JNF Reception

As a youngster, my mother would give me dimes to put in the metallic boxes colored in Israel Blue for each session of Hebrew school.  We had one of those boxes with the slot on top at home, though rarely filled it.  I have one in my adult home now, mostly filled waiting to pry off its lid, emptying and counting the coins long overdue.  For special occasions, we would plant trees in Israel, or really pay a dollar into a fund that would hire somebody to serve as our forest agent.  When I made my only visit, a full country Israeli tour in 1999, I learned that despite all this American effort, the buildings were constructed of masonry.  They had no appreciable amount of lumber.  Yet much of Israel looked like places I once lived or visited in America.  The vision to accomplish this came from the Jewish National Fund.  My dimes and dollar bills, very large contributions from some of our most well-off Jews.  It may be one of our best confirmations that Israel is part of Judaism.  We are willing to contribute part of our earnings and savings to make the land sparkle for those who live there, even when we live abroad.  That timeline includes enabling distressed Jews seeking something better than Russia or displaced by Naziism, warfare on the land itself, times of political optimism, and our times dominated by technical innovations.

My community. a small but cohesive American one, shares this effort.  Each year the regional Jewish National Fund office, one stationed in a major Jewish population center a less than two hours drive south, seeks from us a blend of financial support and ideas, by sponsoring an annual event.  We have among us Israelis now living and working in our location.  Children and siblings of very accomplished people have made their homes in Israel.  Most live as they did in America, a few achieving significant public prominence.  For the past three years, I have attended this gathering and later added to the financial collection in a meaningful way.  These assemblies display some combination of the most endearing and most cynical elements of Jewish organizations with a fundraising purpose, though no dispute of the noble cause and the sincerity of the major participants.

This year, the format changed.  It had been a tradition to gather for breakfast on a workday morning at my town's snootiest site.  They made a rare concession to the JNF, allowing a Kosher caterer of the organization's choosing to pre-empt the hotel's otherwise mandatory own kitchen requirement.  People in suits took the morning off from their law offices.  My synagogue had ample representation, mostly of older observant people.  We helped ourselves to coffee at a buffet table, then took seats at round tables.  I made a point of sitting with people I had not known previously, but mostly people sorted themselves out by synagogue or Federation positions.  The table had bagels, much better ones than are sold locally, mounds of plain and herbed cream cheese, insulated ivory coffee carafes for refills, a pastry plate, fruit, and another of lox.  People passed these around.  No public motzi or birchat, despite about half the town's rabbis sitting among the guests.  We ate.  My new acquaitences shared experiences, often commments about this and other Jewish organizations.  Then keynote speakers, typically three.  A community leader serving as our chapter's president would review the projects.  Quite a lot of thought went into creating new towns in parts of Israel less populated than the cities that tourists visit.  Then a financial expert to tell us the many ways we can give that will minimize the very large sums that their most valued donors will owe the IRS just a few weeks after this breakfast meeting, then an invited guest.  In my few times, typically a journalist telling us what she probably tells her therapist.  The others are cruel to me, they have to change.  I found the morning pleasant, the parking in town, now requiring paying by credit card at a kiosk an annoyance, and the organization worthy.

An email from the organizer announced a new format.  New place, new time.  It would take place on a Monday evening at a suburban location of Jewish recognition.  A spacious facility, one with appropriate security for an era when those hostile to Israel menace Jews and affiliated institutions.  Parking free on an ample lot.  Close to the town's Jewish population cluster. Dessert would replace breakfast.  The invited outside speaker had a higher profile.  Young man, part entertainer, part filmmaker, part cyberspace influencer.  I asked the event chairman why they abandoned their longstanding fundraising arrangements.  He indicated that collections had been gradually declining.  The purpose of the event was to attract donors.  To me, it seemed like the breakfast tables sat highly paid men, either in their earning prime or aspiring to it.  Expenses were high, and people they might have liked to attract had reservations about driving into the city.  Only then did I remember the male-dominated attendance.  Perhaps something easier to attend that does not require an absence from work would generate more donors and at less overhead for the JNF.

RSVP sent, reminder of event received by email a few days before.  I could come at 7:30PM.  Those who donated $1800 had a special reception an hour earlier.  Incentives for large donors are common but their perks seemed difficult to predict.  Maybe supper with the invited guest.  I arrived at the hour reserved for the less generous.  No traffic getting there.  Abundant parking.  Not a lot of really fancy cars in the lot.  As I walked past the guards into the building, there did not seem a lot of people already there for the VIP session.  The JNF staff checked my name against their reservation list, handed me an ID tag that I attached to my shirt pocket with a magnet, then shook hands with mostly people that I knew.  We milled in the corridor until the auditorium door opened.  

This place, where my congregation assembled for Holy Days a few months earlier, has a mid-sized auditorium.  It was set up as auditorium seating, rows of chairs allowing everyone to watch a podium, stage and high-end screen.  Chairs facing the stage filled about 2/3 of the space.  The first two rows had Reserved Tags, though I did not identify enough VIPs to fill all of them.  Much fewer people who I had never met before.  My synagogue punched above its weight in attendance.  We are a congregation solidly tied to traditional Judaism and to Israel.  On the Kol Nidre Bond Appeal we make more pledges than the other places despite our smaller membership.  We are also mostly people on Medicare.  Only the speakers, two volunteers and the keynote, wore office attire.  On signal, we took our places.  I selected a seat near the middle.

The local volunteers spoke first.  Same two as each of the last two years.  Impressive discussion of projects in the Negev to make those emerging communities attractive to current Israeli's priced out of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.  Housing gets priority.  Employment opportunities a secondary priority.  Then the financial man spoke, more low key than I remember from previous events.  Then the keynote.  I found his performance a refreshing change from the beleaguered journalists.  Entertaining, witty, maybe at the upper reaches of my tolerance for slick.  Questions at the end.  Few takers, none provacative.

His speech reinforced what had kept me attracted to the JNF for most of my lifetime.  It also supported how I approach the rise in American antagonism to Israel as a nation-state of the Jewish people and myself as one of the country's admirers, loyal despite the imperfections of its governance.  As the viral video displayed, "I am that Jew."   It was with great curiosity that I reviewed the results of the American Jewish Committee's poll on how this recent rise in travail has impacted us.  They randomly selected me to take that survey.  I have negligible personal adverse encounters.  Yet a sizable minority have, all with different responses.  My only concession has been to leave my tallis bag insignia side down on the back seat of my car.  Since my insurer would have to pay for vandalism, I should not invite it.  But I study my assigned Torah portions in public spaces with a kippah and photocopied Hebrew print.  Only two people have commented, neither confrontational.  The speaker had been assaulted by another skier on a high end ski trail.  He filed assault charges.  American law exists to protect him and me.  We have to call assault and intimidation what they are.  Perhaps getting mugged would change my response, but my Jewish identity requires responsibility for upgrading other Jewish lives.  That's what the JNF does.  I will take my chances with American hoodlums.

After the speeches, everyone assembled for the dessert buffet.  The baked goods did not have dairy or pareve labels, but I had eaten milchig for supper. Some chocolate layer cake, a slice of dragon fruit that I'd not had before, a plastic cup of sprite.  Nobody approached me to chat.  Instead, I headed over first to the regional representative to ask him about resettlement of Israelis into the new Negev towns.  Then I waited my turn to ask a question of the keynote speaker.  He seemed more thoughtful than slick up close.  We agreed on some things, differed on how to best confront or at least cope with the antisemitism that the younger folks encounter.  He noted independently of me that the audience he addressed included mostly seniors like myself, people already committed to our Jewish identities.  A subset of people, mostly prosperous, debt-free, late-life donors.  We are people who have built families, built careers, understand that somebody else built the schools we attended, the houses we purchased, and businesses that employed us.  The younger people not there may not have the same concept of building environments and institutions.  It would have been a better evening with a broader array of ages in attendance.

What did I miss most?  Probably the tables.  An auditorium layout matches common purpose, but so does a sports arena where everyone roots for the same team without knowing each other or anyone new.  The breakfast tables of previous years promoted conversation, whether with old friends or unfamiliar people.  The purpose of the session was to maximize donations to a worthy cause.  The most enduring outcome might be strengthening personal attachments or sharing thoughts.  Groups of eight facing each other accomplish this much better than a collection of a hundred all peering a stage in unison.

