The phone rang a few days ago, and when I answered, a plaintive voice on the other end implored, “Grandpa, I need to talk to you.” My response was instant: “Do you want me to report this call to the police now, or would like to finish your spiel first? Let me guess, you’ve been […]
Gerry Goldstein
Gerry Goldstein, an occasional contributor to What's Up, is a retired Providence Journal editor and columnist who has been writing for Rhode Island newspapers and magazines for 60 years
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Gerry Goldstein: Mum’s the word on what’s driving GOP lackeys
Many decades ago, when I was a college student convinced I knew everything there was to know, in a conversation with my father I labelled someone a hypocrite. Dad stopped me in my tracks. “That is a very loaded word,” he said. “Take care how you use it.” Ever since, I’ve been wary of rushing […]
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Gerry Goldstein: From Trump, some vitriolic talking points
Of all the hideous traits that darken the soul of Donald Trump, his continuing delight in mocking physical disabilities, including President Biden’s lifelong struggle with a stutter, is among the creepiest. Not to mention that by implication he has mocked some three million other Americans who contend with the same problem, succeeding in life despite […]
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Gerry Goldstein: Dancing deer, in barter for apples, offer food for thought
Intruders abound here at Shalom Acres, the hobby farm in Greenville’s Apple Valley that we allege belongs to us. Calling the cops would do no good, since the interlopers aren’t your garden variety housebreakers – but what we grow is indeed high on their list of priorities. Most of the critters at Shalom Acres are […]
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Gerry Goldstein: Ageless thoughts on growing old
The actress Bette Davis once said, “Old age ain’t no place for sissies.” As a practicing octogenarian I can attest to this, while also appreciating advice on staying young from 19th Century President James A. Garfield: “If wrinkles must be written on our brows, let them not be written upon the heart. The spirit should […]
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Gerry Goldstein: A protest derailed, in different times
The recent demonstrations on college campuses produced varying opinions on how administrators can respect freedom of speech while keeping protesters from trampling the rights of others. The issue was more straightforward decades ago, when as a crusading student newspaper editor I tested the waters of protest at our state university in Kingston. It did not […]
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Gerry Goldstein: Unleashing ugliness with dogged cruelty
When the story broke recently that South Dakota’s governor shot her German wirehaired pointer after its exuberance ruined a pheasant hunt, cancer was stealing the life of our beloved Tibetan terrier, Buddy. That’s why the disturbing admission, in a memoir by Republican Kristi Noem – a vice presidential wannabe under dog-hostile Donald Trump – slammed […]
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Gerry Goldstein: A steady hand, in war and the composing room
Tommy Plymesser, a gentle and soundly anchored soul, greeted the world just over 100 years ago during his home-birthed arrival on – ironically – Farewell Street in Newport. Later, during a long career in South County, he honed a particular skill: He could close his fingers around an idea, or a well-turned metaphor, and actually […]
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Gerry Goldstein: Politics to smile about, until it isn’t
Now that the political season is moving along in earnest, it’s time to examine the Monster Raving Loony Party. And I don’t mean the party of MAGA loons who obsess over Jewish space lasers and idolize the Proud Boys. The Loony Party actually exists, in our mother country across the pond – where for 40 […]
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Gerry Goldstein: ‘All That’ and more about our state
I see we have a new Rhode Island slogan to attract tourists, and not surprisingly, it made its debut to mixed reviews. This is a touchy subject, especially after the last attempt at state sloganeering, “Cooler and Warmer,” was received like ketchup on a hot wiener or fried clams with no bellies. The new slogan, […]
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Gerry Goldstein: A debate quip we can only dream of
Despite all that’s going on in our turbulent world, much of the current presidential campaign is based on age, but this isn’t the first time that’s happened. In fact, the 1984 debates produced a zinger on the age issue that’s still considered one of the best campaign bon mots. That came amid concerns about the capacity […]
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Gerry Goldstein: When salesmanship founders
TV commercials during the Super Bowl earlier this month continued to attract nearly as much attention as the game itself, and one of the most popular of the entries had an unintentional local flavor. The ad, featuring heavily-accented Arnold Schwarzenegger, was built around the actor’s inability (like many a Rhode Islander) to pronounce that final […]
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Gerry Goldstein: Razor-sharp humor on long-ago roadsides
