I was too young to really understand my first encounter with antisemitism. It was when I started first grade. I went to public school. A friend on my block my age started parochial school.
Cynthia: “I can’t play with you anymore. The nuns told us the Jews killed Christ.”
And she never did.
In fifth grade two boys– Elwood and Peter –who sat in the front seat of the bus started calling me a dirty Jew. The bus driver heard them but said nothing and finally, I hit one of them and ended up in the principal’s office. To his and the school’s credit the taunting stopped. At my 50th high school reunion I saw that both the boys’ names were not listed as having graduated with our class.
At about the same time I got into a fight with another kid. We were sledding and he called me a dirty Jew– I have to believe the slur was caught if not taught at home –I pinned him on the ground…
Me: “Give up?”
Barry: “Yes.”
But as soon as I let him up, he jumped on me from behind. I pinned him again and this time took handfuls of snow and rubbed them in his face. This incident and its lesson I have carried with me all my life. Whether you’re a Jew or a Muslim or a Black– and I have no doubt that Blacks especially perceive or experience racisim almost every day –it’s not likely you’re going to uproot prejudice that’s planted inside someone else with a fist full of snow.
In 8th grade English we read parts of both Ivanhoe and The Merchant of Venice aloud in class. The teacher, Mrs. Burnett, assigned me the roles of the Jewish moneylenders. I guess I was typecast and perhaps I should chalk up her choosing me to insensitivity.
And the same might be said for our guidance counselor when in 10th grade the few of us Jews in the high school asked for and received permission to opt out of the annual Easter assembly. She looked in the door of the classroom where we were studying…
Miss Lews: “We’ve never had any trouble with you people before.”
I’ll be the first to admit I have stereotyped and I ask forgiveness for doing so. As a country during my lifetime we have moved significantly forward with our awareness of how and when we discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity and religion.
We have made great strides but the election of Donald Trump and the years of his presidency and until this moment remind me of a game where, when your opponent’s piece lands on the space where you have your own, you are required to turn your piece around and start over.
During the Passover ritual Jews sing the song Dayenu. It’sa songthanking God for our exodus from Egypt and for all he has done for us since then.In Hebrew Dayenutranslates to “It would have been enough.”
The sad irony is that the very course of Donald Trump’s adult life has been the Passover Dayenu in reverse. It would have been enough for any man to have done the cheating and the lying, the mocking and the demeaning he has to be judged undeserving and unfit to be an American president let alone a person to be respected or admired.
Trump has made it clear who he is and many people who know better and who should have called him out and thrown him out of office have not had the courage to do so. Trump has a well documented history of turning a blind eye to bigotry and hate and so far very few of his Congressional supporters have had the guts to condemn him by name. They’re intimidated although some others who have been elected with them are completely willing to pave his road to autocracy.
I think the most infuriating thing I’ve heard anyone offer for his latest outrage– a dinner with a white supremicist and an antisemite –is this one I’ve heard before…
“Donald Trump is not a racist or an antisemite.”
No, he just plays one on television.
Will there ever be an act that Trump will commit that’s too heinous for Republicans and especially, those in Congress to excuse? I’m waiting.
Sure, he’s had help but Trump is uniquely responsible for lighting the fire of anger and hate that large numbers of his base are fueled by. It’s way past Dayenu.
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Here’s a headline from a piece in the New York Times a few days ago…
Crunch Time: The Baguette Gets
UN World Heritage Status
Of course when I saw this, it triggered an instant cartoon idea and I knew it was ammunition for a bunch of puns … Ok, I can hear the groaning.
But as often happens, you start out with an idea and once you begin thinking about and researching it, you whack yourself in the head when you realize even toasting a baguette (Look up the word polysemous if you don’t get it.) is more of a story than you imagined. The question I asked myself was simply this. If the baguette was getting such an honor, why hadn’t the hot dog?Let me admit I don’t think much of the United Nations. It’s not the UN’s fault entirely. It was created
as the world recoiled in shock from WWII in 1945 with the objective of maintaining peace and preventing all future wars. Regrettably, we know how that’s been working out. You don’t get to choose your family of nations.I am familiar with UNESCO (which stands for United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) and its designated World Heritage Sites.
As of this summer there were a total of 1,154 of them. Italy has the most– 58 –and China is second with 56 followed by Germany, France Spain and India, each with 40 or more. The United States is further down the list, wedged between Japan and Brazil with 24.
