Here’s the amazing part — I kind of enjoyed Akron where I’ve been many times before. But this time, without children or a care in the world, it was perfectly relaxing. I even made some local food pit stops at The Peanut Shoppe (note the spelling to indicate its sophistication) and Mary Coyle’s Ice Cream and Italian Food where we enjoyed a Hot Tin Roof Sundae. My wife has been eating them since she was a child and I can see why. It was delicious with vanilla ice cream, hot fudge and Spanish peanuts. It really had the whole sweet/salty thing going on.

For a few days, we meandered around Akron, going to antique stores and stuffing our faces with the local fare. By late afternoon, we were lolling around the near-empty pool. Did I mention that everything is near empty in Akron, especially compared to New York? I know it sounds insane but I love shopping for clothes there, swanning through deserted mall department stores, carrying 15 items or more into empty fitting rooms without anyone getting in my face or handing me a giant piece of plastic with the number of items I was trying on. I found the trust did wonders for my shopping libido. I even bought a new car there because it was so much more pleasant than dealing with pushy New York salesmen.

Anyway, we soon were off for the major attraction — the Amish and they did not disappoint. The weather was perfect and the Amish cooperated, looking picture perfect in their horse and buggies, straw hats and bonnets. I felt like I was on the set of that 1985 Harrison Ford movie “Witness.”

The highlight was three honest-to-goodness Amish auctions we attended where everything from cattle to frying pans to produce was auctioned off and everyone was buying. I’m not sure why the Amish conduct business this way (does it really require an auction to sell a homemade pie or some pepperoni bread?) but I suspect it has something to do with their shunning of electricity and of course television.

What should we tonight Mabel?

Well, we can’t watch “Entourage” so let’s go to the auction!!

I’m linking to my wife’s blog about the auction here so you can see the fabulous video she took with her iPhone. Also, here are some photos I took of our adventure. Enjoy!!

I told my mechanic, who had finally given up mouth to mouth resuscitation on the car, to donate it to whomever he cared to with two exceptions — I refused to donate to the company with that chubby-cheeked kid as their mascot, or that company with that infuriating jingle (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, consider yourself lucky.)

My car was so old all I got was a $500 donation. C’est la vie.

Then about a week later, my wife got a call on her cell phone. Seems we had left an “alternate side of the street parking” sign in the car (you know: “if you want to move this car, dial xxxx”), and some guy with a heavy Caribbean accent had found it.

“Hey Miss,” he said, “I’m here at an auction in New Jersey and your car is here. Can you tell me anything about this car?”

“Yeah, don’t buy it. The engine doesn’t work.”

Turns out that the charities involved in this whole car donation industry donate the car to an auction house who sell the car, and the charity gets a piece of the action. At the auction, interested parties are not even allowed to turn the car on. You buy “as is.” Of course, if you turned the key in my old car, nothing would’ve happened.

I called the guy back to see how much my car sold for and he said he’d call me back but never did. I just hope whoever bought it didn’t pay too much. The charity hopes otherwise.

The joke (which my wife knows all too well since she was with me when I purchased said coat) is that this coat cost all of $99 at Costco. I was literally on line at the checkout when I noticed a rack of coats. One looked halfway decent on me so I bought it. That’s the beauty of Costco. You never know what you’re going to find there — a five-pound can of tuna or a “cashmere” coat.

I was especially proud of this coat because it said something about “cashmere” on the label. After I bragged to someone for the 1,000th time about what a good deal I had gotten — a cashmere coat for $99 — my wife finally set me straight. “The label says ‘10 percent recycled cashmink,’” she said.

“So,” I said, “That’s even better than cashmere. It’s cashmink!!”

“That,” she said cooly, “is neither cashmere nor mink — it’s like polyester.”

Alas, she was right.

Fast forward to my current vacation in and around Akron, Ohio. (Don’t ask) Today we went to a tag sale where I spotted another cashmere coat (check out the label above). Not only was it my material of choice, it fit me perfectly. But the best part was the price — $12, reduced by 50 percent to all of $6. The label claims to be some type of cashmere “woven in Italy.” I don’t care if it is or not — I’ve already nicknamed it “The Executive II.”

I think he’s right but it doesn’t matter what I think since the City Council and Mayor Bloomberg feel otherwise. They basically told Malkin that New York’s all about money and commerce and has always been about money and commerce and we don’t care about your icon.