After my chat with the honored guest, I put my paper plate and polystyrene cup into the wastebasket, then headed out.  Nobody new in either the lobby or parking lot for me to greet.

Navigating Target

My lab work suggested a Vitamin D supplement might offer benefit.  I could purchase a bottle many places.  On a Sunday afternoon, the Target OTC pharmacy would likely have a few choices at a competitive price.  I drove over, found a favorable parking space that allowed me to exit driving forward, then headed inside.  I buy very little there.  A gift card earned a few years ago sits in my wallet unredeemed, waiting for just the right splurge.  They have the best price on generic omeprazole, which spurs me to a new outing there every six weeks.  I walk to the pharmacy section, rarely looking at anything else.  I take my three bottles of 14 pills each to self-checkout, tap my Visa card after scanning, take my receipt, then return to my car.

The Target stores have fared poorly in recent years.  At one time, not that long ago, my Sunday mornings began there.  The local Sunday paper would have retail advertising.  I read Target's first.  Then I drove the five minutes, looked at the ads again, posted to their bulletin board at either entrance.  Mostly I did not particularly want anything.  Occasionally, a small appliance or an anti-gravity chair to place on my backyard deck caught my attention.  Before retiring, I would look at men's wear, though rarely bought anything.  When the newspaper ads ended, so did my curiosity about what I  might find.

The treasure hunts ended, though they continued at TJ Maxx, Marshall's, and even the dollar store. My need to have some Sunday morning or weekday afternoon to myself continued.  Shopping became more purposeful.  It still included Target for a while.  Replace big screen TV, cell phone service, new flash drive, an iron, a Kitchen-Aid chopper, a thermal mug.  As I looked over their offerings, much of the options seemed a poor value or limited selection. For big purchases, the attendants were kids reciting scripts.  None ever asked me a question to guide what migh best suit my situation.  I needed ammonia to clean something.  They had bottles of cleaning mixtures made by alumni of college chemistry labs, but for a pure substance, an economical and useful one, I would have to drive around the corner to Lowe's. Other stores nearby took its place as where I find appliances, coats, munchies, and grooming items.  Browsing the aisles largely ended.

This Sunday afternoon, I entered with a specific purchase to complete.  They had several brands of Vitamin D.  Different sizes, different dosages.  Chewable gummies but mostly gel caps.  None stood out as less per pill or per Vitamin D Unit.  I took a bottle off the shelf.  Not wanting to go home, I walked around. Though the parking lot had a lot of cars, the store did not have much density of shoppers, nor did employees seem abundant.  They keep the pharmacy near the front to the left of the main entrance.  Walking to the rear brings customers past food.  Maybe some coffee could be purchased for Pesach.  I saw Dunkin pods on a display, no canned coffee in a place easily found.  At the very back stood seasonal.  Easter to the left, gardening to the right.  I buy seeds in the spring.  Limited to Burpee, not displayed in the most attractive way and not discounted.  Maybe clothing.  A few of each basic item displayed.  Shirts come in SML, not neck/sleeve.  Probably few people who need ties for work would get them there.  Limited selection.  This store sits almost adjacent to a local high school.  They sold logo t-shirts of two other high schools that would need a car to reach, no stuff in the colors or emblems of the school nearby.

Home decor displays would need more steps than I wanted to take.  The direct path to the self register took me through women's jewelry and cosmentics.  I guess some young people would put some of that on their skin or find a necklace with a medallion something that they could adopt as their signature.  The route took me past the cashier registers, mostly closed.  The door nearest my car stood at the self-checkout.  That had a short waiting line.  My turn came.  I scanned my bottle of Vitamin D.  It did not scan.  Instead it reset to a home screen.  Then I picked up the wand and scanned it that way.  $12.49.  Tapped my card, took my receipt and headed back to my car.

That bottle has 180 gel caps, enough for six months.  Omeprazole lasts six weeks, but if I want to go there less I can buy two.

Nobody there treated me poorly.  I found what I came for easily.  What I failed to find was anything that might attract me as an impulse.  I could not do easy browsing.  I'd wonder a bit about the manager who does not have the saichel to order and display apparel from their neighbor school but hangs items from two further high schools.  

My cell phone news feed often has items of hot shot new Target CEO with a vision.  Right now it's a place I go to get two cheap OTC meds.  It's not yet a place I drive to because I want to see what Target has that I did not already know I needed.  He will need a lot of mystery shoppers willing to convey the truth before a better experience brings large numbers of browsers back.

Pesach Anticipation

Megillah reading completed. Onward to Pesach.

This has been my central holiday, the season where my personal Judaism tops out.  Preparation, often with more than slight inconvenience or disruption, gets rewarded with a sense of having achieved something difficult.  Planning takes weeks.  Cleaning, Seder menus, shopping, who to invite.  Usually I am offered a portion of the synagogue ritual, typically one of the Torah readings.  Some physical work appears.  Bringing bags of groceries from the trunk into the house.  Hauling heavy boxes of dishes from the basement.  Washing everything.  Even kitchen time, something that energizes me, can challenge my stamina as I peel, grate, mix, and wash as I go.  Coffee cone and scoop gets opened first to allow me these respites.  

The nature of the holiday seems to be run up to Seder, where the peak occurs, then a gradual decline.  My Festival has a secondary peak, the intermediate Shabbos where I typically invite a guest or two for Friday night dinner, then have a Second Act performing in my kitchen.  Not to be this year, as the Sederim take place on Wednesday and Thursday evenings.  Shabbos begins the week's descent instead of a second but lesser peak.

My principal supermarket stocked its Pesach display before Purim.  All sorts of delactables, though I tend not to seek out the frivolous.  Instead I look for staples.  Matzoh.  Eggs.  Meats for main courses.  Chicken parts for soup.  Fresh produce gets purchased within a few days of seder.  Matzoh meal has versatility through the year and lower price when purchased Passover season.  I get enough to tide me through the year.  Cannot have Passover without macaroons, something I cannot realistically make myself.  Cannisters have given way to pouches, though I used those cannisters to store extra soup.  Some things priced themselves out.  Jarred gefilte fish has given way to frozen loaves, though even these now need a discount coupon to justify purchase.  Making my own from fresh carp with store grinding and harvesting of fish trimmings has passed from realistic.  I no longer buy jarred horseradish.  I can grind some from our maror, splash with vinegar, and enhance the gefilte fish slices that way.  I buy nuts, walnuts and almonds.  They become Charoset and nut cakes.

While the signature meals have a fleishig centerpiece, morning meals require dairy.  Certified butter.  There is a loophole that milk purchased before the holiday does not require certification.  As a result, many dairies no longer print certification labels on their plastic bottles.  Just have to buy enough before the holiday.  Cheese slices become a staple of breakfast, an expensive one.  Cream cheese exists but is hard to spread on matzoh.  A couple jars of jam, created from a fruit I would usually not buy, enhanced holiday mornings.  And eggs have versatility.  Figure about three dozen.

Maybe Pesach focuses too much on food, secondarily on purity.  I find the preparation more stimulating than the eating.  It can also be about people.  I reserve the Second Day for a congregation not my own.  The people there once provided an immense kindness to a Jew at the communal margins.  I learned a few weeks later that college students in attendance, people with futures on the rise, did their very best to bring this woman into the main loop for the evening.  There are other Festivals that focus more on Judaism's imperative to treat people in a sensitive way.  A lot of people rose to the opportunity for this woman.  The least I can do is show my appreciation by making a sparsely attended minyan more secure one of the Festival days.  To get one of my honored guests to my Seder also entails transport, two forty-five minute round trips.  This guest also has limited social capital.  We could arrange and pay for an Uber, I suppose, but reaching out to people has its inclusion early in the Haggadah.

Pesach has perhaps the unfortunate calendar coincidence with Palm Sunday or Easter.  It's also the change of seasons, when winter clothing goes to storage and summer wear gets unpacked.  We do not do special clothing shopping, though others do.  Looking your finest seems a bit goyish.  Seder is casual for us, though through American history it has not always been.  No ties.  My apron with the logo of the Iggles still in place as I serve dinner and conduct the ritual. We expect stuff to be spilled onto our clothing.  Synagogue attire without the finery of the Holy Days.  People attend to worship, not to be seen or to meet folks they've not met in a year.  

