A MEMORY OF JOHNNY LINDELL
"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." Can anyone reach back into the deepest crevices of their mind to recall this old aphorism, created on what must have been a different planet from the one we're now living on? Today we have nerds, geeks, dweebs, overachievers, and the like, but nary a "dull boy." The very idea of dullness as a human quality seems to have vanished along with a slew of faded memories.
No matter. Barbara and I were determined that, in addition to the time we spent visiting with Barbara's mother, taking care of chores for her, and proffering advice on this and that, we would make time for some less stressful activities. I was determined to head down to Washington D.C. so that we could poke around at least one or two museums. We needed some time to visit with friends and other family members; plus, we had left room in our luggage for all the clothing and other items we planned to buy.
I should begin with the following disclaimer: there are plenty of stores in Israel, and there is very little you can't get here. Still, there is something to be said about the mind-numbing quantity and quality of merchandise in The States and the awe-inspiring dimensions of the suburban mall. The first things we needed were a few basic food items for the nearly empty refrigerator in Gwen's apartment, milk, OJ, apples (to replace the ones confiscated at the airport), some snack; so we headed to one of the (appropriately named) Giant supermarkets in the area. The sheer size of the place did not seem to faze the Maryland shoppers who were wheeling their carts around from aisle to aisle -- as if it were run-of-the-mill to be shopping in a place the size of a small village, but I admit that, after four year's of shopping on a smaller scale, I was duly impressed. So much food! Of course, once my rational self reasserted its control, I realized that a lot of what they had didn't need to be there. One could buy lawn furniture, greeting cards, and auto supplies elsewhere. Plus......... while their deli and cheese counters looked opulent and their barbecued chickens smelled wonderful, none of it was going to do me any good. You want kosher deli meat or cheese?, find the refrigerated case all the way in the back with the limited selection of packaged kosher products. I noticed as I walked up and down the aisles, that I had retained my skill at package-flipping, turning the box or the can this way and that to seek out the kosher symbol that may or may not be on the label. The fact is that there was less for the kosher consumer to purchase in this store the size of five bowling alleys and a football field than in the relatively modest MisterZol here in the Ma'ale Adumim kanyon.
Clothing? That's another story. I have to admit that I've done so little shopping for items of apparel in the four years we've been here that I don't even know what Israeli equivalent sizes I would wear. 34x30 pants, size 10 1/2 shoes? Now you're talking. There's lots to say about the mallification of America. On the one hand, you will find pretty much the same clothing, sporting goods, housewares, and bookstores anywhere in America. On the other hand, you will find pretty much the same clothing, sporting goods, housewares, and bookstores anywhere in America. If you're looking for something different, you won't find it; if you're looking for something familiar, you will find it. Actually, here in The Land you will also find the same ten or so clothing chains anywhere in the country you go. But each store is quite small. You couldn't house a Boeing 747 in any of them as you could in many of Old Navy or The Gap's that I've been in.
Among the items I planned to buy was a pair of sneakers. Barbara had brought me back a pair on one of her earlier trips; even though it was a size 10, what I normally wear, it was too small. From now on, I will try on any pair of footwear I buy. So I went hiking around an enormous strip mall in search of something appropriate for my size and wallet. Marshall's? Nothing that fit and much too disorganized. T.J. Maxx's? Nothing much there. One place left to go, a quintessential American mega-store, The Sports Authority. When we were lads, if you wanted a ball, or a bat, or a mitt, you went to a hole-in-the-wall establishment on Jerome Avenue in The Bronx called, if memory serves me -- and it sometimes does -- Hi-Jinx. And you were happy to have that bat, or that ball, or that mitt. The only baseball glove I ever owned was a fielder's mitt with the signature of one Johnny Lindell, a journeyman outfielder whose all-time batting ranking according to one ranking is number 1083 (one above Babe Phelps). The fact that he was a righty and I was a lefty never dawned upon me because I had no idea at the time who he was. It wouldn't have mattered anyway; that was my glove, and I did take care of it. Who would have imagined that the stuff you used to be able to find in a ten foot wide store under the elevated train line would now fill aisle after aisle, row after row, in mega-stores in malls throughout the country. You want to play indoors in your basement or outside in a stadium? You want to play croquet or bocce, pitch horseshoes or softballs, jump on a pogo stick or a trampoline? You want sticks, bats, clubs, gloves, mitts, mats, nets, balls of every size and shape, rackets for any sport? Your son wants a replica of his favorite athlete's uniform -- even if he is three foot six and his idol is six foot ten? You want to play a sport that no true American would be caught dead playing, like soccer or cricket? You want your computer screen to be your playing field, a couch to be your seat on the bench? Well, actually, I wanted none of the above. I just needed a pair of sneakers to replace the ones I was wearing which were falling apart. Today, as some of you know, there is no such thing as a simple pair of sneakers. They must have at least thirty different kinds of athletic shoes, depending on what you plan to do. Who in his right mind would wear basketball shoes to go skateboarding? Think about it.
Passing by row after row of esoteric footwear, I finally found "walking shoes," which I figured would be the default description of what I was looking for. Sure enough, there was half an aisle of eight foot high shelves, meaning there might have been five hundred pairs of 'walking shoes' in different sizes and different brands. Unlike in a lot of other stores which might have a hundred pairs of a particular item -- all in the same size, invariably not my size -- here, after trying on ten pairs, I found one that fit perfectly, size 10 1/2EEE. How did my feet get so big???? A question without an answer.
I remember my first pair of sneakers -- they were just called that back then when we were in junior high. There were several options for colors but only one style: hightops, and only one brand: Keds. Part of the 'common wisdom' was that sneakers were bad for our feet, so it took quite a bit of persuading to get my parents to buy a pair for each of us. The footwear certainly got a lot of use, thousands of hours if you added them up, of two on two or three on three half-court basketball games that we played every day in the playgrounds and schoolyards of my childhood. Now that I think of it, none of the equipment we used, the sneakers, the balls -- even the 'spaldeens' that we used for stickball -- had any player's name on it. Just my mitt, the signature of Johnny Lindell. I wonder what happened to that left-handed fielder's glove, and when I decided that I needed it no longer. I didn't ask, but I'm pretty sure I couldn't find another even in a mega-store like The Sports Authority. The shopping district under the elevated Jerome Ave. line has changed greatly in the last fifty years. I wonder what has replaced Hi-Jinx; whatever it is, they probably don't carry any Johnny Lindell mitts either.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Thursday, June 9, 2011
What Used To Be Home Pt.3
SOL AND HIS BROTHERS
Before there were 'Senior Citizen Residences,' there were Old Age Homes. When my own beloved grandmother, known to the extended family as 'Tante Masha,' was no longer able to live with my parents, she moved into one of these, which I seem to remember was called 'The Sons and Daughters of Jacob' (perhaps to distinguish the residents from the sons and daughters of Rufus or Reginald, some distinctions being important); but don't hold me to it --it was a very long time ago.
There came a time when I could choose to go see her, or not. One of the few things that I got right during my college years was my decision to drop in and visit with her every week or two on my way home from City College. Just transfer at 161st Street for the Jerome Ave. line and get off at Kingsbridge Road; walk up the hill, one block past the Armory. It never occurred to me at the time to inquire what function this old building had served before anybody named Jacob had shown up, but I can't imagine any 'sons and daughters' being involved in its construction.
Anyway, I would walk in and look for my grandma. She might be sitting in the lobby, or the hallway, on a nice day, in the garden (I remember they had a garden of some sort), or in her small room. It also never occurred to me at the time to inquire if grandma had any special friends there, or if the place had any activities, or how the food was. For some of us, learning how to ask questions is an acquired skill.
My point is, I just walked in and walked around until I found my grandma sitting among several dozen other people's grandmas. There was no one to ask; there was no one to ask me whom I was looking for or why was I there. Kingsbridge Road was a safe place to be at that time, and nobody was wandering around an Old Age Home for fun, idle curiosity, or just to get out of the rain.
Times have changed, as Cole Porter used to say. All the 'old folks' have died out, to be replaced by several generations of 'senior citizens.' It is for men and women of my mother-in-law's generation that newer facilities like The Hebrew Home in Rockville, MD, (actually both a residence and a rehabilitation center) are fashioned out of that ubiquitous institutional reddish-brown brick. It was in this facility where Gwen Cole, the mother of my charming wife, was convalescing during the time we were visiting.
We finally arrived there, temporarily defeating our GPS, which was trying to send us to Savannah, GA. In today's facilities, you just don't walk in and wander around. like in the good old days. You go to the front desk, tell them whom you are visiting, sign in, and affix the "Visitor" sticker to a garment where it can be seen. By the time you get halfway to the elevator, you will have passed at least three dispensers of antiseptic soap and at least one sign advising you of the danger of GERMS to the residents and that you MUST keep washing your hands in a frenzy of compulsion. Almost as HAZARDOUS to their health, nearly as bad as microscopic organisms, was salt and caffeine. Not in their dining rooms! Decaf über alles! One might wonder how wise it is to make a woman who has been drinking four-cups a day of the real stuff for seventy years go cold turkey when she is supposed to be recovering from whatever it is that brought her there. Or one might wonder why any dietitian would want to eliminate all traces of sodium chloride from a person's diet. But once you start wondering, you're heading down a slippery slope. Supposing, for example, you started thinking about why a facility would feed cholent to someone with 'a bag,' causing instantaneous blockage and requiring prompt removal back to the hospital. I think this all fits under the general category of 'Killing with kindness,' one of the worst ways to go. Ask anyone.
I don't want to sound unduly harsh. All in all, the facility is quite good, and Gwen got excellent care there. Someone was invariably wheeling her off to physical therapy, and her insurance company was willing to foot the bill as long as it could be demonstrated that she was benefiting from the rehabilitation she was receiving. Of course, since had been back and forth from The Home to any number of local hospitals, it would have difficult to gauge her progress.
