News, Sheryl's Blog
The Housing Market Is Moving into 'Buy Territory'!
According to the Beracha, Hardin & Johnson Buy vs. Rent (BH&J) Index, the U.S. housing market has continued to move deeper into buy territory, supporting the belief that housing markets across the country remain a sound investment. This is especially relevant in Apple Valley, Roseville, Eagan, Farmington, and Lakeville.
The BH&J Index is a quarterly report that attempts to answer the question:
In today's 'buy territory' housing market, is it better to rent or buy a home?
The index examines the entire US housing market and then isolates 23 major cities for comparison. The researchers "measure the relationship between purchasing property and building wealth through a buildup in equity versus renting a comparable property and investing in a portfolio of stocks and bonds."
While most of the metropolitan markets examined moved further into buy territory (16 of the 23), markets like Dallas, Denver, and Houston are currently deep into rent territory. In these three markets, it is estimated that renting will top homeownership 7 out of 10 times.
Due to a lack of inventory, the home prices in the Dallas, Denver, and Houston areas have increased by 11.6%, 8.3%, and 6.6% respectively. Home prices in these areas will begin to return to more normal levels once residents realize that renting is not the best option, therefore bringing home affordability back as well.
Buying costs significantly less than renting. Historically 26% of your income is needed to afford median rent, now it is more like 30%. While the income needed to afford a median home was 21% it is now closer to 15%. So if either way you're paying a mortgage, why not make it yours? Historically, the choice between renting or buying a home has been a close decision. Looking at the percentage of income needed to rent a median-priced home today (30%), vs. the percentage needed to buy a median-priced home (15%), the choice becomes obvious. Every market is different. Before you renew your lease again, find out if you could use your housing costs to own a home of your own!
Bottom Line
The majority of the country is strongly in buy territory. Buying a home makes sense socially and financially, as rents are predicted to increase substantially in the next year. Protect yourself from rising rents by locking in your housing cost with a mortgage payment now.
To Find Out More About the Study: The BH&J Index and other FAU real estate activities are sponsored by Investments Limited of Boca Raton. The BH&J Index is published quarterly and is available online at http://business.fau.edu/buyvsrent.
Find Out What Your Home's Worth
Why Are Buyer's Searching for Your House?
Source: KCM
Looking to Sell Your Home
Are you looking to sell your home in Apple Valley, Eagan, Lakeville, Burnsville, Farmington, or Rosemount? Need a Property Evaluation? I would be delighted to help! Contact your local Re/Max Agent Sheryl Petrashek today to get the ball rolling!
About Author
Sheryl Petrashek
Sheryl Petrashek is a Realtor with Re/max Results. She is based in Apple Valley and Sells Real Estate in Apple Valley, Burnsville, Eagan, Lakeville, Farmington, Prior Lake, Savage and Rosemount MN.
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This was our second house with Sheryl, she's done a fantastic job both times. She and Bo are very knowledgeable about the sale and purchase of homes. We will definitely be using them again for the third house! Thanks again Bo and Sheryl!
Sheryl is a great realtor. She had great resources and go to people for project work. I appreciate her marketing approach. Her website was great. The photos of the house were done nicely. She was willing to help us with anything we need and explained the sales process well.
This is a second time that I worked with Sheryl in purchasing my home and all I can say that both times I felt like I was her only client. I had specific need for a particular floor plan and she was amazing at finding exactly want I needed/wanted. She puts time and effort to make her clients fully satisfied. She is extremely knowledgable and gives great advice.
Sheryl was such a joy to work with when selling our first home! She made the process very smooth and my husband and I knew we could trust her with every detail. She was upfront and honest so we had very real expectations when listing our home. She exceeds the competitors in marketing and knowledge of the market. We always knew Sheryl was on our side and in every situation she represented us with integrity and professionalism. We would refer all of our family and friends to her and we will definitely be customers of hers again. We had an offer on our home in 3 days and sold our home more quickly than we imagined! Sheryl and her team are wonderful!
Sheryl leveraged her strong knowledge of the real estate marketplace and her negotiation skills to obtain a lucrative price for the home we recently sold and assist us in the purchase of our new home. She took care to ensure that all aspects of the sale and purchase processes kept progressing on a timely basis and handled obstacles skillfully to support our best interest. I would highly recommend Sheryl's services to anyone and everyone in need of a professional who gets the job done!
Sheryl is a very caring agent.She will do everything she can to help you. She also found us a home. She is the best you can find. Thanks for everything. By the way Bo is great too.