What I didn’t know was that in 2008 UNESCO started compiling a new category of things that it deemed worthy to be given a special status and singled out as deserving of preservation. This new list is called the Intangible Cultural Heritage and the Register of Good Safeguarding Practices.
That’s a mouthful and it’s an appropriate one since a good number of the “intangibles” on the list are things that can be eaten or imbibed. For example I saw there pizza from Italy, borscht from Ukraine,
kimchi from Korea, Turkish coffee and even the Mediterranean Diet. The hotdog wasn’t there and neither were fried chicken, bagels or apple pie.
As I combed the entire list of nearly 700 items representing 140 countries, many of the “practices” that have been included for safeguarding were totally unknown to me. Some are just outright bizarre like shrimp fishing on horseback in Belgium and knuckle-bone shooting in Mongolia. Take a look at these photos…
Lots of other things not edible but relatable to me like the tango, yoga, reggae music and the Peking opera were on the list but jazz, rock and roll, rodeos and denim jeans were not. Indigenous American contributions to our world’s culture seemed decidedly underrepresented. I was miffed but still focused on the omission of the hot dog.
The baguette is synonymous with France and the hot dog with the United States. Ten billion baguettes are made every year in France. It’s estimated that 20 billion hot dogs are eaten every year in the United States. That seems to me to be a more than equal degree of ubiquitousness.
Yes, I know the hot dog was born in Germany and originally called a frankfurter but by all accounts the bun it became nestled in was an American innovation. By the way, you don’t want to know why the name changed from frankfurter to hot dog once it reached our shores.
It was then I was reminded of something I’d forgotten. Our country is not a member of UNESCO. The U.S. pulled out in 2017 during the Trump presidency citing the organization’s anti-Israel bias but that was actually the second time America had left the organization.
The first time was in 1983 when the Reagan administration cited a wider range of reasons including UNESCO’s “hostility to free societies, the free market and a free press” for resigning from membership. The United States didn’t rejoin for nearly 20 years. Ok, so when you’re on the outside looking in you obviously have less input.
And I guess even when it comes to honoring traditions of baking bread, nations will somehow and some way have difficulty breaking bread together. There’s just no escaping politics and international tit for tat. My hopes for the hot dog gaining a place anytime soon in the UNESCOsphere are slim.
Maine lobster was on the menu the other night at the State Dinner for France’s Emmanuel Macron and lobstering up here by the way appears to be a historic vocation that might disappear without an intervention akin to UNESCO’s safeguarding of cultural practices. File it away with the hot dog.
Years ago I saw a documentary about a law in Japan that actually subsidizes individuals “who have attained high mastery” of an art or a craft with the intention and stipulation that these people will mentor others to ensure the passing on and preservation of their skills. It’s been in place for over 80 years. These people are referred to as “Living National Treasures.”
Here’s a link to that documentary titled The Living Treasures of Japan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HafRtQqCo_w&ab_channel=ThisOldVideo2
No doubt UNESCO created its
Intangible Cultural Heritage and the Register of Good Safeguarding Practices based onJapan’s model. Maybe the United States should establish its own.
And by the way at least there is a hot dog in the Smithsonian…
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“Well, I think if they win, I should get all the credit. If they lose, I should not be blamed at all.”
–Donald Trump
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I think that I shall never be
A corpse that grows into a tree
Although the earth might like that best
I’d rather give my limbs a rest
With apologies to Joyce Kilmer who fought in World War ll and was killed in action in France in 1918. He was 31. He wrote “Trees” five years earlier.
I found this other poem of Kilmer’s titled The Wood Called Rouge Bouquet on his Wikipedia page. He had written it a few months before his death. If my short parody made you smile, this one might make you cry…
In a woods they call the Rouge Bouquet
There is a new-made grave today,
Built by never a spade nor pick,
Yet covered with earth ten meters thick.
There lie many fighting men,
Dead in their youthful prime,
Never to laugh nor love again
Or taste of the summer time;
For death came flying through the air
And stopped his flight at the dugout stair,
Touched his prey -And left them there –
Clay to clay.
He hid their bodies stealthily
In the soil of the land they sought to free,
And fled away.
Now over the grave abrupt and clear
Three volleys ring;
And perhaps their brave young spirits hear
The bugle sing: “Go to sleep! Go to sleep!
