Tag Archives: Frank Terranella

Senior Citizen or Almost a Senior Citizen?

22 Tuesday Jul 2014

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senior citizenBy FRANK TERRANELLA

Last year I visited the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream factory in Vermont. They have a nice tour there that ends with ice cream, and so I went with my son and his father-in-law. I only bring this up because they had a senior citizen discount that kicked in at age 60. I thought that was an odd age to pick, but some restaurants like Denny’s and IHOP give senior status to anyone over the age of 55.

Last weekend I visited the Turtle Back Zoo in West Orange, New Jersey with my wife, my grandson and his parents. There was a $3 a ticket discount for seniors, but they defined senior as age 62 and over. I have also come across movie theaters where the senior discount doesn’t kick in until 65.

All this led me to think, why can’t everyone agree on the age at which one becomes a senior citizen?

I think this should start with the AARP. The RP of AARP stands for Retired Persons. As anyone over 50 knows, the AARP is second to none in finding people around their 50th birthday and asking them to sign up. I don’t think the NSA could find those of us on the right side of 50 as fast as the AARP does. But how many people are actually retired at age 50? I don’t know anyone. Perhaps in 1958 when the AARP was founded there may have been a sizable minority, but today the number must be a single digit percentage.

A few months ago, Gallup released the results of a poll that indicated that retirement age has been increasing over the last decade. The average retirement age is now 62 and the poll showed that those of us who are not retired do not expect to do so before age 66. Surprisingly, 11% of 18-to-29-year olds said that they expected to retire before they hit 55. The poll showed that this percentage dropped to 3% when they asked 30-to-49-year olds, and 1% when they asked people over 50.

So if we are not going to retire until somewhere between 62 and 66, why does the AARP open its membership at 50? Well I think that has more to do with the power that comes with larger numbers. If the AARP restricted its membership to “retired persons,” it would be a much, much smaller organization. And in fact, you will have to search very hard to find the words “retired persons” on the AARP website. They are just AARP now. They have pretty much disavowed any meaning in the letters.

Social Security allows people to retire at age 62, but Medicare does not kick in until age 65. So even the government can’t make up its mind when one becomes a senior citizen.

If the reason for senior citizen discounts is that seniors are living on fixed incomes, then perhaps we should set the senior age at the average retirement age of 62. That way, most of the people getting the discount will be retired.

But maybe the reason for senior discounts is not tied to income. After all, many seniors, particularly of the “Greatest Generation,” are quite well off in retirement. Maybe the reason for senior discounts is simply to court the business of this rapidly-growing demographic who have time and ability to spend.

Whatever the motivation, those of us in the 55-65 limbo area would certainly appreciate it if there was some consistency about the senior discount age.

The Magic of Babies. And a Baptism

07 Monday Jul 2014

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Frank Baptism

Family Gathering.

BY FRANK TERRANELLA

Family can surprise you sometimes. Just when you think that everyone is acting childish with their petty disputes and slights over nothing, they can come together and act like, well, a family!

This was brought home to me recently when my grandson, Bryce, was baptized. Members of the family who had not seen each other for years all showed up, and seemed to enjoy each other’s company. People who don’t talk to one another did. And I have to think that there is some magic in a baby‘s baptism.

Baptism is where a child is initiated into the family faith. The family gathers together for it, and celebrates the new family member. It’s sort of a Christian coming-out party. I think that every religion has an equivalent. The iconic image from “The Lion King,” with the child being held overhead, is of the same cloth.

Bryce seemed to enjoy all the attention and suffered the pouring of water over him with barely a peep. I think his only complaint was that he didn’t get his full bath. The boy loves his bath.Bryce (Frank) Bryce also loves being held, and there was a whole room full of family members eager to accommodate him.

Bryce had another baptism of sorts the day before. He attended his first Yankees game. I think there is a religious aspect of that as well.

So now Bryce is all baptized and seems to be enjoying life at nearly five months. He was all smiles at his baptism. And his grandfather is enjoying the healing effect a baby has on a family. It seems that the innocence of a child can bring out in people what Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature.” It’s a wonderful thing to see.

Corporations Cop Out on Kids

25 Wednesday Jun 2014

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June 25, 1938. FDR signs into law the Federal Labor Standards Act.

