Why I am a Democrat

My great-great grandfather, Caleb Warren Tate (second from right at bottom),
and 13 of his 17 children, 1873.

My mother’s sister, Betty Jo Tate Rosenberg, died September 27, a few days short of her ninetieth birthday. Aunt Betty was laid to rest next to her husband, Kermit H. Rosenberg, a career army officer who died in 2008, at Arlington Cemetery on Tuesday. A memorial service was held that morning.

Two of Betty’s sons, her granddaughter and I spoke at the service. My brother, Jerry, was the final speaker.

Aunt Betty, to put it mildly, was opinionated, one of those people who loved to argue for the sake of arguing. She argued with everybody – her husband, children, mother, sisters, nieces, nephews, store clerks, you name it. She was never malicious or vindictive about it. It was simply her nature.

She may well have gotten her love for verbal sparring from her older sister, my mother Ruby, who was a state high school debate champion in 1930 and doesn’t shy away from a good argument to this very day.

Ruby and Betty, who loved to argue almost much as they loved each other, spoke three or four times a day by phone. Rarely did a conversation take place in which one of them don’t provoke the other into an argument. Politics was a favorite topic.

Betty was a rabid Republican. Ruby is an equally staunch Democrat. Betty often reminded Ruby there was no way she could ever bring herself to vote for a Democrat. Ruby would shoot back that she could never vote for a Republican … and that Betty should be ashamed for being a Republican given what had happened to their great-grandfather.

Jerry touched on that story at the memorial service. It was a story he and I have heard a hundred times but I asked our mother to tell it to me again today so I could write it down and share it with my readers.

Betty and Ruby’s great-grandfather, Caleb Warren Tate, was a farmer in Callaway County, Missouri during the Civil War. Caleb Warren was the father of 17 children.

Missouri, during the Civil War, was in a precarious position. A slave state, its legislature had voted to secede but Lincoln, a Republican from neighboring Illinois, sent Union troops into Missouri to keep it forcibly in the union. Some Missourians favored the Union cause. Others favored the Confederacy. Both Union and Confederate troops roamed the countryside, terrorizing those they suspected of being sympathizers with the other side.

Caleb Warren owned two horses. He needed those horses to plow his fields, so he could feed his family. But both were seized by Union soldiers and taken to the nearby town of Danville.

Caleb Warren was a Democrat but his neighbor, a Mr. Dutton, was a Republican. Thinking the Union officers might be more sympathetic if he showed up with a man who was known to be a member of the party of Lincoln, the commander-in-chief of the Union Army, he entreated Dutton to go with him to ask the solders to return his horses.

“Mr. Tate,” the union officer said after had had heard him out. “Why should I give you your horses back? Don’t you have two sons fighting in the Confederate Army?”

“I do indeed,” my great-great-grandfather replied. “And they may be Confederates but at least they ain’t horse thieves.”

He did not get his horses back.

And, needless to say, he, his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, with the exception of Betty, never voted Republican and blamed the party of Lincoln for the loss of his horses.

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It rained as Aunt Betty was laid to rest next to her husband during an impressive ceremony at Arlington.

As I was telling Betty’s son, my cousin Jim, goodbye, I told him I hoped he could find some comfort knowing that his mother was at peace.

“Yes,” he said. “But my father isn’t any more. At least he had five years of it.”

We laughed.

Jim and I hardly ever see each other but it’s good to know our extended family, however far-flung, will go on.

Even if the ones on his side of it are a bunch of damn Republicans.

What I'm grateful for

My wife of 37 years still makes me laugh.

My two sons are intelligent, hard working and kind.

I have a new daughter-in-law I adore.

I’m going to be a grandpa in April.

My 100-year-old mother is sharp as a tack. We talk almost every day.

I have a brother, sister, sister-in-law, seven nieces and nephews and nine great-nieces and nephews and love them all. They love me, too.

I have two elderly dachshunds and a goofy-looking granddog I love far more than I should because I know they’ll break my heart someday.

I am learning to love my grandcat.

I am healthy.

Everyone I love is healthy.

There’s a roof over my head.

I don’t worry about where my next meal will come from.

I have interesting and accomplished friends.

For years I got paid to do something I enjoyed and can now pursue whatever interests me.

I live in a state where it’s perpetual summer.

