A Texas Citizenship Education, 1975

My home state of Texas has been in the news lately, roiled by politics, school massacres, border crossings, abortion and other issues. This story gives you a sense of what I experienced on social issues growing up there in the 1960s and 1970s.

In June 1975, my high school sent me to the “Citizenship Seminar” organized by Civitan International, a service organization. It was at LeTourneau College (now University) in Longview, Texas, 560 miles from my boyhood home in Mission, on the Mexican border. A girl from my class at Mission High School also attended, and she played a key role in my seminar experiences. 

Re-reading my teen journal entries, I was struck by how Civitan intersected with my growing sense of Jewish identity. Speakers at Civitan forced me to take a stand – literally. Hand in the air, “Yes, I am one of THOSE people.”

Some context sets the tone for Civitan. I saved the seminar’s program. Its back page included the Civitan Creed, which included this declaration: “My Creed was proclaimed by the Man of Galilee when He declared, ‘Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even to them.’” So that points to a perspective perfectly aligned with the Christian nature of LeTorneau. I would not be getting official exposure to alternative views.

The program was distilled 100 proof Texas conservative thinking. I wrote about a “stormy meeting” with Norma Gabler, part of a husband-and-wife team with her husband Mel. They successfully pressured publishers of textbooks sold in Texas and elsewhere to alter their subversive, anti-American content. I wrote,

“The session evolved into a shouting match on whether George Washington had VD. That had to do with the accuracy of history books. Then she moved on to a discussion of evolution and creation in science texts.”

Mel and Norma Gabler making a point with large numbers, something about evolution?

“After dinner, we “rapped” about topics like foreign aid, capital punishment and prostitution. I spoke about capital punishment twice. A girl nicknamed Bunny quoted, “Thou shalt not kill.” I later said that was a mistranslation [of Jewish texts]. Bunny countered with, “Well, I know you’re a Jew,” and I felt startled. I asked her how she knew that and she said my classmate from Mission told her I was.”

Clay Smothers.

For real red-meat table-pounding, you couldn’t top black conservative Clay Smothers, who later represented Dallas in the Texas House of Representatives. I reported, “He was very candid on race relations.” Let’s leave it at that. He made Texas Monthly’s list of the Ten Worst Texas Legislators in 1977, an honor illustrated by his quote, “I am against blacks, Mexicans, women, Indians, and queers talking to me about their rights.”

Smothers’ comments about school busing drew a dissent from Martin from Dallas, a friend I made that week (proof that the concept of "Jewdar" works even if I didn't know why). I described Martin as “definitely liberal.” Martin later heard my tense exchange with Bunny, and asked me if I was Jewish, and I said yes. I wrote:

“He said, ‘After what the girl said in the meeting last night, I figured you were.’”

Martin had an obviously Jewish last name, some version of Silver. We skipped activities to talk about Jews, Israel and school.

Another speaker was Kurt Swanda from Fort Worth. His topic: “Of All the Countries, Why America.” I wrote that Swanda was “alternately a prisoner and soldier of and in both" the Wehrmacht and Red Army in World War II. Besides telling gory details about what he saw, Swanda asserted the Russians were way more bestial than the Germans.

Warming to the topic, he shifted gears.

“Any Hebrews, any Jewish People in here?” he asked in his eastern European accent. Hmmm. The Moment of Truth. I timidly raised my hand, knowing with Martin not at that session I’d be the only Jew present. The seminar director noticed and said, “Hey, there’s one back here.” I raised my hand all the way up. Nothing else to do. He asked me if I knew anything about the ghettos. Yes, I said. A little.”

A year later I left for Princeton and rarely returned home except for family visits and high school reunions. Forty-seven years later, Texans still argue about textbooks and rights and abortion and borders and subversive infiltration and who's the liberal and who's the conservative, and so much more. Gabler, Smothers and Swanda have all died. LeTourneau brands itself as "the Christian polytechnic university." 

I wonder if Martin from Dallas remembers our conversations. I had never been able to talk so openly with another Jewish teen about the issues roiling my life. The intensity of our brief connection remains with me. And what about Bunny, who called me out for being Jewish? I never forgot her, either.

The Ultimate Writing Assignment: Your Obituary

I've written a huge range of materials in my life, from Led Zeppelin-influenced high school poetry to business journalism, celebrity Q&As with the likes of Abbie Hoffman and Cesar Chavez, movie reviews, corporate proposals, PowerPoint presentations, press releases, video scripts, resume edits for friends, blog posts (you're reading one right now!), open mic presentations, my 2012 memoir and other scurrilous materials. I've also taken classes that involve a writing prompt meant to challenge my creativity.

In that spirit, I’m going to throw out the ultimate writing prompt. Your assignment: write your own obituary. What would you say?

