These days, many people no longer use traditional leather wallets. You may remember them. They had a billfold and pockets for your license, credit cards, and a picture of your kid or dog. According to a report by Amazon Web Services and PYMNTs in February 2024, 79 percent of Gen Z use digital wallets. Baby boomers and seniors account for 26 percent of the digital wallet users.
Let’s reminisce about the various types of wallets available. They still exist. Let’s start with my first wallet. It was a white Jox Sox. I got the socks from my grandmother. She was and might still be the queen of socks. But they had to be Jox Sox from Thom McAn, a shoe retailer. Sadly, it shuttered its 100-plus stores in 1986. You can still get Jox Sox from Amazon. I have a pair.
In the ’70s, most of us kids kept a dollar or two in our socks. We put coins in them, too. Sometimes, that causes cuts on the soles of our feet or toes. I can remember a quarter or two floating around my sock. The change could tear through our foot protection. My favorite memory was from when I attended the Manhattan Beach Jewish Center Day Camp. The camp would take us on a field trip to L&B Spumoni Gardens to get spumoni. That’s where I developed my love of this precious treat. Our counselors told us to wait for them to get us our spumoni and not to get anything else. We were about 10 years old.
Did we listen? We pulled a dollar out of our sock and got on the line for a Sicilian slice. Back then, a pizza slice cost around 50 or 75 cents. We knew they had the best pizza. They still do. I was last there on Memorial Day. I pulled my money out of my Timberlands wallet. It now costs $9.75 for two slices and a bottle of water.
Please note that the camp is kosher. Why did they take us to L&B? Who knows? They would pack kosher meals for us when we went to the now-closed Action Park (it reopened under another name), the beach, and on overnight trips to Cooperstown. Once, they took us to Yankee Stadium. We snuck over to the concession stands. The counselors told us they had to taste our hot dogs to see if they were kosher. So, we cut a piece off. Yeah, we and some of our trusted counselors ate all sorts of “kosher” crap from the stands in the amusement parks. And wherever else went.
In the 1980s, I attended summer camp, which was the best time of my life. Before I went, my dad handed me an old brown wallet of his. He said I should have one and carry a few dollars in it to buy stuff at the trading post. I took it. I obtained the singles from Larry, who served as our banker and purchased candy from the trading post or a hamburger meal in Bob (Slob, as we called it) Landers.
I carried that wallet with me when I needed to. For the most part, through junior and high school, I kept a dollar or two in my pocket or sock. I arrived at college and needed to carry a little more money. Not much. So, I had the wallet. My girlfriend didn’t like it, as it was worn. She bought me a new one for my birthday. It was nice. I used it. When she dumped me, I went back to the trusty old wallet. Eventually, as I got older, I bought a few. I had a nice Coach wallet from Bloomingdale’s, and I received another one for my birthday from the people at a volunteer group I worked with. They just bought it for me. They had no idea if I was using a worn one or my sock. We had a meeting around my birthday. We had pizza, and they handed me the new wallet.
For the most part, now my iPhone is my wallet. I tap it at the subway turnstile. Yeah, I ditched the MetroCard, too. Eventually, New York City Transit will eliminate them. I tap and pay at the Stadium, Key Food, and most restaurants.
Ultimately, my favorite wallet will always be a sock. Preferably, a Jox.
Memories of Lazy Weekend Reading with the Newspaper
By Mitchell Slepian
My mom sometimes said, my dad was married to his New York Times (NYT). My parents divorced before I was a teen. I often spent weekends with him. I have distinct memories in the mid-to-late 70s of my dad reading his Sunday newspaper and, of course, reading his copy of the daily paper on his NYC subway train from Sheepshead Bay into Bloomingdales when he was a manager of its finance department.
In 1978, a great year (the Yankees repeated their World Series title), dad, mom, my sister and me left Brooklyn for an exotic place – Staten Island. Dad now had a much longer commute to work. He took his paper on the bus or the Staten Island Ferry.
“You can read it in the Sunday papers. Sunday papers.” We know Joe Jackson was criticizing the British tabloid press when he wrote “Sunday Papers” for his debut album “Look Sharp.” Much of it rings true. But I wanna talk about the Sunday papers in a different mode. I know most people get their news from their phones. I do love Apple News. But there is something about having the old-fashioned newspaper in your hands. I still get a Sunday paper. My mom taught me to read it by placing it on a beach towel on the kitchen table. She said you’d save our and eventually your table from ink stains. The stains that got on my hands that’s what the sink is for.
My memories of the Print Edition
Some of us are old enough to remember the old school weekend NYT. It had tons of thick special sections that were delivered on Saturday. The Arts & Leisure section had information about what was happening in NYC’s museums and elsewhere. Often, you’d see how if you went to one at a certain time you got in for half price or got a free something. My dad clipped out all of this, and on Sunday, we went to Museum Mile and other spots. I have an older cousin whose dad did similar, I loved the museums. My cousin hated them. I’m a member of nearly every museum in NYC. Years later, when both of us were laid off, I spent my time at the Guggenheim, Whitney, Tenement Museum, and others. I always asked my cousin to join me. He would never.