Slumber well where the shell screamed and fell.
Let your rifles rest on the muddy floor,
You will not need them any more.
Danger’s past;
Now at last,
Go to sleep!”
There is on earth no worthier grave
To hold the bodies of the brave
Than this place of pain and pride
Where they nobly fought and nobly died.
Never fear but in the skies
Saints and angels stand
Smiling with their holy eyes
On this new-come band.
St. Michael’s sword darts through the air
And touches the aureole on his hair
As he sees them stand saluting there,
His stalwart sons;
And Patrick, Brigid, Colum kill
Rejoice that in veins of warriors still
The Gael’s blood runs.
And up to Heaven’s doorway floats,
From the wood called Rouge Bouquet
A delicate cloud of bugle notes
That softly say:“Farewell!Farewell!
Comrades true, born anew, peace to you!
Your souls shall be where the heroes are
And your memory shine like the morning-star.
Brave and dear,Shield us here.Farewell!”
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According to an article on Oprah Winfrey’s website…
“Twenty years into marriage, the average couple talks for 21 minutes of an hour they spend together; 30 years in, conversation takes up 16 minutes. And after 50 years the average couple converses for barely three minutes in an hour! That’s 150 words or less in an entire meal!”
I definitely believe Jo and I are way better than average… Wait! we’ve just crossed the 20 year threshold of being together. Yikes! But no worries, now that I have hearing aids I’m using the conversation stopper reply “What?” much less.
But where words do most demonstrably seem to fail me is the example of today’s Homemade Cartoon. Whether it’s after returning home from a round with my golfing buddies or a breakfast with the guys, I plead no contest to being at a total loss to come up with any other response than “Stuff” when my wife asks me, “So, what did you guys talk about?”
Jo is mystified by my consistent failure at nearly any recall at all of what we may have talked about. I attribute a lot of this to an increasingly creaky memory. But now I see that my inability to report on our topics of discussion has been analyzed and judged by someone who is not my spouse and thinks maybe this is a guy thing and that we just don’t measure up to women when it comes to the depth of our friendships.
I’m writing this after reading an article with the headline:
Why Is It So Hard for Men to Make Close Friends?
I think– despite my Homemade Cartoon today –my male friends and I often talk about important and substantive things. I’ve never really considered whether or not we are “close” friends but would I be playing golf or having breakfast with them if we were not at least good friends?
I admit we don’t talk about our personal problems or issues like we might if we were on a psychiatrist’s couch but do women do that when they’re together? If, as alleged in the article, that it’s hard for men to make close friends, does that imply women are different and make close friends more easily and have more of them?
The article I read was written by a woman and I don’t disqualify its validity because of that. I found a study published a couple months ago that claims 98% of women said they had a best friend compared to 85% of men. That’s a difference but certainly not a big one.
Ok, I agree it has been my experience that I’ve very rarely talked about what I consider intimate matters with other guys but should that be an imperative when categorizing the strength of a friendship?
Maybe longevity has something to do with how I view this. It seems to me that really close friends are those with whom we can instantly unlock a bond that takes us back to a comfort level and openness that has lasted a very long time. I have a couple of those friendships and I treasure them.
I’m very lucky to have now lived in a place for 12 years where the number of friendships I believe I have is higher than at any point in my life. Maybe retirement has a lot to do with it. Maybe because work was so all consuming for me as well as competitive, I’m in a better situation for making friends– in fact I’d say that’s indisputable.
But here’s my final thought. We are in an era when women, despite whatever roadblocks to their achievement and advancement remain, are fighter pilots in the United States Air Force and referees on NFL football fields. We’re being shown all the time that women can do what men have and that’s a good thing. Why can’t men be credited, when warranted, with being able to do things as well as women?
Do women really have more close friends than men? Ok, I can’t explain why I am unable to do a play-by-play of my conversations with the guys to Jo. But I certainly know I enjoy and benefit from them. And isn’t that what counts?
I remember growing up that every night a local television station would make an announcement in the form of a question…
“It’s 10 o’clock. Do you know where your children are?”
Decades later I think I can update that query…
“Do I know who I can call in the middle of the night in an emergency?”
I’m fortunate. I do.
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“I was thinking about how people seem to read the Bible a whole lot more as they get older; then it dawned on me – they’re cramming for their final exam.”