I am a citizen of a country where everyone is free.

You might call me blessed but the coolest thing of all as we approach Thanksgiving is that Walmart, Kmart, Macy’s, Old Navy, Target, J.C. Penney, Sears, Best Buy, OfficeMax, Staples, Michaels, Toys "R" Us, Kohl's, Dollar General and Dick's Sporting Goods will be open for all or part of the day so I’m going to get on the Internet right now and read all about their special sales so I’ll know which stores to visit first and what aisle to head toward when I arrive.

My cup runneth over.

See you there.

A news flash from Dallas

If someone told my father, Bud Dryden, news he didn’t want to hear, he simply ignored the messenger and continued what he was doing.

I saw it myself on November 22, 1963. I had just turned 12 and was home from school with the mumps.

Dad, who ran a general store in the tiny town of Auxvasse, Missouri, had come home for lunch that day. He and my mother were eating at the kitchen table. I was in the next room, watching television, when Walter Cronkite broke into the programming to announce John F. Kennedy had been shot.

My parents were rabid Democrats. My mother, now 100, still is. They were married in June, 1933, at the height of the Great Depression, a few months after FDR took office. They credited FDR and the Democrats with nothing less than saving America and giving them a chance to make something of themselves. Needless to say, Bud and Ruby Dryden loved Kennedy, the young Democratic president. The night of his election, they held a viewing party and invited friends over to watch the returns. It was the only time I ever remember them hosting a gathering for anyone other than family.

I ran into the kitchen. “Walter Cronkite says the president has been shot.”

My mother clasped both hands over her mouth.

“You didn’t hear that,” my father said dismissively, as if I’d announced space aliens had landed in uptown Auxvasse.

My mother was as horrified by my father’s reaction as she was by the news. “Bud,” she said slowly, like a mother trying to reason with an out-of-sorts child. “It has to be true. Why would the boy make that up?”

“I have no idea,” he responded, spearing another pork chop.

He finished his meal and went back to the store.

Funny what one does and doesn’t remember about the biggest events of one's lifetime. I’m almost sure mom and I watched TV the rest of the afternoon. I’m almost certain she called him once it was official to tell him the president had died. I don’t remember for sure but I'll never forget how my father reacted to that awful news from Dallas.

I wish I could have sat down with him as an adult and asked him about it but I never got the opportunity He died a little more than two years later.

I've spent 50 years trying to figure it out and I suppose I never will but I do, in a strange way, understand.

People who should shut their stupid mouths and go away

Wouldn’t it be great if the following people would shut up and go away once and for all?

Sarah Palin: The latest declaration from Palin, who is desperate to stay in the news so she can appear relevant and keep raking in personal appearance fees, is that Pope Francis is too liberal for her tastes. This bitch isn’t even Catholic. STFU please.

Al Sharpton: His career is based on accusing individuals and the justice system of racism when, in fact, he’s a racist. Put a sock on it.

Miley Cyrus: If she weren’t the daughter of Billy “Achy Breaky Heart” Ray she’d be asking, “Would you like fries with that?” at a Burger King drive-thru window but as a winner of the lucky sperm club she was handed her own TV show by Disney along with a recording contract. Instead of doing something good with what fell into her lap, she twerks and smokes dope on TV -- a great role model for girls who want to grow up to be drug-addicted whores. Just go away.

Tom Cruise: In a deposition he apparently compared the rigors he faces as a thespian (my favorite word) to the rigors American soldiers face in Afghanistan. I can’t believe even he is that stupid but if he really said it, I hope he runs into a group of marines in a dark alley who will set him straight.

Nancy Pelosi: Heavy doses of Botox supposedly make it impossible to smile or frown. Pelosi is proof it doesn’t make one’s mouth immovable because idiotic remarks keep escaping from hers. She should shut up. Nobody believes anything she says anyway.

The Kardashians: If I read one more headline about a tweet from one of those twits I’ll puke.

Dan Rather: Is apparently upset CBS didn’t ask him to return for its coverage of the 50^th anniversary of JFK’s assassination. Good. I was upset for 24 years when CBS allowed that asshole to sit in the anchor chair. More than anyone, Rather, who has said there’s nothing wrong with reporters interjecting their personal political views into news stories, has destroyed broadcast journalism as we knew it. After being fired for attempting to influence the outcome of the 2004 presidential election, he now reports the news on something called AXS-TV. It’s a safe bet tomdryden.com has more readers than ole Dan has viewers. Go away once and for all, OK?