In my eyes, what this battle is really about is ugliness. The new building will ultimately be judged not by how close it is to the Empire State but how its own image affects the skyline of New York. The fact is that New York has a bunch of giant buildings that I wish could be torn down because they do affect the skyline in the worst way possible — they’re butt ugly.

The one that immediately comes to mind is the Verizon building on the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge. The Bridge itself is glorious but as you approach Manhattan and look to your right (uptown), you see this giant white windowless building with the name Verizon in red across the top. Ugh.

Listen, Verizon, you’re not doing yourself any favors by broadcasting to one and all that this eyesore is your headquarters. The sight of it alone makes me want to throw my Verizon-based cell phone out the window….except it belongs to my employer, not me.

The architectural sketches of the new building are not inspiring (see rendering). It’s not as horrible as Verizon (what could be?) but it’s also not as elegant as the Empire State. We’ll probably have something in the middle and, while some of us won’t like it, it is true that New York City has always and forever will be about bucks and commerce.

It is held at the South Street Seaport. This past weekend (sorry you missed this one but there will be more), there was a special tomato and ice cream tasting going on. Not tomato ice cream, mind you. They were separate tastings in case you get the wrong idea.

I opted for the ice cream, not the tomatoes with some regret. Those tomatoes looked awfully good.

Harold was full of bonhomie. It was impossible to be angry or depressed around Harold. He’d pull you right out of it with his booming voice and big smile.

We logged a lot of hours on the road together and my favorite Harold story happened in Bentonville, Arkansas. Harold was off doing something and I killed some time by wandering into the Walmart Museum in the town square. While I was there, I bought a little pocket knife in the shape of a Walmart truck.

I went back to our car (and by the way, Harold or H, as he was known, always insisted his producers book him “a deep breather” aka a Caddy or a Lincoln Town car), and showed Harold this little knife.

“Why didn’t you buy me one?” he demanded to know.

“I had no idea you’d want one,” I said.

“Paul, let me tell you one of my rules,” he said, “If it look good, get TWO!!”

I always laugh about that but, over the years, I’ve realized how right Harold was. Don’t deprive yourself — live like Harold. If it look good, get two. Yes, sir.

Of course, he did sometimes get carried away. He had, er, 9 cars!!

God bless you, Harold, you were one of a kind!

I never understand some of my supposedly free-thinking, liberal Park Sloper neighbors who take one look at a friendly guy like this, and whisper, “Mormons,” like they’ve seen the devil himself. What happened to all that supposed tolerance?

Or is it only reserved for those who agree with you?

[Editors note: One of the most popular articles in The NY Times last week was entitled "But Will It Make You Happy." It was about middle-class people who give up their material goods and discover, voila!, they are happier without televisions and cars and microwave ovens. You see a lot of these types of articles but what you never read are the opposite articles about let's say working-class people who, in an experiment, are given new cars, new televisions, new microwave ovens. Would they be happier....or not? What might an article like that look like? Hmmmm....]

A four-story walk-up with intermittent heat. A run-down old car whose muffler was busted. Eating off paper plates every night.

She had all of that and yet Delores Jackson was not happy. She was making only $20,000 a year as a crossing guard and she was tired of being on the work and have no money treadmill.

So one day she stepped off.

Inspired by nearly every television reality series she watched, Delores one day decided she was going to live like a TV star. She was tired of being a crossing guard. Besides, she wondered, would all those material things really make her happy?

She tried out for a new reality show that offered to buy her everything she’d always wanted….just to see what would happen. Delores was able to go out and buy the works — an iPhone, an Apple laptop, a 56 inch HD television. She began buying and leasing with abandon. She moved her family into a high-rise building on the upper East Side, and leased a brand new BMW. It was an orgy of materialism, and when it was done, she was satiated. But was she happy, the producers of this show wanted to know?

“Am I happy?” Delores said. “What kind of dumb question is that? Of course I’m happy. I’ve got everything I’ve ever wanted or saw on television. When I come home from work now, my commute is shorter, I have heat in the winter and central AC in the summer. After my husband picks up our kids in our new BMW, we all settle down and watch hour upon hour of television. We order out from the best restaurants in our upper East Side neighborhood. I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life.”

“But you know,” said the host of this new show, “A lot of middle class and upper middle class people claim that giving up material things made them happier, made their lives simple and meaningful.”