I’m thinking about this following the death of my partner Naomi’s father on February 25, which I'll always associate with the Russian invasion of Ukraine the previous day. Eric Leiseroff was 96 and had a fascinating life. I wrote Eric’s obituary that appeared on the website of the funeral home, along with a very short version for the regional daily newspaper. How did I summarize his 96 years?

Let’s start at the beginning. He was born in Dresden, Germany in1925 and had the last bar mitzvah in Dresden weeks before the Nazis and their supporters torched the main synagogue during Kristallnacht. Eric (then Erich) and his mother got out of Germany on one of the last trains, a nail-biting trip through Germany, France and Spain, arriving in Lisbon, Portugal in mid-June 1941. They sailed on the SS Excalibur to New York, learning upon arrival that Germany had invaded the USSR. Eric quickly learned English and in 1944 he volunteered for the US Army. Assigned to the 89^th Infantry Division, known as the "Rolling W," he put his German fluency to work interrogating prisoners in Germany and Austria. Eric was with one of the first groups of GIs to reach the Ohrdruf concentration camp.

He returned to the U.S. in 1946, just 20 years old, in pursuit of what he called “a boring life.” He spent 57 years at one job, as a salesman of “fancy paper” used, for example, for linings of perfume boxes. He married Cecelia Katz in 1950 and they were loving partners for 68 years.

The piece earned respectful reviews on LinkedIn, where I posted it. My younger brother read it, then called to say, “I want you to write my obituary!”

“Let’s talk about that in 30 years,” I said.

Or maybe now. Writing your obituary in advance is like prudent estate planning. You never know when it’ll come in handy. I’ve always remembered somebody who did exactly that. I read a memorial in the Princeton Alumni Weekly for Richard R. Uhl '39. He was a creative professional, starting as a musician and producer of radio and TV shows and eventually becoming executive creative director of an ad agency. Then I came to the last paragraph of his memorial:

Our class secretary from 1981 to 2007 and memorialist until 2010, Dick wrote 453 columns and 418 memorials, including all but the last two sentences of this one. The class expresses deep gratitude for his faithful chronicling of our lives and our deaths.

That stopped me cold, so much that I included it in this blog post. I can see myself doing exactly what Richard Uhl did. I’ve joked that my obituary would be a rewrite of my JDate profile of 20 years ago, what a swell guy I am or, given the circumstances, was. I’m reminded of what Winston Churchill said: “History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.”

But how do you capture a life beyond the basics? What would you, dear reader, or I write about ourselves in a final summing-up for those who remain? Something comforting and yet wryly self-observant, the high points and the proverbial warts and all?

I wrestled with that issue when I spoke at my father's memorial service in 2018 at the Veterans Administration cemetery in Rockland County, New York. Our relationship had been very rocky but at a memorial attended by his widow and friends I wanted to be fair and positive. I wrote this the morning of the memorial:

My father lived 92 years and he lived each day fully. Like Frank Sinatra sang, he did it his way. Along the way, he had a tremendous influence on me—my interest in the Ivy League, my interest in Judaism, and blues music and even opera. I’m also a camera guy. I didn’t name my son after a car, however. So, a lot of what I am today is a reflection of what he was and what he imparted to me. His legacy will linger on and may his memory be a blessing. Baruch Dayan Ha-Emet—Blessed be the True Judge.

That was tough; writing about myself is even more challenging. In thinking about this piece, mental patterns from decades past flooded back: self-denigrating and pitying, focused on failures and unmet potential. I brooded over comments my father threw at me, like the time he said I walked like a girl (what teen wants to hear that?), and when a significant other termed me “a self-involved prick who just doesn’t get it.” But with and perspective, I’ve moved past being my own worst critic to a more accepting stage. I’d try to say that in my memorial.

Maybe I’d do multiple versions of it for different audiences. I’d need one for the back of the book memorials of the Princeton Alumni Weekly, of course Then there would be a final Facebook entry complete with favorite photos spanning a lifetime, since I always like to illustrate my writings.

Given the world’s state, I may be whistling past the graveyard here. Maybe Vladimir Putin will work out his psychological issues by starting World War III. At that point the world will need a lot of obituaries and mine would get lost in the shuffle. Again, Winston Churchill had a fitting comment from 1941: “If we win, nobody will care. If we lose, there will be nobody to care.”

But I’ll end, in every sense of the word, on a high note, something I’ve said before: There’s no statute of limitation on changing your life. Never stop trying, or thinking your enjoyment of life is over because you reached an arbitrary sell-by date. Circumstances change, as we all learned the past two years. Challenges arise, history moves on, we get a step slower, but it's in our ability to steer our lives in new and surprising directions. I know, because I am still steering. And writing about it now and in that final writing prompt.

Pandemic Dining: The First Two Years

When the pandemic began, my employer started a program that let employees expense $50 per week on meals at local restaurants. This gesture lasted for several weeks and I valued every meal and my employer's bold gesture at the time of crisis and uncertainty.