What I could gauge was the toll the four years had taken on Barbara's mother since I had last seen her. It wasn't as if she had gone through the Proustian transformations which I quoted in my last article. Gwen looked pretty much the same; it's just that she had become smaller, a process of shrinking which had started well before we left for The Land. Otherwise, she was still the same person I had met thirty three years before, sound of mind, a wonderful story teller with a treasury of memories about her life and those of her entire family over the century they had lived in Baltimore. It was as if I had known her and an entire generation of people, many of whom I had never met. My mother and father also had stories and memories, and, once in a while, one of those episodes would be taken of the shelf and warmed up. I had to listen closely. If I missed it, there might not be a repeat.
So here was this formerly robust woman pretty much dependent on the staff of The Hebrew Home for her well-being. During the week that we were there, the question was, which would prevail, Gwen's determination to 'go home,' back to her apartment,or the grim inevitability of physical decline, the congestive heart failure, the less-than-fully-functional kidneys. Or would these two forces battle each other to a draw? But while we were there, stuff could get done, some fairly trivial, like making sure bills were paid, dealing with The Washington Post which was arriving unbidden at her door every other day, dealing with the refrigerator, throwing out the coffee grinds. Some issues were more serious, requiring Gwen's attention. Did she have a signed Last Will and Testament? It might be on file with an attorney in Florida -- except the lawyer in question did not seem to be in practice any longer. Did she want to write her own obituary notice? Only folks made of sterner stuff can handle that one. What about funeral arrangements?
There are many family stories I've heard over and over again, and quite a few of them revolve around Barbara's father, who was, as I am told -- I never met him -- terminally obdurate. Cancer was wasting his body, but he was not, NOT, going to die. Therefore, there was no need to get him a cemetery plot. So when the unfortunate moment arrived, Barbara had to zip down to Baltimore ahead of the body to pay for his Final Resting Place.
Fortunately for all concerned, Barbara's mother has a more realistic attitude towards human mortality. One 'stubborn ass' in a family is more than enough, thank you. Some preliminary arrangements had been considered, but nothing was 'set in stone.' So the following day, Barbara and I were off to Sol Levinson & Bros., Inc., the only funeral home in the area which still adheres to traditional Jewish burial practices. Because the company offices are in a separate building from where the formerly real-live bodies would be brought, I could accompany my wife inside to our appointment. with one of the directors.
Choices. That's what's great about America. No matter what you're doing, you got choices. In The Land, your burial options are seriously limited. You get wrapped in a shroud and dumped into the ground. I'm not sure what choice you have about where they 'lay you to rest.' There is some consolation, however. There is, generally speaking, no cost; and you will be lying in Holy Ground.
We spent an hour or more dealing with burial choices and requirements in the State of Maryland. Do you want a graveside service, or one in the chapel? Do you want to designate an officiating rabbi, or should they pick one from their pool of talent? And the biggie: what kind of coffin do you want? Step into the coffin showroom to view their complete selection. This might be my only opportunity for this kind of tour!
One thing they don't have is a pre-owned model. Everything else, yes. Over here is the proverbial plain pine box, no handles; that was about seven or eight hundred dollars. You want handles and a little more elegant box, that will be a few hundred more. A lining inside and a head rest? A little more. By the time we reached the other side of the showroom, we were in Godfather territory, $10-15,000. For that price, you would be getting carved and polished mahogany with beveled edges, probably higher quality furniture than most of us have in our places among the living. If you want to lock in the price for the funeral arrangements, you can pre-pay. Otherwise, they will keep your record on file, and you can take care of the financial matters when the time comes. Of course, the price may have gone up by then....
Choices. Choices. For the record, Barbara's mom will get casket model #321 (poplar unfinished flat top) which runs about $1500. The "outer burial container" will be concrete for $875. For a little more we could have gotten a grave liner that was "guaranteed" not to leak, but we pinched pennies here. As far as I'm concerned, the only thing I want guaranteed when I am laid in the ground -- with or without a coffin -- is that I'm actually deceased. But in matters like these, I guess you can never be too careful. Then for twenty-five dollars, she will be buried with a small amount of "Israel earth." WHO KNEW???!!!! We certainly had room in our suitcases to bring our own. Does Israel earth need to be certified? Would it need an OU or Badatz label to be approved? Better not worry about that. Leave it to the experts. By the time they added up all the transportation and labor costs and all the other little items, the cost for a modest funeral was over $8500.
The good news was that Gwen was not on her way out and would not be in imminent need of Sol and his bros.' services. She might even accrue interest on the money in her "prearranged funeral Trust Account," meaning she might have to pay taxes on that interest. What's the business about "death and taxes.". Perhaps taxes are even more certain than death. Something to think about.
Before there were 'Senior Citizen Residences,' there were Old Age Homes. When my own beloved grandmother, known to the extended family as 'Tante Masha,' was no longer able to live with my parents, she moved into one of these, which I seem to remember was called 'The Sons and Daughters of Jacob' (perhaps to distinguish the residents from the sons and daughters of Rufus or Reginald, some distinctions being important); but don't hold me to it --it was a very long time ago.
There came a time when I could choose to go see her, or not. One of the few things that I got right during my college years was my decision to drop in and visit with her every week or two on my way home from City College. Just transfer at 161st Street for the Jerome Ave. line and get off at Kingsbridge Road; walk up the hill, one block past the Armory. It never occurred to me at the time to inquire what function this old building had served before anybody named Jacob had shown up, but I can't imagine any 'sons and daughters' being involved in its construction.
Anyway, I would walk in and look for my grandma. She might be sitting in the lobby, or the hallway, on a nice day, in the garden (I remember they had a garden of some sort), or in her small room. It also never occurred to me at the time to inquire if grandma had any special friends there, or if the place had any activities, or how the food was. For some of us, learning how to ask questions is an acquired skill.
My point is, I just walked in and walked around until I found my grandma sitting among several dozen other people's grandmas. There was no one to ask; there was no one to ask me whom I was looking for or why was I there. Kingsbridge Road was a safe place to be at that time, and nobody was wandering around an Old Age Home for fun, idle curiosity, or just to get out of the rain.
Times have changed, as Cole Porter used to say. All the 'old folks' have died out, to be replaced by several generations of 'senior citizens.' It is for men and women of my mother-in-law's generation that newer facilities like The Hebrew Home in Rockville, MD, (actually both a residence and a rehabilitation center) are fashioned out of that ubiquitous institutional reddish-brown brick. It was in this facility where Gwen Cole, the mother of my charming wife, was convalescing during the time we were visiting.
We finally arrived there, temporarily defeating our GPS, which was trying to send us to Savannah, GA. In today's facilities, you just don't walk in and wander around. like in the good old days. You go to the front desk, tell them whom you are visiting, sign in, and affix the "Visitor" sticker to a garment where it can be seen. By the time you get halfway to the elevator, you will have passed at least three dispensers of antiseptic soap and at least one sign advising you of the danger of GERMS to the residents and that you MUST keep washing your hands in a frenzy of compulsion. Almost as HAZARDOUS to their health, nearly as bad as microscopic organisms, was salt and caffeine. Not in their dining rooms! Decaf über alles! One might wonder how wise it is to make a woman who has been drinking four-cups a day of the real stuff for seventy years go cold turkey when she is supposed to be recovering from whatever it is that brought her there. Or one might wonder why any dietitian would want to eliminate all traces of sodium chloride from a person's diet. But once you start wondering, you're heading down a slippery slope. Supposing, for example, you started thinking about why a facility would feed cholent to someone with 'a bag,' causing instantaneous blockage and requiring prompt removal back to the hospital. I think this all fits under the general category of 'Killing with kindness,' one of the worst ways to go. Ask anyone.
I don't want to sound unduly harsh. All in all, the facility is quite good, and Gwen got excellent care there. Someone was invariably wheeling her off to physical therapy, and her insurance company was willing to foot the bill as long as it could be demonstrated that she was benefiting from the rehabilitation she was receiving. Of course, since had been back and forth from The Home to any number of local hospitals, it would have difficult to gauge her progress.
What I could gauge was the toll the four years had taken on Barbara's mother since I had last seen her. It wasn't as if she had gone through the Proustian transformations which I quoted in my last article. Gwen looked pretty much the same; it's just that she had become smaller, a process of shrinking which had started well before we left for The Land. Otherwise, she was still the same person I had met thirty three years before, sound of mind, a wonderful story teller with a treasury of memories about her life and those of her entire family over the century they had lived in Baltimore. It was as if I had known her and an entire generation of people, many of whom I had never met. My mother and father also had stories and memories, and, once in a while, one of those episodes would be taken of the shelf and warmed up. I had to listen closely. If I missed it, there might not be a repeat.
So here was this formerly robust woman pretty much dependent on the staff of The Hebrew Home for her well-being. During the week that we were there, the question was, which would prevail, Gwen's determination to 'go home,' back to her apartment,or the grim inevitability of physical decline, the congestive heart failure, the less-than-fully-functional kidneys. Or would these two forces battle each other to a draw? But while we were there, stuff could get done, some fairly trivial, like making sure bills were paid, dealing with The Washington Post which was arriving unbidden at her door every other day, dealing with the refrigerator, throwing out the coffee grinds. Some issues were more serious, requiring Gwen's attention. Did she have a signed Last Will and Testament? It might be on file with an attorney in Florida -- except the lawyer in question did not seem to be in practice any longer. Did she want to write her own obituary notice? Only folks made of sterner stuff can handle that one. What about funeral arrangements?
There are many family stories I've heard over and over again, and quite a few of them revolve around Barbara's father, who was, as I am told -- I never met him -- terminally obdurate. Cancer was wasting his body, but he was not, NOT, going to die. Therefore, there was no need to get him a cemetery plot. So when the unfortunate moment arrived, Barbara had to zip down to Baltimore ahead of the body to pay for his Final Resting Place.