The Federal Highway Administration, which apparently never took a crash course in humor, is absorbing some jocular flak over its recent recommendations for restraint when states install amusing traffic safety signs. These digital messages have been popping up for several years, and in Rhode Island, you may have seen the likes of: “There are plenty […]
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Gerry Goldstein: On the road when pitfalls lurked en route
Fledgling 2024 marks 60 years since passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, legislation that outlawed discrimination in businesses and other public places. So it’s astounding — and telling – that in the year recently ended, the NAACP issued a formal advisory against travel to Florida, which it said “has become hostile to Black […]
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Gerry Goldstein: If we’re the role models, beware
Although I’m a member of the oldest generation and a bit shaky on computer nuance, you wouldn’t consider me a Luddite – a person who by nature opposes new technology. I’m no particular fan of the legendary English weaver Ned Ludd, who in the 18th Century supposedly smashed some new-fangled knitting machines and railed against […]
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Gerry Goldstein: Changing names that ruffle feathers
We know a rose by any other name would smell as sweet because Shakespeare told us so. Now the question arises: would a bird by any other name tweet as sweet? The answer is a definite “yes,” according to the American Ornithological Society, which has announced plans to rename all birds currently named after people. […]
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Gerry Goldstein: Angling for some seasonal wisdom
Since we’re deep into the Christmas buying season – the season when long ago three wise men were wending their way to Bethlehem – it seemed appropriate that on Facebook recently, a shopper begged for sage advice. A vintage bamboo fly-fishing rod and reel had captured his fancy in an antiques shop, but before committing […]
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Gerry Goldstein: Nothing was half-baked about this ‘thank you’
Without much fanfare, print newspapering in Rhode Island suffered some body blows recently, and though my view on this surely dates me, I grieve the situation. In August, two community weeklies, the Chariho Times in South County and the Coventry Courier, shut down. Now, two daily newspapers that have served the Blackstone Valley since the 19th Century, the Woonsocket Call and […]
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Gerry Goldstein: When whispers metastasize, hate sinks roots
To be Jewish in America these days is disturbing, even for those of us fortunate enough to have lived mostly free of antisemitic slurs or worse. Sensitive gentile friends are prone to note their recent astonishment and dismay at the rising level of openly anti-Jewish speech and actions. For us here at the Greenville hobby […]
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Gerry Goldstein: By the book, moving to a strange new land
At a soirée 140 years ago in New York City’s Academy of Design, 1,500 people kicked off a fundraising exhibition to finance a pedestal for the aborning Statue of Liberty. According to the New York Times, “Most of the gentlemen wore evening dress, and many of the ladies were arrayed in elegant costumes.” During opening amenities on Nov. […]
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Gerry Goldstein: On this day, kiss your inhibitions goodbye
“A kiss is just a kiss,” asserted composer Herman Hupfeld in 1931 when he wrote “As Time Goes By,” the song that years later would so enhance the iconic film Casablanca. Not to quibble with the talented Mr. Hupfeld, but events down the generations have shown that a smackeroo can be much more than “just” a kiss. […]
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Gerry Goldstein: On the wing, reminders of what matters
“The world is too much with us,” wrote William Wordsworth more than two centuries ago. Wordsworth, who would later spend many years wearing the mantle of England’s poet laureate, complained in verse, “Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; – Little we see in Nature that is ours…” He should only know what we […]
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‘Sage’ advice on expression, still timely after a century
Last month, police in Marion, Kan., (population 1,902), raided the community’s 154-year-old weekly newspaper, seizing computers, cell phones, and other material in what many deemed a violation of federal law protecting journalists. The uniformed intrusion was part of an unsettling coincidence. A century before and fewer than 50 miles away, an icon of American newspapering […]
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Gerry Goldstein: Portrait of a ‘problem’ that endures
I am staunchly “woke,” and there’s a guy who has my gratitude for reminding me of it every day. This would be Norman Rockwell, the late “illustrator” once disdained by many a critic, but whose reputation as a legitimate artist has strengthened considerably over the decades. The reasons I admire Rockwell are many, one being […]
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Gerry Goldstein: A pond where it’s easy being green
What goes around comes around, especially here at Shalom Acres, our little hobby farm in Greenville where an octogenarian who once caught frogs as a 12-year-old now does so again. These days, though, I brandish a camera instead of a net. Seven decades on, why still the fascination with these creatures whose forebears once hopped […]