— George Carlin
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Nuclear Fusion
… A landmark achievement
… A milestone for the future of clean energy…The first time scientists have ever successfully produced a nuclear fusion reaction resulting in a net energy gain
And how much energy was actually produced at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory?
“About what it takes to boil 10 kettles of water.”— Jeremy Chittenden at the Centre for Inertial Fusion Studies at Imperial College in London
Alexander Graham Bell’s first phone call in 1876 was to Thomas Watson in the next room.
The Wright Brothers first airplane flight at Kittyhawk in 1903 was 12 seconds long.The first digital computer built at the University of Pennsylvania in 1942 had 6,000 manual switches.
Just sayin’
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Tis the season for tamales tra la la la la…
Christmas tamales are one of the few things I miss about not living in Southern California at this time of the year. Opportunities to build a snowman in Los Angeles are virtually nil. Although coastal Maine has been having fewer white Christmases in recent years, nobody I know here will be having Christmas turkey or Chinese takeout wearing shorts and flip flops.
A couple years ago I wrote about my Christmas Eve tradition of watching my favorite Christmas movie Holiday Affair. I’m not aware that I’ve reprised anything I’ve written before but I’m making an exception this time.
From 12/20/20…
In a little over a week it will be December 24th and my favorite evening of the year. It will be Christmas Eve and I’m posting this now because our backup white Christmas has just arrived– a predicted five to eight inches of it –and that’s put me in a holiday mood. I don’t know when my special feeling about Christmas Eve started but on that night I am a not so whiny tot who is all aglow with visions of peace on earth and goodwill to all that lasts until sometime on Christmas Day when the illusion wears off.
On Christmas Eve I imagine a stillness, a complete timeout for the world on the playing field of everyday life. In the time of COVID-19 the pause that replenishes I annually look forward to might seem less unique and merely additional time we’re already spending in the pandemic penalty box but I don’t think so. I’ll embrace it like always. A week from tonight Jo and I will be observing a tradition that I’ve begun since we moved to Maine. We’ll be watching the movie Holiday Affair.
There are enough Christmas movies that they’re now considered a separate genre of their own. The very first one was made in 1898 in Great Britain and by 1912 there were a dozen more, including the first A Christmas Carol shot in the Bronx and distributed by Thomas Edison’s film company. It was black and white and silent of course.
There are so many Christmas movies already and more being produced each year that I’d bet you could watch a different one everyday until the holiday rolls around again and then maybe do it for another year without having to sit through a rerun. Well, almost.
The Washington Post did a computer search to create the graph I’ve inserted above. It only extracted feature length Christmas films that had gotten at least 1,000 reviews. Their algorithm took 34 hours for the computer to complete– Yes, as in the street number in the movie title about a department store Santa Claus who claims he’s the real deal. Coincidence? Hey, since my iOS update the other night I hear sleigh bells when I turn on my desktop.
Last year the Hallmark and Lifetime channels alone broadcast over 50 new Christmas movies with titles like Christmas in Rome and Christmas in Vienna (Take your pick.), Christmas Scavenger Hunt, and Christmas Temp. I wonder if that last one was about an elf who wasn’t in the union?
In my opinion the best Christmas movie hands down is It’s a Wonderful Life with Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed and the two characters Bert and Ernie who Sesame Street creators swear were not the inspiration for the two Muppets with their names.
The film’s director, Frank Capra was always on the side of the everyman but there’s a dark side, to Stewart’s George Bailey. He contemplates suicicde and leaping off a bridge before being shown his life’s true worth and impact propels Capra’s own hopeful optimism to leap off the screen. Wouldn’t Donald Trump make a great choice to play the skinflint Mr. Potter in a remake?
Where does Holiday Affair rank in this titanic trove of Christmas Movies? On the movie review website Rotten Tomatoes it doesn’t show up among the top 63. The highest ranking I’ve found for it is 23rd on a site called The Pioneer Woman. Who knew they liked romantic comedies in the Old West?
Holiday Affair was made in 1949 and lost $300,000 at the box office for its studio RKO but it has become a Christmas staple on Turner Classic Movies. It stars Janet Leigh in the last of seven movies she made that year and Robert Mitchum in a role that was a departure from the tough guy film noir characters he was typically cast to play. Ah, but there was a reason. In 1948 Mitchum had been arrested and served jail time for marijuana possession. Howard Hughes owned RKO and made Mitchum take the part to rehabilitate his image. He also insisted that Leigh wear tight sweaters.