Fortunately for all concerned, Barbara's mother has a more realistic attitude towards human mortality. One 'stubborn ass' in a family is more than enough, thank you. Some preliminary arrangements had been considered, but nothing was 'set in stone.' So the following day, Barbara and I were off to Sol Levinson & Bros., Inc., the only funeral home in the area which still adheres to traditional Jewish burial practices. Because the company offices are in a separate building from where the formerly real-live bodies would be brought, I could accompany my wife inside to our appointment. with one of the directors.
Choices. That's what's great about America. No matter what you're doing, you got choices. In The Land, your burial options are seriously limited. You get wrapped in a shroud and dumped into the ground. I'm not sure what choice you have about where they 'lay you to rest.' There is some consolation, however. There is, generally speaking, no cost; and you will be lying in Holy Ground.
We spent an hour or more dealing with burial choices and requirements in the State of Maryland. Do you want a graveside service, or one in the chapel? Do you want to designate an officiating rabbi, or should they pick one from their pool of talent? And the biggie: what kind of coffin do you want? Step into the coffin showroom to view their complete selection. This might be my only opportunity for this kind of tour!
One thing they don't have is a pre-owned model. Everything else, yes. Over here is the proverbial plain pine box, no handles; that was about seven or eight hundred dollars. You want handles and a little more elegant box, that will be a few hundred more. A lining inside and a head rest? A little more. By the time we reached the other side of the showroom, we were in Godfather territory, $10-15,000. For that price, you would be getting carved and polished mahogany with beveled edges, probably higher quality furniture than most of us have in our places among the living. If you want to lock in the price for the funeral arrangements, you can pre-pay. Otherwise, they will keep your record on file, and you can take care of the financial matters when the time comes. Of course, the price may have gone up by then....
Choices. Choices. For the record, Barbara's mom will get casket model #321 (poplar unfinished flat top) which runs about $1500. The "outer burial container" will be concrete for $875. For a little more we could have gotten a grave liner that was "guaranteed" not to leak, but we pinched pennies here. As far as I'm concerned, the only thing I want guaranteed when I am laid in the ground -- with or without a coffin -- is that I'm actually deceased. But in matters like these, I guess you can never be too careful. Then for twenty-five dollars, she will be buried with a small amount of "Israel earth." WHO KNEW???!!!! We certainly had room in our suitcases to bring our own. Does Israel earth need to be certified? Would it need an OU or Badatz label to be approved? Better not worry about that. Leave it to the experts. By the time they added up all the transportation and labor costs and all the other little items, the cost for a modest funeral was over $8500.
The good news was that Gwen was not on her way out and would not be in imminent need of Sol and his bros.' services. She might even accrue interest on the money in her "prearranged funeral Trust Account," meaning she might have to pay taxes on that interest. What's the business about "death and taxes.". Perhaps taxes are even more certain than death. Something to think about.
Monday, May 30, 2011
What Used To Be Home Pt. 2
MUSINGS ON ARCHITECTURE AND PAINS IN THE SOMEWHERE
Out into the sunshine!!!!!!! Not exactly. By the time we were through with Customs at Dulles Airport and had found our way to where the pre-arranged taxi would be waiting for us, shades of night were falling (paraphrasing any number of old songs skipping through my brain). It wasn't exactly a private cab, more like a service that took a number of random people on a circuitous route to their destinations. I looked out the window and watched as we wended our way through towns in Maryland heading to Silver Spring. It could have been early evening in late November in New Jersey; it all looked the same. The last bits of light, pink and orange, were being filtered through the grey clouds, framed by the still-leafless trees. The houses looked the same as in my former-neck-of-the-woods, the shopping malls looked the same, the highways with their delays for construction looked the same. I was back in suburban sprawl America, looking exactly the way it did when we left four years ago.
I can't say that my heart sunk when we arrived at our destination, a residence for seniors run by the local Jewish Federation. But it certainly dropped a few inches. When I had last seen Barbara's mother, it was at her cheerful apartment in a retirement village in Deerfield Beach, Florida. In season, 15,000 people lived there. It was spacious and well-maintained, with swimming pools, tennis courts, even a nine hole golf course. Perfect for a certain kind of retirement life. It wasn't where I wanted to wind up, but I never found being there depressing. One, we were always on vacation and were there to relax. Two, Gwen had a full life there. She was in charge of the Century Village library; she volunteered at a local university which had a series of classes for seniors, meaning she could audit any number of college level courses. Of course, she had a car and went wherever she needed to. She had friends by the dozen, a full network of women who took care of each other in good times and bad.
Almost twenty years had passed since she first went down to Florida, and there came the time when she realized that she would be unable to keep going the way she had been. The doctors couldn't perform the kind of knee operations she would have needed. Hard to drive; harder to walk. The distance from the elevator to her apartment somehow seemed to be getting longer and longer. Everything was becoming more and more difficult. Time to move back to Maryland, to a subsidized facility she knew about because family members had been and are living there.
Barbara had been there before to help her mother 'settle in,' so she knew what to expect. I, of course, did not -- although maybe I should have. It's not as if this facility is inherently depressing; it's not. But it is institutional, no getting around it. No gated community extending for blocks and blocks with guards to check the cars coming in the several entrances. Just a desk clerk on duty in a little cubicle in a little lobby. A room with a number of computers, yes, but no large clubhouse with an auditorium where performers entertain and movies are shown. No balconies with soothing views of herons landing in the lagoon; Gwen's balcony faced the parking lot in the back where the big trucks came to collect the trash. You have to notice that it's designed for older people whose circumstances are getting more and more constricted physically, financially, and therefore emotionally. And that is what's depressing.
We arrived in the evening after the dining room was closed and so the lobby was deserted except for the desk clerk, who brought us upstairs to the apartment. Remember, no one had been here -- except for a distant cousin who came in if and when she remembered to water the plants -- for two months. Why can't we find a light switch that works? Why are all the digital clocks blinking? Why is a six week old edition of the Washington Post neatly folded on the kitchen table? Why are there semi-rancid coffee grinds in a dried-up filter in the Mr. Coffee machine? Are we indeed in some semblance of the twilight zone where time had simply stopped? After some effort, we finally figured out which lamps and wall switches worked, enough to bring in our luggage and get settled for the night.
Settling in. That is part of what was so disconcerting. The move from Florida last June had just about done her in. .Gwen had never been able to settle in to this apartment even though both Barbara and her sister Lois had been there to help her. It wasn't just that there were still a few boxes of stuff scattered around; the place just didn't have that "make yourself at home feeling" that the same furniture, the same pictures created in Deerfield Beach. She was too busy shuttling between her apartment, various local hospitals, and the rehabilitation wing of the Hebrew Home in nearby Rockville, where she was the entire time of our visit.
That was our destination the next morning, after first dealing with the car rental place. Sami, a young man whose parents must have come from the great subcontinent, took excellent care of us. But that accent? He obviously grew up in The States, but not anywhere near this Enterprise office. Then he told us that he grew up in Bayside, Queens. Of course. He sounded exactly like our friend Steve L who grew up in the same area.. A good twenty-five years difference in age, ancestors from opposite sides of the globe, but the same way of talking. That's what a neighborhood will do.
Part of Sami's job was to make sure we were completely satisfied. Translation: Did we want additional insurance? Maybe we needed the car for an extra day? Did we want to pay for the gas we used at their price (cheaper than at the station)? Did we want a GPS? Yes, Yes, Yes, and Yes. (I finally figured out what GPS stands for: a Great big Pain in the Somewhere.) Regarding this little gizmo which you plug into the lighter socket and it tells you where you are, we had no choice. We had no idea where we were and where we were supposed to be going. The problem was that this gizmo didn't really either. To be fair, it more or less knows where you are when you're starting out, and you tell it where you want to get to, but then it's more or less pot-luck. If you're on Smithers Road and two blocks away is Smithers Boulevard, chances are the little gadget will get flustered. I can't imagine this device at work in Queens where there might be a 74th St., Road, Ave, and Lane.
So for the next week, we had a running battle with this device. It would tell us to go straight when there was a major highway interrupting the street we were traveling on, blocking our progress. It would tell us to keep going when we knew we had in fact arrived at our destination. It would leave it to our imagination to figure out the subtle distinction between "keep right," "bear right," and "turn right." It assumed that when it said "go east," we could distinguish east from a hole in the wall. All for thirteen dollars a day! I kept wondering: Maybe this little machine has a mind of its own, like in the movie 2001. Maybe it will turn on us. Maybe we'll wind up hurtling over a cliff, or wind up in the only Arab village in the New World, or on the set of some slasher movie.
Now, someone might ask, why don't you just get a road map and be done with it? You wanna know why? We couldn't find one for love or money, no matter where we looked: book stores, gas stations, Office Depot type stores. That's why. At least not for Montgomery County MD. The entire state, yes; the whole Washington DC area, yes; but a map that would show us where C was in relation to A and B in this little twenty mile area we were in, no way, no how. Four years ago before we left, yes; today, not a chance. The word is O-B-S-O-L-E-T-E, one more item no longer needed (think typewriters, bottle openers, slide rules, alarm clocks, even -- dining room tables.) The nice man at the gas station explained that they stopped carrying maps because people had stopped buying them. (Maybe Triple-A still has them, but they don't operate in Israel.)
Since we've been back, I've seen a number of articles which deal, in one way or another, with the dumbing down of the human mind. Many new inventions (think printing press,computers, fully automated anything), while enriching our lives immeasurably, in another way makes it possible to put our brains in sleep mode. We realized, once we could trust our little device to get us from point A, Gwen's apartment, to point B, the Hebrew Home in Rockville), that we were no longer paying attention to where we were going. There were maybe only half a dozen turns, but we realized that if we didn't simply turn off our GPS and (gasp) look out the window at the relevant landmarks, we would never actually remember how to go.