June 25, 1938. FDR signs into law the Federal Labor Standards Act.

BY FRANK TERRANELLA

Back in 1974 I was an unpaid intern at a newspaper. This was an academic internship arranged by my college and for which I received college credit. Although I certainly provided valuable services for the newspaper, the primary reason I was there was to learn about the newspaper industry and see if it was something I might want to do after college. I learned a lot and found I loved the work.

As it turned out, my internship led to my first post-college job because the managing editor of the newspaper where I applied for a job knew the managing editor at the paper where I had interned and the latter said some good things about me and I got the job.

Because of my positive experience with unpaid internships, I encouraged my children to do them as well. They both did several unpaid internships in college. But unlike me, their college internships did not lead to paid jobs. Instead, they led to more unpaid internships. And that’s when I found out that not only are the drugs different now from when I was in college, internships are too.

In the 21st century, American businesses have turned from being educational partners with universities to being exploiters of free student labor. Horror stories abound, particularly in the media industry, of young people forced to do menial tasks for free in the remote hope that having an internship on their resume will have some value to them. There’s no pretense of educational value other than learning how greedy and immoral American employers have become.

The last time corporate America was this greedy was during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Workers provided services for pennies an hour and were happy to do it. But many fair-minded people in Congress were upset by the unfair bargaining position of employers over employees and they reacted with the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). This landmark New Deal legislation set a minimum wage and also a maximum work week of 40 hours, after which a premium overtime wage was required.Corporate America accepted this new burden because there was a level playing field and all businesses employing U.S. workers had the same burden. In addition, many employers saw it as simply the right thing to do.

Over the years, some businesses have become greedier and have tried repeatedly to work around the minimum wage laws. They have exploited every loophole (such as unpaid internships) and in recent years have even tried to have the FLSA repealed. My daughter worked for over a year for a large multinational corporation as essentially an employee without pay. It was called an internship, but there was absolutely no educational value and no connection with any educational institution. Clearly she should have been paid at least the minimum wage.

Being on the right side of 50 gives you the ability to see trends over long time periods and the trends for employees are not good. Ever since Ronald Reagan broke the air traffic controller’s union in 1981, the balance of power has been flowing to employers. The minimum wage has stagnated and the number of unpaid interns has skyrocketed. Meanwhile corporate profits are at record highs.

It will take decades to reverse this trend, but there’s something we need to do right away. We need to pay people in their 20s a fair wage for valuable work done for a business. We need to ostracize businesses that steal from young people by asking them to work for free. We need to have state and federal labor departments that vigorously enforce the state and federal minimum wage laws. We need to stop looking the other way and pretending these internships are bona fide. It’s the least we can do as parents and as moral Americans.

Think Phoenix for Retirement

28 Wednesday May 2014

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frank and the cactusBY FRANK TERRANELLA

Several years ago, I saw a cartoon showing a man at the gates of hell. Satan is there in all his horned glory sitting behind a desk and before him is a man who has obviously just arrived. Sweat is pouring off the man’s brow as he wipes his brow with a concerned look on his face. Satan is speaking to the man. The cartoon’s caption reads: “Yes, but it’s a dry heat.”

On my recent trip to the Southwest desert I was able to experience this dry heat for three full weeks. And after all that time, I have to say that there’s something to this retort by residents of Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico when asked how they can stand triple digit temperatures for weeks at a time.

Of course, traveling in April and May, I did not get to experience 100-degree days. The hottest it got in Phoenix while I was there was 98, but a few degrees don’t matter too much when you’re baking in an oven. So what’s the difference between 98 degrees in Phoenix and 98 degrees in New York?

You can breathe in Phoenix. It’s as simple as that. Breathing on a hot August night in New York is like drinking a thick shake through a narrow straw. It takes effort. Breathing hot air in Arizona takes no effort at all.

The other advantage of low humidity is the fact that shade brings instant relief from the heat. I didn’t bring a thermometer too measure it, but I swear it felt like a 20-degree difference. The low humidity also means that due to radiational cooling, the temperature drops like rock as soon as the sun goes down. Our days began in the 50s and rapidly increased, but the mornings were always delightful. Likewise, the evenings were comfortable enough to sit outside and dine al fresco.