Anticipation firmly established.  Preparation in small aliquots, to be expanded as the calendar moves along.  Chores still in a mental framework.  Mind set on food.  My annual chance to have a special week.

Coping with Rejection

Arthur Brooks, the Prof of Happiness studies at Harvard, told an audience that people seek on of four centers:

1. Money
2. Power
3. Pleasure
4. Fame

We seem to share a focus on being recognized for the good work that we do.  He has achieved fame through his efforts over an adult lifetime. When I add to my body of work it gets few views.  When I submit something worthy of print where many will read, a rejection note or no notification at all indicates I've been turned down.

All performers, artists, writers, and quite a lot of university applicants accumulate denials, often in very high volume.  It only takes a few successes, though, to offset the many rejections. No matter how expected, getting turned down has an intrinsic sting.  Despite this, the rational analyst in me finds an upside.  If I never got turned down, would I ever learn where my peak achievement could be?  Unlikely.  

Lot's of successful people have failures.  The 0.330 hitter may be an all-star but he only gets a hit one third of the time.  Superbowl quarterbacks complete about half their passes.  Most can expect a sack or two per game.  Actors go to unfruitful auditions.  I see paintings for sale in various places that I visit.  Most will remain in their place the next time I visit.

 

It's easy to get spoiled.  Every day I read a few publications that have bypassed my work.  Each has other work in print.  Somebody gets selected.  Mostly somebody else.

On reviewing how to get a better outcome, often guided by professionals, their score does not seem all that high.  What they do that I don't is take more shots on goal.  When my work gets rejected, I put it aside in favor of a different article to a different destination.  Maybe it would be better to have a collection of my five best submitted to different places at the same time.

My deterrent though, seems to be my own ego.  Somebody else's opinion of my output becomes my default opinion.  It shouldn't.  The rational analyst needs to overcome the more fragile seeker of approval.

Obscurity

While returning home from a medical procedure, still not quite at baseline following IV sedation, as my wife drove along the highway I scrolled my cellphone.  To my credit, I've largely given up doing this.  When traveling this route, I am invariably the one behind the steering wheel, usually driving alone.  I decided to update an old friend, truly a mentor who shaped me professionally and to a lesser extent personally.  I typed his name in Google search.  First link, his obituary.  Apparently, he had died about eight months earlier.  I opened the entry, one of legacy.com.  Just his name, the funeral home, and about five subsequent tributes.  A link to the funeral home gave no additional information.  Florida would provide me a copy of the death certificate on request, but those accessible to the public only indicate date of death.  Information on cause or address or survivors requires documentation of kinship.

I read the five tributes.  They ranged from high school friends, early career medical colleagues, and more recent professional colleagues.  All had a similar theme.  Walter was a unique person, had towering medical skills, and helped a friend when he could.  I became one of those friends.

We met when I started internship.  Walter directed the Internal Medicine Residency Program.  He had a commanding presence, weight likely exceeding 300 pounds but mobile, booming voice, no hesitation whatever to belittle us or put us on the spot.  He showed no hesitancy, though, to make accommodation to me by altering the residents' vacation schedule to allow me two weeks honeymoon time in August while saving the third week for the spring.  Residency's three years passed quickly.  I transitioned from a timid newcomer with limited knowledge but reliable work ethic to a more dominant senior resident, highly regarded in the job market for new graduates.  He never took credit, nor did he help me find the position that I got.  But his guidance on how to secure a position and assess the offers that I got made a permanent imprint.  Even more so when his values clashed with my own.

Settled a plane ride or long drive away, we kept in touch, mostly by phone, though in person with his wife at his home on a long weekend back in Boston.  I could always value his advice.  When my job reached a dead end, he made the best sounding board.  Absolutely would write a recommendation.  Our children arrived at about the same year, my daughter first, followed by his first son.  We exchanged gifts.  Letter writing still existed in the 1980s, though he preferred phone calls.  Periodic updates on the travails of parenting and the insecurities of physician employment.  He had been involuntarily terminated from the hospital where he supervised the residency.  Boston has a lot of medical opportunities.  He found a safe landing at the university system where he had attended school and done part of his residency.  While his medical skills focused on pulmonary disorders and intensive care, his new position offered different opportunities.  He never abandoned his place in the ICU, but he saw a trend emerging where hospital systems had to negotiate payment contracts with insurers.  He became the expert for his health system for doing that.  It paid considerably more than billing patients for ICU time.  He also sought the financially lucrative in another way.  As I search his name on Google, after the brief obit, the search  identifies him as a medical hired gun.  He reviewed charts and testified for plaintiffs in law suits.  I knew about some of this, as he presented his first assignment during on of my residency Morning Report sessions.  From every conversation, whenever money or medical economics arose, it became clear that his compensation, from salary to speaking honoraria, far exceeded mine.

Our kids got to their teen years.  Mine did the college circuit, including a tour of Boston's options.  It would be our last personal meeting.  We met at a supermarket parking lot, then headed someplace else for lunch.  Walter looked different.  He had slimmed down to normal weight.  I didn't ask if the surgeon had enabled that. Bariatric surgery was a novel option at the time.  For all his wealth, or at least my perception of it, he drove a very ordinary car, one within my budget.  His home in a town halfway between Boston and Providence had appreciated considerably, though it was far from a McMansion.  My daughter had entered college, as had his son, each to top programs.  His younger son lacked the academic discipline.  All his life, my son had heard quips from me about Walter, mostly including remarks about his girth and bluntness.  He seemed much more ordinary in person.

I returned home, updated him on the ultimate college choice and my daughter's activities after graduation.  His older son had entered a business career.  We spoke a few more times by phone.  He had purchased a second home in a tony area of South Florida.  I remembered that my friend had been born in pre-Castro Cuba.  He left for NYC as a child but with the ability to speak native Spanish and Brooklyn accented English.  On our last conversation, or the last I remember, he told me about his Florida home.  At least one member of the Dolphins lived in his neighborhood.  When I ultimately visited Florida, I checked out the town.  A place of McMansions.  I never learned Walter's exact address.

Despite my efforts to keep in touch, the Boston contacts disappeared.  The marvels of Google Searches could not recapture a phone, address for a letter, or an email.  Nor did I find any references to his employment or practice in Florida.  Doctors usually have a searchable office address and phone number.  He must have retired.  My last exchange with him, from my own email records seems to have been about ten years earlier.  I knew his son had gone to Stanford for his MBA.  He knew my children had entered medical school.  But exchanges stopped.  As did my quips to my children about Walter.

I don't know why I chose to look him up on my car ride home.  His passing did not surprise me, though I knew nothing about his health other than morbid obesity the first half of that life.  He lived to his latter 70s.  What surprised me, though, was the low profile.  I might have expected a long obit in a Florida paper if not a Boston one.  Maybe a legacy.com summary containing more than a funeral home contact.  The other Google search info took me to a variety of look up anyone sites.  I found a series of relatives, most of whom I recognized.  The surprise came in the addresses.  That swank town in Florida was not his most recent.  His last address had him in a more ordinary place, one where my father lived his final years.  With much to celebrate in his adult life, if not his childhood, I found only five tributes. Not even a photo on an imaging search.  All five memories not much different than mine of my mentor turned friend.

They Hauled It Away

My once beloved naugahyde recliner has begun its final destination to a landfill.  I do not know how long I've had it.  It's metal tag stated Barcalounger, made in North Carolina.  They are still made but no authorized dealers near me.  A search of the internet indicates that the company folded or sold off in 2011.  I had purchased this chair in the early 1980s, either right before or after birth of my children.  They selectively gouged pieces of the cushion, dislodged and lost a support cross-piece from the leg lift, but bear no responsibility for its final demise.  When I created My Space upon retirement, I transported this special chair to the room's center.  Its recliner mechanism no longer allowed it to return to a rocking chair position.  For cosmetics, I purchased a generic navy velour recliner cover.  Every night I would retire to that chair, turn on the big screen TV and end most evenings leaning back, calves up, eyes on the screen.  Over a short time, the support mechanism of the seat began to give way, sounding a quick pop each time I entered the chair.  Time for a replacement.