Sheryl - You represent the essence of what we feel a realtor should be. Your commitment to the sale of our home was always present as we felt completely assured that everything was under control. Your knowledge in the market and explanations to our questions were always communicated in a prompt response weather it was directly from you or one of your assistants in your office. Thank you for making us feel as though we were your only client even though we were aware of how perpetually busy you were. We have and will continue to recommend you to everyone we know!! Blessings!
I recently sold my home and used Sheryl and her team as my realtor. Before the transaction was even complete I was already recommending her to my family and friends. She has such a broad understanding of the market and has a passion for what she does. I really appreciated the one on one time she spent with me to explain the market conditions, my home's value and all of the options available to me. Sheryl is my realtor for life!
This is my second time working with Sheryl and her team. She makes the process of buying and selling your home so easy! Always keeps you informed and gives great advice! Very patient with whatever questions or concerns that I had. Made the home selling process a breeze! I will definitely use her again in the future and highly recommend her to anyone who wants to buy or sell their home.
Sheryl has been a godsend to us in the last few months. Not only has she helped us sell our old home in LESS THAN A WEEK, she is also helping us in the process of building our new home. Sheryl is everything you want in a realtor: personable, knowledgeable, honest, a great communicator and she has great integrity. She hasn't just been our realtor but she's also become a friend; it says a lot when you look forward to meetings and conversations with your realtor! If you want someone you can trust who will also make the process fun you need Sheryl!
The Petrashek Team was great. Very organized and excellent about keeping us informed. This was the first opportunity to work with Bo and he too was spot on about his recommendations. He gave us sound advise on different aspects of each property we chose to review. When we put our house on the market, Sheryl was excellent at what we should ask and what we should expect to receive. She was right on the money. I'm so glad we partnered with this team again. I hope to be in this house a long time, but if anything should change, I would only call on Sheryl Petrashek for the outstanding results we have received.
Sheryl has handled multiple transactions for me and members of my family. Each time she has outperformed in her analysis of the market condition, her preparation of the home for sale, marketing the property through on-line, traditional marketing resources and in person efforts, hosting multiple showings, handling multiple offers, negotiations, and ultimately the closing. I have worked with many Real Estate Agents personally and in a professional capacity in the past. Because of the number of properties I have been a party to the sale of, I am often asked for recommendations. Sheryl is the only Agent I recommend. I appreciate her market knowledge, her no nonsense attitude, her willingness to discuss and consider strategies, as well as her ability to handle all parties including seller, buyers, renters and other interested parties. She has consistently gone over and above to get the home sold for the highest possible price
I am beyond delighted with the services I received from Sheryl, and her team! Sheryl's marketing strategies for the sale of my townhome were incredibly well thought and professional, and as a result, my townhome sold very quickly. In a competitive market, Sheryl ensured that I was able to see new homes as soon as possible during my search for a new home. Sheryl, and her team, remained in constant contact, and they were always there to answer any questions that I had, or schedule a showing at the drop of a hat. The selling, and buying, processes were beyond smooth and I couldn't be more grateful for the services I received. Sheryl's years of experience, marketing strategies, and communication made the selling, and buying, processes painless and easy. I would highly recommend Sheryl's services for your selling and buying needs. Thanks for everything to Sheryl, and team!
Sheryl and Bo are a great team and put together an outstanding marketing plan for our home. The result was seven showings and multiple offers in three days on the market and a sale for more than our asking price. The follow through on the details has been outstanding. We would highly recommend them to anyone looking for a great agent.
Sheryl has been great throughout the entire process of finding and negotiating the purchase of our new home. We feel as though we have always been her top priority. Her responsiveness to our questions and concerns and her dedication to our project has been outstanding. Her knowledge of the local area and the construction methods and terminology is impressive beyond compare. She has made the entire experience very pleasant and painless. We will highly recommend her to anyone planning to buy a home.
Sheryl was referred to us for our unique home buying experience. Her understanding our of needs ensured that our initial property purchase would ultimately allow us to fulfill on our home building goals. Sheryl market knowledge with property visits were always spot on and informative. She always had her information prepared and outlined to provide the best options a property had to offer. Sheryl's candor navigating those options was very much appreciated, as she always kept our long term goals in site. Sheryl is an "all-in" agent. She will ensure that your expectations - start to finish - will be met, and that your home buying experience will be a pleasant one!
