It�s a good Season for Coats

It�s a good Season for Coats

The end of November generates mixed emotions for me. When a department store buyer in Connecticut I would greet each brisk Fall day with the welcoming phrase �It�s a good day for coats� (Did I mention I was the buyer for Ladies coats?).

Yet the relentless march to the winter solstice matched the calendar�s progression to Christmas; the retailer�s biggest nemesis and conversely the biggest nirvana. Retailers use a strange calendar that evens out every month to have the same number of days, with a 4 week month, then a 5 week one, then a 4. December is a 5 week month. One more week to boost the revenue and move goods. The relentless drive to sell never stops.

As I write this, the instant snapshot analysis of Thanksgiving weekend are rippling through the media. �Big Friday�, �Slight increase for the weekend�, �Big boxes do better than malls�, �Internet sales up significantly�. All the data, but little information. Trends hide inside the overwhelming waves of data. Can anyone other than a psychic really determine whether a 24 hour trend is a new tangent to a sales curve, paralleling the recent past, or veering up or down off the trend line. Confusing at best, befuddling to most.

As a merchant in the thicket of things, in the almost pre-computer days, we just wrote down the sales numbers in a thick leather book, one page for each comparable day. The �beat last year book�. My assistant buyers� job was to call all the branches every day at 1pm, 5pm and store closing to ask the head clerk in our department for a sales �snapshot� to write in the binder. Listing sales, weather and a brief note about what sales were running. The store was 101 years old. The binder went back for 25. We didn�t look at inflation, constant dollars, or the impact of Wal-Mart.

Back then retailing was still high pressure and fast paced, but still relatively sane. Our current just-in-time inventory process was more of a just-in-case. Buyers took the train to New York City and spent the day in cramped showrooms looking over the hot numbers for the next season. Goods were ordered months ahead of time and we gambled on colors, fashions, length and trim. After a long August day looking at models in fur, wool, down and leather, on runways decorated with snow and Evergreens, we got hit like a brick when we emerged into the polluted sweltering haze of Fashion Avenue. It was like a time warp.

As a young buyer in an industry of older mavens, all I could do was ask for the help of these experienced vendors. They took me under the wing, mentors all. I was guided through the labyrinth of fashion and merchandising, of sizes and seasonality. Carrying a stack of 6 part purchase orders and a sturdy ballpoint to penetrate the 6 carbon sheaves, we would negotiate pricing, delivery, advertising allowances, markdown guarantees, promotional merchandising plans. Take a break at a corner deli, order a pastrami on rye with a New York Egg Cream (no egg, no cream), shake hands and do the deal.

I would return to Hartford dazed from dozens of showroom visits and pass off the purchase orders to be counter-signed by my manager and processed. What did I buy? Frankly I often had no clue. My fashion sense of women�s coats was nonexistent. Yet we had a great 5 week December, and a marvelous Fall season. Doubling revenue by listening to my vendor partners, and hustling dumping the dogs quickly to free up cash to re-order the hot numbers.

We would offer a wide array of goods- from $40.00 budget coats to $495.00 luxurious fur trimmed wools. London Fog was made in Baltimore. Bromley�s stitched in a 100 year old factory in Manchester Connecticut. Lorendale�s cut in a loft off Seventh Avenue. We imported 10% of our stock from the orient, thin nylon raincoats with flimsy belts and soon-to-wrinkle collars, brought in at a high price so we could slice 30% off the �regular list� for our contrived Thanksgiving sale.

Today�s retail game is starkly different. Goods are bought by computer, often today�s sales, generated from scanned UPC labels automatically trigger tomorrow�s shipments. Yet the process of bringing goods in at higher-than-any-reasonable-price so merchants can slash prices for the �doorbuster specials� is the retailers� stock in trade.

I�m only glad that our Black Friday started at a civilized 9:30am; a generous 30 minutes before the normal opening to welcome the Christmas kickoff crowds. Oh yes, and by the way, that was the first day the Christmas decorations were unveiled storewide.

Can I interest you in a hot mid-length number in plush wool? We need to beat last year.