Having said all this, it is a fact that modern life would be unimaginable in Phoenix without air conditioning. The afternoon heat seems intense enough to bake bread. Air conditioning is not a convenience; it’s life support. The evidence of this is that in 1950, only 107,000 hardy souls lived in Phoenix. Once air conditioning became practical, the people came. By 1960 there were 440,000. As of 2012, there were 1.5 million.

And people are still coming. Why? One word — sunshine. We were in the Southwest for 20 days and had 19 days of sunshine. Those are pretty good odds. On average, Phoenix gets 296 days of sunshine every year and just 8 inches of rain. By contrast, New York averages 50 inches of rain. Even Los Angeles averages 15 inches of rain a year.

So if you want to wake up every day to sunshine, Phoenix is the place.

And in fact, thousands of Americans retire to Arizona every year. The famous retirement village Sun City is just outside Phoenix. Everywhere we went we met former New Yorkers who had retired to Arizona. I don’t think I would want to go that far, but if I could swing it, I certainly would love to spend my retirement winters there. Sure it’s hot, but it’s a dry heat!

Out West, Where the Weather is Vertical

02 Friday May 2014

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BY FRANK TERRANELLA

One of the prime benefits of travel is to experience the unfamiliar. For example, if you want to see what it would be like to drive on the left side of the road, you need to travel to a British Commonwealth country. And if you want to see the Aurora Borealis, you need to travel to the far North.

Living in the New York area, we are accustomed to little variations in altitude. No matter where you start from, you never experience more than about a thousand-foot variation in altitude within 50 miles of New York. Even traveling to the nearby Pocono or Catskill “mountains” does not significantly change things. These are mere foothills compared to what they have in Colorado. In fact, the entire city of Denver is at a higher altitude than any of the peaks in the Catskills or Poconos.

So since New Yorkers have no concept of altitude, we don’t think of weather depending on altitude. This was brought home to me recently while traveling in Northern Arizona. We were driving from the Grand Canyon to Zion National Park in Utah. As we started our drive, it was raining lightly. This was fine for several hours, but then we began to climb up towards Zion, and suddenly, as we crossed over 7,000 feet, we were in a ferocious snowstorm.

photo 2

This lasted only until we descended down to 5,000 feet, and then it was light rain again. We were seeing first-hand that weather is vertical. That’s why out West, the weather forecasts don’t simply say that such-and-such an area will have certain weather. They say that the weather will be X, but above 6,000 feet it will be Y, and above 7,000 feet it will be Z. And this is all in the same town! We just don’t have weather like that in the New York area. Our weather is horizontal, not vertical.

The next day, it was a beautiful sunny day as we began our drive in Zion National Park at an altitude of about 6,000 feet. We were on a short drive to a mountain lake. As the road began to climb, we noticed that the temperature was dropping. At 6,000 feet it was 55 degrees. By the time we got to 8,000 feet it was 34 degrees. But the biggest shock was that, in 30 minutes, the terrain went from a green springtime pasture to a snow-covered winter wonderland.

The road actually became impassable with snow, and we had to turn around and go back, or risk being stuck there. Yes, weather is vertical out West, and that’s a foreign mindset for many of us. But experiencing the foreign is why we travel. And it’s usually a lot of fun!

Rock Art in Sedona

30 Wednesday Apr 2014

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Sedona, Arizona.

Sedona, Arizona.

Our resident blogger, Frank Terranella, is on a road trip out West. Before he left, we asked that he send photos so that we could experience his experience vicariously. This one shows one of the rock formations in Sedona, Arizona.

“What intrigued me is the bird-like figure in the rock,” he wrote. “I have no idea who did this, or if anyone did it.”

A Courtroom Stop on Our Nationwide Trek

15 Tuesday Apr 2014

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Mockingbird pic

The courthouse in Monroeville, Alabama, which was recreated in “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

BY FRANK TERRANELLA

There are a lot of lawyer stories on television, and in movies. Most of them are not very flattering. I think of TV shows like “L.A. Law” and “The Good Wife.” Lawyers are often called upon to do the most unpleasant things for us. They sometimes have to act like monsters, so we don’t have to. It’s no wonder the public has such a poor perception of lawyers. And yet, the practice of law can be an honorable, even a noble, profession.