As you would expect from this little diatribe, we had considerable difficulty the first day finding the Hebrew Home in the neighboring town of Rockville, but we did at last arrive. Where we were going turned out to be a huge strip mall of Jewish facilities:schools, social service facilities, a JCC, plus the Jewish Home. Like any of the malls we encountered, this one could have been anywhere. All the buildings were built with the same reddish-brown bricks and had the same institutional look as the building where Gwen was living and all the JCC's in New Jersey. I wonder if the same architectural firm designed them all? Where is Frank Lloyd Wright when you need him?
Out into the sunshine!!!!!!! Not exactly. By the time we were through with Customs at Dulles Airport and had found our way to where the pre-arranged taxi would be waiting for us, shades of night were falling (paraphrasing any number of old songs skipping through my brain). It wasn't exactly a private cab, more like a service that took a number of random people on a circuitous route to their destinations. I looked out the window and watched as we wended our way through towns in Maryland heading to Silver Spring. It could have been early evening in late November in New Jersey; it all looked the same. The last bits of light, pink and orange, were being filtered through the grey clouds, framed by the still-leafless trees. The houses looked the same as in my former-neck-of-the-woods, the shopping malls looked the same, the highways with their delays for construction looked the same. I was back in suburban sprawl America, looking exactly the way it did when we left four years ago.
I can't say that my heart sunk when we arrived at our destination, a residence for seniors run by the local Jewish Federation. But it certainly dropped a few inches. When I had last seen Barbara's mother, it was at her cheerful apartment in a retirement village in Deerfield Beach, Florida. In season, 15,000 people lived there. It was spacious and well-maintained, with swimming pools, tennis courts, even a nine hole golf course. Perfect for a certain kind of retirement life. It wasn't where I wanted to wind up, but I never found being there depressing. One, we were always on vacation and were there to relax. Two, Gwen had a full life there. She was in charge of the Century Village library; she volunteered at a local university which had a series of classes for seniors, meaning she could audit any number of college level courses. Of course, she had a car and went wherever she needed to. She had friends by the dozen, a full network of women who took care of each other in good times and bad.
Almost twenty years had passed since she first went down to Florida, and there came the time when she realized that she would be unable to keep going the way she had been. The doctors couldn't perform the kind of knee operations she would have needed. Hard to drive; harder to walk. The distance from the elevator to her apartment somehow seemed to be getting longer and longer. Everything was becoming more and more difficult. Time to move back to Maryland, to a subsidized facility she knew about because family members had been and are living there.
Barbara had been there before to help her mother 'settle in,' so she knew what to expect. I, of course, did not -- although maybe I should have. It's not as if this facility is inherently depressing; it's not. But it is institutional, no getting around it. No gated community extending for blocks and blocks with guards to check the cars coming in the several entrances. Just a desk clerk on duty in a little cubicle in a little lobby. A room with a number of computers, yes, but no large clubhouse with an auditorium where performers entertain and movies are shown. No balconies with soothing views of herons landing in the lagoon; Gwen's balcony faced the parking lot in the back where the big trucks came to collect the trash. You have to notice that it's designed for older people whose circumstances are getting more and more constricted physically, financially, and therefore emotionally. And that is what's depressing.
We arrived in the evening after the dining room was closed and so the lobby was deserted except for the desk clerk, who brought us upstairs to the apartment. Remember, no one had been here -- except for a distant cousin who came in if and when she remembered to water the plants -- for two months. Why can't we find a light switch that works? Why are all the digital clocks blinking? Why is a six week old edition of the Washington Post neatly folded on the kitchen table? Why are there semi-rancid coffee grinds in a dried-up filter in the Mr. Coffee machine? Are we indeed in some semblance of the twilight zone where time had simply stopped? After some effort, we finally figured out which lamps and wall switches worked, enough to bring in our luggage and get settled for the night.
Settling in. That is part of what was so disconcerting. The move from Florida last June had just about done her in. .Gwen had never been able to settle in to this apartment even though both Barbara and her sister Lois had been there to help her. It wasn't just that there were still a few boxes of stuff scattered around; the place just didn't have that "make yourself at home feeling" that the same furniture, the same pictures created in Deerfield Beach. She was too busy shuttling between her apartment, various local hospitals, and the rehabilitation wing of the Hebrew Home in nearby Rockville, where she was the entire time of our visit.
That was our destination the next morning, after first dealing with the car rental place. Sami, a young man whose parents must have come from the great subcontinent, took excellent care of us. But that accent? He obviously grew up in The States, but not anywhere near this Enterprise office. Then he told us that he grew up in Bayside, Queens. Of course. He sounded exactly like our friend Steve L who grew up in the same area.. A good twenty-five years difference in age, ancestors from opposite sides of the globe, but the same way of talking. That's what a neighborhood will do.
Part of Sami's job was to make sure we were completely satisfied. Translation: Did we want additional insurance? Maybe we needed the car for an extra day? Did we want to pay for the gas we used at their price (cheaper than at the station)? Did we want a GPS? Yes, Yes, Yes, and Yes. (I finally figured out what GPS stands for: a Great big Pain in the Somewhere.) Regarding this little gizmo which you plug into the lighter socket and it tells you where you are, we had no choice. We had no idea where we were and where we were supposed to be going. The problem was that this gizmo didn't really either. To be fair, it more or less knows where you are when you're starting out, and you tell it where you want to get to, but then it's more or less pot-luck. If you're on Smithers Road and two blocks away is Smithers Boulevard, chances are the little gadget will get flustered. I can't imagine this device at work in Queens where there might be a 74th St., Road, Ave, and Lane.
So for the next week, we had a running battle with this device. It would tell us to go straight when there was a major highway interrupting the street we were traveling on, blocking our progress. It would tell us to keep going when we knew we had in fact arrived at our destination. It would leave it to our imagination to figure out the subtle distinction between "keep right," "bear right," and "turn right." It assumed that when it said "go east," we could distinguish east from a hole in the wall. All for thirteen dollars a day! I kept wondering: Maybe this little machine has a mind of its own, like in the movie 2001. Maybe it will turn on us. Maybe we'll wind up hurtling over a cliff, or wind up in the only Arab village in the New World, or on the set of some slasher movie.
Now, someone might ask, why don't you just get a road map and be done with it? You wanna know why? We couldn't find one for love or money, no matter where we looked: book stores, gas stations, Office Depot type stores. That's why. At least not for Montgomery County MD. The entire state, yes; the whole Washington DC area, yes; but a map that would show us where C was in relation to A and B in this little twenty mile area we were in, no way, no how. Four years ago before we left, yes; today, not a chance. The word is O-B-S-O-L-E-T-E, one more item no longer needed (think typewriters, bottle openers, slide rules, alarm clocks, even -- dining room tables.) The nice man at the gas station explained that they stopped carrying maps because people had stopped buying them. (Maybe Triple-A still has them, but they don't operate in Israel.)
Since we've been back, I've seen a number of articles which deal, in one way or another, with the dumbing down of the human mind. Many new inventions (think printing press,computers, fully automated anything), while enriching our lives immeasurably, in another way makes it possible to put our brains in sleep mode. We realized, once we could trust our little device to get us from point A, Gwen's apartment, to point B, the Hebrew Home in Rockville), that we were no longer paying attention to where we were going. There were maybe only half a dozen turns, but we realized that if we didn't simply turn off our GPS and (gasp) look out the window at the relevant landmarks, we would never actually remember how to go.
As you would expect from this little diatribe, we had considerable difficulty the first day finding the Hebrew Home in the neighboring town of Rockville, but we did at last arrive. Where we were going turned out to be a huge strip mall of Jewish facilities:schools, social service facilities, a JCC, plus the Jewish Home. Like any of the malls we encountered, this one could have been anywhere. All the buildings were built with the same reddish-brown bricks and had the same institutional look as the building where Gwen was living and all the JCC's in New Jersey. I wonder if the same architectural firm designed them all? Where is Frank Lloyd Wright when you need him?
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
What Used To Be Home Pt. 1
Marcel and the Customs Agent
Everyone seems to think that you can find just about any information you'd ever want on The Web. Well, up to a point; still, you can only go so far with this. I have located the lyrics from well-known obscure songs from the 1920's (There goes the girl I dreamed all through school about, There goes the girl I'll now be a fool about,Ring down the curtain, I'm certain my future just passed ...-- Richard Whiting/George Marion, Jr); but what about undiagnosed phobias? There are a number of places you can go to to search for the scientific (Latin) names for rare maladies: for example, if you have a fear of raw sewage, you are suffering from seplophobia. Supposing, however, you have morbid dread that you will be left with nothing to read, that you be thrust into a situation in which you will have six hours at your disposal with nothing to do but stare at the walls. I don't know what it's called, but that's me in spades. Whenever I go on a trip, I invariably shlep along three times as much reading material as I could get to, even if I were going to be stranded at an airport during a major blizzard.
With that in mind, there we were on a plane heading from Ben-Gurion to Amsterdam, the first leg of our recent journey to The States. I had hoped to finish the last volume of Marcel Proust's À La Recherche du Temps Perdu before we left; but I still had 150 pages to read; so I brought it along and was perusing it as the plane was heading north over Europe at about 8AM Israel time. I had reached page 229, at which point, Marcel, the writer's thinly disguised alter ego, is about to enter the drawing-room of some very swanky people. He has been away from Society for some time, and when he walks in, he notices something very strange: "To begin with I did not understand why I was so slow to recognize the master of the house and the guests nor why everybody seemed seemed to have put on make-up, in most cases with powdered hair which changed them completely." Proust goes on describing his astonishment as he is introduced to people he knew so well and now hardly recognizes. "...Time, which is normally not visible, which seeks out bodies in order to become so and wherever it finds them seizes upon them for its magic lantern show." (p. 233) Marcel, you have this uncanny ability to put words in my mouth. Could anyone else have expressed why I was so dreading this trip?