Leib Lurie is a Troy Civic Theatre Board Member, Optimist Club member and CEO of phone message service OneCallNow.com. You can reach him at Leib@Lurie.net

Or see these columns on his blog at www.llurie.blogspot.com

lurie column nov 23- A Prayer for Tomorrow

 A Prayer for Tomorrow

Tonight at 7pm the community Thanksgiving dinner and chorus will be celebrated at St. Patrick�s RC church on East Main St. The community is welcome to a multi-church non-denominational chorus performance.

Then tomorrow millions of us will tune in to the Thanksgiving parades, then work up an appetite arguing over proper turkey cooking etiquette prior to sitting down and gorfing on too much food in a brief respite from football and sibling rivalries.

There will be many prayers said over the meal. Some will be deeply religious, others barely casually so. I�d like to propose my own prayer for patriots and pilgrims alike for tomorrow.

Dear God, please look down on those of us gathered here today and guide us to work in thy name. Help us to appreciate the horrible sufferings that have befallen those Americans in New Orleans, Mississippi, Texas and Florida from the horrific storms this year. Help us see in our hearts to give more to the Red Cross for their aid. We ask also that your wisdom be granted the managers of our emergency management administrations as they seem to be wandering lost in the desert.

Let us pray for our government, as much as some of us like to ridicule those in power, and seek change; strong, honest, caring and effective leadership is an essential part of our democracy and the essence of what makes us Americans. Let us pray that bi-partisanship intelligence can win over polarizing degradations in order to form a more perfect union and build a better country for every American and for our children and their children�s children.

Let us pray for the soldiers sent to topple the cruel regime in Iraq, and that the insane Moslem sectarian warfare that has killed so many finds a rational solution in an irrational Persian country that is both the seat of civilization and the core of obscene barbarian acts of violence.

Show the light to our Congress as they struggle to be rational. Guide them to pass laws that truly represent the greatest good for the greatest number; helping the poor amongst us to reach their full potential; and allow our wealthy families and corporations to contribute their fair share to operating an equitable and successful economy.

Help our state legislatures, who wrongly believe they understand the business of education better than our dedicated teachers, that giving great teachers the tools and pay they need and deserve will allow our children to learn and excel. Grant our lawmakers the wisdom to make adequate school funding with minimal micro-management intervention oversight that historically has cost billions and yielded little.  

Guide those at this table and those at tables across the land, to recognize that on Friday morning, while jostling for position when the super-sales start, that virtually every toy and electronic gadget they buy will have been made by a low-wage foreign worker. That buying them threatens our livelihoods here for tomorrow.

We thank you for your blessing of the creation of fossil fuels that keep us mobile, fed and warm; it would be less than pious to question your wisdom in placing so much black gold in inhospitable areas of the world; or in the hands of so few greedy big companies. Nonetheless, we pray for long term solutions and the wisdom to make the tough decisions and sacrifices to come in building an energy independent future.

Your gift of tobacco was appreciated by the early pilgrims. Their ceremonial pipe smoking brought people of the old world together with those of the new. It is not for us to question your hand in making the brown leaf so widely available that it is the largest organic killer we have ever seen. We pray that those addicted to its power will find the strength to quit this year.

Thank you O Lord for the blessing of health that those here enjoy today. We pray that those who need the care of physicians will have affordable and adequate insurance coverage. This is not an easy prayer, but it would surely be a blessing to all if you could grant it for the tens of millions of our fellow Americans in need today.

So many people have died with your name on their lips, killing others in your name over what is generally trivial differences. Please put a bit of intelligent design into the many people who cannot accept these differences and go to war over them.

As we gaze over the bounty laid before us, with fruits often picked by illegal migrant labor, poultry raised in hormonal chemical clouds, and pastry made from hydrogenated vegetable oils, let�s give special thanks to our food manufacturers for the processed polymer chains at our fingertips. Let�s pray we do not find they have long term deleterious effects on our heath.

For all these things, may we be truly grateful. Amen.