And after that? My partner Naomi and I kept right on going with what we call our “Friday feast.” We liked the culinary treat and the chance to help out the area’s economy. Indoor dining was out, but we quickly set up a circuit of pickups from local joints.

  

We hit all the hot spots of Katonah, NY: Pizza Station with its tasty artichoke and spinach pies; La Familia for the pasta experience; Sinapi’s for the $19.99 family special (complete with finger-lickin'-good garlic knots); Muscoot Tavern for a summer splurge under an outdoor tent; Tengda, our favorite for Asian fusion food. I can attest from first-hand knowledge that Tengda made diners work for the grub. Its early-pandemic system required customers to stand outside after getting a text that our orders were ready—followed by a 20-minute wait to get in to pick up and pay. The long Friday lines on drizzly winter nights showed that Tengda has very loyal customers.

Then there’s the hip Mt. Kisco foodie scene. I pick up Indian street food at Little Kabob Station, then race home with the paneer tikka, lasoni gobi and saag paneer. Once we ate outside with a friend across the street at Little Drunken Chef (part of the same operation), huddled as close as possible to the tall outdoor heating pillars. On the same block is one of our favorites, the Georgian restaurant, Badageoni (as in Georgia the country not Georgia the national collegiate football champion). We first went crazy over Georgian food at a hole in the wall place we discovered in Jerusalem. The best dish: Adjaruli Khachapuri. It’s been described as a “homemade bread canoe [where you] scoop up gobs of bubbly filling, a mix of creamy mozzarella, sharp feta and just-barely-set egg.” (And don't forget the massive gobs of butter.) Cardiologists may not recommend adjaruli but, hey, YOLO—you only live once.

Speaking of Jerusalem, pandemic dining even took on religious aspects. I tracked the pandemic’s spasms of restriction and relaxation at my synagogue, Chabad of Bedford. I always enjoyed the kiddushes, or meals we shared after services: typical foods were challah rolls, whitefish, egg salad, tuna salad, cholent stew, lox and rugelach. The kiddushes ended when in-person services stopped in March 2020. Outdoor services and soon kiddushes returned that summer, Services moved inside and kiddushes returned in that short golden window in 2021 where vaccines created a whisper of normality. But as new variants hit, the masks returned and the kiddushes ended. That's where things stand now. In response, every two weeks I swing by the Mt. Kisco Smokehouse to pick up a container of lox trimmings, so we can enjoy kiddush-style bagels and cream cheese at home.

 

Lately, Naomi and I had a unique experience in our culinary journey: we gave a place a second try after a ho-hum first tasting. A small shop serving Vietnamese pho opened in Bedford Hills. Its lack of vegetarian options for Naomi limited its appeal. About a month ago we saw the place had a new name, Dinh Dinh. "Hey, let’s see if it’s changed," I suggested. We checked it out and wow! The place had plenty on the menu for vegetarians and it’s now a regular haunt. Naomi even had a holiday lunch there with friends—inside.

Eating inside during the pandemic? Yeah, we’ve done that a few times; we can count the number on our fingers. Most recently we were at Taco Project in Pleasantville after seeing West Side Story on New Year’s Eve. When we'll venture inside again is anybody's guess. We especially look forward to indoor dining right  in Sleepy Hollow, NY—where I now do monthly open mics at the Hudson Valley Writers Center via Zoom—at the tiny and delicious Chuchok Thai. That had been a pre-pandemic ritual, the Friday combo of Thai food and in-person open mics. Until the day arrives for minimal-anxiety indoor dating, I'll keep bringing home the symbolic bacon in takeout containers and boxes. 

For now, our big decision is where to order for the endless horizon of Friday Feast. If reading about our pandemic dining adventures is making your mouth water as much as mine is as I write this, then this is a successful essay. 

Sondheim 2008: Little "Company" on the Prairie

What can I say about Stephen Sondheim that hasn’t already been said? He was generous, he was brilliant, he did the lyrics of West Side Story in his 20s. I’ve been to plays, listened to the cast recordings, watched the documentaries. I recently saw tik tik . . . BOOM on Netflix, where he encouraged playwright Jonathan Larson, who went on to write Rent. 

And then a few days later, Sondheim died, productive and convivial to the end. 

When I think of Sondheim, my mind instantly goes to a special time in my life. That’s the autumn of 2008. Everything was in flux. The financial industry and the housing market were collapsing, a political campaign pitted Barack Obama against John McCain, and I was leaving a job as a writer with a New York law firm to return to the friendly confines of the accounting industry. A new relationship was moving in the right direction.