Barbara had gone back to The States several times to see her mother and once to see her terminally ill aunt. Except for our ten day cruise to Greece, I had kept my two feet firmly planted in The Land since we arrived in July 2007. I'm not one of these fanatics who insist that once you're living in The Land, you may never, never, set one toe outside our boundaries even long enough to sneeze. My approach is much narrower, more pragmatic. Why would I want to be sitting in an airport at 3AM when I could be sound asleep at home? Why would I want to be sitting on an airplane at 10AM when I could be sharing my laptop with our two latest felines, Moby and Kookie?
We were originally planning a trip to The States in May to coincide with Barbara's mother's 90th birthday, but Gwen was doing poorly, shuttling back and forth between assorted hospitals and a rehab center. At one point, we were not certain she would pull through, so we advanced our trip by two months. At least that way I could have a belated 70th birthday celebration with my fraternal twin brother -- in between his rounds of chemotherapy. There was a host of family and friends we could see. One friend who was still grieving the loss of his wife who died inexplicably following an operation just before we made aliyah. Another who, after a senseless accident, was now a paraplegic. Some had lost elderly parents; others were burdened with caring for them. I had wondered how they were faring. I wondered what time had done to minds and bodies that weren't so young to begin with. We would soon find out.
Let me digress and throw in a little tip about air travel. If you're going to be stuck in an airport in Europe for more than twenty minutes, as good a place as any to be is in Amsterdam -- as long as you aren't looking for kosher food. The duty-free shops are well stocked and reasonable. If you have the time, you can get on a bus and be at any of the fine museums in the city in half an hour. Being more cautious, we chose to stay in the airport. Not to worry; there's even a museum there! Actually a gallery space, exhibiting 'Old Masters' lent from the local museums. From the sublime to the ridiculous: there is also a life-size interactive TV display in which the friendly virtual bartender will show you how to make dozens of cocktails, all using a gin-like beverage called Bols Genever. I prefer my booze straight up, but I appreciate the sentiment.
Many hours and a change of planes later, we arrived at Dulles International Airport outside Washington DC. Home. Or what used to be home. Or more precisely, close to what used to be home. Clutching our American passports, we avoided the agony to which foreigners are subjected when they choose to enter The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. Not so fast. We had filled out the standard customs form stating that we had nothing to declare. With our turquoise suitcases -- the easier to find them on the the luggage conveyor -- and our carry-on bags, we were standing in a long corridor with lots of other people waiting to exit, when a customs official with the cutest little Beagle you'd ever want to see came walking our way. The dog got to our stuff, started sniffing, and climbed onto Barbara's backpack. Uh-oh! On the general principal that you never have too much food with you, Barbara had packed three Granny Smith apples (yes, you can get them in Israel) as part of of our just-in-case snack. She also took two cucumbers that would have rotted if left for another week in our fridge. We were well fed on the KLM-Delta flights and we still had them with us. We were attempting to bring unauthorized agricultural products into the U.S.. for which a fine of up to $500 may be imposed. Yikes! We offered to eat the apples right then and there; but that would have meant destroying the evidence. We were taken into a separate room and made to face the sternest federal official you'd never want to meet. In front of us on line was a middle-aged man, his head bowed in contrition, holding in his hands a solitary red-delicious apple cradled in a napkin. He was ready to accept whatever punishment the official would mete out: a week in Guantanamo, having to write "I will never again try to smuggle Agricultural products into the U.S." ten thousand times, or being force-fed fifty gallons of Starbucks worst coffee. He got off lightly; the woman simply confiscated his red-delicious apple and the napkin, giving him a scathing look in the process. But we....we... had three (!) apples and two (!) cucumbers. We might be members of some agro-consortium. Would they retroactively revoke our citizenship back three generations -- even for my Uncle George who fought in W.W.I? The official took our passports and proceeded to check them.. Our information was probably entered into some data-base of would-be Johnny Appleseeds, to be interrogated should we return at some future date to what used to be our home. We were finally released and allowed to go on our way. Welcome to the USA!
Everyone seems to think that you can find just about any information you'd ever want on The Web. Well, up to a point; still, you can only go so far with this. I have located the lyrics from well-known obscure songs from the 1920's (There goes the girl I dreamed all through school about, There goes the girl I'll now be a fool about,Ring down the curtain, I'm certain my future just passed ...-- Richard Whiting/George Marion, Jr); but what about undiagnosed phobias? There are a number of places you can go to to search for the scientific (Latin) names for rare maladies: for example, if you have a fear of raw sewage, you are suffering from seplophobia. Supposing, however, you have morbid dread that you will be left with nothing to read, that you be thrust into a situation in which you will have six hours at your disposal with nothing to do but stare at the walls. I don't know what it's called, but that's me in spades. Whenever I go on a trip, I invariably shlep along three times as much reading material as I could get to, even if I were going to be stranded at an airport during a major blizzard.
With that in mind, there we were on a plane heading from Ben-Gurion to Amsterdam, the first leg of our recent journey to The States. I had hoped to finish the last volume of Marcel Proust's À La Recherche du Temps Perdu before we left; but I still had 150 pages to read; so I brought it along and was perusing it as the plane was heading north over Europe at about 8AM Israel time. I had reached page 229, at which point, Marcel, the writer's thinly disguised alter ego, is about to enter the drawing-room of some very swanky people. He has been away from Society for some time, and when he walks in, he notices something very strange: "To begin with I did not understand why I was so slow to recognize the master of the house and the guests nor why everybody seemed seemed to have put on make-up, in most cases with powdered hair which changed them completely." Proust goes on describing his astonishment as he is introduced to people he knew so well and now hardly recognizes. "...Time, which is normally not visible, which seeks out bodies in order to become so and wherever it finds them seizes upon them for its magic lantern show." (p. 233) Marcel, you have this uncanny ability to put words in my mouth. Could anyone else have expressed why I was so dreading this trip?
Barbara had gone back to The States several times to see her mother and once to see her terminally ill aunt. Except for our ten day cruise to Greece, I had kept my two feet firmly planted in The Land since we arrived in July 2007. I'm not one of these fanatics who insist that once you're living in The Land, you may never, never, set one toe outside our boundaries even long enough to sneeze. My approach is much narrower, more pragmatic. Why would I want to be sitting in an airport at 3AM when I could be sound asleep at home? Why would I want to be sitting on an airplane at 10AM when I could be sharing my laptop with our two latest felines, Moby and Kookie?
We were originally planning a trip to The States in May to coincide with Barbara's mother's 90th birthday, but Gwen was doing poorly, shuttling back and forth between assorted hospitals and a rehab center. At one point, we were not certain she would pull through, so we advanced our trip by two months. At least that way I could have a belated 70th birthday celebration with my fraternal twin brother -- in between his rounds of chemotherapy. There was a host of family and friends we could see. One friend who was still grieving the loss of his wife who died inexplicably following an operation just before we made aliyah. Another who, after a senseless accident, was now a paraplegic. Some had lost elderly parents; others were burdened with caring for them. I had wondered how they were faring. I wondered what time had done to minds and bodies that weren't so young to begin with. We would soon find out.
Let me digress and throw in a little tip about air travel. If you're going to be stuck in an airport in Europe for more than twenty minutes, as good a place as any to be is in Amsterdam -- as long as you aren't looking for kosher food. The duty-free shops are well stocked and reasonable. If you have the time, you can get on a bus and be at any of the fine museums in the city in half an hour. Being more cautious, we chose to stay in the airport. Not to worry; there's even a museum there! Actually a gallery space, exhibiting 'Old Masters' lent from the local museums. From the sublime to the ridiculous: there is also a life-size interactive TV display in which the friendly virtual bartender will show you how to make dozens of cocktails, all using a gin-like beverage called Bols Genever. I prefer my booze straight up, but I appreciate the sentiment.
Many hours and a change of planes later, we arrived at Dulles International Airport outside Washington DC. Home. Or what used to be home. Or more precisely, close to what used to be home. Clutching our American passports, we avoided the agony to which foreigners are subjected when they choose to enter The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. Not so fast. We had filled out the standard customs form stating that we had nothing to declare. With our turquoise suitcases -- the easier to find them on the the luggage conveyor -- and our carry-on bags, we were standing in a long corridor with lots of other people waiting to exit, when a customs official with the cutest little Beagle you'd ever want to see came walking our way. The dog got to our stuff, started sniffing, and climbed onto Barbara's backpack. Uh-oh! On the general principal that you never have too much food with you, Barbara had packed three Granny Smith apples (yes, you can get them in Israel) as part of of our just-in-case snack. She also took two cucumbers that would have rotted if left for another week in our fridge. We were well fed on the KLM-Delta flights and we still had them with us. We were attempting to bring unauthorized agricultural products into the U.S.. for which a fine of up to $500 may be imposed. Yikes! We offered to eat the apples right then and there; but that would have meant destroying the evidence. We were taken into a separate room and made to face the sternest federal official you'd never want to meet. In front of us on line was a middle-aged man, his head bowed in contrition, holding in his hands a solitary red-delicious apple cradled in a napkin. He was ready to accept whatever punishment the official would mete out: a week in Guantanamo, having to write "I will never again try to smuggle Agricultural products into the U.S." ten thousand times, or being force-fed fifty gallons of Starbucks worst coffee. He got off lightly; the woman simply confiscated his red-delicious apple and the napkin, giving him a scathing look in the process. But we....we... had three (!) apples and two (!) cucumbers. We might be members of some agro-consortium. Would they retroactively revoke our citizenship back three generations -- even for my Uncle George who fought in W.W.I? The official took our passports and proceeded to check them.. Our information was probably entered into some data-base of would-be Johnny Appleseeds, to be interrogated should we return at some future date to what used to be our home. We were finally released and allowed to go on our way. Welcome to the USA!
