Only 81

It’s my birthday. The 81^st in a long line of memories.

Jackie woke me this morning with a new Patagonia backpack that replaces the one that mysteriously disappeared when we moved to our new house. A big birthday balloon that she somehow sneaked past me yesterday is now prominently displayed over my head. And other more personal gifts were bestowed on me before the day was but an hour long.

It was chilly and too early to jump out of bed and leap onto the treadmill. So we stayed and remembered. Remembered our first birthday together when Jackie organized a star-studded bash at the house on the mountain in celebration of my 79^th. Never one to let grass grow under her feet, she would not wait for my 80^th.

I recalled my 80^th when we spent the weekend at the Beverly Wilshire where I walked into the hotel room and found myself swamped by eighty mylar balloons, a very large bottle of champagne, and reservations at some upscale eateries.

Pausing in our morning reverie, Jackie asked “How old do you feel?”

I took a nanosecond to mentally compile my physical short-comings and my state of mind. I calculated the total miles hiked during the past week, the number of Zoom yoga sessions, the resulting improvement in flexibility, my iffy eyesight, ever-changing blood pressure and the results of my recent annual visit with Dr. Halverson. Without further hesitation I said “Sixty-eight.” In retrospect I have no idea where that came from.

I guess that when you are 81, 68 seems young. Thirteen years of birthdays, good times, and bad ones. Joy and heartbreak. Highs and lows. The loss of my sweet Ila, the passing of my staunchly independent son Steven, and the death of my big brother Irv all weigh heavily on the downside. Starting a new life with Jackie has added sparkle, unexpected opportunities, and much love. On balance, thirteen years brought significant challenges, some growth, and a boatload of smiles.

Still too early to leave the warmth of the bed and Jackie’s body, I chronicled my early years. Grandparents took center stage. Jackie’s were gone before she was born. Luckier than she, I remembered my father’s mother; a frail woman who wore a sheitel, the wig that observant Jewish married women wore to conform to religious law. Grandma Hinda was one of a long line of vision impaired ancestors who unknowingly passed the malady to my father and then to my brother. A floating specter, I never heard her speak; she was gone before I was old enough to remember who she was.

My paternal grandfather never left the Ukrainian shtetl where he was born. All I have of him is a family photo that includes my five-year-old father and his four siblings…Rifka, Bella, Nate and Lou. His history is gone but he surely was of meager means who lived nervously through the pogroms thrust upon the Jews of that region by the all-powerful Czar who was intent upon blaming my innocent zaide for bad harvests, icy winters and defeats at the hands of other imagined infidels.

My maternal grandfather died in Chicago when I was too young to remember. My only image of him is the one found in an oval shaped photo affixed to his grave site marker in a cemetery vandalized many times, and what is now all but forgotten.

In contrast to the others, I vividly remember bubbe Cipa, my maternal grandmother who came to live with us when her husband died. Speaking broken English tinged with Ashkenazic Yiddish, she was my playmate and confidante. We shared a small, one window bedroom in Chicago’s West Rogers Park, where she rubbed my back, helped me get to sleep on humid nights and hummed a tune to soothe my senses. I often regret cheating her at gin rummy, even though she probably knew and chose to let me do it anyway.

Morris and Celia, my parents, never read a Dr. Spock book (to this day I’m not sure that my mother could  read) never attended a holistic seminar and had no knowledge of yoga, tai chi or gluten free. Had they even heard of Vegans they would have thought they were from Mars. Fully devoted to putting food on the table and shelter over our heads, their free time was a special event not often repeated. They loved me unconditionally and I never felt the need to hear it from their lips.

The passage of 80 to 81 seems of little significance. Yet it is when measured by its relationship to my remaining years. I find the thought comforting rather than depressing. It provides an urgency that was all but absent at 25 or even 65. The limitation on remaining life prompts me to enjoy, contribute and live it to the fullest. Whether I take advantage of it is up to me.

Thank you, Jackie, for the three birthdays we have shared. Each was different, but all were memorable. Each reminded me of my past. Each offered a glimpse of a beautiful future. It’s up to us to choose it.

I am my brother

My brother would have been ninety-three today.

Irv was born in 1927, two years before the Great Depression. I waited another twelve years for the economy to improve before emerging from my mother’s womb.

A twelve-year age difference was a bridge too far. We never played baseball together, developed sibling rivalry or did mischief that one would expect of brothers living in a Jewish ghetto on Chicago’s north side. I don’t know what he looked like as a teenager, nor do I remember hearing his voice echoing down the long wallpaper covered hallway in my parent’s second floor, two-bedroom apartment. I might as well have been an only child.

Lying about his age, Irv joined the army in 1944, never saw action but managed to develop a life-long relationship with tinnitus, one of several genetic dysfunctions that I shared with him. His army service was brief, some of it spent in Japan and Korea. He learned photography, took those skills home after the war and relied on them for years by chronicling life cycle events for others. I remember a picture of him in his army uniform and jauntily positioned cap. He was this handsome, bright-eyed guy who wore a natural smile as though it was ingrained in his DNA. He was better looking than me. People constantly mistook me for the older brother. He never corrected them.

He disdained the free college education offered to veterans, instead opting to get married, have children, divorce twice and finally land Jeri, the love of his life. In the early years, my parents were uncomfortable with Irv’s lifestyle, lent him money, but never offered advice that would have been immediately forgotten. Comparing me to him often led them to believe that I must be the older one.

At twelve, I baby sat for his daughter, Sharon. At seventeen, I regularly borrowed Irv’s Studebaker, that quirky looking, bullet nosed, dimly remembered two-door coupe with a stick shift. Four years later, he was in the bridal party that joined me with Ila. I still hardly knew him. Meaningful conversations were non-existent, and togetherness was largely a function left to family events to which he was usually late.

Irv’s second marriage was done on the rebound. Like the Studebaker, Anna-Marie was quirky. If he had asked me, I would have said don’t do it. But he didn’t ask, and life went on until the quirkiness lost its glamour.