Reason #5364 to hate big banks

Reason #5364 to hate big banks: Wells Fargo is now charging customers for making deposits.

That's not a misprint. 

The blood sucking parasites bankers at Wells Fargo, America’s fourth-largest bank, have started charging some small business customers 30 cents for every $100 in cash they deposit in excess of $5000 a month.

It had always been my impression that banks considered it a good thing when customers deposited money.

Silly me.

I discovered this today while reviewing the October statement for my business checking account. For the first (and only) time in all the years I’ve had that account, I made a large cash deposit in October – money I withdrew from my personal Wells Fargo account to cover a bill that needed to be paid through the business.

I noticed on the statement, in addition to the monthly $15 fee Wells Fargo charges to maintain the account, a debit for something noted as a “Cash Deposit Fee.”

I called Wells Fargo’s 800 number and reached a customer service representative named Dixie. She informed me the Cash Deposit Fee is a charge that is now imposed on certain small business accounts including, apparently, mine, in any given month in which cash deposits exceed $5000.

I said that was crazy. Since when does a bank charge customers for making deposits? 

Dixie took care not to agree with me – our call was being recorded for training purposes after all –- and diplomatically replied she understood why I might be upset. It occurred to me as she was talking that any bank callous enough to charge customers for depositing money probably wouldn’t hesitate to waterboard any employee its phone monitors overheard agreeing with a customer who questioned its fees.

I told Dixie I write a blog and was going to write about Wells Fargo’s new fee. She put me on hold and, a minute later, came back on the line to report she had been able to reverse not only the $15 monthly fee but the Cash Deposit Fee as well. She cautioned, however, that if I deposit more than $5000 cash in any given month, I’ll incur the fee again.

This afternoon I went to my local Wells Fargo branch and asked to speak with an officer. “What is the rationale for this Cash Deposit Fee?" I asked. The banker couldn't answer the question but did say she’s powerless to do anything about it and that Citibank is charging a similar fee.

The Cash Deposit Fee is but one more example of how small businesses are getting the shaft thanks to the Ponzi scheme that is the American financial system. The Federal Reserve is creating money out of thin air, and lending it at zero percent interest to the big banks – Wells Fargo, Citibank, Bank of America, Chase, etc. – ostensibly so they can make loans to small businesses and individuals. But the banks, rather than lending the money they’re getting for free, are using it instead to buy US Government debt which requires less effort and administrative staff.

Our government, in turn, uses the money it gets for selling bonds to banks to pay interest on older bonds owned by investors in China, Japan and other countries. Small businesses, if they can get any money at all, are having to borrow it from small banks which don’t have it to lend because they have to now pay much more for FDIC insurance than they did pre-2008 in order to protect customer deposits at the mega-banks which will almost certainly fail one of these days because they are running on Monopoly money and everyone in Washington knows it but nobody will stop it because if they did, the jig would be up -- the American economy would go down the toilet and the Chinese Renminbi would become the world’s currency.

Did someone say small businesses could use some help? Who cares?

Well I do. I’ve run one for 33 years. My father ran one. His father ran one. Small business – not big business -- is the engine that powers America’s economy.

A small business that handles cash in its daily operations, such as a restaurant, supermarket or dry cleaner, is already operating on razor-thin margins. And how does Wells Fargo help that business?

By charging it for depositing money, the vast majority of which is already earmarked to pay vendors, employees, employee benefits, rent, utilities and, of course, income taxes.

I pointed out to the bank officer that I’ve banked with what is now Wells Fargo for 30 years. I opened an account at First Union in 1983. First Union became First Fidelity which became something I’ve forgotten which became Wachovia which is now Wells Fargo. I also happen to have a lot of cash – the proceeds from the sale of a house  – in the bank right now.

I told my Wells Fargo banker that as someone who believes in small business, I’m going to take every penny of it out within the next week. And I am. As soon as I can find a local bank that doesn’t charge for deposits of any type, I’m moving my money there.

And when I do? 

Wells Fargo can kiss my assets goodbye.

Not that they give a shit but if enough small business owners closed their accounts, maybe -- just maybe -- they would.