Sheryl is absolutely wonderful! In this economy I thought selling our home would be next to impossible but Sheryl made it so easy! Sheryl will go that extra mile for you. She is extremely knowledgeable and offered great advice and recommendations to get our home ready for showings. She is not only very professional but very likeable and friendly. I highly recommend Sheryl and look forward to working with her to buy my next home!
Sheryl Petrashek & her team were a great support through our downsizing this last year. From the beginning Sheryl listened and made wonderful suggestions to what updating was needed to get our house ready to sell. Her expert knowledge with the market analysis and explaining to us in layman terms so we could understand was much appreciated. She never pushed us to sell sooner than we were ready. She gave us all the pros & cons for what season to put the house on the market was best, and when we were finally ready it happened in the Fall and Sheryl was all in! Once the house sold, her whole team jumped into action, with helping us find a new place to live and working out all the little details to get us to closing. We will always be grateful for choosing Sheryl to represent us in the journey that we've been on. When we sell/buy our new house Sheryl will be the one we call. OUTSTANDING!!
It was so nice to work with good people like the Petrashek family. From our first contact, their understanding, patience and promptness in answering our many questions was so appreciated. This was our first experience in selling a home and the Petrashek's made it a very satisfying experience. We will recommend them to all our Minnesota friends.
We selected Sheryl over two other highly recommended Realtors and she was the perfect fit to sell our home. We had an unusually complicated assignment and the depth of Sheryl's experience and attention to detail was outstanding. She genuinely cared about our best interests and provided a level service that is beyond what we have found with other Realtors. We would recommend her to anyone considering the sale of their home, especially in the Twin Cities South metro. Tony and Jennifer, Inver Grove Heights.
Working with Sheryl has been great. She's extremely knowledgeable about all aspects of the buying and selling process and is able to give expert advise. She and her staff are very organized and do a wonderful job of keeping us informed of all the moving parts. We appreciate the work of Sheryl and all the others who have helped us with this process.
I first met Sheryl in 2006 when we sold our first home. She impressed me immediately. She's knowledgeable, experienced and savvy in real estate. Sheryl calmly explains the process because it can be overwhelming and stressful, at least for me. Her "customer service level" is understanding as she returns calls or emails in a timely manner or her "team" does. My husband and I would give Sheryl Petrashek and 5 star A+ rating and would recommend her without hesitation. I have given my entire family her name for their future real estate needs! THANK YOU SHERYL FOR EVERYTHING!
Hard worker doesn't even begin to describe Sheryl's drive to go above and beyond the call of duty. She is extremely knowledgeable and without a doubt has her client's best interest in mind. Would choose her again and again and would highly recommend!!
Sheryl and her team are fantastic. They were there every step of the way for us. We sold our house in 4 days for the asking price. We would recommend Sheryl to anyone.
Sheryl is in the process of helping us to prepare and understand the current market. Her knowledge of the real estate trends and in depth analysis allows us to maximize the sale of our home. Along with her being patient, helpful, enthusiastic and the most understanding person to work with! We look forward on working with her!!
I am so glad I got to work with Sheryl and Remax Results. Sheryl was open, totally flexible to my schedule, and very good at keeping me updated and informed about homes available. After helping me finally find the perfect place the entire team did a great job of guiding me through the process and preparing me for an easy and successful closing. Honestly, I don't think finding and buying a home has ever been easier. Thanks
Sheryl Petrashek was an amazing find! She took me through the buying process of my first investment property! She did this with the upmost class, integrity and professionalism. She was well informed on any and all areas of concern, and if there was something she wasn't supremely sure of, she did her research and had an answer to me usually within a few hours, and always before the end of the day. I would highly recommend anyone looking to contact Sheryl!
After accepting a promotional opportunity in another state, I had no choice but to put my house on the market during the late fall which was by no means ideal. With very few people looking to buy during that time, you can imagine my angst. Sheryl however kept us very informed along the way telling not to panic and gave me great advice on when I should slightly drop the price a bit or when to hold tight. During the winter months when I was no longer in my home, she also made sure to physically check out my house each week to be sure the furnace was still working and no pipes issues. Another huge weight off my shoulders. She also knows her stuff in regards to marketing. She literally spent one afternoon helping me arrange my furniture to make sure my house photographed well for the online photos. She also uses a professional photographer, so the pictures were great!
Working with Sheryl has been great. She's extremely knowledgeable about all aspects of the buying and selling process and is able to give expert advice. She and her staff are very organized and do a wonderful job of keeping us informed of all the moving parts. We appreciate the work of Sheryl and all the others who have helped us with this process."