Irv was a salesman who was honest and compelling. He sold mirrors, a process that was dependent on being invited into the customer’s home to measure walls and select styles. It was during one such adventure that he met Jeri, promised her unbounded love and did so for the rest of his life.

Ila and I moved to California and visited our Chicago relatives two or three times a year. My father became ill and was hospitalized. Irv was there to help our parents. It was as though he had turned a corner in his life, met his elder brother responsibilities, and took them on without looking back or complaining.

I was in California and of little help. My father died and our mother was alone. Irv visited her daily. He ran errands and delivered groceries for years until dementia took its toll on her. She entered a succession of facilities that included independent living, assisted living and fully assisted housing. Irv continued to watch over her while I made limited appearances. Her death finally freed him from responsibilities that he had willingly endured, while I continued to feel guilty by my self-limited role.

He aged and, like our father, developed macular degeneration. He gave up golf, driving, reading and other daily activities that we take for granted before they are taken from us. He needed assistance walking. His trips with Jeri to visit us in California became more difficult. During those trips he gradually displayed a loss of memory and an inability to perform certain functions. Sitting with him while he tried to add a column of numbers proved too much for him. He cried and I saw my brother in what had once been the role played by our mother.

The years he spent caring for our parents had also developed a closer bond between us. Our age difference now meant nothing. Conversations became more meaningful. Aging and illness were freely discussed. We looked at each other and knew what the other was thinking just by the expressions on our face, the tilt of our heads or the rolling of our eyes. We liked the same foods. We both lost our hair. Our laughs were identical. People still thought he was the younger one.

Luckily, I had chances to pay back the kindnesses that he had heaped on our parents. And I took them. I also aged alongside my brother and caught glimpses of what our parents must have suffered.

I look in the morning mirror and see Irv. I see his handsome, smiling face. But like Dicken’s Scrooge visiting the future, I also see what may yet come. I am concerned about my eyesight and daily test my ability to read road signs. I lay in bed in the early morning and silently count backwards from one hundred by seven; I dread making a mistake. I add columns of numbers without a calculator. I have more difficulty completing the New York Times crossword puzzle and wonder if maybe Will Shortz just made it tougher without telling me. I stupidly transform minor irritations into complicated medical cases that can only be treated at the Mayo Clinic.

I am becoming my brother… and I love him even though he will always look younger than me.

Happy birthday, Irv.

I’m a Townie

The ride up the Dennison Grade last Thursday was interminable.

I had made that trip, sometimes twice a day, for nearly twenty years. More than seven thousand round trips. I start by driving one mile down Sulphur Mountain Road, carefully avoiding collisions on the all too narrow road. I turn left on Highway 150 after assuring myself that speeding cars are not lurking in the shadows of the ancient oaks that line the road. I cruise by the seasonal yellow mustard fields on the Black Mountain Ranch. I wind down the seemingly endless Dennison Grade, ticking off the twenty-three turns. I reach the bottom of the hill where Boccali’s restaurant gives me the first evidence of a civilization set apart from the Upper Ojai. Not yet finished, I drive another two miles into the middle of town. A one-way total of eight miles. Consuming thirty-six minutes of my life during each round trip.

And I had loved nearly every minute of it. Until last Thursday.

Two weeks earlier, I had sold my house on Sulphur Mountain Road and had moved into town. I traded those thirty-six driving minutes for the freedom to walk to restaurants, stores and community events. In those two weeks I thought that my car’s fuel gauge had malfunctioned; it didn’t seem to move. I walked to a friend’s house for dinner last Tuesday and thought “In twenty years I’ve never gone out to dinner without first getting into my car.”

I had lived those many years in the Sulphur Mountain house. My sweetheart and I built it. She died in it. With her death and my inevitable aging, it became clear that I needed to move from the mountain to the town. With her passing, the house seemed to have doubled in size. It had become too silent. Even the birds seemed to visit less frequently. The olive groves, once a delightful diversion, now seemed a burden. The mountain vistas lingered, but the inevitable night abruptly shut them down.

Jackie loved the spaciousness of the mountain house during her too infrequent visits. Spoiled by the advantages of town living, her zeal for dragging that very cute fanny up and down the Dennison Grade waned. Night driving on the darkened roads proved too much of a burden. She never said, “You should move.” But my feelings for her helped push me off the mountain and into “Townie” living.

It took fifteen months to sell the mountain home, and one day to buy the home in town. Escrow on both homes closed the same day; think of it as a whirlwind love affair. The town home is about half the size of the mountain home and its diminished storage capacity was a challenge. Twenty years of accumulated detritus required a hardened heart as I waded through it. And in every room, closet, drawer and cabinet I was confronted by memories. Photographs seemed to emerge from everywhere. Birthday and anniversary cards numbered in the hundreds. Like buried land mines, Ila had stowed them in dark recesses that hid them from prying eyes.

Letters between two lovers had been placed in the backs of her dresser drawers; I could not bear reading them. And in every instance a decision was needed. Toss or keep. At first, I kept nearly everything. As I realized the futility of it, I began to toss more. Would the children be deprived of some legacy if I tossed rather than kept? Probably not, I lied to myself. So I tossed more and more. Without ceremony. Without a proper burial. Like junk, the cards, letters and photos were deposited in king-sized black plastic garbage bags. Lugged to the garage, they awaited a trip to the dumpster. There were times I wanted to run after them. But didn’t.

Packing boxes soon littered the house. My god, I thought, who needs seven frying pans. A fish poacher that had been used once with disappointing results. Twelve different fruit extracts, only one of which had ever crossed our palates. What were we thinking when we saved scores of empty plastic containers with mismatched lids? Silverware that hadn’t seen the light of day more than twice in twenty years. Ten flower vases that had once held the precious flowers I sent her.