Furniture stores still exist, though the ones with the Jewish names and salesmen, local pillars with memorial plaques in the area's synagogues, have largely disappeared from my area.  Some regional chains have taken over.  Department stores with furniture sections are fewer.  Now we have Amazon and Wayfair, places that give immense selection.  I shopped at the regional ones first.  They deliver and assemble.  They do not cart away the old chair, a service that would have given them an advantage over etailers.  Some online providers arrange assembly for a fee, others leave that to the customer.  My experience with their assemblers has not always gone well.  Still, I could not begin until the Barcalounger vacated the space.  

Junk hauling has gotten easy to access but expensive.  Quotes of about $140 to remove the broken chair.  A call to my weekly trash hauler gave me a quote of $50, which I authorized in a minute.  Challenge, getting the recliner down a flight of stairs.  While it had bulk, it did not have much weight.  I could drag it along a flat surface, which I did.  Out of the study, into the upper hall near the steps.  A neighbor helped me guide it downstairs, where it sat in the living room until the day before pickup.  Then I dragged it out the door, with some guidance from my wife, followed by a solo drag along the walk and the driveway.  It sat at the edge for two days, tolerating a drizzle.  On my scheduled pickup day, the sanitation truck hauled it to its final resting place.

To fill the big center void in the middle of My Space, I first harvested a bean bag chair from my son's room.  During his childhood in the 1990s, an amorphous seat filled with foam pellets, not real beans, could be had for a tiny sum.  Each child had one.  Rarely used.  When I sat in it and tried to rise, I can understand why they preferred real chairs.  In my bedroom, I keep a leather recliner with ottoman, purchased on amazon.com, assembled by myself, intended for reading, rarely used.  Easy to carry.  Rather narrow.  Fine for reading, though less comfortable than reading in bed, not very suitable for watching a big screen TV.  A replacement recliner has become a high priority, as I sat in my dear Barcalounger multiple times a day, despite its structural faults.

In the weeks that followed my decision to replace the Barcalounger, I had visited most of the regional furniture stores.  Had they assured me that they would remove it, I'd have purchased the new one there.  But left to my own, Amazon and Wayfair provide better seating with more selection at less expense.  Wayfair offers assembly for a surcharge, Amazon I'm on my own to find a handyman.  Presumably Wayfair screens its contractors, though my experience has been mixed.  For the living room sofa, the assembler did fine.  For my desk chair, he used a drill attachment instead of tightening the screws with the Allen wrench provided for assembly.  The screws dislodged.  I replaced them myself, making them permanently tight with the proper tool, that Allen wrench.  However, I knew where those screws went, even after two of them fell out.  That allowed me to just insert them and make them properly secure.  Starting just with the chair components and an assembly manual, probably one without writing to enable assembly in different countries, I probably would not have succeeded.

The etailers allow considerable customization.  Price, under $500.  Rocker mechanism.  No electric inputs.  Microfiber or faux leather.  Neutral color.  No nailhead style.  Favorable user reviews, if available.  I'm looking forward to using their filters to search for a personal match.  Then order, wait a short time, and let the assembler have at it.

My life expectancy is much shorter than the longevity of my late Barcalounger.  That was American-made in North Carolina, came assembled and delivered from a furniture store, probably one with a Jewish name, maybe Levitz z"l though perhaps Van Sciver's z"l.  Mass-produced stuff from Asia has enabled an inflation-adjusted economy, but expectations of durability have evaporated.  The low price makes them almost disposable.  But as I learned, disposing does not come easily.

Staying on Schedule

For most of my 70-something years, I've pursued what interested me.  In school, I had a class schedule and assignments with deadlines.  I attended, turned in my term papers, and took exams.  Work became less scheduled.  I had office patients most days and people who needed hospital attention.  Consultations and admissions came randomly.  Phone calls mostly got squeezed in.  Pharmaceutical and insurance representatives stopped by mostly on their schedules.  I accomplished what needed doing but enjoyed the autonomy of what I would do when.  Retirement carried over that imprint.  No pressure to time most things.  When I enrolled in OLLI, classes met at specified times, and I had to allot transit time there and back.  Synagogue services commenced at announced times but few people arrived at the beginning.  Like most in attendance, I calculated how much time I wanted to be present, knowing that concluding prayers and kiddush occurred at reasonably predictable hours, then adjust my arrival to suit.

Our modern age exacts a price for that flexibility.  Once retired, there are no times that need an alarm clock, let alone acquiescing when tired to meet somebody else's leverage over me.  Social media, emails, cell phones can absorb whatever blocks of time their addictive nature imposes.  No set meal times.  Minimal commutes.  The onset and conclusion of Shabbos each week sets the weekly structure.  

And for a while, I drifted along.  Not feeling particularly well, accomplishing few of the semi-annual goals I write down every December and June, getting too absorbed in FB, then descending into Twitter, I realized that some structure would enhance things.  And a commitment to stopping what I should stop.

Each half year I include physical goals, usually stated as a desired waist circumference and weight which never achieve.  It won't get fulfilled without a system.  Thus, exercise now has a set time and intensity, one that I fully respect.  Stretching also has a time.  Measurements not attained, but I feel better. 

After endless interrupted eveings, I took control of sleep.  Set time to turn off screens, review what I did each day, turn out lights, and get up the next morning.  This has also been regimented.  Dental first, then weekly weight, then downstairs for some sunlight in the form of retrieving the newspaper from the end of the driveway.  Water first, then brew a k-cup in the same mug.  No email until I finish the coffee.  Treadmill if on tap that day right after coffee.  Crossword puzzles in the morning.

My week has creative activity built in.  Make a YouTube video every Monday afternoon.  Make dinner for Shabbos every Friday, with defrosting on Wednesday.  BP taken twice a week and recorded immediately in an Excel log.

Some things do not take well to appointments with myself.  For those, I have a timer. Housework fifteen minutes, reading twenty-five minutes, writing twenty-five minutes.  I learned to avoid zero minutes.

Social media got the heave-ho on Rosh Hashana.  FB gone, or at least my responses gone.  I will share my writing or videos onto my site.  The algorithm will do anything to get me back, going so far as to clutter my email with notices to look at what the people I care most about have posted.  I almost never bite.  Twitter gone.  Reddit selective to responses where I can help somebody else.  Just divesting this has freed up blocks of time I did not realize I had.  Sometimes I use it well, other times not.

This process of small upgrades has taken about two years.  Results display as mixed.  I feel better with sleep and exercise assurance.  My library of videos now exceeds 100, my writing much more than that.  Public recognition for any of this nil.  Expanded friendships perhaps starting to slide from my FB exit.  My Space largely completed, other house projects in different stages of making progress without renewal.

Yet, I benefit from a sense of what to pursue when.  Keeping promises to myself, the essence of this change, has rewarded me unconditionally.

Addressing our Anti-Semitic Reality

These have not been two optimal years for Jewish Americans.  Hatred of Jews as people who stay separate dates back perhaps to Pharaoh, who addressed his perception of our communal power by implementing a slavery system, one created by our own successful immigrant ancestor Joseph.  Most of our history has us as a successful subset within a larger dominant population.  We created internal institutions in response to our circumstances.  Places of worship, a religious court system for internal disputes, economic wealth, enduring literature, effective educational systems.  Selected individuals or families would periodically gain prominence amid the majority culture.  But we experienced expulsions and massacres when prevailing cultural values shifted.

While America affords Jewish people our free exercise of religion, recently individual intruders have entered sacred spaces or targeted individuals at worship.  My congregation, and most others, have entrance monitors, often in police uniform, limiting access.  Doors are heavier, reinforced, and fitted with locks to enhance security.  We have had drills during worship, guiding us through a safety procedure for an active assailant.  When I travel, I email my intent to attend a synagogue as a visitor.  I miss the more open-door era, one where a synagogue welcomed all comers without challenge. Though my personal encounters as a Jewish target have been nil, I know people who were victims, including the doctor killed at Tree of  Life.

The American Jewish Committee released the results of its survey on anti-Semitism, seeking opinions of Jews and a broad representative sampling of Americans.  I was one of the Jews surveyed.  I do not recall my individual responses. There seems to be not only more American anti-Semitism, but it has been repackaged as anti-Zionism. And they know who the Zionists are and how to recognize us.  Have I ever personally experienced an incident?  No.  Or really Not Yet.  Do I behave differently?  In a minor way.  When I keep my tallis bag on the back seat of my car, I place it with the Jewish insignia side face down on the cushion.  Anyone passing by can only see a maroon velvet pouch.  I still wear my kippah wherever I want.  While I conceal my tallis bag to protect my insurance carrier, who would have to pay a vandalism claim, I do not hide my person.  If I need to wear my kippah, indeed want to wear my kippah, I do it without reservation.  Most of my sports coats have a lapel pin with American and Israeli flags adjacent to each other.  I've never been challenged, even at receptions where people in the gathering might start taunting me if I wore the same jacket to a university campus.  