Thursday, May 12, 2011
You Ain't Gonna Rain on My Barbecue
“I remember back in the States the ongoing disputes as to what prayers to say on Yom Ha’Atzmaut. Here in the Land, pretty much everyone understands that we are living a miracle and acts accordingly — at least on this one wonderful day of the year.”
Fred Casden of Ma’aleh Adumim (2007 from Teaneck)
It started with a request from our good friend, Abby Leichman.. Among her other journalistic pursuits, she seems to be the 'foreign correspondent' for the New Jersey Jewish Standard (an aptly named newspaper, as I will explain below). She was writing a series of articles for them about Yom Haatzmaut, and she hoped to collect a series of short statements (ostensibly one or two sentences) from former New Jerseyites about “How do former North Jersey residents feel about celebrating Israeli Independence Day in the land of Israel?” Being a sensible person, and having a deadline to meet, Abby sent out an e-mail to a selected group of ex-pats, people like me who always have something to say and are willing to say it at a moment's notice (cynics might describe this condition as “diarrhea of the mouth”).
What choice did I have, but to rise to the occasion, having about three days, including Shabbat, to ponder the matter? The first sticking point was the desired length. It is hard to be brilliant and brief at the same time. But, before there were sound-bites, there were aphorisms to give us inspiration. (“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” – Oscar Wilde; “Lead me not into temptation; I can find the way myself” – Mae West) Nothing I could come up would be as clever or poignant as these examples, but I would give it a shot. Then I thought, even if I can make it short and snappy, what would there be to talk about that would grab the attention of the intended audience?
The New Jersey Jewish Standard, a very 'standard' American 'Jewish' newspaper. It would not be fair to say that every paper of its kind in The States is the same; they vary widely in coverage and quality. What they have in common is a standard starting point: 'Federation Judaism,' a sort of liberal, cure the world, big tent kind of approach. By design, a lot of lukewarm commentary and not much punch. Often, the most interesting items in The Standard were the Letters to the Editor, taking the paper to task for what the paper wrote or failed to write. But consider The Standard's readership: a heavily Orthodox readership in Teaneck, divided into liberals and conservatives, and a larger amorphous non-Orthodox constituency throughout the rest of Bergen County, politically liberal and percentage-wise less involved in things Israeli. What would I, could I say about Yom Haaztmaut that would resonate with any sizable percentage of them?
Giving a description of what goes on here on this holiday is relatively simple. Doing it in a way that doesn't make or draw misleading comparisons with holidays in The States that purport to have the same purpose is much harder. Explaining what the day is all about is very, very difficult – even if your readership has supposedly bought into your value system.
I can write plainly that Yom Haaztmaut is (in fact, means) Israel's Independence Day. People in The States can relate to that: Fourth of July. The day before is Yom Hazicharon, a day to commemorate the 24,000 men, women, and children who have died defending their lives and property since Jews began moving out of Jerusalem's Old City in the mid 19th century; this year there will be 240 or so more martyrs to add to the list. Everyone can relate to that. Americans have Memorial Day and Armistice Day; add on to that memorials to the victims of 9/11.
I can write that Barbara got the last inch of room on a second bus ( the first was way too crowded to stop for more passengers) on the way back from Jerusalem to Ma'ale Adumim at 1:30PM – six hours before Yom Haaztmaut would start. In The States, traveling around 'The Holidays' can also be a nightmare. At night there will be fireworks; all through the day, intrepid Israelis will be making barbecues anywhere they can drive to and get their grills going (as with Lag B'Omer, don't leave your laundry out on the line unless you really like the lingering aroma of meat patties in your BVD's). Again, fireworks, barbecues? Not unique to The Land.
So trying to squeeze a description of what takes place here into a few dozen well-chosen words is inherently self-defeating. Anyone who is reasonably interested in life in The Land already knows something about our holiday. Reciting the bare facts won't cut it for anybody else because we're still left with the next-to-impossible task of explaining what any of it means.
Consider these two very different scenarios, if you will. It was almost a given that sooner or later European nations would head off to the New World and subjugate the aboriginal population. It was likely that England, the strongest, most efficient nation at the time and the one most interested in colonization, would grab a large, usable hunk of the property. It was not surprising that the transplanted Englishmen would insist on their own form of government. It was fortunate that their leaders did a good job of it. There was no certainty that the nation would grow and prosper and remain united. Yes, you can see the hand of G-d in all of the above, in the sense that every time an infant comes out of a womb, the hand of G-d is present. But The Hand of G-d? Is anybody talking about obvious, overt miracles as being the cause of America's success? If you were ever at Gettysburg, did you see any signs near the battlefield, “Nes gadol haya po” (a great big miracle happened here)?
What about our situation: a people homeless for two thousand years, vilified and hunted down almost to extinction more often than we'd care to think about, returning to our home turf and seemingly making a go of it, despite the hostility of an awful lot of people – including some of our own. Two questions: are we dealing with the hand of G-d or The Hand of G-d? Is it even possible to describe Israel's sixty-three year history without making reference to the many miracles that seemed to have occurred both on battlefields and in beleaguered towns, kibbutzim, and cities during times of war and terror? And what difference does it make (and to whom)?
Before we moved to Teaneck, we lived in Passaic – a much more fractured community. Every year on the evening of Yom Haatzmaut, the remnants of the 'Zionist' community would gather at 'The Adas' for a community celebration. It was a fairly lackluster event, but you had to show up – just so the 'faithful' knew you were still there . In the morning, if you wanted to participate in a minyan, you certainly had your pick. I often thought about putting together a chart describing what was going on in every shul: some pretended that nothing was going on – regular davening including tachanun (a part of the service which is omitted on festive occasions); others eliminated it. Of the latter group, some included Hallel (psalms of rejoicing said on the holidays); some didn't. Of the ones that did, some included it where it normally would be; some put it at the end. Some included the bracha that normally precedes it; some didn't. (In Teaneck, there is always a small, private minyan that follows the special service commonly used in Israel. Most synagogues followed it only in part; but nobody said tachanun.)
If there is no community celebration of Yom Haatzmaut nearby where you live in The Exile, then the question of whether you're going to head over to it or not doesn't come up. If you're not planning to go to shul that morning anyway, it's kind of unimportant what prayers they're going to include. But when rabbis and synagogues on the west bank of the Passaic River make a conscious decision to maintain the regular prayer service on Yom Haatzmaut, you have to assume they're making a statement about how they feel – or don't feel – about the day and the event (that and a reflexive reluctance to tamper with the set order of prayers). Here in The Land, even our secular brethren are living the miracles that go on every day. Everyone is too busy fussing with the fire in their little mangal to worry about somebody in The Exile raining on their barbecue.
Fred Casden of Ma’aleh Adumim (2007 from Teaneck)
It started with a request from our good friend, Abby Leichman.. Among her other journalistic pursuits, she seems to be the 'foreign correspondent' for the New Jersey Jewish Standard (an aptly named newspaper, as I will explain below). She was writing a series of articles for them about Yom Haatzmaut, and she hoped to collect a series of short statements (ostensibly one or two sentences) from former New Jerseyites about “How do former North Jersey residents feel about celebrating Israeli Independence Day in the land of Israel?” Being a sensible person, and having a deadline to meet, Abby sent out an e-mail to a selected group of ex-pats, people like me who always have something to say and are willing to say it at a moment's notice (cynics might describe this condition as “diarrhea of the mouth”).
What choice did I have, but to rise to the occasion, having about three days, including Shabbat, to ponder the matter? The first sticking point was the desired length. It is hard to be brilliant and brief at the same time. But, before there were sound-bites, there were aphorisms to give us inspiration. (“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” – Oscar Wilde; “Lead me not into temptation; I can find the way myself” – Mae West) Nothing I could come up would be as clever or poignant as these examples, but I would give it a shot. Then I thought, even if I can make it short and snappy, what would there be to talk about that would grab the attention of the intended audience?
The New Jersey Jewish Standard, a very 'standard' American 'Jewish' newspaper. It would not be fair to say that every paper of its kind in The States is the same; they vary widely in coverage and quality. What they have in common is a standard starting point: 'Federation Judaism,' a sort of liberal, cure the world, big tent kind of approach. By design, a lot of lukewarm commentary and not much punch. Often, the most interesting items in The Standard were the Letters to the Editor, taking the paper to task for what the paper wrote or failed to write. But consider The Standard's readership: a heavily Orthodox readership in Teaneck, divided into liberals and conservatives, and a larger amorphous non-Orthodox constituency throughout the rest of Bergen County, politically liberal and percentage-wise less involved in things Israeli. What would I, could I say about Yom Haaztmaut that would resonate with any sizable percentage of them?
Giving a description of what goes on here on this holiday is relatively simple. Doing it in a way that doesn't make or draw misleading comparisons with holidays in The States that purport to have the same purpose is much harder. Explaining what the day is all about is very, very difficult – even if your readership has supposedly bought into your value system.
I can write plainly that Yom Haaztmaut is (in fact, means) Israel's Independence Day. People in The States can relate to that: Fourth of July. The day before is Yom Hazicharon, a day to commemorate the 24,000 men, women, and children who have died defending their lives and property since Jews began moving out of Jerusalem's Old City in the mid 19th century; this year there will be 240 or so more martyrs to add to the list. Everyone can relate to that. Americans have Memorial Day and Armistice Day; add on to that memorials to the victims of 9/11.