Leib Lurie is a Troy Civic Theatre Board Member, Optimist Club member and CEO of phone message service OneCallNow.com. You can reach him at Leib@Lurie.net

Or see these columns on his blog at www.llurie.blogspot.com

Lurie column Nov 16- Even the Pope can't smoke in Italy

Leib Lurie�s Column for TDN: To run WEDNESDAY, November 16

DAVID- See preferred new bio / footer

TITLE: If the Pope can't smoke in Italy, what's next?

I�d walk a mile for a Camel. Actually, I�ve never walked a mile for a cigarette. Never smoked �em. Don�t see the attraction of smelling stale, dropping ashes, being a fire hazard, taking an average of 5 years off your life and adding $20,000 to your lifetime health care bill; all for the privilege of spending an average of $2,000 a year on a habit that causes injury to those around you.

Maybe some readers might suspect I am anti-smoking. Not true. Although I refuse to hire one ever again, Americans are free to do what they want to themselves. I do feel it is unfair to burden taxpayers with your health care bill, and people around you with second hand smoke.

Tomorrow is the 17^th annual National Smoke-Out Day; where every smoker is encouraged to give it up for a day, and try to break the cycle of dependency induced in your youth by the coolness factor propagated by big tobacco.

Tomorrow is also the day that SmokeFreeOhio organizers will present signatures of 150,000 Ohioans to the legislature asking for a statewide indoor smoking ban.

Last year, a number of courageous local teenagers brought forth a proposal to make Troy�s restaurants smoke free. Council chose to ignore the scientific evidence of the harm caused by second hand smoke, and the abundance of positive economic news from cities and towns that banned smoking only to see health care costs for workers plummet, and sales rise smartly. And not just because banning smoking was a smart thing to do. Some members of Council and many restaurant owners spoke about impinging on the rights of owners to control their environment.

Our City Council chose to look askance at the facts, abdicate their responsibility to uphold safety and health for all Trojans, and wait for an activist few, unelected people to bypass our Representative Democracy and put a referendum on the ballot. Alas, the teenagers with such high hopes and dreams of smoke free eateries could not organize the petition drive and decided instead to simply eschew trips to smoke filled former hangouts like Steak & Shake, Bob Evan�s, HighMark�s, and Big Boy out west, along with Kay�s , La Fiesta, Dunaways, LaPiazza and Taggarts downtown. They opted instead to patronize Night Sky, Culvers, KFC, McDonald�s, Taco Bell, Subway, Quizno�s and Applebee�s for their smoke free atmosphere instead. (Applebee�s regional franchisee said recently that going smoke free was one his best business decisions)

Since that time, many cities including Philadelphia, Columbus and Centerville have gone smoke-free.

So have the countries of Italy, Norway and Ireland (formerly home of the smoky pub) and states like Massachusetts, radical Montana, Seven Canadian Provinces,  "Now you can compare bars and restaurants to the office," said Marit Skogstad, part of the Norway research team which tested 74 waiters and waitresses before and after the clean air law went into effect. It was terrible before the law, maybe worse than working in heavy industry.

Dust levels in bars and restaurants fell from over 250 milligrams to 75 milligrams per cubic meter and the amount of nicotine in the urine of non-smokers on the staff dropped by almost 90 percent, the study showed. Even more impressive is the peer-reviewed study showing heart attacks in Pueblo, CO dropped by 30% after their smoking ban went into effect.

Closer to home, let�s look a Tina�s story. �A friend of mine and I worked in a bar together. She ended up becoming pregnant. She worked at the bar for so long, that she ended up giving birth prematurely and the baby passed away. She never in her life smoked a cigarette, but because she worked around people who smoked, this happened to her.

Upton Sinclair wrote �The Jungle� about the horrible dangers of working in Chicago�s stockyards before Labor protection laws mandated minimal safety requirements. Tina is 75 times as likely as workers in non-smoke environments to suffer illness, premature death, or fetal injury.

I personally find it ironic that many of those who preach and prod for the sacrosanct protection of the unborn often do so from a bar stool served by a pregnant serving wench inhaling their toxic substances.

Researchers at Harvard looked at food sales before and after the Massachusett�s ban. Surprise! Even after discounting for inflation, sales went up, and so did employment. Tax collections on meals rose about 9 percent after the ban went into effect compared with the July through December average for 1999 through 2003.