I would highly recommend Sheryl. She originally helped us find our first home back in 2012. We thought she was so terrific that we decided to use her again to sell our current home and find us our next home. She goes way above and beyond what any other realtor would do. She always responded back immediately to any questions we had, filled us in on everything and made sure we understood the next steps. She showed us many homes and never made us feel like we were inconviencing her. You can tell she truly loves her job and she is great at it! She helped us find our dream home yet again. Will definitely work with her again if we need to move.
I can't say enough about Sheryl and her services. I'm completely impressed and satisfied with the handling of the sale of my home. Sheryl's honesty and integrity shines through from the beginning to the end of the process of selling my home. She did a fantastic job marketing my home and delivered exactly what I wanted/needed to sell my condo. Sheryl and her office made selling flawless and very easy.
Sheryl is very knowledgable . Keeps up with market trends and advises you accordingly. Easy to work with. Does a great job working with you to get your house ready to place on market. Answers phone calls promptly and calls you on the progress of the sale.
Wonderful experience and a great realtor with no pressure sales! Always willing to make things happen!
Sheryl worked with my husband and me to sell our house at a difficult location. Sheryl tried many approaches and we successfully sold our house. I really feel it was because of Sheryl's thorough and consistant effort with showings, open houses, and marketing that made the difference. Sheryl is a great agent and partner in this process. She also helped us find our next home!
We had our townhouse on the market for over 7 months with another realtor and had no offers. Sheryl was recommended to us by a friend, so we decided to switch and give her a try. Within two weeks of working with Sheryl, we had an offer and sold our townhouse. She also found us a wonderful new home to purchase. Sheryl and her team made the whole process seamless and effort free. If you want great results, Sheryl is the realtor for you. Thank you!
Sheryl Petrashek was great throughout the process. Her marketing strategy along with her many years of experience is what sold us. Once we began working with her she was very responsive and we especially appreciated her attention to detail while looking over the offers and walking us through each one. I would definitely recommend Sheryl and her team to others.
We went thru much effort to find a realtor that provided a real value added to the process. The recommendation from Greg Bjorkland led to us interviewing you. We were very impressed by the type and degree of analysis done to determine the market for our home; for the multiple channels to the marketplace that you used; your team approach that covered all the time sensitive bases needed to get us to closing; and probably most of all; your really profound ability and insight in analyzing and handling sensitive issues and negotiations. Barb & I found ourselves saying about 6 different times throughout this experience how incredibly grateful we were that we had Sheryl on the job. And I don't hesitate to say that I've never said that about any realtor before. Thank you again!
It was a pleasure working with Sheryl in the recent sale of my home. She is so knowledgeable of so many aspects of real estate including markets and home construction. Her people skills and ethics are impeccable. I would highly recommend her as your realtor.
Sheryl Petrashek and her team could not be more professional. It was our families first time buying a home and we definitely felt very confident she was going to get us the best possible deal. She was always easy to reach and responded to any questions we had immediately. Having her expertise on our side made the process that much easier. I would recommend Sheryl to anyone who needs expert and professional real estate advice or needs. She even recommends my uncle for anyone in need of handy work in the south metro area. There were three other offers on the house we wanted and Sheryl worked her magic. She treated our family with the utmost respect and was a delight to work with.
Brian and I chose to work with Sheryl because of the wonderful experience we had with her when we purchased our current home. Sheryl guided us through every aspect of selling our current home and buying our new home. She gave us advice on staging our home and responded to our questions quickly. Overall, we had a wonderful experience working with Sheryl.
Sheryl was very instrumental in both the purchase of our new home and sale of our old home at the price(s) we wanted. She is very knowledgeable about properties and their values. Whenever I needed to talk to her she would always respond. Not only is she a great Realtor but a better person you won't find. You won't regret having Sheryl as your listing agent. She gets thing done.


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When Allstate released its annual "America's Best Drivers Report" last week, Salt Lake City ranked 63rd among the nation's 200 largest cities. It was a good sign.
The ranking set off a cry of local outrage from people who believe Salt Lake drivers are way more horrible than 63rd. Not only are we the worst drivers in America, but probably in the universe.
I happen to agree with them, although not for reasons that will make them happy.
Right up front let me say that I don't trust reports. I also believe that statistics are simply a creative way of arranging numbers into a potentially believable lie.