I adamantly control my social media platforms, divesting myself of most of them.  As I try to be helpful to the participants of the r/Judaism forum, younger people post their own harrowing experiences pretty much daily.  They know no life without Facebook and its competitors.  Divesting carries a price for many.  Or maybe Twitter is the new nicotine, an intervention designed by experts to create and exploit addiction.  None of this will predictably ease off.  "Doc, they are tormenting me.  They have to change."  The introduction to many a Dear Therapist query.  And any skilled psychologist would advise that you only have the ability to change how you respond.  The discussion in the Jewish community has shifted to a blend of personal responses and communal responses to an adversity that, over a short time, has established a measure of predictability.

Our advocates exist, amassing ample resources and expertise.  I attended a local seminar, a class for seniors via Zoom at my state university.  The guest speaker was the regional director of the Anti-Defamation League.  As she used her time to extol her organization's legacy and educational efforts to minimize anti-Semitism, two questions from the electronic audience stayed with me.  One viewer asked something to the effect of, "if you are so good at this and have been doing it for a hundred years, why haven't your results been better than what we encounter?"  Her agency and another of similar mission had each named new directors.  The previous CEOs had been statesmen of long tenure.  The new heads came from Democratic Party high profile backgrounds.  A Zoom viewer asked her how that shift from diplomacy to political bona fides had changed the agencies.  She did not have an answer to either question that would satisfy a room of retired successful professionals and executives.  Maybe they aren't so good at it.  Maybe our philanthropic representatives have tunnel vision.  Maybe they own the approaches that created their comfort zones.  That online meeting took place during the Covid pandemic, 2000 when people could no longer meet in a classroom or auditorium, places where we could poke the guy in the next seat to express our skepticism as the speaker displayed her Power Point Slides.  In the ensuing five years, we are now back in person, to be harassed as Jews even more mercilessly, both in person and through our electronic global media.

People in that audience and much of the American Jewish public have been through college.  We took courses in psychology and sociology, some requiring independent term papers.  Many of us have careers where we had to assess what the public might find appealing and what they would reject.  We assess efficacy commonly in our business activities, the medicines the doctors among us prescribe, how well our elected officials perform.  Failures and rebound are part of our experience, part of Jewish communal resilience that we grasp as our heritage.  If pouring massive donor funds into educational programs leaves us worse off, it does not take a lot of saichel to explore other options.  But that might mean schecting some very Sacred Cows.  One that cannot be removed is the centrality of Israel to our Jewish narrative.  It appeared in our daily prayers for all the centuries when we lacked sovereignty.  With sovereignty, we made that territory prosperous.  Ownership cannot be negotiated away.  Conquest has been attempted.  We not only have economic prosperity through effort but and effective military as a high priority of that sovereignty.

As Americans, we watch mostly from afar.  Like the Israelis, American Jews have built an imposing presence from very little, but mostly through a combination of staying within the bounds of American rules.  NY Times editor Bret Stephens recently offered an assessment of the situation.  In his highly publicized presentation, he basically advocated writing off the anti-Semites and anti-Zionists. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QMTjVuo9dE  The communal parallel to putting our own masks on first in popular American travel culture.  We've already done the experiment.  Major cities have hospitals with Jewish names that medical students rank as top choices for their residencies.  They exist from an era when Jewish doctors of similar talent could not get appointments at the flagship university centers.  Our mega law firms carry the names of Jewish founders, as do brokerage firms.  People seek out entertainment of Jewish creation.  Cities have Jewish museums, or even secular ones with wings named after Jewish donors.  His theme, we have the talent, we have the track record of offering opportunities to Jewish people when others begrudged us.  More controversial than strengthening our own offerings to our people, was his suggestion to use the resources from ineffective, futile efforts to marginalize anti-Semitism through public education to expand our own communal growth.

Are we ready to write off our most enduring advocacy groups as ineffective?  Perhaps not.  While anti-Semitism in America, from tacit slurs to deadly shootings, has not disappeared, it was also those agencies that helped bring us entry beyond the niches we created for ourselves into the mainstream.  Jews have representation today in those academic centers, international corporations, and private clubs that once impeded our access.  Making anti-Semitism disappear through education may be a financial boondoggle.  Keeping us mainstream and prosperous, the people that other groups may envy as they promote their own prosperity gospels, still has immense importance.  Making Jew hatred less publicly acceptable remains a laudable undertaking.  Holocaust programs in public schools, Jewish donor names on cultural magnets, and public rallies have not accomplished this.  One track might be to see what efforts have better efficacy.  Faculty at several highly respected universities now have departments that study which initiatives have the most impact.

Ultimately, The Times editor set a correct priority.  The successes that Jews have had in America came from projects of self-help.  Seminaries, summer camps, Jewish schools from pre-school to university, synagogues based on denominational structure, publications of superior quality issued to Jewish audiences, Workmen's Circles at a time when Jewish laborers had vulnerability.  Some thrive today, others succeeded so well as to make their continuance obsolete. He suggested day schools as a foundation, which nobody would dispute.  But within the structure that we have now, a Big Tent model, not everyone finds a welcome.  We have significant attrition, too much of it for adverse experience or other cause.  We have to take great pains not to target our own as expendable, or worse, unworthy. 

What the editor did not include in his remarks is the untapped public goodwill that already exists.  Isolation with internal development offers a lot, but partnerships need a place in the communal agenda.  Can we make anti-Semitism crawl back under the rocks?  Our global platforms, where any malcontent can post with little adverse consequence and find adherents in the thousands makes that unlikely.  Refocus our resources, for sure.  Treat everyone as valuable no matter how challenging, a bit more of a project but within possibility.  Think fundamentally differently than a one-hundred-year ingrained legacy, big challenge.  Possible, high payoff.  High priority.  

OLLI Resumes

My senior program follows our state university's undergraduate calendar.  They afford their students a substantial winter break, enough weeks to do some serious traveling or volunteering.  These weeks also permit the senior division to hold minicourses, usually weekly for a few sessions, invariably online.  I have never attended, prefering control of my unscheduled weeks, usually with a few days travel.

But as Phil the Groundhog made his annual winter prediction, our classes reassembled.  My preferences did not go as well as last time.  Closed out of a course on enhancing drawing skills.  Closed out of a course on baseball that I would have liked to take.  Accepted to a course on what I thought was Guitar for Beginners.  It turned out to require a level of pre-requisite skill that not only did I not have but could not reasonably catch up on my own.  In the past I've only dropped one course, driven by disdain for the experience with the professor.  I will need to drop this one to make room for somebody else.

That leaves me with four classes, three in person lasting the full semester, the fourth by Zoom the second half.  All take place late morning, which allows me to complete treadmill exercise before heading off without having to modify my customary time or reduced a few minutes from a session.  

I drove to my first class.  Since the school's first time slot had gone to its midpoint when I arrived at the campus, I expected to find myself needing to park in an overflow lot.  There turned out to be ample spaces where I've parked in the past, though the handicap-designated lot adjacent to mine seemed full.  I pulled into a space a little farther from the entrance tha the specific space I seek out when I arrive for the early session, but not that many extra steps.  Usually, I take a thermos of coffee, but opted not to.  They offer coffee, but require students to bring their own insulated mugs.  Mine do not fit beneath the Keurig's dispensing mechanism, so when I take coffee, I make it at home.

Not many people in the lobby when I entered.  Tom the Officer who makes sure the  students, the frail elderly and more sturdy like me, make it across the roadway safely, must have been reassigned.  I walked inside.  Bitterly cold weather, though probably a few degrees warmer than what Phil the Groundhog encountered at dawn a hundred miles north of us, caused us to dress warmly.  I replaced my beanie cap and fleece gloves into the coat, pocket, hung it on a hook on the coatrack, then picked up my ID tag.  They changed the format slightly.  While I have lanyards from previous years, I took a new one.  The plastic sleeve that accepts the name tag now clips to the lanyard.  I found the previous safety pin unreliable.  Mine and many others would slip off, causing the lost and found employee in the office to chase a fair number of us down to return what had dropped onto their floors.  I think the current plastic clip will perform better.