The movers arrived with the cast from Spartacus. Brawny guys, lean and mean guys and one that looked like he needed a good meal. They wrapped artwork, hung clothes in garment boxes and dragged everything onto two trucks. “It’ll never fit in the new house” I thought. But it did. All sixty-five boxes, a rowing machine and Jackie’s treadmill in a pinch.

Oliver and I unpacked. As we did so, I felt the urge to toss some more. And I did, setting aside items that might find their way into more needy hands. We filled cabinets. We stuffed clothes in bedroom dressers and filled every square inch of kitchen space with only three frying pans and a blessedly diminished horde of other items. It was sort of like running a video of the packing phase, only backwards. Empty boxes and discarded wrapping paper were enough to start an Ojai version of the Chicago Fire.

I’m settling in. I can hear cars go by. They make a whooshing sound, just like the surf rolling in off the Pacific. People are as close as a hundred feet away. Their faces visible. They stop, we chat, just like neighbors are supposed to do. There are two youngsters next door at Danni’s and James’ house. My doorbell rang last Sunday, and Danni’s brother was there asking me if it was alright to come into my yard to retrieve a ball the kids had tossed. “Sure,” I said. “Please do, and then do it some more.”

I always wanted a porch. And now I have one. It’s an overstuffed chair that cost $5 at a garage sale. It sits in my garage. I open the overhead door, grab a sandwich and sit in that chair. I can see some of the Topa Topa mountains. But more importantly, I can see and hear the sounds of life.

I drove up to the mountain house last Thursday to check my old mailbox. The ride was interminable. I’m glad I’m a Townie.

The Moose Lamp

My son Steven would have been fifty-two this month. But his life was cut short at forty-three by his death in 2011.

Memories of him floated to the top today when I attended my bereavement group, an event that takes place every Tuesday from 10:30 until noon. Housed in a small, Ikea style conference room in the west end of Ojai, there are no frills. The lighting is dim and there are no cookies. In addition to an outpouring of feelings, there are tears, extended silences and, blessedly, enough occasional laughter to raise one’s spirits a notch or two.

I’ve become a regular who began participating after my sweet wife Ila passed away almost two years ago. During that time, my attendance has morphed from a focus on Ila to one that includes both she and Steven. I often picture them together, arguing; and I smile. Always looking for a bargain, I also take advantage of this group therapy to talk about my relationships with other loved ones.

The number of Tuesday gatherers varies from as few as three to as many as nine. Mostly women who have lost their husbands, we have others who’ve lost parents and children. Regulars, loosely defined as those who have been coming more than three months, usually predominate. New faces join periodically while some regulars stop coming. Others leave, rest, and then return months later. Some come once and are never seen again. It’s not for everyone.

It’s not clear why some people come every week while others attend less frequently. The reasons they come are clear and fairly consistent, but the frequency with which they appear seems governed by inexplicable, unsaid reasons.

For me, one who disdains being idle, the meeting is a block of time that I don’t have to otherwise fill. It also provides the social exposure that I treasure. My home on the hill, while in a beautiful setting, does not easily offer personal interaction. The quarter-meter plan that once allowed TV watchers to deposit quarters in boxes attached to their sets is not an available option. And, more importantly I can comfortably say things that would remain unsaid in other settings.

I arrived at today’s meeting a few minutes late. Making the non-obligatory excuse for my tardiness, I described my trip from Vons to the vacuum cleaner repair shop in Ventura and back. A trip of fifty-eight minutes that I claimed to be a new world record. Satisfied that I had been forgiven, I took my usual chair at table, sat back and scanned the crowd.

A man who I had not seen before sat opposite me. When newcomers join the group, the rest of us introduce ourselves. I’m Fred. My wife died almost two years ago. I’ve been coming regularly and, yada, yada, yada. Depending on the urgency of the need to get something off one’s chest, an introduction can often take as much time as chanting the first five books of Moses, in Hebrew.

Some people are eloquent and engaging. Others, less so. The man opposite me merely said his name and added succinctly, “My thirty-year old son passed away in December.” Nothing else. Then he shifted in his chair and assumed a slouched position that non-verbally said ‘I don’t know why I came here and I shall remain silent for the next ninety minutes.”

Time rolled on. People told stories and described feelings that might go unheard in confessionals or even in a bed shared by two lovers. Yet the man opposite me seemed unmoved. His lids occasionally hid his eyes and he often furtively glanced at his smart phone. Yet, even with his seeming detachment, he appeared troubled.

Our group leader is a master at drawing people out. Never asking directly, she has the uncanny ability to elicit words from an otherwise reticent participant. “Fred, do you think you could share something about your son Steven that might be of value to our newest member?”

Of course, I thought. The moose lamp. And I told its story.

Steven bought a ten-inch high table lamp at a garage sale. Maybe he paid as much as two dollars. It had a tiny bulb and a shade that had the image of a moose on it. When you turned the lamp on, its light shone in a way that accentuated the moose. Tacky at best, Steven kept it on a table in his apartment and switched it on every night. And turned it off when he went to bed. Never very sentimental, he nevertheless loved the moose lamp.

In the last month of his life, I was with him in his home when I stumbled and caught my foot in the lamp’s cord. The lamp fell off the table with a sound that presaged disaster. I picked it up as though it were a baby, flicked the lamp’s switch and was horrified to watch it stay dark. My son David was standing next to me and I said, “I don’t care what it costs, I want that lamp repaired and working before Steven is gone.”

David picked up the lamp, looked at the cord and sarcastically said, “Well we might first try plugging it in.” We did and the light shone through the moose and into my eyes. Laughter replaced tension.

Steven died a few weeks later. Aside from his guitars, the only valuable object in his apartment was the moose lamp. I wanted it and I took it. The two-dollar lamp now sits on an expensive table in my living room. I look at it each time I pass. I light it when the feeling takes me there. Memories flood back of Steven’s stubbornness and ego-centrism. But the lamp also reminds me of the special moments when I loved him most. Memories that assure me that his passing need not always be filled with sadness.