I can write that Barbara got the last inch of room on a second bus ( the first was way too crowded to stop for more passengers) on the way back from Jerusalem to Ma'ale Adumim at 1:30PM – six hours before Yom Haaztmaut would start. In The States, traveling around 'The Holidays' can also be a nightmare. At night there will be fireworks; all through the day, intrepid Israelis will be making barbecues anywhere they can drive to and get their grills going (as with Lag B'Omer, don't leave your laundry out on the line unless you really like the lingering aroma of meat patties in your BVD's). Again, fireworks, barbecues? Not unique to The Land.
So trying to squeeze a description of what takes place here into a few dozen well-chosen words is inherently self-defeating. Anyone who is reasonably interested in life in The Land already knows something about our holiday. Reciting the bare facts won't cut it for anybody else because we're still left with the next-to-impossible task of explaining what any of it means.
Consider these two very different scenarios, if you will. It was almost a given that sooner or later European nations would head off to the New World and subjugate the aboriginal population. It was likely that England, the strongest, most efficient nation at the time and the one most interested in colonization, would grab a large, usable hunk of the property. It was not surprising that the transplanted Englishmen would insist on their own form of government. It was fortunate that their leaders did a good job of it. There was no certainty that the nation would grow and prosper and remain united. Yes, you can see the hand of G-d in all of the above, in the sense that every time an infant comes out of a womb, the hand of G-d is present. But The Hand of G-d? Is anybody talking about obvious, overt miracles as being the cause of America's success? If you were ever at Gettysburg, did you see any signs near the battlefield, “Nes gadol haya po” (a great big miracle happened here)?
What about our situation: a people homeless for two thousand years, vilified and hunted down almost to extinction more often than we'd care to think about, returning to our home turf and seemingly making a go of it, despite the hostility of an awful lot of people – including some of our own. Two questions: are we dealing with the hand of G-d or The Hand of G-d? Is it even possible to describe Israel's sixty-three year history without making reference to the many miracles that seemed to have occurred both on battlefields and in beleaguered towns, kibbutzim, and cities during times of war and terror? And what difference does it make (and to whom)?
Before we moved to Teaneck, we lived in Passaic – a much more fractured community. Every year on the evening of Yom Haatzmaut, the remnants of the 'Zionist' community would gather at 'The Adas' for a community celebration. It was a fairly lackluster event, but you had to show up – just so the 'faithful' knew you were still there . In the morning, if you wanted to participate in a minyan, you certainly had your pick. I often thought about putting together a chart describing what was going on in every shul: some pretended that nothing was going on – regular davening including tachanun (a part of the service which is omitted on festive occasions); others eliminated it. Of the latter group, some included Hallel (psalms of rejoicing said on the holidays); some didn't. Of the ones that did, some included it where it normally would be; some put it at the end. Some included the bracha that normally precedes it; some didn't. (In Teaneck, there is always a small, private minyan that follows the special service commonly used in Israel. Most synagogues followed it only in part; but nobody said tachanun.)
If there is no community celebration of Yom Haatzmaut nearby where you live in The Exile, then the question of whether you're going to head over to it or not doesn't come up. If you're not planning to go to shul that morning anyway, it's kind of unimportant what prayers they're going to include. But when rabbis and synagogues on the west bank of the Passaic River make a conscious decision to maintain the regular prayer service on Yom Haatzmaut, you have to assume they're making a statement about how they feel – or don't feel – about the day and the event (that and a reflexive reluctance to tamper with the set order of prayers). Here in The Land, even our secular brethren are living the miracles that go on every day. Everyone is too busy fussing with the fire in their little mangal to worry about somebody in The Exile raining on their barbecue.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Some Thoughts on My Birthday
Times does go by when 'you're having fun.' It's now been over a month since the party we held to celebrate my reaching the big 7-Oh; and people are still coming over to wish me a 'happy birthday.' A lot has happened since then: a trip to The States and then the preparations for Pesach. It goes without saying that I delivered a few (?) choice words to the assembled throng at my big bash. Before time inexorably passes by and I have forgotten the gist of what I said, let me do a passable re-creation of my words of wisdom – in the oft chance that you weren't available to hear it in the original.
It is customary at gatherings of this sort to include a reference to a Jewish source when you're going to say something. So let me quote you something from page 44 of a new translation of “Finding Time Again,” the last volume of Marcel Proust's À La Recherche du Temps Perdu. In an entirely different context, he wrote, “It is all a matter of chronology.” Now, I might have put it differently, something like “Timing is everything.” But, way to go, Marcel! You were reading my mind some twenty years before I had one.
One thing I want to make very clear: I am hoping to be around for a while, both for selfish reasons and because Barbara still believes that I am worth more to her alive than dead. Nonetheless, when you reach a certain age, you tend to spend some time remembering your past. That can be dangerous. If you are ever engaged in climbing the face of a cliff, the one thing you definitely do not want to do is to look down to where you started. When I look back at my own childhood, two things stands out. The obvious one is how long ago that was and how different the world seemed to be, and that's scary. But there's something else: how divorced my childhood was from what was facing the Jewish People at that time. There I was on E. 208 St. in The Bronx innocently learning how to walk. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of Jewish children and their parents in Europe were being marched to the Camps and their death. While the children in my class were learning to recite “I pledge allegiance to the flag....” and to sing “O say can you see...,” half way around the world a life-and-death struggle was going on to create a Jewish state. It's as if there were a document with two columns and you need to merge them into one coherent text. Maybe that's one reason why we came to Israel.
Now a skeptic might interject: “Well you took your sweet time about it, and you waited until all the hard work in building the State had been done.” And I would have to respond that we did indeed take our sweet time in getting here. But I question whether all the hard work has been done. Just as I can look out our living room windows and see the storm clouds rolling in over the Jerusalem hills, we can all see the signs of danger looming ahead. And the thing is that we have virtually no leadership, either political or religious, to guide us through the dark days ahead. That's truly scary and, yes, there's plenty more to be done.
The skeptic might continue: “All well and good. But what have you actually accomplished since you've been here?” I can answer that! Let me start with the articles I've been writing. Collected together, they would make up a volume of almost 500 pages. I've been working on a novel the last few years, and I promised a friend that by the time her eight year old son is a bar mitzvah, it will be finished. Also, I just started my sixth assignment editing the English language commentary of a Jewish text. Speaking of English, most Mondays, I'm at Hebrew U., tutoring students in – what else? – English. Thanks to my friend Ron, we've been able to slog through two hundred plus pages of Rambam's Mishne Torah, which we will finish learning in another twenty years or so. While I'm at it, let me thank Nachum for the amazing shiurim which he has been giving for I-don't-know-how-many years. What else? I started singing again, and I'm in the chorus of a second musical production. They also have me painting sets, not what you'd expect me to be doing! Of course, I keep doing my photography when I have time. It's amazing how much you can get done when you don't have to waste time making a living.
There are some more subtle things to mention. We've had the pleasure of participating in the wedding of our older daughter Tina to David right here in The Land. And Natania served in the first Jewish army since the Bar Kochba rebellion. One other thing, though. Looking around this room, there are only a handful of people here that we knew before we first came to Ma'ale Adumim a little less than four years ago. We have 'acquired' the rest of you since then. I should mention that Barbara and I will be leaving for a trip next week back to The States, one I'm dreading, basically to see her mother, who is in failing health as she approaches her 90th birthday, and to hook up with my brother, who is also not doing well. (Perhaps I should express my gratitude that I seem to be in reasonable shape for my age.) Everywhere we lived, we also made wonderful friends, some of whom I am looking forward to seeing when we go back. And everywhere we lived, I was involved with the shul. You know, the tikun olam (healing the world) bit. But while I was always glad to pitch in and make things better, I never had the sense that I was building the Future of the Jewish People.
It's different here. Everyone of you, whether you've been here for twenty weeks or twenty years, is here for a reason. We are all in our own way contributing something to the building of this country and The Future of the Jewish People. I respect and admire all of you for that, and I value your friendship more than I can say. On that note, let me resume my bar-tending responsibilities.
It is customary at gatherings of this sort to include a reference to a Jewish source when you're going to say something. So let me quote you something from page 44 of a new translation of “Finding Time Again,” the last volume of Marcel Proust's À La Recherche du Temps Perdu. In an entirely different context, he wrote, “It is all a matter of chronology.” Now, I might have put it differently, something like “Timing is everything.” But, way to go, Marcel! You were reading my mind some twenty years before I had one.
One thing I want to make very clear: I am hoping to be around for a while, both for selfish reasons and because Barbara still believes that I am worth more to her alive than dead. Nonetheless, when you reach a certain age, you tend to spend some time remembering your past. That can be dangerous. If you are ever engaged in climbing the face of a cliff, the one thing you definitely do not want to do is to look down to where you started. When I look back at my own childhood, two things stands out. The obvious one is how long ago that was and how different the world seemed to be, and that's scary. But there's something else: how divorced my childhood was from what was facing the Jewish People at that time. There I was on E. 208 St. in The Bronx innocently learning how to walk. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of Jewish children and their parents in Europe were being marched to the Camps and their death. While the children in my class were learning to recite “I pledge allegiance to the flag....” and to sing “O say can you see...,” half way around the world a life-and-death struggle was going on to create a Jewish state. It's as if there were a document with two columns and you need to merge them into one coherent text. Maybe that's one reason why we came to Israel.
Now a skeptic might interject: “Well you took your sweet time about it, and you waited until all the hard work in building the State had been done.” And I would have to respond that we did indeed take our sweet time in getting here. But I question whether all the hard work has been done. Just as I can look out our living room windows and see the storm clouds rolling in over the Jerusalem hills, we can all see the signs of danger looming ahead. And the thing is that we have virtually no leadership, either political or religious, to guide us through the dark days ahead. That's truly scary and, yes, there's plenty more to be done.