Not many people in the lobby when I arrived, but morning classes were still in progress.  Once they let out, the central area filled with people.  Likely a mixture of those departing from their class, new people like me awaiting their first session, and a fair number who enrolled in two classes that morning. 

Still nearly a half-hour before my class would begin.  I sat in the library which has the most comfortable chairs for a few minutes.  Often I would stroll outside on the patio, sometimes venturing beyond to the small collection of gardens.  They had one doorway blocked off.  I do not know if their security staff thought the outdoors too icy for seniors.  The chill itself seemed adequate deterrent.  Instead, I traversed the lower atrium, then took the elevator to the second floor where my class would meet.  Chairs lined the upper corridor, many occupied.  I looked for an empty room with desks to maybe sit down and write.  None empty.  As I poked around, a former professor who ran a very worthy course, stood at the entrance to his assigned classroom greeting the new students entering.  We recognized each other.  Despite our name tags, I addressed him as Reverend, he called me Doctor.  His class would be new to him, but still philosophically based.  He opted for a short textbook rather than a series of Great Courses CDs, which have come to dominate many of the live OLLI sessions.  Some current students entered.  I moved along to my class, treating myself to a few moments in a chair in the hall before taking my seat in the classroom.

This professor had quite a lot of experience as a senior health care manager, just right for his course on American healthcare.  We received a list of topics for each lecture.  And for the most part, that's what they are, with selected audiovisual supplements.  The class engaged with each other about half the session.  I left content that at least one class will go well, after a few iffy offerings the previous semester.

Following the class, I walked downstairs, then across the parking lot to my car.  No problems exiting.  I could have driven home but opted to dirvert to the supermarket for a few staples.  Then home.  It had been a gratifying morning.

Making Dinner at Home

Every day I make an effort to read an article in The Atlantic.  I have a paid subscription, selected a few years ago.  The choices tend to be top-heavy with political themes, many reasonably compatible with my own world view, often assessing the boundaries of propriety.  Those are sometimes what I read.  More often though, I select the daily reading outside the political realm.  One on the evolution of family supper caught my eye.  My supper has evolved considerably over my lifetime, though not in parallel with the historical approach taken by the author.

 https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/10/work-its-whats-for-dinner/599770/

Currently, American adults span a lot of variants.  I am an empty-nester couple.  My son is a well-paid professional with homemaker wife and infant child.  My daughter is a single mother with an infant child on maternity leave.  I live in suburbia; they live in central cities.  I have great fondness for my kitchen and what it enables me to do. So does my son, though he lives a brief stroll from a street with five restaurants on each block, all of which will deliver.  Other than an occasional pizza delivery, I've never ordered a prepared meal delivered to my home, let alone the ingredients to make it myself.  As a kosher consumer, my options center around availability.

In childhood, my home in the 1960s had a nuclear family.  Wage earner father, homemaker mother who took charge of meals.  We also had kosher takeout as a treat, living in an area of many kosher homes. Mother shopped, made supper, which we mostly ate together, though that was also the era of TV dinners consumed on snack tables in the family room. Supermarkets had far fewer selections than the megamarts of today. In that era, a few families became unexpectedly wealthy, or, more accurately, high-income from salary or commissions.  When profiled, they seemed to select eating out more as their reward for more discretionary income.  We rarely ate out, other than an occasional pizza or going out for ice cream.

College brought me mostly to student cafeterias.  In medical school I had an apartment with a kitchen.  Studies took a lot out of me.  Not having a car my first two years limited what I could obtain from a supermarket, though that expanded greatly in my more mobile junior and senior years.  I ate supper with other classmates at an affiliated hospital the first two years, then mostly my own kitchen.  Restaurants were rare, but not absent.  I took a particular liking to a vegetarian place near my apartment, often a Shabbos dinner treat.  

Upon marriage to a graduate student shortly after receiving my degree and beginning residency, her university offered us a small apartment with a kitchen nook.  I had income for the first time, not a lot but mine.  The major university sat near trendy shops.  In my wife's years there, she had collected her favorites, still within an easy walk from university housing.  Her schedule being more predictable than mine, she handled meal preparation, but I did the shopping as the one with the car.  Meals became hybrid, our kitchen mostly, a favorite evening out once or twice a week, depending on my call schedule.  My final year and beyond to me to apartments and soon a house with real kitchens and much less convenient access to alternative places to eat.  My schedule and my wife's had some predictability.  By necessity, she got a car.  Our two children arrived, changing meal responsibilities.  

Though our circumstances changed, so did the world around us. A few entrepreneurial types saw the opportunities that dual-income couples with much of their days out of their personal control might bring.  We never sought fast food, but casual eateries, Sunday brunches, pizza chains, and eventually brew pubs became part of our supper options, though we never compromised on eating as a family.  We made few exceptions.  Having to tend to critical patients or late consults sometimes kept me away.  Kids had rare school activities that kept them from our supper table, whether at home or an evening out.  Supper had been allocated as the time when we assembled, as it is today.  When we visit our children in different cities, supper remains communal in their homes.

As my children progressed through childhood and beyond, not only did options of where to eat expand, but what could be accomplished in my own kitchen also evolved.  I took a liking to preparing meals, designing from simple weeknight to elegant Seder for many.  Borders Book Store z"l had endless books on their discount tables that I purchased.  Cable TV entered my home during the 1980s.  I gravitated to the Cooking Channel or Food TV.  In its early days, the shows demonstrated master chefs or food journalists helping interested folks like me to get more creative and proficient.  The endless competitions that replaced them would not come until much later.  The internet brought food sites, Kosher and beyond, all searchable by menu, cuisine, ingredient, though they did not make cookbooks with explanatory chapters obsolete.  Meals became a gathering time, but also a challenge to assemble and satisfying when done.  Convenience came later, but I had already spurned fast food.  As my skill and interest in making my own meals expanded, and they kids moved to adulthood, the need to delegate meal preparation to somebody else largely disappeared.  And the few places I sought out, largely brew pubs, have gone bust.

Meals today for me, now a Senior, remain a home obligation.  My wife and me, who even in retirement spend our daylight hours pursuing our individual interests, eat together.  I do not have snack tables to eat while watching TV.   Indeed, as televisions have gotten grander and less expensive, and channel options exploded, my wife and I watch different televisions with very different shows.  But we assemble for supper, which I prepare most nights.  I shop for ingredients at a megamart and at Trader Joe's. I know I will need to have something a little special each Shabbos.  When I shop, I look for things that make easy weeknight meals.  Garden Burgers, pasta that can be boiled and doused with jarred marinara sauce and sautéed vegetables,  potatoes white and sweet that can get shoved into an oven with an hour's neglect, frozen soups that heat in boiling water, tomatoes or cucumbers for slicing, vegetables that can heat in boiling water.  I rarely depend on a microwave. Each night we have an entrée, a starch, and a vegetable of some type.  Rarely wine or soda.  Occasionally beer for me.  Simple meals, occasionally elaborate with guests.  Always with my wife.  She's the centerpiece.

So, as The Atlantic essay noted, meal patterns have varied with technology, culture, and personal obligations.  While mine have taken a trajectory over time and circumstance, it was not that large a trajectory.  My household's supper still has elements of my childhood suppers but its share of advancements.  What we eat has shifted in small ways.  Who shares the table and which table really has not.

Choosing Paid Substacks

Creative, learned people abound.  At one time, they competed with each other for space in publications.  Many make their living from what they write, so the sponsoring magazine either hired them on a salary or paid them by the piece.  Advertising subsidized the publisher who saw content as some blend of mission, resource, and expense.  A consumer like me would either subscribe to the publication for an annual fee or head over to the library's magazine section to browse their collection.  

Electronic distribution of what is basically intellectual property has upended this tradition, both for creators and for consumers.  An era not very long ago attracted bloggers, mostly amateurs like me, who got intrinsic satisfaction from what we could put out for readers, but generated no money.  The pros, people of real expertise either as journalists covering a specific area, professional writers, or think tank experts not only needed a forum but a means of generating revenue from their knowledge.  Thus, we now have Substack, a forum where people or groups become entrepreneurs, selling their own subscriptions to their content.  As much as I like reading many of these, the market seems flooded.  With an annual subscription to each running about $80, a certain amount of selectivity is needed.  That sum not only offers content but the ability to interact as a reader.  Many have become echo chambers, pitching ideologies mostly parallel to what the sponsor promotes.  Those subscriptions might be better spent on authors whose views expand your own rather than validating personal beliefs.  