Exhibit A is a Southern lawyer with the unlikely name of Atticus Finch, the protagonist of Harper Lee’s book, “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Now, there is no nobler lawyer in American literature than Atticus Finch. His demeanor, intelligence and ethical values are what many lawyers aspire to, but seldom match.

Atticus doesn’t want his children to have guns and doesn’t have a gun in his house, but when a rabid dog needs to be put down, the police chief calls on “deadeye” Atticus to make the shot. He accepts payment from poor farmers in produce. He is known far and wide as a fair man. That reputation gets him appointed counsel for a client that no one else would represent – a poor black man in Depression-era Alabama, who is accused of raping a white girl.

If you’ve seen the marvelous 1962 movie starring Gregory Peck, no further explanation of the story is needed. If you haven’t, I envy you the thrill of meeting Atticus Finch for the first time.

A few years ago, my wife and I were touring the Southeast as part of our decade-long plan to visit every state in the nation. We learned that the courthouse in Monroeville, Alabama was the one that was recreated in Hollywood for the movie. That’s because Monroeville is the home, to this day, of Harper Lee. She grew up just a couple of blocks away.

As we headed South on I-65 from Montgomery on our way to New Orleans, we took a slight detour to visit the old Monroe County Courthouse. It’s now a museum, full of items that lawyers of Atticus Finch’s time would have used. The museum is nice, but the star attraction is the old courtroom itself. It looks exactly like the movie, since Henry Bumstead, the art director on the film, came there, and took pictures, and made drawings, so that he could reproduce it in Hollywood.

As you walk into the courtroom, you can just imagine yourself in a scene from the movie. Fortunately, it is possible to climb the stairs up to the balcony, where the less prominent citizens, including children, could watch the proceedings.

In the story, Jem and Scout (children of Atticus), and their friend Dill (who Harper Lee based on her childhood friend Truman Capote), sit on the floor of the balcony, dangling their legs through the wooden supports that make up the balcony railing. The accused’s family sits nearby, along with their minister. Pat at Mockingbird My wife and I were able to sit and get a Scout’s-eye view of the courtroom. It was a surprisingly moving experience.

But that’s the power of good storytelling.

And they do more than just have the setting for “To Kill a Mockingbird” in Monroeville. Every summer, they actually populate the courthouse with actors, and put on a play-version of the story. The audience gets to sit in the spectator portion of the courtroom, while the actors stage the trial. It’s the hottest ticket in Alabama.

In the story, Atticus puts on a splendid defense for his client, Tom Robinson, after which, with head held high, he packs up his briefcase and heads for the door. Tom Robinson’s family waits for Atticus to gather his things and stands in silence while he walks to the exit. In a show of the depth of the respect for Atticus in the community, the minister prods the Finch children to, “Stand up. Your father’s passing.”

Can you imagine a lawyer today being that beloved?

Weddings Today: Short on Ceremony, Long on Food Stations

07 Monday Apr 2014

Posted by in Concepts, Men

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Frank wedding cake

BY FRANK TERRANELLA

I had an interesting cultural experience recently when I attended a wedding of two friends of my daughter. Since these were not relatives, and in fact were people I hardly knew, I was able to sit back and take a dispassionate look at the state of wedding culture today. Being over 60 gives me the perspective of a parent, and the fact that I still have an unmarried daughter adds some relevance to the matter.

You should know up front that this was an Italian wedding, though not the Italian Football Wedding Pat Cooper spoofed 50 years ago. This was a classy affair in a high-rent-district wedding facility. But years ago, this would have been the site of just the reception after a church wedding. Now, it housed both the wedding and the reception. That’s because many young people no longer want to jump through the hoops required by the Catholic Church to receive the sacrament of matrimony. So they forego the sacramental church wedding and are married by a deacon or justice of the peace. That’s a fundamental change over the past 40 years.

So everyone gathers for the ceremony in a chapel provided by the facility. The ceremony is short and sweet:
Do you take him?
Do you take her?
You’re married!

And of course, the last thing the presider at a wedding always says no matter whether it’s in church or on a beach is, “You may kiss the bride.”
Frank wedding article
So we always have the money shot of the two people kissing just before they head down the aisle.

This time, as I watched the bride and groom kiss, suddenly the words of the Paul Williams song made famous by the Carpenters started playing in my mind, “A kiss for luck and we’re on our way.” The bride and groom bound down the aisle, but no one throws anything anymore. Years ago, people threw rice, and later, the more ecologically-minded moved to birdseed and bubbles. Now we seem to have given up on it altogether. That’s fine with me. Let the cocktail hour begin!