Between jobs in late October, I took a vacation in Texas. I planned to see relatives in Austin and San Antonio, then cruise the backroads of the state. A big attraction: To see my nephew Tyler Wallach perform the lead role of Robert in Sondheim’s "Company." I couldn’t wait to see Tyler take the stage in this production by the theater and dance department of Texas State University in San Marcos. I had last watched him perform in "Godspell" in 2001, which officially made me a groupie. The personal connection made Company all the more compelling. Coming at that moment of multiple transitions in life, Company struck me time and again, as with the lyrics of Being Alive:

Somebody crown me with love.

Somebody force me to care.

Somebody let me come through,

I'll always be there,

As frightened as you,

To help us survive,

Being alive.

Being alive.

Being alive!

I saw the play with Tyler’s parents at the outdoor Glade Theater. That night of Company mesmerized me. I thought, I knew that star when he was a baby! But he’d grown up and had the singing and acting chops to do Sondheim. Afterward we got together back stage for photos, then I rolled on up I-35 to Austin.

Backstage at the Glade.

My photos map the rest of the trip. After connecting with cousins, I headed up to Crawford, Texas, site President Bush’s ranch. In the days before the election, this was my chance to see the place before he left office. I picked up souvenirs in one of the shops in town, then meandered back. I paused to take photos of election signs along the way in whistlestop towns like McGregor. I also visited family cemeteries in San Antonio and Gonzales. Before I left for home in Connecticut, I gobbled down barbeque at the world-famous Kreuz Market in Lockhart with my late cousin Abbi Michelson.

Bush country, Crawford.

Along the way, Company stayed with me. Of all the Sondheim I’ve heard over the years, Company had the biggest impact. I'm thinking of Being Alive, The Little Things You Do Together, Have I Got a Girl For You, Marry Me a Little and the anthem Ladies Who Lunch. They’re great songs and never so entrancing as when I heard them at the Glade Theater.

That crisis vacation had to end. I flew from Austin to LaGuardia, and on to Stamford, Connecticut. I started the new job, I voted in the election, I watched my retirement savings tank, I saw the “for lease” signs spring up everywhere. Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, two firms where I had had job interviews, collapsed. In 2009 I took a pay cut and went to a four-day work week as my employer scrambled to avoid layoffs in the Great Recession. The new relationship moved ahead. Tyler, meanwhile, moved to New York to pursue the acting life; before long I took my son and girlfriend to see him perform in “The Drowsy Chaperone” in Brooklyn.

Friday Night Lights in McGregor.

I always looked back fondly on that 2008 adventure of a trip. I like to think Stephen Sondheim was keeping me, well, “company”  as I barreled through the rolling hills a long, long way from Broadway. So thanks, Mr. Sondheim, for all the great theater, and thanks Company and Tyler for making the magic happen when I was on the road in Texas.

Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz, Prophet

 I recently read The Passenger, a book written immediately after Kristallnacht in 1938 by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz. Drafted in only a few weeks, the book shows the terrible pressures on Jews as the Nazis racheted up their repression in the 1930s. Boschwitz managed to reach England, where he was deported to Australia as an enemy alien. In 1942 the ship returning him and 361 other passengers to England was torpedoed by a German submarine in the Atlantic. They all died. Boschwitz was 27 years old.

The book rings with passages that read like prophecy about the fate of the Jews, and also their tormentors. Boschwitz's gift allowed him to penetrate the near and far futures with unsettling accuracy. The main character, Otto Silbermann, is reduced to riding German trains as he frantically tries to recover money from his business, leave the country and avoid returning to his ransacked home. 

Boschwitz writes about what he imagines as the end result:

They'll slowly undress us first and then kill us, so our clothes won't get bloody and our banknotes won't get damaged. These days murder is performed economically.

In another passage, Boschwitz uncannily foresees the fate in store for many Germans:

Silbermann resumed his pacing. When he was twenty meters away from the SS man he again turned in his direction Am I really more anxious than other people? he asked himself. How would an SS man feel if he were forced to move about inside a Bolshevik state. And what if he had some additional marking, some feature that made him stick out like poor Fritz Stein?

These thoughts allowed him to feel his fear was justified. It was also comforting to imagine his enemies encountering their own day of dread, and Silbermann, who had always viewed the party of expropriation with disapproval and disgust, now found himself almost sympathizing with it, as his possible avenger. The idea was tremendously satisfying, and he clung to it for some time.

From a safe distance, Silbermann darted a glance at the unsuspecting man in uniform, as though to say: just wait, this is a long way from being over.

The Passenger is a short read with sharply drawn episodes. With this revised edition out, I can only mourn the loss of this great talent. Still, his book will live forever as a testament to a hinge point in history.

 

I, the Jury Member

I’m a little disappointed these days. That's because I feel like I missed out on a great civil ritual. This ritual is something people gripe about, but find worthwhile. 

I”m talking about jury duty. How many of you have been on a jury? Over the summer, I had a summons for the federal court of the Southern District of New York. 