Many, if not most, of the popular authors have kept their salaried positions.  I need access to very few, if any.  Their Substack sites mostly do not have exclusivity of what they put forth to the public.  So what the subscriber seems to be purchasing is membership in a community as much as enlightenment from the sponsor's ideas.

At present, I pay for one, $5/month, for which I get two articles each week and a chance to express myself.  I think I would be willing to purchase one more at a similar or slightly higher price.  I've already let one subscription lapse, one of the most widely subscribed to Substacks.  What was promoted as independent journalism became one more echo chamber.  With the many out there, I still look at the selection much the way I would in a public library's magazine nook.  Take a few issues, read them.  Subscribe to two, both with multiple contributors.  While the interactive feature attracts me, and has added immensely to the one subscription that I have, I rarely read other readers' thoughts.  Perhaps I've become jaded by open cesspools like Twitter.  There is much to be said for having an editor to screen what others get to read.  In another era, not too long ago, many newspapers had open comment forums, mostly now eliminated by experienced editors opting to have no comments rather than unscreened toxic ones.

Most internet forums have undergone some revisions in the two decades that everyone has had access to unlimited platforms.  Some would classify as enhancements, others as descents.  I would predict that as much as learned people should be able to make a few shekels distributing their thoughts, the price requires considerable selectivity for who to read regularly.  I'm not yet ready to move beyond the single subscription that I have now.

Tabulating Expenses

While an Osher Institute course on Excel did not materially advance my skills, its basic addition and searching capacity have enabled me to get control of my finances.  Good fortune has left me very comfortable on the resources side.  Still, I watch what I spend, though pay a financial advisor to watch what my wife and I invest.

Every month on or about the 20th, I go through bank and credit card statements.  Each expense has a category, though for individual outlays, the best classification can be debated.  If I eat out at home, it's Eat Out.  If I eat out on a trip, it's Travel.  Gas fill ups at home are Gas, while staying at a hotel away, it is Travel, whether I drove my car or a rental.  Tolls are Travel irrespective of where they occur.   Comcast's monthly fee gets called entertainment, even though the internet does not often amuse, the land line gets paid in that bill, and we get TV service.  It makes it appear that I entertain myself more than I really do.  Health insurance gets logged separately from auto and home and life.  I do my best to keep the compromises consistent.  

As I log each individual expense each month, I note which are on autopay.  It's quite a lot.  No insurance premium or utility bill will get overlooked that way.  Credit card payments also get taken out of my checking account automatically, though each card's carrier gives me a heads up a few days before.  My Medicare supplemental premium does not.

At the end of each quarter, I tabulate quarterly expenses by category.  The wizardry of Excel allows me to total the groceries column, the by dragging, the same formula calculates each other category.  I do this at the half year and as an annual summary.

I spent a lot of money.  Biggest chunk by far, taxes.  My investments did so well, at least on paper, that the financial managers silently cashed out periodically, leaving me with big bill to settle with the IRS.  I never saw much of this as income, just as an appreciation of my holdings, but one that required a transfer to my checking account.  Living expenses don't seem that extravagant.  Average $90 a week at the supermarket, purchases of Stuff from retailers or e-tailers totalled less than groceries.  My auto payments ended.  Maintaining my house ran $17K for the year.  Some big ticket items, a plumbing revision, heating repair, landscaping.  And cumulative smaller expenses from lawn mowing to biweekly house cleaning crew, an expense that essentially replaced the car payments that had reached conclusion.

We are pretty generous with donations.  Mostly small ones.  The larger ones come from my IRA mandatory distribution.  We try to share what we have and make a statement about what we value.  Travel came well below our means, maybe about half of what we should spend.  And dining out locally does not amount to much.  Like many others, the cost of each evening has crept upwards.  It will not affect our financial position if we went out more, but it's not worth the cost or the shlep back and forth.

So the numbers tell me that I live sensibly.  Could spend more on myself, but don't really feel a need for any more stuff.  Need to reassess the value of the biweekly housecleaning, some $5K over a year.  No need to rejoin the JCC, though reducing the cleaners by half would more than pay the annual fee.  Some kind of household repair becomes periodically inevitable.  And maybe take a major trip in the coming year.  And hopefully a much reduced tax liability.

Old Cartoons

As a grade schooler, 1957-1963 or thereabouts, my early mornings started with cartoons on days without pressure to dress for school.  Looney Tunes stood out.  Everyone knew Bugs Bunny and his associates, who eventually found their way to a US Postal Service series of stamps and swag.  My home TV for that entire era only delivered black and white, so the color Looney Tunes had to wait for matinée shorts at the movies or occasional reels run in school.  They weren't my favorites.  I took more of a liking to Flip the Frog and Farmer Gray aka Farmer Alfalfa.  To the best of my knowledge, those were never colorized.  Later, I would turn on Crusader Rabbit at 7AM every Saturday morning.  Farmer Gray had no audio dialogue, though occasional subtitles.  Flip the Frog spanned the entry to talkies but the skits remained mostly silent.  Music accompanied each, often the finest classics ever composed, though unknown to me as a grade schooler.

Democratization of cyberspace and YouTube enterprises have reconnected me to my old favorites.  When I watched them as a child I did not know when they had first been produced.  It turns out that Farmer Gray and Flip came to the cinemas in the pre TV era, early 1930s.  They each ran about seven minutes, making them suitable for a movie theater prelude to a main matinée.  On TV, they stood alone.  At the time I watched them, they were already about 30 years old, though my parents may have seen some in the original.  They seemed remote, already part of an obsolete screen history at the time I sought them out on television.  For perspective, my daughter watched She-Ra Princess of Power and my son the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  Each series is older now than Flip and Farmer Gray were when I watched them, but neither registers as obsolete.  Neither do Looney Tunes of a slightly later time than Flip or Farmer Alfalfa.

Absence of dialogue posed a challenge for the cartoonists.  They had to make the pictures memorable.  Looking now, I find the plots and diversions witty.  Heads lopped off but easily replaced.  Emotions between a loving feline couple conveyed without words.  Modern cartoonists have become too dependent on accompanying audio to tell the story.

By the time of Crusader Rabbit, also initially in black and white, the stories became serialized.  Each episode lasted about five minutes, just right for selling sugared cereal to youngsters of my age, followed by another five-minute clip that resumed the story.  The cartoons stopped being stand-alone.  Their creators eventually moved on to Rocky and His Friends.  The Rocky/Bullwinkle tales also had brief cartoon installments of a longer story.  The Fractured Fairy Tales, Aesop, and Mr. Peabody took a standalone format.

As I reconnect to Flip and Farmer Gray, there seems to be something timeless, though both series lasted only a few years each.  They remain entertaining today.  They also leave me with admiration for the wit needed to produce them in the absence of words.

Under the Bed

Some semi-annual projects carry over.  Progress without completion in the first cycle but visions on an end point with just another six months.  Repurposing my son's bedroom to another use twenty years after he vacated it has gotten my attention.  It's a big project, though one that probably could go to completion with some professional input.  It would not be fair to call him a hoarder.  He accumulated stuff gradually over a long time.  I had tried to make his room function for him, providing him a desk, workable chair, adding shelving to his closet.  But organization never captured his attention.  My father transported my dresser, nightstand and bed when he moved south in 1988, his grandson reaching the transition from crib to bed at the time.  Now I find myself not only with the furniture but a cluttered floor.  Over six months I hacked away at surfaces.  Thrift agencies got generous donations of clothing, though I separated things my son might find sentimental.  Those went in a drawer.  Paper got recycled.  Awards and correspondence from people and agencies important to him went into a secure case with a zipper.  Some drawers got purged.  Nothing has yet been relocated to a different part of my house, nor has anything been transported to his rather spacious home some five hours away.

His bed served as a flat surface to put things as I worked.  Eventually, though, that would become the centerpiece of the room, even if nobody else ever sleeps on that bed again.  Its mattress was my mattress, now 70 years old.  The mattress and box spring probably would not be sold today as too shoddy for a good night's sleep.  As a teenager, my father had to place a sheet of plywood between the mattress and box spring for support.  The bed frame had moved from its wall, needing to be repositioned.  The plywood and box spring had also shifted from their best sleeping position.  And what might have come to rest beneath them challenged my imagination.

