INAUGURATION OF OPINION COLUMN
BEGINS WITH  FORMER EDITOR’S
ANALYSIS  OF  CHEAPSKATES

Return of the Native

Beginning today and scheduled to appear on a regular basis in this space, Voice of Baltimore is pleased to initiate a series of columns by longtime Massachusetts newspaper editor David Maril, a native of Baltimore who recently returned to his roots to head up the Herman Maril Foundation, an organization supporting educational programs and exhibitions in museums, schools and galleries related to the study of Herman Maril’s legacy as an artist. The elder Maril, a professor emeritus of painting at the University of Maryland, died in 1986.

David Maril, Herman’s son, was a columnist and copy editor at the Brockton Enterprise for over a decade, following a 25-year stint as sports editor of the Milford Daily News — both newspapers published in Massachusetts — where he covered the Boston Red Sox and Celtics and the New England Patriots, while winning numerous writing and section-design awards. The younger Maril continues to serve on the board of the Boston Chapter of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, where he is a lifetime member and voter in Major League Baseball’s annual Cooperstown Hall of Fame balloting.

A graduate of Park School in Brooklandville, Md., he majored in English at Clark University in Worcester, Mass. and joins Voice of Baltimore as the creator and protagonist of “Inside Pitch,” a column dedicated to Maril’s opinion on all subjects near and dear to readers of the VoB news website, and by extension, all who see this page, whose comments pro and con are welcome — and encouraged — anytime.  (See “Post a Comment” under Main Menu at left for guidelines.)
 

The late Vaudeville, radio & television comic Jack Benny was well-known for his comedic personification of the ultimate cheapskate.

LIKE JACK BENNY  IN DAYS OF OLD,
ABILITY TO GET BY ON THE CHEAP
IS BADGE OF HONOR  FOR SOME
 
By David Maril
 
Even in prosperous times, cheapskates have always been around.

These days, however, with the national debt rising, unemployment still high, a hike in state gasoline taxes on the horizon and the stock market on a surge that pessimists are predicting won’t last, cheapskates everywhere are shedding inhibitions and wearing their stinginess as a badge of honor.

Yet while being a cheapskate is a bit of a character flaw, it’s not the same stigma as the label of thief, liar or bigamist. People love to tell stories about cheapskates they have known.
 
Some famous cheapskates, like the late comedian Jack Benny, are even likeable. Benny made a career drawing laughs in radio, television and the movies pretending he was a skinflint. And Groucho Marx always makes people chuckle in “A Night at the Opera” when he pretends he’s going to give a tip but says, “Here, see this bill? Well, come back in an hour and I’ll show it to you again.”

It’s one thing to be struggling financially and needing to economize. Cheapskates, on the other hand, are usually well-fixed financially and just refuse to spend money.
 
Sometimes being cheap however ends up costing money.

I used to buy cars from a dealer who refused to replace his old, dripping refrigerator in the customers’ waiting room. His employees used to joke about all the extra time they had to spend defrosting this relic every couple of weeks. He did, however, find a way to make up for the money he wasted on using staff manpower to keep the machine going: When he sold the dealership, he negotiated an agreement to continue using the company dumpster so he wouldn’t have to pay the trash fees in his town.

NO DAY WITHOUT ENCOUNTERING A CHEAPSKATE

It’s hard to get through a day without encountering a cheapskate. It might be in a long line at the coffee/donut shop, watching a customer double-checking the change and refusing to leave a tip after torturing the attendant with an order of a dozen different items.
 
If you read newspapers or magazines on an airplane, chances are some traveler in first class will ask the flight attendant for your used reading material after you have discarded it with a dripping coffee cup and soiled napkin. It makes you want to yell, “Hey, it’s people like you who are putting newspapers and magazines out of business because you want to read the product but are too cheap to buy it!”

Cheapness often hits close to home. We all have relatives who love  to come over empty-handed for family functions to eat, drink and be merry. And if your patience runs out and you ask them to contribute by bringing the wine, they show up for a gathering of 20 people with just one bottle.

Groucho Marx leers famously at Marilyn Monroe (1950).