Here's how it works: I have been alive roughly 21,946.3 days.
If I factor in the number of days spent going to church (302), input the number of days spent in jail (four or five, I can't remember exactly), add the total number of times I have kicked a puppy (zero), and include a 2 percent plus or minus margin for being full of *%$&, we get = a nice guy.
It's false, of course. You could ask my wife, my kids, most of my neighbors and any boss I've ever had, and stand a better chance of getting the truth about what kind of guy I am. There's nothing like personal experience for putting numbers in their place.
But I trust that even less because it's based on pre-existing biases. And it's this personal experience that people who denounce Utah drivers use as the basis for their/our conclusion.
Yeah, Utah drivers are crazy. But you couldn't possibly know that unless you drive here which would make you a Utah driver and therefore part of the problem. I know I am. I learned to drive in California, but I'm in Utah now.
Exactly how awful Utah drivers really are could depend on your driving, which, if you're an average commuter, is only slightly better than that of a hammerhead shark.
Finding fault with other people's driving in this manner is no way of getting at the truth because your findings are skewed by the premise that you're a good or better one.
My old man rails about maniac high-speed drivers in Utah, but it's a conclusion he maintains while routinely traveling 15 miles under the speed limit on the freeway.
This is an entirely different position than the one he held 40 years ago when he thought Utah drivers were a bunch of clueless motoring hicks. I went on road trips with him back then. He routinely traveled in excess of 90 mph. Faster on the freeway.
I do it, too. I hate it when people don't use their turns signals. I'd probably hate it a lot less if I wasn't driving right on their bumper so that their signaling was actually a matter of life or death.
It makes me crazy to see how many people are gabbing on cellphones when they drive. But I've done it and I'll bet people complaining about it being so prevalent in Utah have done it, too.
What about all the times you've screwed up while driving in Utah leaving your signal on for six miles, weaving in and out of traffic, corking up the fast lane, driving while distracted? And don't say you never have. Any completely objective observer will know you're lying.
If you're from some other place where drivers are motoring angels, but you have Utah plates and are driving with your head in your hams, other people think you're a Utah driver. And I hate to break it to you, but you are.
Robert Kirby can be reached at email@example.com or facebook.com/stillnotpatbagley.


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The majority of Aspen City Council declined to pass a law on Monday that would require political candidates and issue committees to disclose the identity of donors who give less than $20.
Current rules require that candidates keep track of under-$20 donations, but they do not have to list the donors' identities on campaign finance disclosure forms, where all donations and spending of $20 or more are catalogued.
A campaign two years ago, led by local blogger Elizabeth Milias, targeted Aspen Mayor Mick Ireland — the effort was called "Sick of Mick" — and encouraged people to donate $19.99. Milias used the funds she collected, including about $2,000 in undisclosed contributions, to purchase yard signs and bumper stickers.
"There is evidence that efforts to collect less than $20 has led to a lack of civility," City Attorney Jim True said at Monday's meeting.
Councilman Torre, who along with council members Steve Skadron, Adam Frisch and Derek Johnson, is running for mayor in the May 7 election, argued for leaving room in the city's election rules for secret political giving. He said a handful of people have contributed less than $20 to his campaign intentionally, because they feared "retribution from the company they work for" if they publicly supported his campaign for mayor, he said.
Torre suggested that candidates be able to collect up to $200 in under-$20 chunks without disclosing the donors, and then report the names after that.
"We can safeguard against the abuse that comes from thousands of dollars" while allowing some low-level giving from people who fear being publicly identified, he said.
Frisch said he liked Torre's idea, but suggested that the limit be higher, perhaps as high as $2,000. Torre said he did not support the limit being that high.
Frisch also said there has only been one instance when someone abused the under-$20 nondisclosure policy, and it "obviously didn't work very well," since Ireland won the mayoral election in 2009.
Ireland took issue with that statement, and said the Sick of Mick efforts were harmful to him, his family and friends.
Ireland has been the biggest champion of requiring all donors' names to be disclosed, saying it cuts down on negative campaigning.
"When people don't have to stand behind who they gave money to, they feel free to do political graffiti," he said. "I have yet to see people write nasty graffiti and then put their name on it."
Ireland also said that there has never been any evidence of someone feeling a negative consequence from giving money to a local political cause.
Johnson and Skadron, while expressing support for doing something about the under-$20 disclosure loophole, said they would prefer to wait until after the election.