Delores looked at the host and started laughing, “You’re fooling with me, right? Where’s the hidden camera? You know what they say, ‘Nothing feels so good as when it’s new.’ If I could, I’d throw out all my dirty clothes each week and buy new stuff instead of doing the laundry.

“Anybody who says they are happier when they have nothing doesn’t know what really having nothing means.”

All I can say is, it’s a wonder it doesn’t happen more often given the state of flying these days. Basically, a lot of passengers ignore the flight attendants and they in return pretty much ignore a lot of passenger requests. Displays of rude behavior are there on both sides. I was recently in a plane and we were about to take off when the standard announcement was made about turning off cell phones etc.

A woman nearby flat out refused to do it even after being confronted by a flight attendant. “I’m speaking to my mother,” she said.

Well la di da, I thought to myself, who cares? The flight attendant finally told the woman that air marshalls would have a few choice words with her upon landing and the woman still did not stop her call. Incredible. I was rooting for her to get arrested. But, alas, she did not.

I think part of the tension on planes is that the airlines treat us like such children, explaining how to buckle a seat belt for instance. Is there anyone on this earth who does not know how to buckle a seat belt? And if so, why do all of us have to hear those instructions because of one uninformed person?

I also grind my teeth when I’m instructed to turn off my Kindle even though the wireless feature is off. “You still have to turn it off sir,” they said. But why? The Kindle is not transmitting anything and btw neither are iPods. Why can’t we use them upon takeoffs and landings. It’s dumb rules like that that make me want to pull a Steven Slater except I’d like to stay on the plane and send those whom I perceive as the offending parties down on that chute.

Now what to do? I just joined Zipcar and Mint and I’m thinking of joining Hertz Connect as well. I’ve been crunching the numbers and trying to decide if it’s really worth it for me to buy a used car or lease a new car or just bite the bullet and go with one of these drive-by-the-day alternatives.

The thing is, I always commute by subway, I never drive my car during the week, I don’t have a weekend home, and basically use the car for errands in my Brooklyn neighborhood. There is a lot of upside for me with Zipcar or one of these other companies. Zipcar pays for gas and insurance and an EZ Pass comes with virtually every car. I get a new car every time I drive and don’t have to worry about maintenance or alternate side of the street parking. The cost of using Zipcar for a year — by my estimation — is roughly equivalent to what I would pay for insurance, gas and maintenance if I had my own car. That’s a wash. So what I save is cost of the car.

It sounds pretty good so what’s the down side? Well, I’ve had my own car for 30 plus years so it’s a tough thing to give up. I will no longer have the convenience of jumping in my car whenever I feel like it. On the other hand, it will be a relief not to worry about those little noises I hear coming from the engine. (I actually do not worry much about alternate side of the street parking. It’s in my blood. Been doing it all my life.)

I think I’m going to try this wild new experiment of not having a car. I can tell already that I’ll get more exercise by biking and walking everywhere.  And there are Zipcar and Mint locations near my home and where I work. Here we go….

There was a great television show on for a while last year called “Life on Mars” which portrayed the bad old days in NYC back in the 1970s. I loved watching the show (a ratings flop) because I remember the bad old days of the 1970s, and I gotta tell you that the city is so much more civilized now than back then when crime was rampant, buildings were abandoned, and hookers walked many a corner (okay so it wasn’t all bad….kidding.) The film “Taxi Driver” with Robert DeNiro as a resident psycho sums up the era nicely.

Anyway, a friend of mine was mugged exactly one week ago. It was a mugging so brutal and so random that the reaction of a lot of people was, “Boy that sounds like something out of the 1970s.” Indeed. I’m writing about it to warn anyone who may be coming out of the subway stop at 23rd Street and Broadway because, according to the cops, the same type of assault happened one week before my friend was brutalized.

He was coming home on a Sunday night and it was 12:30 a.m., not late at all for this neighborhood in the middle of Manhattan. He got out of the train, headed up the stairs when, bam, he doesn’t really remember anything else. But thanks to surveillance cameras, he knows that the moment he headed up the stairs, a thug behind him motioned to another thug who must have been hiding at the top of the stairs. The plan was in effect — one guy grabbed by friend around the neck while the other one smashed his face over and over with his bare hands. There was a witness which is why the thugs ran off rather quickly. All they got for their trouble was a bad cell phone (not a smart phone) and a backpack filled with newspapers.