I don’t know if my story of the moose lamp helped the man opposite me. But it made my day.

What did he say?

A few weeks ago, Jackie asked me if I’d like to see Eckhart Tolle in person. I said something like “Is he a rapper?”

After that display of my sublime ignorance and a well-deserved shrug of her shoulders, Jackie gave me some facts about the man who commands large audiences and is generally thought of as a particularly adept spiritual teacher.

In 2008, the NY Times called Tolle the most popular spiritual author in the U.S. where his book The Power of Now has sold millions of copies. In 2008, he and Oprah Winfrey participated in ten live webinars that drew thirty-five million people. He became an Oprah favorite in 2016 when he made her list of 100 Super Souls including visionaries and influential leaders. OK, enough already. I didn’t need any more convincing. Oprah did the trick. I had to see him in action.

Not so fast, Jackie warned. To get the full impact of his spoken word, I needed to read his book before seeing him in  person. Sensing that I might conveniently forget her suggestion once I was out of her sight, Jackie immediately dialed up Amazon on her iPhone and downloaded The Power of Now to my Kindle. To her everlasting credit, she’s done this kind of thing before. Tablecloths, exercise pants, shaving kits, and Lou Malnoti frozen pizzas flown overnight from Chicago have miraculously appeared at my doorstep. I’ve learned to be careful with my words and I try to avoid phrases like “Gee, isn’t that nice” or, ”What a handsome shirt”, or especially, “I’ve always wanted something like that.”

Aspiring to even greater status in my sweetheart’s mind, I dutifully started reading. It began with…

When your consciousness it directed outward, mind and world arise. When it is directed inward, it realizes its own Source and returns home into the Unmanifested.

Although it was a book with only one hundred and thirty pages, I was obviously in for a long, hard slog.

I finished my assignment a day before our trip to see the savior in person and, after much soul searching, realized that the primary message of The Power of Now is as simple as 1, 2, 3.

1. Don’t worry about the past, you can’t do anything to change it.
2. Don’t worry about the future, you can’t control it.
3. Live peacefully in the moment

So there. I saved you fifteen bucks on the book and a whole lot more on the live event.

The Saturday evening program was held in the three thousand seat Pasadena Civic Auditorium, a very impressive and costly venue. We planned to stay overnight and had booked a room at the adjacent Sheraton. Arriving at the hotel around five o’clock after an exciting two hour drive from Oxnard, I demonstrated my driving acumen by attempting to park my car in the narrow “Deliveries Only” driveway. Reaching the end of the driveway, I was hemmed in by a unforgiving concrete wall and a massive semi-truck that did not allow for a turn-around. Forced to back all the way up the ramp, I threw caution to the wind, summoned The Power of Now, exited onto Euclid Avenue and made a u-turn that Evel Knievel would have been proud of.

Parking in the hotel lot without further damage to my ego, we registered, and then debated whether to head directly to the hotel bar for an extended stay, or go meekly to our room. Since both Jackie and I are anally compulsive about being on time, we chose the room option. Much to my regret as I would later learn.

Having made ourselves presentable, we walked to the Civic Center and entered the lobby about twenty minutes before showtime. It teemed with people waiting in a drink line that was long enough to reach to the moon and back. Another mob of souls, with too much disposable income, was four deep at the book sale tables where Tolle’s army of credit card swipers withdrew vast sums of money from the ravenous buyers’ Visa cards.

Jackie had promised her daughter, Samantha, that she would get Tolle to sign her book. In response to her cute query about how that might be accomplished, the reaction from the Tolle card swiper was akin to “Are you crazy? He’d be here all-night signing books. Foolish girl.”

At fifteen minutes before showtime, three thousand seats were half empty. They’ll never fill this cavernous hall, I thought. Foolish Fred. Ten minutes later, it was nearly overflowing. People kept coming and were being seated fifteen minutes after the appointed hour. Oblivious to those around them, they were in the Now, peaceful in their tardiness.

Just like the warm-up singer in a Las Vegas showroom, Marianne Williamson appeared on the stage in a stunning off-white pants suit. I thought “Jackie might like that.” But I quickly avoided thinking about it, fearful that my subliminal message might somehow activate Jackie’s Amazon ordering mode. As a suffering second fiddle, people were still being seated while Marianne spoke.

Along with her reputation as another highly respected spiritual leader, Marianne is currently one of a stampeding horde of seekers for the office of the President of the United States. Blithely skipping around the stage, her thirty-minute message boiled down to don’t be a stinker and love your neighbor. Reasonable campaign material I thought, and a vast improvement over the current occupant of the Oval Office.

And then he arrived. A small man of about seventy, he looked a bit like a combination of ET and a Tolkien Hobbit.  He immediately plunked his thin frame onto an over-stuffed chair that my grandmother might have had in her dated living room. He assumed a somewhat stooped pose, admired the flowers next to his chair, and looked out at the audience of nearly three thousand hungry disciples. A large TV screen above his head made him appear even smaller.

He was silent and peaceful, yet he commanded my attention. Then, quietly, he spoke the same words that I had struggled to read in his book. He occasionally told one sentence off the cuff jokes that no one should have laughed at; but they did. He talked about the horizontal plane that we all live on complete with our fears, challenges and never-ending desires. He spoke of the vertical plane that would, if we could comprehend it, allow us to live peacefully in the now.

The thirty minutes passed in a wink. I didn’t learn how to achieve The Power of Now. But I did learn why people buy his books and why they pay to hear him speak. Why he gets a standing ovation before he speaks and another after he’s spoken. But I can’t explain it. Maybe that’s why people keep coming back.

Because of you

I flew Contour Airlines from Santa Barbara to the Bay area this weekend to celebrate my buddy Harry’s 80^th birthday. Two months older than me, Harry and I have been the closest of friends for more than sixty years.

