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.