Great songs from old TV commercials

Yesterday the devil dropped a quarter into the Jukebox Inside My Head and a random song started playing.

Sometimes my jukebox plays classic rock. Other times it plays theme songs from 40-year-old TV shows. This time it played a song from one of my favorite musical genres – jingles from old TV commercials. Specifically:

            Never borrow money needlessly,

            Just when you must.

            Then borrow from the oldest company,

            From folks you trust.

Do you know the next line?

If you aren’t old enough to remember where you were on November 22, 1963, you don’t. But if you do recall where you were, and if you also watched The Honeymooners, which was sponsored by this company, it probably rolled right off your tongue:

Borrow con-fid-ent-ly

From H.F.C.

Up until the late ‘80s or early ‘90s, commercials were often comprised almost entirely of music – songs with catchy lyrics advertisers spent massive amounts of money to have written, orchestrated and performed.

I can’t think of a single all-musical commercial that's running these days -- yet one more example of the ways we are evolving into a completely visually-oriented society. People watch TV, they don’t listen to it. Listening to the lyrics of a commercial requires connecting the dots – something that’s hard to do while watching TV, texting, cruising the Internet and playing video games simultaneously.

Here are five of what I consider the best classic commercials that feature songs readers “of a certain age” are likely to remember. You may not remember your children’s middle names or the maiden name of your first wife but you’ll remember these. 

United Airlines

This commercial, from the mid 1970s, features my favorite iteration of the song used in United’s long-running “friendly skies” campaign. The lyrics are great. And the upbeat, carefully orchestrated music, which starts off simply and becomes more complex as the commercial unfolds, is extraordinary. This is American – I mean, United -- advertising at its best.

Chevrolet

This song helped make Chevy America’s #1 car brand during the fifties and sixties. Though dozens of versions were produced, the most famous rendition was the one Dinah Shore always sang at the end of her show. A pop quiz question before you watch the commercial: What did Ms. Shore do when she finished the song?

(a) Swung an imaginary golf club
(b) Tugged at her earlobe
(c) Threw a kiss
(d) Bit the head off a bat

Burger King

This jingle, from the mid '70s, gave Burger King what we ad people call a “USP” – Unique Selling Proposition. The USP, in this case, is that Burger King, unlike that other rigid fast food chain, will happily make your burger to order. If you’ve already started humming “Have it Your Way,” you’re wrong. This spot features an even catchier song you probably haven’t thought about for years. But once you hear it again you will be singing it over and over until your head explodes. Brilliant. But not brilliant enough to make Burger King's made-to-order flame-broiled Whopper taste better than an assembly-line made Big Mac. 

Country Cornflakes 

Introduced in the early sixties, Country Cornflakes had a catchy song but failed to catch on with the public and disappeared from shelves. Perhaps it's because they were made with rice. Fifty years later the song hasn’t disappeared – at least from the Jukebox Inside My Head. 

Movie concession stand 

OK, this song wasn’t written for a TV commercial. It was for a trailer that ran before the feature presentation at thousands of movie theaters across the country, including the Liberty Theater in Mexico, Mo. (RIP). I still half expect to hear it every time the lights go down at my local theater.

What commercial songs are playing on the Jukebox Inside Your Head?

Let me know. It’ll be payback for these five songs I’ve implanted in your brain that you won’t be able to stop singing for days to come.  

A poster that couldn't be published today

This is a vintage poster from my collection that is up for auction on eBay right now. Here’s the description that accompanies the listing:

Promoting the Second Liberty Loan of 1917, this iconic poster features a grandmotherly type who is entreating citizens to buy bonds to help finance America’s participation in World War I.

If this poster was to be published today, the Huffington Post would run an article labeling it sexist, exclusionary and, quite possibly, racist. Thousands of readers would post snippy anonymous comments underneath the article, questioning not only the poster's headline but the need to raise public money for anything other than the social causes they personally champion.  

Women’s rights organizations would send spokeswomen onto cable TV news shows to remind viewers that women serve in the military in addition to “America’s sons” who are featured in the headline. One of them would get in a shouting match with Ann Coulter on the Fox News Network, generating a clip that would dominate the news cycle for the next 24 hours. Gloria Allred would hold a press conference in which she tried to associate herself with the controversy. 