My friend got 25 stitches in his face, a chipped tooth and a bad case of the nerves. It’s hard to feel secure after a thing like this. It’s easy in this day and age to get lulled into a false sense of security in NYC what with the crime rate down and all but bad things do happen still. Yes, the murder rate is way down but there are still 500 souls who lose their lives each and every year.

Also be aware of what’s around you, and keep what Gavin de Becker calls “The Gift of Fear.” It’s a landmark book that basically tells people to trust their instincts. If the hairs stand up on the back of your neck, better listen. Do not shrug off what your instincts are telling you, no matter how politically incorrect they may be.

TWO UPDATES:

You can read my friend’s own account of what happened to him (and no, it isn’t me..it’s another producer from ‘48 Hours’) and there apparently has been an arrest in the case. Stay tuned for more on that….

It’s been a rough July. I’ve been on the road for most of the month, and when I was back in NYC, here’s what happened: a close relative had a heart attack (mild), I took another relative to the ER for fear she had deep vein thrombosis (she did not), my 13-year-old car died (though that may be temporary…the jury is in its 4th day of deliberation), and the other morning at 3 a.m., I got another call from another ER that another close friend had been mugged and had his face smashed in by two muggers while he was exiting the subway. Did I mention that I feel a summer cold coming on?

My only respite from all of this has been the two days I recently spent at Kripalu, the yoga retreat in the Berkshires. Kripalu is a terrific place. It’s a former Jesuit seminary that was converted long ago to an ashram run by Swami Kripalu. When the old swami was forced to resign for sleeping with scores of his cute followers, Kripalu became a non-profit yoga retreat that is open to everyone.

There is something special about the place. It oozes positive energy, healthy food, and a summertime that, except when I’m there, I can only imagine. There, I can hike in the beautiful countryside and go down to swim in the lake (photo) anytime. It’s lovely and peaceful and I can easily see how someone would want to chuck his or her job and move there, as some people do.

That is my tip for how to endure summer.

I can’t believe I even got on this plane. It had 7 seats: two behind the pilot, then the next four faced each other like the LIRR, then a single seat that faced the side of the plane. Behind that, we could see the bags that were held back by several black bands so they wouldn’t crash into the passengers upon landing.

But there is an upside. The great thing about small planes is that no one cares what you do. There are no annoying announcements about how to buckle a seat belt or how to find the exit that’s, duh, marked “exit.” Everyone on this plane used their cell phones the entire time. We were a beehive of folks texting and emailing and guess what? Nothing happened!!

Things were so laissez-faire aboard this plane that I could have pulled out a machete, hacked open a pineapple and offered a slice to the pilot whom I could touch. Did I forget to mention that I did not go through any sort of metal detector? I’m telling you, this was like flying in the ’60s in every respect except that no one actually lit a cigarette, not that anyone would have cared.

The end was spectacular for Colton, hijacking a plane in Indiana and flying all the way to the Bahamas where he crash-landed in a field of mangroves. Then, he stole a boat and escaped to another part of the Bahamas where an early morning chase ensued. Bahamian police, who did a great job, finally put the run to an end by shooting out the engines of Colt’s stolen speedboat so he could not escape. Can anyone say James Bond?

It’s been great to follow this story and I’ve been everywhere from the San Juan Islands to the Bahamas, and many places in between. Met a lot of very interesting people including writer Bob Friel who will put it all together in a forthcoming book. And the story of Colt, the boy who wanted to fly,  will all be an hour this fall on “48 Hours Mystery.”

I know it sounds glamorous being in the Bahamas but it was very tough work. Really. My legs have, without exaggeration, 30 or more bites from “no see ‘ums” and they itch like crazy. The only time I went in the water was a half hour before I left for the airport. I couldn’t bear to come all the way down here and not take a dip. Chasing a 19-year-old is hard for a 50-something year old but I’m not really complaining….it was fun.

Hmmmm….

I spent the better part of my youth summering at Orchard Beach because the Shorehaven Beach Club cost all of $90 a summer which my parents refused to pay. So it was off to Orchard Beach which btw, we nicknamed Horseshit Beach way back when.

