New York State has adopted cashless bail. This law will take effect on January 1, 2020. It will serve as a huge benefit for poor people, who until now if they could not afford tiny bail amounts would end up in jail and of all things could lose their job. They were punished because they were poor. The law will not effect murderers and people, who commit major crimes. They will have to pay cash bail.

The only people who will be hurt will be bail bondsmen. In some of the boroughs of New York City the law has been in effect and had no negative effect on crime. New Jersey also has adopted the law and the results are the same in the boroughs.

My son Charles was arrested in Albany for an unusual reason. He was visiting a friend at night and his friend, who is white, drove by the Albany police with Charles in the car and was not stopped. Twenty minutes later Charles, who is black, drove by the police driving his own car, and was stopped. The police wanted to see what was in the car. Charles works security in Georgia and is licensed to carry a gun in Georgia and most states, but New York does not recognize a Georgia license, but Georgia recognizes a New York State gun license.

Charles was arrested and released after I paid a bail bondsman $4,000 for a $40,000 cash bail. The Albany County District attorney wanted to send Charles to prison for three to five years. His attorney got the court to reduce the charge to a $250 fine. Charles and I felt his crime was being black.

Measles memories

Today a large number of parents are finding excuses not to get their children vaccinated for measles and mumps. When I was in elementary school in the late 1940s, there were no vaccinations for these diseases. In the summer of 1948 I got these two diseases back to back and it was the worst summer of my life. I may have also gotten the chicken pox. I was stuck in my bed and listening in misery as outside the kids were playing. For me it was the year with no summer.

Fortunately I did not get polio. Years later I knew someone, who did, Vincent Rizzi of Highland. As for measles one in a thousand unvaccinated children in the United States, die, but that is in the United States. Overseas, where in many countries there is far less protections against the diseases, one in ten die. The unvaccinated American kids can never travel overseas.

What type of parent would expose their child to death?

This may better explain our China problem

In the year 2000, China manufactured eight percent of the world’s goods, and in 2018, it manufactured 25 prcent of the world’s goods, while during the same time span America’s percentage dropped from 21 percent to 15.5 percent, while Japan went from 14 to 10 percent. And Germany from 8 to 6 percent.

A member of my family lost his job when it moved to China. A friend of mine lost his when his source of employment moved from Pawling to China.

When IBM sold its server business to Lenovo of China we all knew people in Highland and Marlboro who lost their manufacturing job at IBM. The Hudson Valley has been hurt by China.

Every time the United States places a tariff on a good manufactured in China, the Chinese firm adds the price of the tariff to what it charges its customers in the United States, thus we pay the tariff, and we are hurt by it.

Gene Coy and his family were Apple pioneers

I never heard about Clintondale apple grower Gene Coy until one spring when we had an early bloom followed by an early frost. Then I learned that only Jenkins and Luekens and Gene Coy had not lost any of their apple crops.

I had to go out to see Gene Coy’s farm and there it was at the highest elevation of any apple farm in Ulster County. What had happened was while other farms were in partial bloom, Gene Coy and Jenkins and Luekens had no bloom.

When buyers representing apple brokers or the chains like Shoprite come to the farms, they will notice if the farmer had a big or small crop. If they told the farmer, “You have a big crop,” this means the farmer is not going to get a lot of money for their apples. There were years when the other farmers had a small crop and Gene had a big one, and the buyers knew they were in for a tough buying season with Gene Coy.

There was another farmer who liked high hills, or in this case, mountain tops. He was Bud Walker of Clintondale who put up transmission towers on which he sold space to companies like Verizon. Bud has a tower at the south end of Illinois Mountain in Highland and many more mountains in New York State. Those Clintondale guys are pretty smart.

Gene Coy and his father, Eber Coy, were also ahead of their time with three controlled atmosphere rooms to store apples.