Members of the Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues would demand hearings in which the artist who drew the poster, the copywriter who wrote it, the printer who printed it, the paper merchant who supplied the paper, the president of the mill that produced the paper, the tree farmer who provided the trees whose wood fibers were used to make the paper, as well as the bureaucrat in the Treasury Department who approved the layout in the first place, would be summoned to testify. The reputations of all would be destroyed and they would lose their jobs. 

The U.S. Senate would introduce a bill demanding that the entire print run be recalled and shredded. Republican members of the House of Representatives would insist that the House’s version of the bill include legislation repealing the Affordable Health Care Act. President Obama would go on the road, holding town meetings at which he defended his signature accomplishment, questioning the sanity of those who oppose it.

In the meantime nobody would buy War Bonds, the country would run out of money to finance the war effort, and our foe would overtake us. 

A three-quarter inch piece of paper is missing from the margin just above the “W” in “Women” and there are a few light surface scratches but otherwise this poster, which is linen-backed, is perfect. Artist: R.H. Porteous. Size: 20 1/4” x 30.”

America's worst-named team mascot

Truman, the Tiger, in front of the columns
on the campus of the University of Missouri - Columbia.

Life is unpredictable, but some things you can count on.

Every morning the sun will rise in the east.

Every two or three years Microsoft will introduce a new version of Windows.

And year after year, the Missouri Tigers football team will break the hearts of its long-suffering fans.

As they did again last night.

Mizzou, my alma mater, which has a long and distinguished history of slaying giants then losing the little games everyone expects them to win easily, last year joined the Southeastern Conference, which many consider the toughest in the nation. The Tigers were off to their best start since 1960, winning their first seven games, a feat that propelled them to the top of the SEC East and landed them on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

Against their better judgment, fans got their hopes up, thinking that this time things might turn out differently – Mizzou might actually have a shot at the BCS national championship or, at the very least, finishing near the top of the heap.

But the Tigers lost last night to South Carolina when a field goal attempt during the second overtime bounced off the goalpost.

I contend the reason Mizzou consistently fails to rise to the top has nothing to do with shortcomings on the parts of its team members or coaches. It has everything to do with the name of its mascot, the most inappropriately-named mascot in college sports, a name that’s an affront to what a university should stand for – education. Specifically, educating students to respect and revere greatness.

Missouri has had, for decades, a Tiger mascot – a student dressed up in a tiger suit who runs around the stadium, whipping fans into a frenzy. In the early '80s, the mascot started behaving lewdly, taking his tail from between his legs and stroking it, as if masturbating, whenever Mizzou scored.

The University, which wanted to project a family-friendly image, in 1984 decided to introduce a new, improved mascot, a happier, more upbeat, PG-rated Tiger, and held a contest in which students were invited to submit names. The name the committee selected? Truman, the last name of Missouri’s most famous native son, who also happens to be – and this isn’t just my opinion, many historians agree – one of greatest presidents this country has ever had.

Of all the presidents who followed Washington, few, if any, had to make decisions as tough as Truman did. Among other decisions for which he is remembered, Truman made the gut-wrenching decision to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that brought WWII to an end. The war in Europe was over at that point, but Japan, even though it was clear there was no way it was going to win, had vowed its soldiers were prepared to fight hand-to-hand combat with our troops in the event America invaded, which it was going to have to do in order to vanquish the lunatic military regime that ruled the country. Truman, who hadn’t even known of the bomb's existence when he had become president a few months earlier following FDR’s death, made that decision on his own.

While some effete college professors like to claim Truman was an uneducated Missouri rube who dropped the bomb to extract revenge and make himself look good, millions of soldiers, sailors and airmen who were stationed in the Pacific and knew they were about to be sent to almost certain deaths thanked God for him every night, and those who are still among us still do.

And how does the state of Missouri honor its most famous son?

By naming a fuzzy mascot after him whose job is to ride into the stadium on a fire struck and run around being cute, urging fans to scream MIZ-ZOU.

Imagine the Universities of Virginia, Illinois, Kansas or Massachusetts naming their mascots, respectively, Washington, Lincoln, Eisenhower or Kennedy after native sons who became presidents. For that matter, imagine the University of Georgia naming its bulldog “Carter” after Georgia’s only president, the worst of modern times. Unthinkable?