Council voted on Torre's suggestion to cap non-disclosed donations of under $20 at $200, but the policy failed 3-2, with Torre and Ireland in favor. The council then tabled the issue until the June 10 meeting, which will be the last one before the new council is seated after the election.


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This part will fit the following vehicles:
|2004 - 2007
|except Evolution; 4dr sedan
|2004 - 2007
|except Evolution; 4dr wagon; w/ABS
|2004 - 2007
|except Evolution; 4dr sedan
|2004 - 2007
|except Evolution; 4dr wagon; w/ABS
Other identifiers for this part: PerfectFit #: M100141, Eagle Eyes #: MB312-B101R, TYC #: 20-6603-00, DEPO #: 314-1134R-AS2.
Fits Years: 2007 2006 2005 2004 Mitsubishi Lancer Headlight Assembly (Excluding Evolution + Sedan)
Fits Engines: All
This product fits years: 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004
2004-2007 MITSUBISHI LANCER: except Evolution; 4dr sedan OEM # MN161940
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A couple of years ago (2009) I purchased a replacement radiator cooling fan for my wife's '04 Saturn Ion. Go-Parts.com had the cheapest I could find anywhere and I was able to quickly locate it based on the original OEM part number. To have the work done by a shop would have cost me over $800 and taken a couple of days. I purchased the OEM replacement fan from Go-Parts.com for just under $100 and did the work in about an hour. The fan worked perfectly for about 2 years and then it started acting up. I went back to Go-Parts.com and found out the item had a limited lifetime warranty. I contacted customer service about the warranty and started the process without any hassle. I simply purchased a replacement from the website, sent the old broken one back to Go-Parts in the box that the new one came in with pre-paid shipping by Go-Parts and was refunded the purchase price of the replacement fan. In the end, 3 years later I still have a working cooling fan and I've only ever had to pay the original purchase and shipping. The prices are great and the customer service is excellent. I definitely look for parts on Go-Parts.com before looking anywhere else.
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Price Quality Average: 4 / 5 starsPart was the exact one I ordered and arrived promptly. No muss, no fuss. If I need to order another part, I will most likely use Go Part again.by bjlefebvre


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Joseph Lowe Items3 textbooks were found
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A New Most Excellent Dancing Master: The Journal of Joseph Lowe's Visits to Balmoral and Windsor (Wendy Hilton Dance and Music Series)RentList Price:$40.00
The Present State of England in Regard to Agriculture, Trade and Finance: With a Comparison of the Prospects of England and FranceRentList Price:$38.75
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Nevada head baseball coach Gary Powers is in his 30th year as Nevada's skipper, and he is just one win away from a career milestone - his 900th win - heading into Tuesday afternoon's game with San Francisco at 2 p.m. at Peccole Park.
Coach Powers holds a career mark of 899-721-5, which ranks 21st nationally among active NCAA Division I coaches in victories. Even more impressive, all 899 of those victories have come at the University of Nevada.
As he approaches this career accomplishment, here are a few interesting facts about his 30-year career at Nevada:
- Powers got his first career win on March 4, 1983 when Nevada downed Utah 5-4 on March 4, 1983.
- Coach Powers has taken four Wolf Pack teams to NCAA Regional appearances in 1994, 1997, 1999 and 2000. He averaged 34 wins per game in the 1990s (and just under 30 a year in his career).
- He has produced 16 All-Americans, 139 all-conference honorees, five conference players of the year and 79 Major League Baseball draftees.
- Not only has he coached the Wolf Pack for 30 years, Powers was a Nevada student-athlete. He was a two-year starting pitcher from 1970-71 and set team records for appearances and innings pitched.
We hope you can join us as Coach Powers goes for his 900th victory tomorrow. Tickets range from $4-10 and can be purchased here or at the gates at Peccole Park.


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6mm Citrine and Lab-Created White Sapphire Frame Ring in 10K Gold - Size 7
Item# 20027694
Treat the November birthday girl to a gemstone fashion ring she'll love wearing. Crafted in warm 10K gold, this sweet design features a 6mm golden yellow citrine center stone wrapped in a frame of sparkling lab-created white sapphires. Additional sapphires line the ring's slender shank. Polished to a brilliant shine, this shimmering style is sure to please. This ring is available in size 7 only.
The citrines pictured may have been treated or enhanced by heating. Typographic errors are subject to correction. Merchandise enlarged to show detail and may not always be exactly as pictured. Promotions, prices, styles and availability may vary by store and online.