I highly recommend the Santa Barbara airport and Contour Airlines. Arriving mid-afternoon on Friday after a forty-five-minute easy drive from Ojai, I parked in the half-empty long-term parking lot, took a five-minute walk to the Spanish influenced terminal building and found the airport nearly deserted. I thought that perhaps I had missed an Ebola evacuation announcement.

I got my boarding pass from a very friendly Contour employee and made my way to the dreaded TSA security gauntlet. I was one of two people in line. The super-friendly supervisor asked if I would mind being a guinea pig for the new TSA employee at the screening monitor. With time to spare, I did my civic duty and opened my toiletries bag, watched it being hand searched, worried about what illegal or embarrassing item I might have forgotten about, zipped it back up without incident, and was thanked for my participation.

With little to do in the cavernous terminal, I casually sauntered over to the customer-less Peet’s Coffee kiosk, grabbed a cup of dark roast, sat in a very comfortable chair, played with my Spell Tower game and waited for boarding to begin. Boarding started when promised, and the plane departed and landed on time in Oakland. It was nirvana.

My wife to be, Ila, and Harry’s intended, Judy, were girlfriends at Chicago’s Boone grade school in the late forties. I started dating Ila during her high school senior year and, coincidentally, fell in love with Harry. The four of us remained inseparable until sweet Ila died in 2017.

I was Harry’s roommate at the University of Illinois. Studying metallurgy, Harry endured long hours of study, late nights, and early morning risings. He had this annoying habit of setting the alarm clock well in advance of his required wake up time, and then employing the snooze feature of our clock in order to bag several ten-minute naps. Even though I could have slept later than Harry, I suffered through his chronic, snooze habit in deference to his extended study nights.

Never lazy, Harry had several temporary jobs during summer vacations. Working in the Café Brauer snack-bar at the beach, he honed his not inconsiderable people skills, now in daily evidence at Noah’s bagels in Livermore, by ogling the girls who made the mistake of thinking that he was not a letch. Another summer vacation job tested Harry’s skills as a house painter. Unwilling to take the time to laboriously mask the crevices between the window and its frame, he simply made them un-openable by painting them shut at the home of my future in-laws. His follow-up job was unsealing the windows.

Graduating college and tearfully forsaking the life of a house painter while pocketing his newly minted PhD in material science, Harry began working at Argonne National Laboratories in Chicago’s southern suburbs while Ila and I set up shop in the northern suburbs. The distance between us, although minor by today’s freeway standards, tended to limit our time together.

In 1967 I accepted a job in San Francisco and we resigned ourselves to maybe seeing each other once a year. However, six months later, Harry called me and excitedly announced that he had taken a position with GE and was moving to the Bay Area. Now we could be, as nature intended, together once again. Unfortunately, I had just accepted a position in Southern California. And that’s how things have remained for over fifty years.

Though three hundred and fifty miles apart, we celebrated holidays, vacations, bar mitzvahs and other life cycle events together. Ila’s difficult illness limited those events and our time together lessened considerably. When Ila died, Harry stayed with me for days while I tried to cope with the emptiness. As always, being together was enough. Conversation to fill the vacuum was unnecessary. We had, years before, developed an alert system whenever we had something to say. Harry would reach over and touch my wrist announcing he was about to speak. I would stop whatever I was doing, straighten up and look alert. And I would listen.

Many years ago when the number of our face to face meetings was diminishing, Harry began to call me every Monday night at 7:30. A call to assure himself that everything was ok. A call to announce that he cared about me. We usually don’t have much to say during these calls. A “How are you” and “What’s new” followed by “I’m fine” and “Nothing much” often ends the call almost before it begins. But the warm feeling of reaching out lasts for the rest of the evening.

Harry’s eightieth was held in a Chinese restaurant near his Livermore home. His continuing concern for me was in evidence when we were blind-sided by the traffic and were fifteen minutes late. As we pulled into the parking lot, my cellphone rang and Harry said “Where are you? Everyone else is here.” I had been missed.

About forty people were there. Mostly old friends and close family. Many faces were familiar, but they seemed to have aged faster than I had. Harry, contrary to his preferred seat of the pants approach, had prepared some detailed remarks about the event and the people there who had touched his life. I blushed when he seemed to spend an inordinately significant portion of his presentation reminiscing about our time together.

One at a time, about half of the guests rose to say a few words. Harry’s wit and sarcasm took center stage in their remarks, and all offered anecdotes that highlighted his lasting friendship and his uniqueness. When it was my turn, I found myself stretching to say something important. Yet I found that what seemed important to me may have sounded trivial to those at the tables.

I recalled an evening in our senior year when, as a rite of passage, and surrounded by a horde of onlookers, Harry had to serenade Judy while standing outside her dorm. He had memorized and practiced that Arthur Hammerstein song for weeks on end in our small room; I could have delivered it in his stead. When his time came, he couldn’t remember the beginning of the song he had labored on as though it was his doctoral thesis. He had asked me to be his best man and I was standing beside him. He frantically leaned over to me and said, “What’s the words?”

I touched his wrist and whispered in his ear, “Because of You.”

Crazy For You

Jackie and I made a spur of the moment decision Sunday morning. The Nordhoff High School kids were performing in Crazy for You and we had two hours to kill before our dinner date with friends in Oxnard.

Buying tickets was easy. You can do just about anything in bed so long as you have a smart phone. Jackie’s near obsession with the phone came in handy as her fingers whizzed across the key pad, every so often stopping at the enter key. Slam-bam, two tickets purchased and printed, including reserved seats.

The show was at the Matilija Middle School auditorium. Once filled with over two hundred seats designed for ten-year-olds who gleefully watched their parents suffer in cramped quarters, the auditorium now has seats big enough to get me through a two-hour sitting without tush fatigue.  A sell-out, our last-minute ticket purchase landed us in the rear of the auditorium, next to a chilled, rock hard wall.