So we all walked over to a nearby hall where the latest wedding innovation was in evidence – stations. Where we once had cocktails at a bar while waiters roamed with hors d’oeuvres, now we have a shellfish station, a meat station, a salad station, a pasta station. At this wedding, there was even a sliders station. I think stations are a big improvement over the old days. In fact, I ate so much at this cocktail hour I would have been happy to proceed directly to the dessert table.

But after an hour of drinks and great food, we headed to yet another room where tables were set up for dinner. We were seated close to the music. The music these days is mostly deejays. All the music is in their computer and so they can please just about every musical taste. I do miss live bands though. They were often mediocre and wedding singers were hit and miss. But every once in a while you got a great band, and that’s when you really appreciated live music. No matter how loud the deejay makes his music, it doesn’t compare with a live guitar, drums or trumpet. I think the convenience of a deejay, and the vast variety of music they can play is helping them drive wedding bands out of business. Anyway, these days I’m stoked when I see that a wedding features a live band.

Despite all the changes in wedding culture over the years, most weddings I have been to recently still feature the obligatory dances with the bride’s father and the groom’s mother. And most also still have a ceremonial cutting of the wedding cake. Although the nonsense with the garter seems to have thankfully faded away.

The finale to a modern wedding is the Venetian Table, which usually features just about every dessert known to man. Here, again, we have stations like the chocolate station, the pastry station, the cake station and the ice cream station. As someone with a gigantic sweet tooth, I give the modern wedding dessert festival two sticky thumbs up. The dessert table brings the wedding festivities to a close for people my age, though younger guests dance until the deejay closes up shop.

We as a society devote a lot of time and money to weddings. In fact, it’s an industry unto itself. But at the end of it, what matters is whether the bride and groom are willing to work at being a team, respect each other and live together in harmony. Everyone who has been married knows how tough it can be at times, but if you work hard, with a little luck, you end up with a life partner. That reminds me of another song. If memory serves me it was written by Carole King. It says, “I know that each of us is all alone in the end, but the trip still seems less dangerous when you’ve got a friend.” And that’s why we get married.

Let’s Do as the Danish Do: Raise Taxes for Free Health Care

31 Monday Mar 2014

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BY FRANK TERRANELLA

I filed my income taxes this week. I have always thought that the two most patriotic things that most Americans can do are vote and pay your taxes. These days, most Americans don’t vote, and the common wisdom for the past 40 years is that income taxes are too high. This, despite the fact that the richest Americans today pay less than half of what they paid in the 1950s. The ridiculously low income tax rates we have today account for the reason why our health care system is in a shambles.

As I edge my way ever closer to Medicare eligibility, I have to marvel at how dysfunctional America is when it comes to health care. The news from Washington is that 6 million people have signed up for Obamacare, while a new poll shows that 41% of Americans would like it to be repealed. After spending some time recently discussing health care with people in Denmark, I am convinced we are on the wrong track. And the tragedy is we could have avoided all this by simply phasing in Medicare for everyone over a 10-year period. But that might have required raising taxes.

Denmark, like most other developed nations, provides basic health care for free to everyone. It is paid for out of taxes. And if you want to see a Dane get agitated, mention income taxes. They pay roughly double what we pay. But ask them if it’s worth it and they will tell you that, by and large, it is. Oh sure, there are waiting lists for some elective surgery. But when a medical emergency hits, Danes know they don’t have to worry. It’s going to be paid for. They will not be bankrupted by a long hospital stay.

In fact, the only bad thing Danes seem to say about their health care system is that it’s too good. By that they mean it’s so good that people from poorer countries like Romania are flocking to Denmark to take advantage of Danish generosity. As I listened to some Danish women explain this to me, I immediately thought about the way some Americans talk about immigrants, particularly from Latin America, who come to the United States to collect welfare. The difference is that in the United States we have just about dismantled the welfare system, and people are falling through economic catastrophe without a safety net. And we have an army at our Southern border with orders to stop anyone who tries to cross without a visa.