The skeptic might continue: “All well and good. But what have you actually accomplished since you've been here?” I can answer that! Let me start with the articles I've been writing. Collected together, they would make up a volume of almost 500 pages. I've been working on a novel the last few years, and I promised a friend that by the time her eight year old son is a bar mitzvah, it will be finished. Also, I just started my sixth assignment editing the English language commentary of a Jewish text. Speaking of English, most Mondays, I'm at Hebrew U., tutoring students in – what else? – English. Thanks to my friend Ron, we've been able to slog through two hundred plus pages of Rambam's Mishne Torah, which we will finish learning in another twenty years or so. While I'm at it, let me thank Nachum for the amazing shiurim which he has been giving for I-don't-know-how-many years. What else? I started singing again, and I'm in the chorus of a second musical production. They also have me painting sets, not what you'd expect me to be doing! Of course, I keep doing my photography when I have time. It's amazing how much you can get done when you don't have to waste time making a living.
There are some more subtle things to mention. We've had the pleasure of participating in the wedding of our older daughter Tina to David right here in The Land. And Natania served in the first Jewish army since the Bar Kochba rebellion. One other thing, though. Looking around this room, there are only a handful of people here that we knew before we first came to Ma'ale Adumim a little less than four years ago. We have 'acquired' the rest of you since then. I should mention that Barbara and I will be leaving for a trip next week back to The States, one I'm dreading, basically to see her mother, who is in failing health as she approaches her 90th birthday, and to hook up with my brother, who is also not doing well. (Perhaps I should express my gratitude that I seem to be in reasonable shape for my age.) Everywhere we lived, we also made wonderful friends, some of whom I am looking forward to seeing when we go back. And everywhere we lived, I was involved with the shul. You know, the tikun olam (healing the world) bit. But while I was always glad to pitch in and make things better, I never had the sense that I was building the Future of the Jewish People.
It's different here. Everyone of you, whether you've been here for twenty weeks or twenty years, is here for a reason. We are all in our own way contributing something to the building of this country and The Future of the Jewish People. I respect and admire all of you for that, and I value your friendship more than I can say. On that note, let me resume my bar-tending responsibilities.
Monday, March 7, 2011
Moshe Pinchas and the Make Believe Ballroom
It’s Make Believe Ballroom Time,
Put all your cares away.
All the bands are here
To bring good cheer your way….
(Theme music for Martin Block’s Make Believe Ballroom
Written by Martin Block/Harold Green/Mickey Stoner and performed by
The Glenn Miller Orchestra and the Modernaires)
Moshe Feldenkrais, or if you want to be precise, Moshe Pinchas Feldenkrais. That’s a name that probably doesn’t come up in the course of your everyday conversation, if ever. Maybe because he led a boring life, never did anything, never went anywhere. He turned up all alone in Palestine in 1919, when he was fifteen, worked as a laborer, got some education and worked as a mapmaker; went to Paris and got degrees in mechanical and electrical engineering, then his doctorate at the Sorbonne, after which he stayed in France and built a generator used for atomic fission experiments. He got to England before the Nazis arrived in Paris and conducted anti-submarine research for the British admiralty. He returned to Israel in 1951 to direct the Israeli army department of electronics. Ho-hum, just a typical day at the office. In his spare time, Feldenkrais mastered judo and jiu-jitsu, wrote books on self-defense, and started developing an eponymous method of bodily healing, which he devoted the latter years of his life teaching.
What does any of this have to do with our sheltered lives here a little bit east of Yerushalayim? It has to do with my wife and personal trainer (one and the same). Barbara has always maintained that I am worth more to her alive than dead. That’s true from a strictly financial point of view, but I have to hope her interest is deeper than that. She has noted that, over the years, my body has lost some flexibility – a natural consequence of the aging process. She had signed up for ‘Feldenkrais’ at the local Gil Hazahav and was anxious for me to join her. And so I did (although you knew that already).
Let me describe what goes on at ‘Feldenkrais.’ You and ten to twenty other people lie on the floor on a mat (not the same mat!). The teacher, Nava, goes through a long explanation about what’s going on, and then we begin a series of exercises in which all parts of the body go in different directions at the same time. Now all of this palavering is going on in Ivrit, which means that I understand precious little of what is going on. To be fair, most of the exercises are so complicated that I wouldn’t understand what she wants us to do – if she were speaking in English. As far as her explanations of the methodology are concerned, all I get out of it is that I’m supposed to remember to breathe.
The first session I attended, Nava, realizing my linguistic limitations, began explaining some of the basic points in my language of choice; whereupon a gentleman from the FSU piped up, “Let him learn Hebrew.” Thanks for your kind thoughts, Dmitri, I’ll remember you in my will. The teacher pointedly ignored him and went on about her business.
After the first few sessions, I realized what my problem was. I was so intent on translating the instructions that I was constitutionally incapable of relaxing – which is the whole basis of ‘Feldenkrais.’ So now I don’t worry about understanding anything beyond some reasonably simple directions. Whatever everyone else is doing, I do. Nava goes around and corrects everybody anyway. The first several months, Barbara was next to me back-mat driving. However, the class got switched to a different day – one which is not convenient for her – so now I am on my own. The bottom line is that if you were to ask me what the Feldenkrais method is all about, I still have no idea. I just figure that anything that gets you to relax and stretch your muscles has some value – even if you’re doing it in a ‘foreign’ language.
The moadon gil hazahav, the kind of community center that is found the length and breadth of The Land. The one here costs you 180 shekels a year to join (about a dollar a week) plus the cost of the classes (Feldenkrais is 70 shekels a month). If you understand that gil in Hebrew means ‘age,’ and zahav mean ‘gold,’ you know what the deal is. Outside the building, under a pergola, a handful of elderly guys are always sitting playing cards – in between conversation. For all I know, the game goes on around the clock, because they always seem to be there. This group is distinct from a slightly larger but similar group which is always sitting inside the mall at one of the tables near the ice cream concession or the group of Russians who crowd around one particular bench near the fountain in the older shopping area which is on our way to the center of town.
If anyone is wondering where all these guys’ wives are hanging out all this time, they’re probably the ladies hanging out inside the ‘clubhouse,’ sitting around tables in the ante-room, snacking on biscuits and instant coffee, having a grand old time in Hebrew or Russian – depending on place of birth. With some difficulty, one can wend one’s way through this mob into the large all-purpose room where ‘Feldenkrais’ goes on.
Except that today, we’re here for something different. For a while last year, Barbara had joined an additional exercise class and was anxious to rejoin and for me to go with her (but you knew that already). We had started the week before, and I quickly figured out that this class would be a piece of cake. The instructor, Chanah, led the assembled through a series of exercises, moving our arms or legs, squeezing a ball or stretching a rubber whatever-you-call-it (gumi in Ivrit). In the middle of the session, I had a flash-back: there was nothing going on that I wouldn’t be doing if we had a bunch of motivated geezers shooting the jump shots of our youth and going up for rebounds on a basketball court. But we don’t, so I persevered. Our teacher was standing, facing us, so all I had to do was duplicate what she was doing – remembering to do the mirror image, which seemed to be beyond the grasp of several of the participants.
Chana uses a musical accompaniment to get everyone relaxed and in the right frame of mind to move around. I do not remember what she played the first week, probably the kind of inane Israeli pop music that goes in one ear, travels through the brain at the speed of light, and exits out the other side, making absolutely no impression whatsoever ; but this day, all of a sudden, what was I hearing? “Love is a many splendored thing…..” It couldn’t be. Was this a tape of Martin Block’s Make Believe Ballroom on the radio? If you’re old enough to remember the song (music by Sammy Fain, lyrics by Paul Francis Webster) from the 1955 movie of the same name, when was the last time you heard anybody perform it? And the original? There I was, dutifully mimicking the teacher’s motions, all the while trying to remember who the group was. The Four……Who? The Four Lads, The Four Tops? This is killing me. (I checked it out later; it’s the Four Aces – for anyone who cares.)
For the rest of the forty-five minutes, Chana’s Make Believe Ballroom kept on going. And I kept whispering to Barbara, “Johnny Mathis,” “I think that’s Vic Damone,” “That’s The Platters, one of their mega-hits ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,’” That’s either Joni James or Patti Page, I’m not sure which.” Finally, Cole Porter’s ‘True Love,’ in which Grace Kelly joins Bing Crosby for the final chorus. For some cruel and inexplicable reason, Chana turned down the volume for the second half of the song. Good thing I have excellent hearing. Now this music is not my area of expertise; I’m better off with material from two to three decades before. Still, I grew up with this stuff and there are impressions and memories…….
I was, all the while, trying to keep enough of my faculties focused on what Chana was doing so I wouldn’t fall on my face or otherwise look stupid. After all, all the bands were here to bring good cheer my way. Yet I couldn’t help but keep looking around the room at the assembled throng trying to keep up with Chana and her moves. As far as I could tell, there was nobody except me and the spouse from our original side of The Pond. Had anyone else ever seen the movie or heard ‘Love Is a Many Splendored Thing’ sung in any language or dialect? Did anyone else have a clue who The Platters were? If they did, they were keeping it well hidden; not a glimmer of recognition. For all it mattered, it could just as well have been Yosi and the Chevra. And why should it – matter, that is? Who amongst them had had the chance to grow up in The Bronx, watching double features at the Loew’s Paradise? Who amongst them have ever huddled in a tunnel or underpass, working on a doo-wop number like ‘Sunday Kind of Love’? Maybe they were too busy fleeing Arab monarchies or enduring Soviet tyranny to pay attention to such idyllic joys.
When people ask me what I’m doing these days, my stock answer is usually “Aging Gracefully.” So there I am in the all-purpose room at the moadon gil hazahav, bending, flexing, twisting, rotating, hoping that I can keep remembering who I am, where I’ve been, and what I know. Maybe that’s what everyone else there is hoping to do.
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