Moving everything seemed a two-person job, though perhaps a younger, more muscular he-man could have managed it.  I made a date with my wife to do this.  Mattress moved into an adjacent hall. Slight slit in my left pinkie but no splinter moving the plywood.  Box spring had a plastic coating on its upper surface, a wise addition for the two year old who slept on it.  Its lower surface had a gauze covering stapled to the wood frame, now mostly separated making the inner coils of that box spring readily visible.  They seemed intact.  That ant the plywood also took their place in the adjacent hall.  Then I removed the three supporting slats, screwed their by my father after many episodes of my childhood where they dislodged. leaving one side of the mattress and box spring to slide off the frame.

With the floor exposed, likely for the first time in 38 years, I could see what accumulated.  My son had a feather comforter.  Earlier in the project I had harvested this.  Its duvet cover removed for washing, I could see considerable feather shedding from the blanket.  After washing the cover, I inserted the comforter back in with some difficulty, not noting any torn areas that might allow feathers to escape.  The floor beneath the mattress, though, looked something like a white bird mixed with a lot of other things.  I separated the objects into three basic categories:  paper, cloth, other.  The following day, I went through the paper, recycling most, tossing some, saving the photographs, letters from dear people, greeting cards.  Textiles mostly went into the trash with a few items harvested.  I found water and soda bottles suitable for recycling, writing instruments, an obsolete disposable film camera, coins, two light bulbs, a plastic cup from a casino, and a CD Walkman that probably still works.  Some to trash, others put in a plastic bin for later sorting.

Now the vacuum.  The upright Shark worked fine, though it sucked up its share of coins hidden within the feathers.  This machine does not do edges well.  I could not find the vacuuming toools but my wife did, so I can finish the job shortly.  The bed frame now sits flush against a far wall and a side wall.  Replacing the slats, box spring, plywood, and mattress remains a two-person job.  Then install the new mattress cover, make the bed with one of several twin sets that I came across.  The feather blanket should be tossed.  I have extra pillows.  Then buy a new bedspread.  Finally, declare that surface off limits for piling stuff upon it.  I probably have twin blankets somewhere, but if not, I can buy one of fiberfill.  Better to just discard the feathers.

Some projects need an inflection point.  My son's bed, inherited from me, provides that key element of his room's restoration.  It is unlikely anyone will sleep there, as my daughter's old room has remained tidy.  It contains a much more functional mattress, though no headboard.  My son's bed in position and declared off limits for clutter, the remaining contents of the floor's surface, less that feather-shedding comforter, should organize more easily.  

That's Who We Are

Often I attend Shabbos morning services out of a sense of obligation.  It is not unusual for people of my era.  The Protestants and possibly the Catholics share this legacy.  Synagogue or Church is the place you go on your weekend morning.  Blue laws existed to my young adulthood.  Stores remained closed, though Kosher butchers and Jewish stores in the states where I lived could choose to remain closed on Saturday in lieu of Sunday.  There were places to get breakfast on Sunday, coffee shops, bakeries.  Some eating places, though, did not open until after noon when church let out.  Recreational facilities opened at noon.  Place of worship served as a default.  Sunday served as a communal time out, at least for the morning.  The NFL still played in the afternoon.

Fractures began in my university years of the 1970s.  Shabbos services were readily available wherever I lived.  Social pressure to attend in a population that had escaped parental mandates disappeared.  Still, regular student worshipers kept services adequately attended.  Thirty years later, in my children's student years, I had occasion to attend their Hillel.  People of their generation still filled two small sanctuaries, one Orthodox, the other Conservative, each time I visited, combining themselves to partake of Kiddush when both services had concluded.  Still, the attendance represents a small subset of the University's Jewish students.  

My own congregation, where I have maintained membership for 28 years, did fairly well, adding my generation to the one that preceded us.  Young families entered at early career, raising children, staying indefinitely.  The generation ahead of mine also had children, though few settled in the community.  Perhaps we had elements of a Jewish Ponzi scheme where new players from the outside had to replace those who cashed out for Florida or relocated to be near their own kids or became actuarial statistics.  Still, that system functioned.  It no longer does.

How can we restore ourselves to multi-generational, if not intergenerational?  For the last year, our Board and Membership Committee, with the Rabbi's professional and self-interest, embarked on a membership enhancement effort.  And newcomers have added themselves to our rolls.  You can only improve what you can measure, something that our people avoid doing in any depth.  Coming to services out of perceived obligation yesterday, I sat up front, first row, taking the required two books along with a plastic bin to stash them and my tallis bag under my seat.  The choreography of the Saturday morning services forces me to gaze from my seat at the very front to the back wall periodically.  I did this enough times to survey who came.  It seemed much like other Saturday mornings.  One person I did not recognize, another the son of the man being honored at the remote anniversary of his Bar Mitzvah.  Everyone else I could name.  Our two sets of fathers of young children, who each attend as half-couples with much less frequency than they once did, did not join us yesterday.

Total attendance, about thirty individuals, more men than women, but not our most lop-sided attendance.  Often, I count half-couples and full couples.  Yesterday I did not, but no unusual drift from our usual pattern.  How many under age 70?  I didn't know who among us had reached their threescore and ten.  How many under 60?  That I could make a reasonable estimate.  The Rabbi, son of man being honored, and likely the one person I did not know who drove into the parking lot at the same time as me, took a seat in the last row, and left before the service ended.  So three for sure.  And three other could be's.  A doctor who comes about half the time, a fellow who participates regularly, and a new person who comes with increasing frequency, whom I've met a few times.  So of thirty people, that leaves us at between 10 and 20%, with two of the for-sures being transient.  Our internet allows us to retrieve publicly available information quickly, including people's ages if you know a few other things about them.  The doctor and the regular participant go into the over 70 slot.  The other woman is likely a contemporary of mine, likely past 60.  So of the people in frequent attendance, the Rabbi is junior to the next youngest by at least ten years.  I checked some new members not present.  A couple in their 60s.  Another doctor in her 70s.  And another doctor in his early 70s with his wife in her 60's.  And one real young adult, the grand-daughter and daughter of members traceable to the World War II era.  I've not seen her at worship.

My own activities put me on a second tier.  Bimah skills get me invited to the sanctuary's center table with some frequency.  I attend Board Meetings as a member.  I attend the meetings of one committee.  I'm probably also their most inquisitive observer.  Wanting to keep our synagogue from actuarial collapse seems a laudable initiative.  Trying to do this without exploring how others succeeded, or failed, without tapping into those with expertise or experience on a project this important seems a form of folly.  And should this be our goal, especially one that has not explored a system to do it?  

A young woman I had a chance to interview suggested an answer.  To enhance membership, the Rabbi and High Holy Day Committee designed an experiment.  We would offer a sweetheart deal to attend our High Holy Day worship, one in which our synagogue invested heavily.  For a nominal sum, about 4% of dues, people not affiliated elsewhere could join us.  Only two takers.  One, a couple in their 60s, already contemplated joining and did soon after.  The third person came primarily wanting a place to worship without commitment, a woman who had her Bat Mitzvah with us when we had a more robust collection of families who still had children in their houses.  I interviewed her afterwards in my capacity of Membership Committee member.  This poised rising thirty-something, a product of our congregation, very familiar with us, assessed her experience at the Holy Days.  My position required me to discuss membership, knowing that her past experience had many downsides.  Rather than telling me she did not want to risk reliving any of that, she responded differently.  She told me her impression.  Our congregation was not a place that young adult Jews would seek out as a path to their growth.  It is not who we are.  We are a Medicare Club, seeking new people to protect our financial future and the Rabbi's professional future.  That is our goal.  Advancing a new generation to take the place of a declining one serves as a byproduct, if it happens at all, not our incentive for the membership enhancement that we seek.  We might do better by accepting what we are.

I do not know which is the better path.  For now, looking around, counting our successes, we've not done badly as a place where Jews in their later years come together.  Worship, governance, events, even the rhythms of congregational life.  What we are has emerged as our default.  The challenge may not be in recruiting a new generation but in giving those with us the most fulfilling experience we can offer until the generational reality expresses itself.