Meanwhile, in Denmark, no matter how much they resent poor people coming to their country for the social benefits, they have not dismantled their social safety net. And because they are part of the European Community, they can’t legally stop the immigration. And some Danes actually see value for their country in allowing immigration. It provides talent and ambition that have always been the lifeblood of any progressive society. They see what America has done as akin to cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Obamacare will not solve America’s health care crisis because it starts from the wrong premise. It doubles down on the system we already have where insurance companies are given the role of health care gatekeeper. Capitalism is so out of control in this country that many Americans actually believe that it’s a good idea to have profit-making companies in a position to decide what medical test you can get. They complain bitterly about a government takeover of health care and actually prefer to have insurance companies in charge. Danes look at this and shake their heads. Why would anyone want a company that has an interest in allowing you as little health care as possible be in charge of health care, they asked me. These companies have a conflict of interest. Isn’t it better to have a neutral government official in that role?

I could not defend our system, except to say that it works very well for rich people. Those who can afford the best insurance here will get excellent health care – better than they would get in Denmark. But for the rest of us, the present system sucks, and Obamacare is not likely to make it much better.

After my conversations in Denmark, I am convinced that the only solution is higher taxes. That’s right, higher taxes. Americans have to get over the hysteria about taxes and see the long-term benefits of not having to worry about a tsunami of a co-pay that we all are one illness away from. And while we’re raising those taxes, let’s make state universities free for eligible students and liberate young people from a lifetime of debt. That’s another good idea we could borrow from Denmark.

Travel Perks: A Castle, A Fortress, Some Meatballs, and a Fountain (Of Youth)

26 Wednesday Mar 2014

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Elisnore Castle

BY FRANK TERRANELLA

The beauty of travel is that it breaks the monotony that life can become. We are all creatures of habit, and our natural tendency is to do what we have done before. Travel takes us away from what we always do, and challenges us to adapt to something new. It’s not really hard since human beings are kinda great at adapting (when we have to).

Recently, I had to travel to Europe on business. The great part is that I have relatives in Copenhagen. So after the business was done, I was able to enjoy some time with them. Early on the morning of my last day there, my cousin picked me up at my hotel, and we headed north from Copenhagen about 45 kilometers to a town that English speakers call Elsinore, but the Danes call Helsingor. If the name Elsinore sounds vaguely familiar, it’s probably because Shakespeare set one of his most famous plays there. Elsinore is the hometown of Hamlet, fictional prince of Denmark. And the Danes have accommodated tourists by actually building a castle there.

But that wasn’t the principal reason for us to go to Helsingor. It’s a charming little village with lots of very old buildings, stores, and an ancient church to visit. And it has a twin city in nearby Sweden.

So since I had never been to Sweden before, we first got on the ferry to Sweden. The ferry was named (wait for it) the Hamlet. It’s only a 20-minute ride, and the town in Sweden where you land is a village called Helsingborg (apparently some guy named Helsing was a big shot around these parts).

FortressHelsingborg features a medieval-looking fortress at the top of a hill from where we got a great view of the town and the harbor. Of course, after that much exercise, two 60-something guys were ready for lunch. We could have played it safe with burgers at the Helsingborg McDonalds or KFC, but we opted for the challenge of local fare instead. We found a tiny restaurant that had a sign outside advertising their Swedish meatballs special. So we went in, and ordered it. Now, I had never before had the opportunity to have Swedish meatballs. Swedish meatballsIt’s not common fare where I live (outside of my local Ikea). And truth be told, I am not a very adventurous eater. But I couldn’t pass up the chance to have my first Swedish meatballs in Sweden. Of course they were absolutely delicious. We were both glad we decided to take a chance.

My trip to the twin cities of Helsingore and Helsingborg brought home how valuable it is for people our age to put ourselves into situations that force us to break out of the everyday way of doing things. And of course, it wasn’t just the Swedish meatballs. It’s not everyday I climb a fortress in Sweden, and tour cities that were around in Shakespeare’s time. It’s unusual for me to be in two countries where the native languages are ones I do not speak. And during the business portion of the trip, I taught a seminar in English to Danish-speaking students. For me, it was a step outside my comfort zone because I don’t normally address an audience in my job.

However, I think that doing these sorts of things keep us young. So there was a real therapeutic benefit to the trip. And in addition to eating Swedish meatballs in Sweden, I got to eat Danish for breakfast in Denmark!