The opportunity intrigued me. I’ve never actually been on a jury. I see it as a civic duty, as vital as voting. I was called to jury duty in Stamford when I lived in Connecticut. I sat all day for a personal injury case, a fall in the parking lot of a big retailer. At the end of the day the opposing attorneys asked about my background, readiness to serve and attitudes relevant to the case. One asked, “What’s your view of personal injury lawsuits?”

My response: “I think a lot of them are opportunistic, people looking for a payout.” As you can imagine, the defense attorney’s eyes sparkled with otherworldly delight. The plaintiff’s attorney was aghast and made sure I was never, ever on that jury. A court official thanked me for my service and sent me on my merry way.

I have been in court before, as a participant--divorce court, traffic court, experiences that I don’t want to replicate, as I was on the defendant side of the equation and once was more than enough. 

Jury duty is something else altogether and I wanted to do that. The federal court summons required me to get from Katonah down to Pearl Street in lower Manhattan. As the instructions made clear, I could forget about serving at the federal court in White Plains wasn’t an option.

I carefully prepared for the first day, where everything from process to location was new to me. I painstakingly prepared people at work for my absence. I figured out how to use e-tickets on my phone. Checking train schedules, I decided to take the 5:55 to make sure I got to court by 8:30. In fact, I was an hour early, so I rambled around Chinatown and the court district until jurors could enter. I was on my way, baby! Ready to serve the cause of justice!

I wasn’t chosen for a case on the first two days. On the third, I made the cut for a civil case. The next day was Yom Kippur and then something else came up, so court would resume the next week.

Then Sunday a court official called to say don’t come down on Monday, the case was being held over to the next week. OK. The next week I called the court to check and to my utter surprise, I learned my service was done, I didn’t need to come in. I didn’t get many details of what was going on and I didn’t ask, being in shock. I should soon get my certificate confirming I served. Several weeks later I printed the online statement confirming my service, and soon got the check for my days and travel expenses.

So, there we are. My thoughts? The judges impressed me with their careful questioning of jurors on our backgrounds, our interests, any factor that could keep us from being impartial. This took hours but resulted, at day’s end, in juries that plaintiffs and defense felt could judge fairly. 

Listening to fellow candidates, I got a glimpse into so many levels of society. Blue collar, white collar, union workers, Wall Street executives, immigrants. Every day, several were excused, for reasons obvious and also unknown. This spoke to a process that was deliberate and thoughtful.

I also liked the chance to get out of the home office for an urban experience. Granted, I felt nervous being on the subway. The pandemic and rising crime spooked me. I wore an N95 mask in response to the first, and for the second, well, I crossed my fingers and hoped. 

I also enjoyed wandering around with my trusty camera. At the end of my first day, I stumbled upon a raucous anti-mask mandate protest in Foley Square. The number of people stunned me, right there in the blue state! I documented the scene with my cellphone, the kind of street photography I miss during the pandemic. 

So now I’m back in the home office. No more trips to Pearl Street. Can you volunteer to do jury duty? Maybe that’ll be a post-retirement project in the future. I still want the opportunity to sit in judgment. I’ll  see if I can get the coveted White Plains assignment the next time, thanks.

Big demo at Foley Square, near the court.

My First Time to Vote and Assorted Election Adventures

 Voting has always been a favorite civic duty of mine. I look forward to casting my ballots, even if I’m usually backing the losing horse in the race. I have always liked observing the political process and taking part in it on every election day. 

Chalk that enthusiasm up to my 1960s-70s civics education in public schools. I learned voting is an essential part of democracy. As soon as I turned 18 in 1975, I registered. This was in Texas, back when the Texas Republican Party wasn’t the well-oiled political juggernaut we know and love today (well, maybe not everybody loves it). Indeed, the party infrastructure was so minimal that its primaries had voters stick paper ballots in shoe boxes, or so I heard. That lack of political presence didn’t appeal to me, the GOP didn't offer enough candidates and electability, so I registered as a Democrat. That act didn’t stop the local GOP contingent in Hidalgo County from asking me to start a “Youth for Ford” group at my high school as part of the 1976 campaign. I didn’t do that, although I kept the campaign swag, like a groovy “President Ford ‘76” T-shirt and a roll of President Ford stickers.

Still wearable, 45 years later. 

My maiden voyage voter came on May 1, 1976, the Texas Democratic primary. I proudly cast my vote for  . . . Jerry Brown, yes, Governor Moonbeam, who was young and dynamic and dating Linda Ronstadt. People said if Brown were elected president, Ronstadt could hold the role of “First Chick.” I must have been in the hip, aware, forward-looking youth demographic that Brown wanted to reach. Voting for Jerry Brown was the first of many times I’ve supported off-brand candidates to give support to the independent thinkers and protest the limitations of the two-party system. I’m still doing that and still getting the same results. Some things never change. 