Here’s a summary of the plot you might find in TV Guide…
A young widow is romanced by a sales clerk whom she inadvertently got fired…
Two men vie for the affections of a widowed mother…A war widow is torn between a boring attorney and a romantic ne’er-do-well…
And here’s my own version adapted for Christmas Eve…
It was the night before Christmas and you won’t hear boo in our house.
We pay an exterminator monthly, so there better not be a mouse.
Nothing is hanging by our chimney and we wouldn’t dare.
Being Jewish, eight days of Hanukkah is all we can bear.
But each year we nestle all snug in our bed,
Turn on our television and look straight ahead.
It’s an annual custom, a gift I unwrap.
The same saccharine Christmas movie, just call me a sap.
In the toy department a miniature train is making a clatter.
And tense Janet Leigh’s in a hurry. What could be the matter?
She wants that train and has the exact cash.
The store clerk sells it to her and gets fired in a flash.
Leigh’s a comparison shopper* and Robert Mitchum should know
His not turning her in was a big uh-oh.
But instant Karma’s going to get them.
Right away that’s so clear.
They’re both swept off their feet by more than holiday cheer.
In an instant Bob wins over Janet’s cute as a button young son.
And for his ambushed rival Wendell Corey it’s all but over and done.
That toy train plays a big role in sealing this Christmas romance.
Life gives us gifts sometimes, no? out of pure happenstance.*Comparison shopper was a real job back then. Then it became known as market research. Now, it’s the customer reviews on Amazon but don’t let me spoil your Christmas shopping…
This afternoon I was curious if Holiday Affair had maybe moved onto the Rotten Tomatoes best Christmas movies list. That list has been expanded from 63 to 100 and Holiday Affair isn’t on it.
Hey, for me it’s still a wonderful life!
Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah!
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“It’s discouraging to think how many people
are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.”
–Noel Coward
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My father was a golfer and still playing well in his 80s when a broken hip ended his golfing career. By that time his closest golfing friends were either no longer playing or alive. Toward the end he was still able to find a few men close to his age to get out on the course with. One day he called me after his round…
My Father: “I got in the 18 but it was a struggle.”Me: “What happened?”My Father: “Well, after a few holes Henry had to stop because his hip was bothering him.”Me: “Were you playing with anyone else?”My Father: “Yes Izzy, but he quit after nine because he twisted his knee.”Me: “Dad, you may be playing golf but it sounds more like the TV show Survivor.”
This morning I had breakfast with a few of my golfing friends. Before the pandemic we’d get together at a diner most Saturday mornings in winter. The Maine golf season is from mid April to mid October, if we’re lucky, so we showed up frequently enough that we had our own table and waitress. That establishment was a COVID causality and in its place Rockland, ME got its third cannabis store.
At our new restaurant today it felt like old times but if in spring a young man’s fancy turns to love, in winter and after nearly three years a bunch of aging golfers’ laments turn to shoulders, backs, hips and knees rather than hooks and slices. How long might it be until we are Henry and Izzy and my father?
For the writer David Owen golf reminds its devotees of their mortality and “like life, a round of golf begins in easy optimism, progresses through a lengthy middle period in which hope and despair are mingled, deteriorates into regret, confusion and resignation, and comes abruptly to and end.”
After reading Owen’s description you might wonder why anyone would take up the game! And as far as hobbies go, golf is also that rare perhaps unmatched physical endeavor that the more you play or practice provides no guarantee of improvement. But here in Maine, we golfers in hibernation for almost half the year have ample time to contemplate any tortured relationship we have to the game we love.
My own obsession/addiction with golf extends to projecting golf onto natural settings where I imagine golf could exist– a herd of cattle grazing on a grassy hillside sans the beef becomes the ideal site for a golf hole, a babbling brook, turns into a stream of golf consciousness that I must avoid with my next shot. You get the idea.
And that’s how the Judean Desert morphs into an inescapable sand trap…
And Loch Ness, a monstrous water hazard…
Ah, but there are moments on an actual links like the one that Jo captured of me in Scotland this past September that are up there with the best of life. In fact this one will do nicely for my idea of heaven and it’s the best picture either of us took in 2022.
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