We parked Jackie’s car and walked to the theater where we found John Hoj, the man saddled with the responsibility of casting the show. Normally somewhat muted, John comes alive when confronted with this kind of challenge. We wished him luck, but we all knew it was too late for that. People were already seated and waiting for the adventure to begin.

The room was nearly full. Recognizable faces dotted the throng and we waved and touched people we knew. We found our seats and began to settle down. The two seats directly in front of us were empty, affording an unobstructed view. But, based on my long history of sitting behind big hair and tall bodies, I knew it was only a teaser. As ordained, a normal sized woman and a Charles Atlas of a man, wearing a baseball hat of course, arrived and ruined my reverie. Mr. Atlas shoe-horned his way into the seat, squirmed a bit, and thankfully removed his hat.

He proved to be a shape-shifter. Someone who moves sideways, up and down and even diagonally in his seat. Sitting behind him caused me to match his movements in order to maintain some semblance of a semi-obstructed view. Those behind me were obliged to emulate my movements. Seen from above, it must have appeared as though we were performing the wave. During the show I was afforded a reasonable view of the left and center stage. Goings-on at stage-right were an unsolvable mystery.

What I saw of the show was wonderful. Some of the kids are obviously the beneficiaries of much talent and a goodly sum spent on private instruction. The other kids were showbiz stalwarts who knew that the show must go on, even as extras. The presence of a dozen or more musicians backing all of them up lent a Broadway like feeling to the performance. Reminding myself that these actors were not professionals helped keep things in perspective.

The behind the scenes stars of the show are George and Ira Gershwin. Based on the song writing team’s 1930 musical Girl Crazy, this show incorporates other Gershwin tunes and was first performed in 1992 when it won Broadway’s Tony Award.

Every musical piece begged for another. I could not get enough. My foot tapping escalated to singing along with the cast. Jackie’s soft left hand applied gentle caresses to my right knee as a benevolent caution to keep it down. I was euphoric. My smile must have been visible to astronauts on the moon.

As each tune was sung, I pointedly compared the lyrics to my own feelings. Much of them centered on Jackie. Biding My Time, Shall We Dance and Someone To Watch Over Me were surely intended to yank my heartstrings and dig deep down into my cerebral cortex as I reveled in their familiarity.

Although Embraceable You is sung by the show’s female lead, Polly, I can put my male heart into the lyrics as I silently sing the words to Jackie…

Embrace me,
My sweet embraceable you,
Embrace me,
My irreplaceable you
Just one look at you — my heart grew tipsy in me.
You and you alone bring out the gypsy in me.
I love all
The many charms about you;
Above all I want my arms about you!
Don’t be a naughty baby
Come to Polly — come to Polly — do!
My sweet embraceable you.

Or, listening to the poignant words of They Can’t Take That Away From Me, I was reminded of the many times I’ve thought about losing her…

The way you wear your hat,
The way you sip your tea,
The mem’ry of all that —
No, no! They can’t take that away from me!

The way your smile just beams,
The way you sing off-key,
The way you haunt my dreams —
No, no! They can’t take that away from me!

We can never, never meet again
On the bumpy road to love,
Still I’ll always, always keep
The mem’ry of —

The way you hold your knife,
The way we danced ’til three.
The way you changed my life —
No, no! They can’t take that away from me!
No! They can’t take that away from me!

I used to go to the opera at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in LA where I’d listen to Tosca’s lament and feel every note of Madame Butterfly’s aria. Tears would fill my eyes and I’d wonder why.  The same thing happened to me last Sunday in Ojai.  And I knew why.

The Deli Man

This is to remind you that the Yahrzeit of Morris Rothenberg will be observed on March 22, 2019.

The letter startled me as I had forgotten that my father had died in March. The letter went on to say that the annual Yahrzeit commemorates his death and commands me to say the Kaddish prayer, light a twenty-four-hour candle, and make a contribution to a worthy cause.

The Yiddish word Yahrzeit, of German origin, literally means anniversary time. I have no trouble pinpointing the year of my father’s death since it was in the same year that the Chicago Bears last won the Super Bowl. Perhaps their hapless attempts and failures since then are merely god’s little joke that perpetuates my ability to remember his passing. The Bears will, I’m sure, graciously continue their incompetent streak until I’m gone from this earth. Something to root for.

My father escaped the pogroms of the Soviet Union, fled to the promised land and worked hard to provide for his family. Never well-to-do, he did what was needed without complaint. He savored the little pleasures that were to him miraculous, given what he had known back in his Ukrainian shtetl.

His first job in Chicago was as a “puller.” Barely knowing any English, he would stand outside a men’s Maxwell Street clothing store and shout at passersby, “Hey, come in, good deal.” His attempts at “pulling” men into the store were sometimes accompanied by the removal of the unsuspecting man’s hat and tossing it through the open door into the store. My dad was small, and I’m surprised he survived that affront without at least a black eye. I guess he did whatever was needed to make a buck.

By the time I arrived in our crowded Albany Park apartment, Morris was in the deli business. First as a counter man at the Purity Delicatessen on Chicago’s Lawrence Avenue. The Purity was anything but. His stories about its cleanliness and treatment of customers would not survive today’s health department inspections. My favorite anecdotes involved clever ways of freeing up tables from those who had overstayed their welcome. A rat’s demise caused by a fall into the deep fat fryer was no reason to change the already overburdened oil.

By the time I was five or six, he had partnered with two other deli-tested guys, Ben and Morrie. They bought Oberman’s Delicatessen on Howard Street near the “L” and sold corned beef, pastrami, cole slaw and potato salad prepared by my mother, and other Jewish delights that make a deli a deli. They had no employees, regularly enlisted their wives’ help, and worked long hours.

Each of the three partners had one day off every week and every third Sunday. For as long as I can remember, Wednesday was my dad’s day off. Since I was in school on Wednesdays, my only extended time with him occurred every third Sunday. Much of that valuable time was spent lying next to my dad on a day bed in the dining room listening to Sunday afternoon radio programs.