In October 1976 politics became up close and personal for one afternoon. I joined the Princeton University Student Democrats for a trip up to Newark for a Columbus Day parade. Vice presidential candidates Walter Mondale and Bob Dole both appeared. I must have had glimpses of both of them. I cannot imagine two national-ticket candidates from the GOP and Democrats appearing at the same event these days, especially not Columbus Day, now that most reviled of civic observances among some political factions in our troubled times.

Anyway, I voted absentee for Gerald Ford, so the t-shirt and stickers must have swayed my opinion. Then in 1980, Carter vs. Reagan squared off in an election colored by a terrible economy, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Three Mile Island and the Iranian hostage crisis—names and crises similar to the current situation. I cast my ballot for the thinking man’s candidate, John Anderson, a breakaway Republican. I even have a Princeton Students for Anderson button somewhere. Needless to say, Anderson didn’t move into the White House but he impressed me then and he still does. 

The campaign cycles rolled through. I took notice of Jesse Jackson’s confident, plainspoken presence in the Democratic primaries of 1984 and 1988. I might have even voted for him, as the spoiler candidate in the New York primaries.  And don't forget idiosyncratic Ross Perot in 1992, with his slide show.

The grimmest election day involved a voting place where I didn’t even vote. This was November 3, 1992. I was the east coast editor of a trade magazine called Video Store. On October 31, MCA Home Video president Robert Blattner was killed in an airplane crash in Colorado. His funeral was on election day, at Congregation Agudath Shalom in Stamford. In my role as an industry reporter, I attended the funeral. Agudath Shalom was also a polling place, so I had the unsettling experience of attending a funeral where the mourners and voters were streaming into the same building. 

Fast forward to election day November 2008. I’m living in Stamford and go to a school in the Springdale neighborhood to vote. Compared to the short lines I’d always encountered, I had to wait at least an hour. That’s the kind of enthusiasm Barack Obama created. In a notable coincidence, I lived on Hope Street at the time the Hope and Change candidate was elected. 

My adventures in voting in 2016 and 2020 weren’t just political—they were visual. Sensing the 2016 election had great historical consequences, I ran around Manhattan taking photos of news crews, police, TV network booths, anything to capture the moment. I especially photographed the news trucks lined up on 6th Avenue, next to the New York Hilton Midtown where Donald Trump had his headquarters for that world-historical night. I didn’t get to the Javits Center, where Hillary Clinton’s supporters had gathered for a celebration that never happened.

Avenue of the Americas, across the street from the New York Hilton Midtown.

The 2020 election also gave me visuals, up to a certain date. I happened to be in Boston the last week of February, perfectly timed to check out a Bernie Sanders rally at Boston Common on February 29. The weather was freezing, my cold stiff fingers struggled with the camera, the crowd was a sea of pro-Bernie blue and the onrushing pandemic turned the world upside down 10 days later. Bernie soon got frozen out of the campaign. The rest is history still unfolding.

Bernie blesses the masses.

So here we are, another election done. I did my part in the Town of Bedford and Westchester County. I didn’t find any dramatic photos to take, since town elections rarely generate visual excitement. But 2022 and 2024—if I can get into Manhattan after voting locally, that’ll be another story.

Have camera, will travel, at least to Grand Central for an election.

The Case Files of Jerry Kat-Onah, Private Eye

The photo shows an intense literary collaboration with Jerry. He's calling our project "Jerry Kat-Onah, Private Eye." Here's the story:

She sashayed into my office, claws clicking rhythmically on the hard wood floor, looking like she owned the place.

She didn't have an appointment, but in five seconds I cleared my schedule to hear her out.

"Are you Jerry Kat-Onah, Private Eye?" she asked, settling in a chair across from my desk.

"That's me. What's on your mind, Miss . . . " I asked.

"Miss Kitty."

"Last name, Kitty."

She looked anxious. "Frisky."

"OK, Miss Kitty Frisky, now we're getting someplace. You wanted to see me about something."

Miss Kitty looked around, fearful to say what's on her mind. Sensing her unease, I said, "This is a private office and nobody will hear what we discuss. It stays between us."

She clicked her claws together and curled her tail into her lap. "Somebody is following me and I want it stopped."

"Do you know who it is? Why's this happening?

"Oh, he's a tomcat in my neighborhood, always prowling. He took a liking to me," she smiled, "that has been known to happen, you see, but he became a nuisance, always yowling and scratching and knocking over the milk bottles to get my attention." 

"Have you taken any measures to keep him away? I take it he's not reasonable."

Miss Kitty jumped up and ran around the office a few times, then rolled around under my desk, a subtle "tell" of anxiety. 

"Do you mind if a scratch your cat tower for a moment?" she asked.

"Please do, that's why it's there."

Scratch, scratch, stretch, yawn. Miss Kitty Frisky was a client who would move at her own pace.

"Yes, to answer your question, I have tried to reason with him, but those efforts always degenerated into, you might say, a cat fight. Nothing is working. That's why I came to you, Jerry Kat-onah. You have a reputation as a private eye who can fix things."