Tomorrow, our legislature will have the chance to start serious debate on protecting our workers, our health and our environment; all without raising taxes or hurting business. If they don�t, SmokeFreeOhio plans to put forth a statewide referendum next November.

So make tomorrow smoke free day, and let�s hope we can all enjoy the benefits of clean Ohio indoor air together soon.

 

Leib Lurie is a displaced New Yorker, software CEO, and active with First Night Troy, Troy Civic Theatre, and Noon Optimist Club. You can reach him at Leib@Lurie.net

Or see these columns on his blog at www.llurie.blogspot.com

Lurie column: Nov 9th- No healthcare? Need not be fatal

A family without healthcare suffers the loss of a mother with a fatal disease. A father goes to work for a major corporation, freely spending the government�s money during a time of war. Lack of a social safety net forces an unprepared and unwilling widowed grandmother who has raised six kids to take in her grandsons who crave a forbidden endorphin rush. A mentally handicapped daughter is kept at home, ridiculed, and in virtual isolation for being �slow�.

Some families have it tougher than others. Some rise above it, others sink into a quagmire of despair and despondence. Difficult situations force difficult choices. Facing them squarely is often the most challenging choice of all.

The people of this family, like 45 million other Americans, have no insurance and no medical coverage. Instead they are facing the tragic consequences of huge bills and no way to pay them. Too proud for bankruptcy, too poor to borrow from banks; the underclass, like this family, is served by shady �street bankers� charging usurious rates. It threatens the very fabric of their life and the custodial sanctity of their father.

The war opens up great jobs for a man willing to give up on ethics and family to turn a buck in faraway lands with strange food and culture.

The situation in this case could have been tragic. But it was not.

Because this is the last weekend for the Troy Civic Theatre production of �Lost in Yonkers� a Neil Simon comedy/drama that premiered on Broadway in 1993, focused on a New York bedroom community and an unusual family in 1942. Audiences then, as now, will laugh at the foibles, and cry at the tragic situations underlying them. Sunday, several dozen Junior High Students, part of the Muse Machine Club came to see two of their peers � the teenage stars of the show cope with the drama of the play.

The situation portrayed in World War II has many parallels with those of today; Neil Simon is a marvel of bringing characters to life and bridging the gap between then and now.

Though the male characters are greased with Vitalis, their psychosis and quirks are just as vivid and contemporary as today. Or did you think I was writing about a 21^st century family in my opening lines above?

The female leads are believable and heart warming. My memories of a childhood in a New York apartment came flooding back with the vivid memories triggered by the paint, furniture, dress and accessories that looked remarkably like my grandmother�s apartment.

Thanks to the Paul G. Duke Foundation, the old Barn on the Park is still evolving into the New Barn in the Park. This weekend saw the dedication of the Paul G. Duke Auditorium at the Troy Civic Theatre�s home on Adams Street across from Hobart Arena. The Duke foundation grant funding is already evident with brand new risers with double the leg room, improved lighting control board and much better stage lighting and lighting effects.

Construction will begin soon on the new expanded restrooms accessible for those with special needs, paid for by The City of Troy in support of the arts and all Trojans. At the same time, renewed actors facilities will be built this winter, funded by the Duke grant.

The Miami County Foundation has also stepped up, with a donation for hearing amplified headsets to make the theatre an even better experience when actors on the three sided thrust stage are facing away or mumble.

Now it�s time for you to step up. It�s much easier and less controversial than helping this fictitious family get universal health care. Simply buy a ticket for $9.00 by calling 339-7700 or visit
WWW.TroyCivicTheatre.com  (Curtain is Fri. and Sat. at 8pm, Sunday at 4pm)

Drama, Comedy, Realism. You can get it on the news, or see a much better version at the Barn in the Park this weekend.

Leib Lurie is a Troy Civic Theatre Board Member, Optimist Club member and CEO of phone message service OneCallNow.com. You can reach him at Leib@Lurie.net

Or see these columns on his blog at www.llurie.blogspot.com