We listened to Nick Carter, Master Detective. Then on to The Adventures of Sam Spade starring Howard Duff and created by Dashiell Hammett for the Maltese Falcon. And, my favorite, The Shadow with its chill provoking opening lines spoken by Frank Readick, Jr. “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!”

The Shadow may have known many things, but I remember little, other than the warmth of my father’s body and his hand on my shoulder. It was enough to permanently etch the memory of Sunday afternoons in my mind.

Gifts were not big on our agenda. Birthdays often passed with little notice. An exception occurred in my ninth year. My father came home on the first day of Chanukah with a large cardboard box. In it was a potpourri of toys, all used. An electric train took center stage, even though it had but one car and only enough tracks to complete a small circle. I watched the train circumnavigate the circle a thousand times. There were also two toy telegraph sending units that did nothing but click when you depressed the key. Because it had the Morse Code imprinted on the housing, I learned how to send an SOS. No one came to my rescue; but I didn’t need rescuing from anything, especially from my father.

Not schooled in any formal way, he wrote beautifully. He added up columns of numbers with lightning speed on the brown paper bags that Oberman’s customers took home laden with their corned beef, rye bread and dill pickles. He was an accomplished card player who fancied four-handed pinochle and ten-cent poker. He wasn’t a pushover. He never spanked me, and I never heard him fight with my mother who he loved dearly for nearly sixty years. I owe my own generosity, honesty and work ethic to him. Not because of what he said but because of what he did.

He suffered the ravages of old age including macular degeneration. I’d watch him sit sideways at the TV, viewing his beloved White Sox through the corner of his eye. Baseball was the only sport played slowly enough to allow him to reasonably focus on the images on the screen.

I missed my flight back to Los Angeles that day in 1986 when I overstayed my time in his hospital room. I kissed him good-bye. It was the last time I saw him.

I will celebrate his Yahrzeit next week by remembering what he did for me and for others. And by remembering how much I loved him. He was truly a mensch for all ages.

They couldn’t care less

There are two kinds of people in the world. Those who care and those who couldn’t care less.

Last Tuesday, I made my usual 8:30 morning visit to Java and Joe. Love their dark roast coffee and the store’s second-hand thrift shop appearance. Their pastries are atrocious, and the stamped metal seats are akin to the Iron Maiden, a brutish device used by the Spaniards during the Inquisition to extract confessions from those who complained about their coffee. Nevertheless, the shop is welcoming, and one need not dress to impress. In business since 1994, the owners Joe Ruggiero and Lorraine Mariz, do their best to accommodate the weird tastes of Ojai folk who enter their domain.

It rained hard that morning and the shop was filled to capacity. A long line of dampened people stood patiently waiting their turn to place an order. My body and mind ached for that first, warm cup of coffee and I was heartened to be the third person in the queue. Not much longer now, I thought.

A young woman, no more than thirty, was at the head of the line. With an abundance of time on her hands, she embarked on a journey that tested my already thinning patience. Using the FBI’s most invasive interview techniques, she bombarded Joe with a series of questions about flavored brews that were obviously intended to extract a confession from him. Each answer proffered by Joe was followed up with another quiz show question designed to confuse and irritate. Waterboarding by the CIA would have been child’s play in her hands.

Having finally settled on the dark roast coffee of the day, she went on to the pastries. Discovering the secret contents of each became her obsession. I half expected her to ask that a banana be peeled in order to gaze detective-like at its contents. Having exhausted the full line-up of muffins, scones, cakes and bagels (with and without cream cheese), she declined all and, without any consideration for the thirst-ridden customers behind her, moved on to the pre-packaged oatmeal. She ordered the oatmeal and then, inexplicably, cancelled her order. Like an angry hippo, I began to mumble…loudly. My thirst began to worsen as I pictured myself as Humphrey Bogart in the role of the thirsty tank commander bedeviled by a bone-dry desert well in the movie Sahara. I was inconsolable.

Never having looked behind her, and why should she, the comely young woman could quite innocently assume that she was the only customer in the shop. But I believe she was fully aware of the poor unfortunates behind her. She just didn’t care. Embarking on what seemed to be a fortnight of useless coffee shop browsing, we were, at best, an annoyance to be ignored.

I eventually reached first base, ordered my coffee, combined it with a muffin that wasn’t quite as old as me, and settled down on a cold, basket-weave Iron Maiden for thirty minutes of quietly browsing the web.

Lest you think that women are the principal antagonists in this story, I finished my coffee and desiccated muffin, and moved on to Rabobank. An open teller window and it’s always friendly inhabitant, Julie, beckoned to me. I was delighted to dump the money gleaned from book sales at the Friends of Library bookstore on Julie’s counter, and wait while she verified the deposit. The machine that counts currency is fascinating and it has yet to be wrong. Counting coins by hand is another matter entirely, and takes an inordinate amount of time.

Rod entered the bank and took up the second, and last available teller window. A beaming Estelle was the teller in waiting at this cubicle. Always pleasant and efficient, young Estelle is pretty and seems to have only me in mind when I have the pleasure of trading hard currency with her. Small talk is part of the job but, aware of other customers waiting to step forward, is only appropriate while the processing of one’s business is continuing.

Rod did not readily subscribe to this informal banking rule. Instead, after concluding the successful cashing of what I’m sure was a bogus check, he launched into a discussion that was clearly intended to impress and perhaps result in an assignation with the lovely Estelle. Customers began to line up. Tempers began to mount as the passage of time seemed glacial.

I half expected a shoot-out. And I was sure Estelle would say something like “Thank you, Rod. But I think your time is up. Move on, buster.” However, I left before this second example of “I truly don’t care about you. It’s me that counts.” could reach its zenith.

Last Saturday, Jackie and I attended a Kirtan starring Julia Berkeley at the Ojai Yoga Shala. Kirtan is defined by Julia as a call and response chanting practice that clears the mind and opens the heart. I think of it as a groupie sing-along that has Indian music instead of the usual Glen Campbell and Joan Baez stuff.