We always met in Section 13 and went by bus, bike and even on foot which is pretty far (6 miles) from the Monroe Projects. Along the way, we burnt golf balls, prodded horseshoe crabs with sticks, and got into all sorts of mischief.

Orchard Beach never disappointed. It couldn’t because we were already disappointed we were headed there instead of Jones Beach. But it wasn’t such a bad place. I still remember hearing the Lovin’ Spoonful’s “Summer In the City” for the first time while baking there. It felt as though the song was written just for us.

It does have a nice crescent shape. I just never considered it “sizzling” or “the Riviera of New York City” as the Times article states.

To combat what I call “platform fatigue” — the nearly unbearable, slightly dizzying feeling one gets while standing on a subway platform that’s 4,000 degrees — I never head down those subway stairs in the morning without my own personal air conditioning system — a bottle of frozen water. I take that bottle full of ice and press it against my forehead and neck while waiting for that train to arrive. I don’t care that it looks a little weird. I know everyone is secretly jealous.

That’s what I did this morning but….bad news. No F trains were running and G trains were packed to the gills. I lasted about 15 minutes before heading upstairs to the air conditioned comfort of my car and drove in. Ah!!!! Now this is living.

I’ll probably pay $15 today for parking but you know what? It’s so worth it.

It’s a cool idea and a great way to see Williamsburg, people watch, and take a few photos like I did today. In case you don’t live here in NYC, Williamsburg has become one of the hottest neighborhoods in the city for young urban types. Enjoy!

I did finally convince her that, on sweltering days like this (when everyone in NYC has that look on their face like they just stepped in a huge pile of dog shit), it might be a good idea to have air conditioning in the bedroom. So we got one.

It’s lasted all of one week. Today, we’re returning it. I’m betting we’ll be the only ones returning an air conditioner on a day when it’s 96 and humid in NYC. Sort of like driving toward a hurricane.

But I can’t blame this one on my wife. Even I hate our new air conditioner which was supposed to be all environmental friendly and quiet. It’s not. Not even close. It is  more quiet when it’s on full blast but then the fan is kind of annoying.

I thought all my sweaty nights would be solved with this new air conditioner, especially since it came with its own remote but, as I soon learned, that remote is like have a full-time job while you sleep. The few nights I used the air conditioner, I was up every hour on the hour fiddling with that remote, changing the temperature, making the fan swing back and forth, stopping the fan from swinging back and forth, lowering the fan speed, increasing the fan speed, trying out the de-humidifier. Sheesh!

By daybreak, I was exhausted!!

So the new air conditioner is going back and I’ve come up with a new tactic for staying cool on nights like these. I’m sleeping in the guest room where there is an ancient air conditioner that, thankfully, does NOT have its own remote. You just turn it on, blast that cold air, pull up the covers and sleep the night away….ah……

Check out the promotional film by clicking here.

It’s not particularly frightening or disgusting, strange as that may sound. In fact, the rats are kind of entertaining and help pass the time. See the rat, see the rat ignore the train, see the rat resurface after the train passes. It’s a neat trick, and these rats are nothing if not survivors.

I’m used to them and so are a lot of other New Yorkers, judging from just one of the Times’ recent items in which readers refer to them as “urban wildlife” and speak of them in endearing terms.

The Times asked readers to send in their rat photos and here you can see them for yourself. The photo of the rat climbing a subway pole took me aback. Now that would even freak me out. I once came face to face with a rat heading my way on a subway platform. Guess who lost that game of chicken?

Armed with a bottle of water, a ridiculous white hat to keep the sun off my head, a press card and my Canon Rebel XTS, I managed to get onto the parade route to take these photos. It was a fun day. Enjoy!

It was real of course. This self-described “Disneyland of the East” lasted just four years — from 1960 to 1964 — before it was demolished so that Co-op City could be born. That was decidedly NOT an improvement for the Bronx. Freedomland may have lacked some thrills but it a big improvement over the cold, heartless development known as Co-op City.

This weekend is the 50th anniversary of the the park’s opening, and one of the men who helped build and maintain the park has written a book about the place and his experience called simply “Freedomland.” I borrowed the photo above which is from author Frank Adamo’s archive. I like this photo because this is how I remember it — small, homey and kind of corny. It was a family place in a much more innocent time.

(BTW, if you want to read a really great book about growing up in Co-op City, I recommend “The Bookmaker” by Michael J. Agovino.)