I smiled. "I like to think of myself as a problem solver," I told her as she idly flipped her tail.

"If you can't, I don't know what I'll do!" she burst out sobbing. This happens in my line of business, when clients get rattled by their situation. Part of my job is to calm them down. So I offered her a bowl of milk and a fresh can of liver pate. 

"Thank you, that was very kind," she sighed after she daintily slurped the milk and licked the can clean. "I just want this problem fixed. Or, if it comes to it, 'fixed.'" She made air quotes around the second mention of "fixed."

"So, do you mean fixed in a normal sense or 'fixed' in the other sense? There is a difference, you know."

"Fixed or 'fixed,' so long as the problem goes away," she said, a hard light coming into her luminous green cat eyes.

"'Fixed' carries a higher hourly rate, just so you know, Miss Kitty. That's a special order."

She reached into her purse and pulled out an expensive mouse chew toy. It looked special.

Miss Kitty purred, "Look at it, an Internet of Things-enabled, CBD-infused, top-of-the-line chewy mouse, endorsed by Wirecutter!"

"What's that?" I asked.

"It's the stuff that dreams are made of. Take it, consider it a down payment," she said.

"I like your negotiating style, Miss Kitty Frisky. I'll look into both approaches."

She jumped, stretched and smoothed out her fur coat. I noticed the perfect lacquer on her claws, all of them. "I need to go to the ladies room and powder my whiskers," she said. "Give me a few minutes."

"Take your time." Her shiny claws clicked on the floor toward the door, then stopped.

"When I get back, how about you show me your cat tower? It's ever so climbable."

"That's what it's there for."

"Lovely. Then you'll see why they call me 'Frisky.'"

The Next Generation of Wallachs Says Goodbye to Gotham

New in town, Brooklyn, September 1980

Members of my family are drawn to New York City. It’s an old story, going back to when my great-great-grandfather Adolph Lissner moved to New York from Germany in 1854. He became a citizen in 1860—I have a microfilm copy of his 1860 naturalization certificate. A death notice in the New York Times of January 21, 1914 said he served with Troop E, Third Regiment, New York Cavalry in the Civil War.

Other family members would follow. My father lived there from 1967 to 1978, then me from 1980 to 1991, and most recently my nephew Tyler, from 2010 to, well, last week, when he left New York to return to Houston. I’ve done the math—we all stayed for 11 years then decided the time had come to say good-bye.

The typical attractions drew us to Gotham. A fresh start, careers, romance, adventure, creativity, getting out of small-town America or repressive Europe. My father left Grand Rapids, Michigan with his second wife for a career as a self-employed industrial designer, engineer and bon vivant. He finally ran out of money and moved to suburban Nyack, New York. He lived in the same apartment on on Gedney Street on the shore of the Hudson for 40 years until he died in 2018.

I got the big-city bug from visiting my father and his wife in the 1970s with my brother when they lived at 220 E. 63rd Street. We arrived wide-eyed from Mission, Texas, a small town on the Rio Grande. After picking us up at LaGuardia, Dad took us on the Circle Line tour. I was hooked on the place and kept coming back while in high school, despite my troubled relationship with my father. I moved to Brooklyn a week after I graduated from Princeton in 1980 for a job as a reporter-researcher at Forbes magazine. That start on a communications career swiftly cratered as I was way out of my depth with Forbes' hyper-aggressive journalism. I went from Princeton to Forbes to a trade magazine called Quick Frozen Foods to an unemployment line within three years.

I could have gone home at any time, after job losses or my mother’s cancer diagnosis, but I hung on. My inner action junkie thrived on affordable apartments (a $300/month studio on Amity Street in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn), the Jewish scene, the personals section in New York magazine and no obligations, not even a house plant. I did freelance writing, searched for romance and traveled to places like Australia, Europe, Israel and the USSR. I finally found a steady job and that long-sought romance in the magical summer of 1987, then got married. The crack craze and the desire for suburban family life sent us packing to Connecticut in 1991, 30 years ago. My then-wife and I delighted in driving our used Saab to the Caldor department store (you must remember Caldor) and supermarkets to shop. No longer were we lugging groceries and laundry up the apartment stairs in a rolling cart!

Tyler and several theater friends moved to the city as a group after they graduated from Texas State University in San Marcos. After seeing Tyler star as Bobby in a college production of  “Company” in 2008, I knew he had the skills and personality to make it in the Big Apple. And he did, just not in theater. After appearing in “The Drowsy Chaperone” in Brooklyn, he pivoted to self-taught graphics work, starting with adhesive stickers and hustling all the way to high visibility as a queer artist with a website for his brightly colored fashion and art line, murals at Art Basel in Miami, exhibits at the Brooklyn Brewhouse and the Rag & Bone fashion chain, and a stint as artist in residence at Barneys department store (you must remember Barneys) when it still existed. I documented as many of the events as I could, as the historically minded uncle with a camera coming in from the ‘burbs.