It’s customary for one to sit cross-legged, your butt next to your closest neighbor, on a much too thin mat, on a hardwood floor. There comes a time during the performance when you grit your teeth, your back aches, and your ass feels like it has been denuded of all muscle and skin. However, it helps if prior to the festivities you consume one-half of those cute little licorice pieces eagerly distributed by the local pot palace on Bryant Street. Your fanny will thank you.

The young man sitting next to me, an ardent Kirtan devotee, was one of those people who I define as an over-achieving Clapper. It matters little what the song’s tempo is. Nor whether it is closer to a funeral dirge than a Pee Wee Herman ditty. His clapping, much like AK47 rifle shots, leaves me hoping for the blessed relief delivered to him by a compound stress fracture. Sometimes, the Clapper will continue his performance well after the song has ended.

My belief is that the Clapper, like his companions the Shrieker and the Whistler, lacked parental attention during his formative years. Fellow students avoided him, and members of opposite sex ran screaming from the room. Clapping brings much-needed attention to him, even if the attention is filled with death wishes.

The Clapper, in contrast to those neer-do-wells who simply ignore the sensitivities of the people around them, recognizes the availability of a ready-made audience and seeks its attention. Here again, a tiny bit of licorice tends to moderate the Clapper’s callousness. But not completely. Or maybe I’m too sensitive.

Or maybe I just need a bigger piece of licorice.

I’m a fiance

Taken from the French, the word fiancé is the masculine term for a man who is engaged to be married. A fiancée (note the double e) is a woman who has chosen a similar fate.

I haven’t been a fiancé for almost sixty years since dear Ila and I linked our lives together. It feels a little strange and a bit lofty at my age to be calling myself a fiancé. So I thought there must be another term that means the same thing but would slide more easily off my tongue than “Hello, I’m Fred and this is my fiancée Jackie.”

According to Wikipedia, being engaged is not the same as dating. During this period, a couple is said to be betrothed, intended, affianced, engaged to be married, or simply engaged. “Hello, I’m Fred and this is my betrothed, Jackie.” Or “Hello, I’m Fred and this is Jackie. We are intended.” Nope. Just doesn’t work.

I shared my new status with my bereavement group at Help of Ojai. When asked if anyone had anything to share with the group, I quickly said “I’m engaged.  And my fiancee’s name is Jackie.” The faces of those sitting around the table gave me cause for celebration. I asked if I sounded awkward saying fiancé. I was assured that I had done it well and could lay to rest my fear of using the term.

You may recall that I had the same difficulty finding a term that described our status before Jackie and I were engaged. Back then it was a toss-up between partner, sweetheart, significant other, beloved and lover. We have managed to live through that awkward period without significant damage. and I’m sure we’ll do the same while coping with uttering fiancé or fiancée.

The question most often asked after someone congratulates me for being engaged is “So when’s the wedding?” After some hesitation, I generally say something cute like one small step for mankind or you’ll be the second to know. According to my sources, the length of an engagement varies widely. The longest engagement on record was between Octavio Guillan and Adriana Mart¡nez. They finally took the plunge after 67 years in June, 1969 in Mexico City. Hopefully, they had time to consummate the marriage before one of them invoked the phrase until death us do part.

The ring also plays a significant role in engagements. The tradition dates back to the ancient Egyptians when a ring was thought to symbolize eternity. It was worn on the ring finger which was believed to have a vein running directly to the heart, later named vena amoris. Second century Romans believed that a ring signified the ownership of the woman.

The first recorded use of a diamond engagement ring occurred when Archduke Maximilian proposed to Mary of Burgundy. The diamond ring craze began in earnest when Cecil Rhodes founded DeBeer’s in the late 1800s. Pricey, but probably better than the early caveman who tied cords of braided grass around his chosen’s hands, wrists and waist to bring the hussy under his control.

We spent time looking for the perfect ring. And we found it in a small jewelry store in Santa Barbara. More a storeroom than a store, Tuon, the owner, made us feel confident that he could bring off the pairing of a diamond with a setting that did it justice.

Anxious to get the ring on Jackie’s finger before Thanksgiving, I called Tuon weekly. “Not to worry, it will be done”, Tuon assured me. His text on the Monday afternoon before Thanksgiving said “Come to the store Tuesday morning. I have what you seek.” Jackie had a full day at school Tuesday and gave me license to pick up the ring without her. I protested, ”But what if you don’t like it?”. Fearless as always, she sent me on my way.

It gleamed. It was perfect. It was her. I took a photo and sent it to Jackie’s iPhone. Her priceless shrieking told me we had done good. I unwound and took a deep breath. One small step…check.

Tuesday night seemed an appropriate time to formally propose and present the ring. I added a Where’s Waldo tie to my outfit that included tennies, a  tee-shirt and worn Levi’s. I knelt at her feet and said “Please do me the honor of marrying me. She giggled, put the ring on her finger and said with that twinkle in her eye “Yes I will.” Another small step…check.

No one has yet asked me “Why did you decide to get engaged.” I’ve thought about it. Jackie and I have spoken of it frequently. It’s not some crazy idea that just popped out. I am nearly eighty, some sixteen years older than sweet Jackie. Should I depart this world at ninety-five, Jackie will be my current age. I’ve tried to mentally list the reasons why I want to be engaged. After all, there are lots of people who live together happily without marriage. Maybe nearly sixty years with Ila left me with the belief that if you love someone, marriage is the logical conclusion.

I don’t think that logic is a vital component in the decision to marry. If we base it on logic, the odds seem to be arrayed against marriage. No, I think it’s simpler than that, perhaps genetic. Perhaps it’s like that caveman with the braided reeds who understood that a lasting relationship includes the warmth, the sharing and the relative certainty of marriage.

Time to work on a guest list.`