While we were in Hawaii recently, we were told that there is no word for “hate” in the Hawaiian language. I am not sure whether it's true. But we heard it several times. Nevertheless, the notion that there is no word for “hate” in a language is a beautiful thing. Imagine (with a nod to John Lennon) a culture developing without the need to find a …
We were at the local diner. Seated in a booth by the window overlooking the stairs leading up to the front door. A perfect perch to view those coming and going. I noticed the couple as they walked carefully from their car to the stairs. They were elderly. As he reached to hold her hand and help her toward the stairs, it was with the tenderness of t …
A lesson in how it works. Last Sunday there was a Fredslist posting from Warren looking for a nurse in Delray Florida for his mother. I saw the posting and got an email from Debbie highlighting it and asking me to forward it to the Advocates. I did and also emailed Warren with my suggestions for how best to proceed. But that wasn't the end. Fl …
Flo and I were cleaning her mother's house in anticipation of the closing. The house that Flo and her brothers grew up in. The house where her parents spent almost sixty years. There was a lifetime in that house. I was packing the breakfront and I came to the crystal. There was a set of tall water glasses, wine glasses, and both large and small st …
For quite a while, I had fantasized about writing this blog. It would have been after a Game Six or Game Seven clinching of the World Series by the Mets. But that, as it turned out, was a fantasy. The “would have been” did not materialize. We were in Lenox, Massachusetts last weekend while the Mets were hosting the Royals at Citifield. There was …
New York has Mets fever and I’ve been part of it. Last week, I bought a Mets hat to send to my daughter, Mea, who lives in Washington, DC. I was in Manhattan and decided to wear the cap for the day before sending it off to Mea. I was on the street for less than three minutes when, crossing Seventh Avenue at Thirty-Fourth Street, a young wo …
One of the aspects of watching the Mets on TV is that, in addition to watching the action on the field, you get to watch the fans in the stands watching the game. When the Mets are away, watching fans takes on an especially heightened level of aggravation, annoyance, empathy or joy. So it has been watching the Mets play in Chicago. (I like the …
Mr. Moskowitz, my seventh-grade Math teacher, was a nice enough guy, and a pretty good teacher. One thing that annoyed us, as students, were his “surprise quizzes”. The quizzes invariably came on Mondays - but not every Monday (otherwise where’s the surprise?). Mr. Moskowitz liked to challenge us. For example, he would give us a sequence of number …
I first felt it about a week ago. An evening breeze and the question of whether I should have taken a light sweater with me. A few days later, it was there in the morning. The crispness that was the bellwether of things to come. The acorns from the oak trees up the block. Plummeting cars like hail forcing neighbors to move their cars from their …
When I was a teenager, I printed business cards for myself and my best friend that said "Nachas Machers". (My father was a printer so I had access to my own little letterpress printing press.) It was important for me to give my parents “Nachas” -- that special warm pride that only a child can give to his or her parents. Parents get Nachas from t …
As I stood on the ballfield at the Gotham picnic/softball game a few weeks ago, I had a feeling that brought me back decades to the ballfields of my youth. Being in the group between the two "captains" who are picking sides. I remembered the thoughts that went through my head when I was a kid. Whose team did I want to be on? When would I be chosen? …
A few days before leaving for our annual visit to Martha’s Vineyard last week, I received a voice message from Steve and Kim. We've been visiting the Vineyard for many years. We stay at the Outermost Inn in Aquinnah and are there at the same time every year. So are Steve and Kim. We were looking forward to seeing them again this year and I was …
Yesterday morning I found myself in front of a little outdoor garden sitting area -- four benches in a small circle by the beach overlooking Vineyard Sound. Bricks, many with names and acknowledgements line the floor and the area is enclosed by beach plums. In the center there's a boulder engraved with depictions of a lighthouse, a male and fem …
There are a few bagel stores in our neighborhood. Two within walking distance, although you'd pass one on the way to the second. Several others are a short drive. I am not sure whether any of them are significantly “better” than any other; however the loyal fans of any one of them swear that others don't compare to theirs. And there are differ …
I've heard the expression that "getting there is half the fun". Although I anticipated writing this blog from Asheville, North Carolina, I never thought that I'd be writing about getting --or almost not -- getting here. We booked our trip some time ago. Fly to Charlotte and a scenic two-hour drive to Asheville. The Forces had other ideas. Got to …