Not to Missouri. Fans think Truman the Tiger is adorable; state leaders and university administrators fail to see they aren’t honoring but making a mockery of one of the greatest men in American history.  

And somewhere up in the skies high above Memorial Stadium in Columbia, Missouri, someone is pissed and has vowed not to let the Tigers go all the way to the top until the University changes the name of its mascot to something appropriate. 

And until that happens, some things will remain predictable.

The Mississippi and Missouri Rivers will, every so often, overflow their banks.

There will be a heat wave next summer.

And the Missouri Tigers football team will never amount to a pile of what Harry Truman liked to call “hooey.”

Baby what a big surprise

The first known photograph of President Dryden, who entered politics after winning

gold medals in every sport at the 2036 Olympics and discovering a cure for cancer. 

I am in a good mood.

You are probably thinking it’s because we finally sold our Connecticut house and moved to Florida full-time. And that, I have to admit, accounts for a small percentage of it.

But the real reason I’m walking around higher than Jack Nicholson is something I’ve been chomping at the bit to write about but couldn’t until my son and daughter-in-law gave me the green light: I’m gonna be a grandpa.

Yeah, baby. 

My wife and I found out Labor Day weekend when our son, Ben, and daughter-in-law, Heidi, came to visit us in Connecticut.

The evening they arrived I told them they should help themselves to some of the 4,000 (give or take 1,000) picture frames that were stacked in boxes on the breakfast room table. “You two will never have to buy another frame,” I said.

Ben went into the room, picked up a frame and inserted something into it. “Here’s a picture for you,” he said, handing us a sonogram.

I was speechless. The news was so joyous, so unexpected, that my mouth spread into a grin so wide it was impossible to form words.

“Are you OK with being grandparents?” Heidi asked anxiously.

“God, yes!” we replied.

And we are.

This past summer in the produce aisle at the supermarket I encountered a young mother pushing a cart with a red-headed baby who looked to be about two – a little girl so cute she stopped me in my tracks. “She’s beautiful,” I told the woman. “Our son had red hair when he was little. Still does, in fact. I’d love to have a granddaughter who looks just like that someday.”

“Thank you,” she said politely.

I encountered them again in the cereal aisle and said pretty much the same thing.

When I got behind them in the checkout line and said it again the woman looked at me like she was ready to call 9-1-1 and report a stalker.

“I never said this before but I, uh, think I’d sort of like being a, uh, you know, grandpa,” I told my wife when I got home.  

We hosted a rehearsal dinner when Ben and Heidi got married this past January. I created a slide show containing dozens of pictures of both of them, from their babyhoods to the present. Heidi’s family sent lots of snapshots to choose from.

I fell head over heels with photos of her as a little girl. She was adorable -- dark brown eyes, chestnut hair and, most endearing of all, in every single picture, an enormous smile that radiated happiness.

I decided then and there that if I ever have a granddaughter who looks like that I’ll be the luckiest grandpa on earth.

On the other hand, a red-headed blue-eyed boy who looks like his daddy would be nice. We’ve had a lot of fun at our “ginger’s” expense over the years but we marvel over Ben’s hair which brings a smile to our faces every single time we see him.

So whether the baby turns out to be a brown eyed girl with red hair… a blue-eyed boy with chestnut hair … or a purple-eyed baby with green hair … the one thing for certain is this: I’m going to be the most insufferably obnoxious grandpa ever.

Get used to it.

Never underestimate the intelligence of the American public

A new poll, released this morning, finds that 13 percent of Americans say they approve of the job Congress is doing. The same poll also reveals that:

• 23 percent believe the Civil War was fought between the SEC and Big 10
• 31 percent think the FDA should reclassify boogers as organic food
• 18 percent believe the actors they see on television reside inside their TV sets
• 27 percent would approve if Bruce Jenner’s face were to replace George Washington's on Mt. Rushmore
• 42 percent believe in the Tooth Fairy 
• 15 percent are convinced they were born on another planet and sent to earth as punishment
• 21 percent believe that when a Wall Street analyst recommends a stock they should buy it
• 26 percent approve of a barren wife giving her husband a slave for purposes of procreation
• 34 percent believe Dancing Bear on Captain Kangaroo was real
• 13 percent rate ABBA’s Fernando as the "best song ever"

Big brother and my white Bentley convertible

One day last summer I parked next to a white Bentley convertible at the supermarket. All the way home I fantasized about what it would be like to own that incredible machine. That night I visited Bentley’s web site to find out how much I’d have to cough up to buy one just like it. (The answer: $280,000. That’s a tad – about $255,000 – more than I was planning to spend on my next car.)