But after 11 years, Tyler has decided to move on and move back to Houston. That's his story to tell. I wish him all the best in taking his show back on the road. Living in Fairfield and Westchester Counties, I never cut the cord so boldly; instead, I spent 20 years commuting to Grand Central, keeping one foot firmly planted in the city to feed my action junkie jones until the pandemic ended all that.

Still, the appeal of bright lights, big city continues. What started with Adolph Lissner in 1854 never stops. The latest generation of Wallachs living down on a ranch in Texas might very well be inspired by Uncle Tyler and wacky Great-Uncle Van to see what all the fuss was about. Pre-schoolers now, they could be the starry-eyed Brooklyn hipsters of 2040. I hope to be around and welcome them. Just wait until they hear about my $300/month studio in Cobble Hill! 

Bon voyage dinner at Havana Central, August 9, 2021

Notes from the Libraries' Media Departments

I have long been a passionate patron of library sales. They can be spectacular, those treasure houses in  Westport, Katonah, Wilton and Southport’s massive days-long Pequot Library sale. I’ve attended these for decades and can remember where I found some of my favorite buys. I scooped up books in Russian, Yiddish and Hebrew, and a gigantic coffee-table-covering novelty, Leslie's Official History of the Spanish-American War from 1899.  

In recent weeks I’ve enjoyed the twice-weekly sale right here at our own Katonah Village Library. My full attention goes to the CD sales racks. Ever since I got a Victrola multimedia player on my last birthday, I can finally play CDs, vinyl and cassettes all day long, and I do. The library sale and the price of 10 CDs for $4 freed my inner consumer, so I now have relieved the library of at least 25 CDs, mostly Latin, jazz (lots of Bill Evans and Nat King Cole), some Israeli, plus CDs by the Grateful Dead, the New Riders of the Purple Sage and Confederate Railroad. Confederate Railroad—now there’s a transgressive band name that sounded a little jarring for Katonah.

  

I’m happy to do my bit to support the library. It’s in a financial squeeze, so buying CDs helps keep the lights on. Still, I’m unsettled to think that all these CDs are for sale because nobody’s checking them out any more. They’re just taking up space. This shows how libraries are a prime signal of technological and social change. Online listening has become so prevalent that libraries are ditching CDs, a trend that goes back to the late 1990s with Napster and kept on going. With budgets pinched, libraries put the money where it brings patrons in. and if nobody’s grooving on the Grateful Dead or the New Riders of the Purple Sage except us senior citizens, they are shifting the resources to something else.

I wonder, though, about the long-term trends. Will users’ preference for everything digital ultimately make libraries become a nonprofit model of the retail experience, where you go to stores to sample and shop, then buy online? 

Fruits of the hunt for cool tunes. 

Fortunately, the Katonah library still stocks DVDs. Getting movies at libraries seems common now, but at one time there was a huge legal question about whether libraries could loan out movies, at the time in the VHS format. I worked for Video Store, a video retailing magazine from 1987 to 1995 and followed the issue. Ultimately, libraries could loan out movies, first in VHS, now DVD. As the video retailing industry collapsed (remember Blockbuster?) libraries became the last man standing in video retail. And truth be told, you get more variety from a multi-branch library system like Westchester County than streaming services. That’s especially true with my favorite genres, like film noir and foreign movies. Some of the greatest films I’ve ever seen came from libraries—Daughter of Kheltoum, set in Algeria, Alexandra, a Russian movie set in Chechnya and film noir like Out of the Past with Robert Mitchum. The Westport, Connecticut library even stocked the Swedish film I am Curious (Yellow), which was seized by the U.S. Customs Service, banned in Boston and the winner of major First Amendment lawsuits. From banned in Boston to available in the public library, that's social change in action.

Libraries also became a necessity for me in keeping up with cultural trends. In years past I had a low level of cable TV service, sticking to basic cable, so I didn’t get Mad Men on AMC, much less The Sopranos on HBO. As a result, I could only find them at the Westport library, waiting YEARS after episodes appeared on TV for seasons to finally reach libraries in DVD sets. In these days of instant streaming and availability of everything, it must sound bizarre to wait until the library gets DVDs of these series, but I’m a patient man and I waited.

So call me old-fashioned, but I’ll be going to the Katonah and other libraries as long as they’re around. I like flipping through newspapers and magazines that I can hold more than I want to read them online. I like checking out armloads of CDs if I can find some I really want. What’s the next tech or social lurch to be reflected in libraries? Your guess is as good as mine, but they’ll keep coming. And please— support your local library! Make a donation and buy up books, DVDs and CDs that catch your fancy. Let me know if you find any Latin or Brazilian CDs and maybe I'll buy them from you.