At home on Staten Island, we got our daily delivery of the Staten Island Advance (Advance). I read it. I loved reading Moss Klein’s stories in the sports section about my beloved Bronx Bombers. My first job was in politics, serving as a press secretary for a local NYC Council Member. I pitched our news releases to the Advance and was friendly with several reporters. My sister another newspaper reader became a reporter at the Advance. I was long gone from politics when she was employed at the paper, so we never worked together. That would have been interesting.
When I was a kid, my grandparents would come over from Sheepshead Bay for Sunday afternoon barbeques. We had the NYT and Advance on the table. As we were getting ready for our hot dogs and burgers, grandpa would read both. He usually read the New York Post or New York Daily News at home. In the metro section of the NYT, he always looked for stories about Staten Island. It was funny. That never happened. That’s why Staten Islanders swore by the Advance.
Eventually in the late 90s, I moved out and started buying my Sunday papers. I started in Rego Park and came back to Staten Island. I read all the dailies, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, and my eventual favorite of the bunch, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ). I would buy them before boarding the Subway or Staten Island Ferry. That’s when they sold papers all over. It was before you woke up, and your iPhone was buzzing like a madman with the latest from Apple News, social media, and Snaps from your friends, about, as Depeche Mode would put it, “the world we live in and life in general.”
I enjoyed reading the papers on the commute to and from work. Of course, the news in the morning wasn’t any different than the news on the ride home. I just read a different paper. So, the only differences could have been the opinions of the writers. Nothing was updated from the morning to the evening. We sometimes had the radio or news channels on at work. So, we followed Wall Street and breaking news with the available technology to the best of our abilities.
On my ferry rides, I often sat with a group of friends on the a.m. commute into the city. We discussed the latest news. Most of us had a paper. Usually, our conversations focused on the Yankees. We did discuss politics and movies. We compared the opinions of the writers in the different papers.
When I was back on Staten Island, my sister got an apartment in the same building complex as mine. On weekends, I would read my copy of the NYT and walk over to her building, throw it at her door, and scream out, “Mr. Flintstone.” During the holiday season, I put a card into the paper and begged for a tip. She gave me a dollar. It was so sweet of her.
As you have realized, I love baseball. I remember sitting at my table reading the NYT, which we know is not known for having a great sports section. I read its feature about the orthopedic surgeon Dr. James Andrews (now retired). You got nervous when you heard your favorite athlete was going to see him. You knew he was down for the count. The article gave an in-depth feature about how he evaluated and treated the athletes. It was a great learning experience. Holding the paper in my hands and reading about baseball feels more real than scrolling through my phone or tablet.
The Arts & Leisure section of the NYT offered similar. When “Wicked” was still starring Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel, it did a terrific feature about how the two Tony winners were brought up and how they began their storied acting careers. Jumping ahead to the WSJ’s Off-Duty section, Lettie Teague’s weekly wine column offers great advice on what to sip, buy, and order. The paper’s magazine sectionoften has beautiful watches. I want all of them. Sometimes, I get ‘em.
One more memory of dad and his paper. All the Sunday papers had many circulars featuring coupons of the latest sales at the drug store, supermarket, local clothing stores and restaurants. My dad called them “couponys.” He used to sit and clip them out. He stored them in an index card holder and had a filing system. He was one of those people, who would walk up to the register in Waldbaum’s with more groceries than you can imagine and pay about $10.
I Began Having Newspaper Issues
I moved off the rock and went back to Queens. I transferred my weekend NYT subscription. Eventually, I switched to WSJ’s Weekend Journal. Pre-Covid, the paper used to be delivered to my apartment door. During the height of the lockdown and today, all the papers are in the lobby. We rarely had any problems. There was a pile of newspapers on the radiator. On Saturday morning, I would walk downstairs around 6 a.m. and take mine. The walks up and down the steps prepared me for the day. I would start reading. Sometimes, I would finish the main section and go to morning services or elsewhere— hopefully, Yankee Stadium. They returned to deliver the paper to my front door a few months ago. Then it went back to the lobby.
Most people I know stopped getting newspaper delivery or stopped buying them at newsstands. Many newsstands are only selling junk food. Several have closed. Just walk along NYC’s streets and you will see many locked-up newsstands. Most of the people I know, just get their news online.
Sadly, since the beginning of 2025 my WSJ stopped showing up. I go downstairs and see other papers. I have emailed and spoken to the WSJ’s customer care countless times. They keep promising to get it right. Occasionally the paper comes late Saturday night. It is still the weekend. But by that time, I do not want to read it. I have already seen everything on my phone. I like a Sunday paper. I enjoy being offline as much as possible on the weekend. Like most people, I am on too much. While disappointed to do this, I will likely cancel my Sunday paper.
Mitchell's thoughts, photos, etc. 