Two weeks later I received in the mail a lavish package from Bentley, sent from England, inviting me to experience the “very latest in V8 exhilaration” – a 4.0 litre twin turbo Bentley.”

Coincidence? No way. I didn’t enter my name or address on the web site. And it’s not like I’m on Bentley’s list of prior customers. I have never received any mail from Bentley before. I have never set foot in a Bentley showroom. 

All I can conclude is that Bentley noted my URL was visiting its web site … matched that URL to my service provider (Cablevision) …  which then provided Bentley with my name and address. When Bentley saw I lived in Wilton, Conn., the company sent me the mailing under the mistaken impression I might be in the market for one of its swanky cars. If I had been logged on from, say, Appalachia, I doubt I would have received that mailing.

I may be wrong about this. If so, I apologize to Bentley. But I don’t think I am. I ran a direct marketing agency; I am aware of what’s possible and what isn’t. The odds of receiving that piece out of the blue so shortly after I visited the website are extremely slim.

Whatever the case, it pissed me off that Bentley invaded my privacy.

Those of you who are my Facebook friends may have seen my post Monday in which I ranted about privacy invasion by a product Bentley owners would never buy because their cooks make them from scratch rather than with a mix – Betty Crocker Gratin potatoes. I bought two packages at my local supermarket Sunday with my Citibank credit card. (Hey, I couldn’t resist – it was “Buy One, Get One Free” and they go great with the pork chops I was planning to grill.) 

The next day, as I was visiting eBay.com, up popped an ad for Betty Crocker Au Gratin potatoes, offering me a coupon good for 50 cents off two more packages. 

Publix, where I purchased the potatoes, isn’t one of those supermarket chains that requires shoppers to present an ID card in order to take advantage of savings. That leads me to the conclusion that the bank is the culprit here because the coupon wasn’t good only at Publix – it was good at any retailer that sells Betty Crocker potatoes. If Publix had been a participant, it would have insisted the coupon be good only at its stores.

But Publix, who doesn’t know me from Adam, somehow let the bank that issued my card know what I bought. Because I pay my monthly bill online, the bank already knows my URL and transmitted my purchase data to General Mills, which owns the Betty Crocker brand. Betty in her infinite wisdom decided I needed to stock up with more potatoes.

If I had ever visited Betty Crocker.com … or had been searching the web for au gratin potato recipes … I wouldn’t have minded seeing that pop-up ad. We all have received ads related to products and services we have researched or read about online … and that’s OK. Someone has to pay for the Internet. Might at well be advertisers.

And maybe – just maybe – it was a coincidence, but I’m not convinced it was. What I resent in Betty’s case is that that my personal financial records were compromised so General Mills could sell more dehydrated potatoes with packets of hydrogenated cheese flakes.

I’m a 61-year-old man. I have come to expect pop-up ads for erectile dysfunction pills, Buicks and other stuff guys my age buy. But Betty Crocker Au Gratin Potatoes? I don’t want to hear from them if they’ve obtained my contact information through what should be a private record of a financial transaction.

Data obtained through digital technology can be used in beneficial ways. I absolutely want Google, Yahoo, et al to tell the government the names and addresses of people who are researching how to build homemade bombs or fly 767s into buildings. If someone buys plastic explosives or a first-class one-way ticket from Saudi Arabia to New York using a credit card, I think it’s great if the bank that issued the card informs someone in authority about it.

I just wish marketers would use some common sense and discretion and not make the rest of us feel like we’re being watched every minute.

So, if anyone from Bentley is reading this, be advised that I was planning on buying a new Bentley convertible until I got your mailing. But it spooked me out. I’m going to buy a Rolls instead.

As for you, Betty Crocker, you should change your brand’s advertising jingle from, “You Sweet Talker, Betty Crocker” to “You’re a Stalker, Betty Crocker.” Because you are.

Note: If anyone from Bentley Motor Cars, Publix, Citibank or General Mills reads this blog and has an explanation other than what I’ve surmised, I’ll be happy to post your response.