Soaring

Soaring

Being confined in the room for so long, we all began to look for things to talk about that were light and airy. It’s amazing how small a place can become when you’re suffocating.

“I think I’d pretty much rather be anywhere else but here right now,” Alby said. “Even with the window open I feel like I can’t catch my breath. I can’t feel the air. Not like that

time..

In 1992, Marcy and her husband Marshall vacationed on Sanibel Island with Mom and Dad. It was a restful trip with days spent on the beach and evenings of lazy dinners. While walking the beach looking for shells, Marcy pointed out the parasailers soaring above the beach. Multi-colored sails dotted the sky and from a distance the people dangling from them looked like tiny birds.

“If I could be sure I wouldn’t get motion sickness, I’d love to do something like that,” Alby said off-handedly.

“You should try it! How amazing that would be!” Marcy was thrilled.

“Absolutely, Dad. I’ll bet it’s an experience,” Marshall said, the exuberance contagious. For everyone that is, except Mom.

“Have you lost your mind, Al? You need to ride on a boat to get out there and you’ll vomit. And you don’t like to fly. And you’re not big on heights. And, need I remind you, you’re seventy-two years old?” Mom was aghast at the whole idea of it.

“I’ll do it!” he shouted, encouraged by Mom’s negativity and fueled by the desire to scoff at his age. “Seventy-two and still goin’ strong!”

“Don’t come crying to me when you get sick. And don’t complain later when you have pain,” Mom admonished him.

Is it possible to get a degree in admonishment? I think Mom got a Master’s in it.

The four of them walked to the parasailing hut and signed Alby up for the next time slot. The Captain said they could all ride out with Alby so they’d be able to watch it all up-close-and-personal. Donning life preservers, they boarded the boat when it came to shore and rode out over the calm waters to get to where it was safe to parasail.

“The last time I was on a boat was when I was in the Army crossing the English Channel. The water was choppy and I couldn’t stop throwing up. I’ll never forget it,” Alby said as his face started to cast a greenish hue. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” he said as though he was trying more to reassure himself than anyone else.

“We’re just about there,” the Captain announced and within a few more moments cut the motor and started fitting Dad for his parasailing gear. Over each shoulder were placed backpack-like straps and trailing behind from the straps were yards and yards of heavy black rope.

“You’re going to climb down this ladder here and just fall into the water. Your life jacket will keep you afloat. Once you’re in the water, I’ll start the engine and pull away from you. As the boat picks up speed, the parasail will fill with air and you’ll slowly be raised up. Eventually the ropes will get taut and that’s as high as you’ll go. We’ll let you fly for about fifteen minutes and then gradually slow the boat down which will land you gently back into the water. Any questions?”

“Yeah, just one,” Alby said as he turned toward Mom. “Pearl, our wills are up-to-date, right?” He laughed heartily.

“Al, you’re an ass,” Mom replied.

“I love you too hon,” he said and blew her a kiss as he made his way down the ladder steps. “Make sure you take my picture when I’m up there or else no one will believe I did this!”

No sooner was he in the water than the Captain started the motor and pulled away fairly quickly leaving Alby bobbing in the wake. It took less than a minute before Alby was airborne; his famously skinny legs dangled loosely as the green and blue parasail rose higher and higher.

“Oh my God,” Mom said as Dad became nothing more than a pin dot in the sky. “Your father is nuts.”

Marcy and Marshall were howling with laughter, taking snapshot after snapshot during his fifteen minute ride. The Captain made strategic turns so the parasail would shift its position and from the view on the boat it looked like Alby was billowing gently along. Once the boat’s speed was reduced, Alby and his parasail were brought down ever so slowly and he eventually came down in the water without so much as a splash.

The Captain turned the boat about and motored to where Alby was waiting and reached down to help Alby climb back up the stairs. His hair was wet and sticking out every which way and his cheeks were flushed. Within seconds the straps were off Dad’s shoulders and he was sitting on the sideboard bench.

“How was it?” Marcy asked him.

“That has to have been one of the most remarkable experiences I’ve ever had,” he answered in an unexpectedly soft voice. “I have to admit that when you first pulled away and I was waiting to go up, I peed right then and then. Almost fed the fish, too. I was scared to death. I wondered why I was doing something so stupid. Then, as I went further up in the air, I heard a brand new silence that had nothing to do with the fact that my hearing aids are out. It was different, more peaceful. It was a silence I could HEAR. And then, when I looked down, even without my glasses I could see the dolphins swimming beneath the water’s surface. I couldn’t do anything but cry because it was so remarkable. Beautiful. For those fifteen minutes I wasn’t a deaf and half-blind old man; I could see and hear the most spectacular things.” Alby was overwhelmed. “What a world we live in.”

Mom went over to Alby and hugged him. “You know what? You’re not an ass after all,” she said as she combed his wet gray hair back with her fingers. “You’re a wonderful deaf and half-blind old man I love so much.”

“As beautiful a sight as those dolphins were Pearl, you’re still my favorite thing to look at,” Alby replied with his familiar warmth. Then, he turned to Marcy and Marshall and offered some Alby wisdom.

“You should never lose sight of the fact that old age needs so little, but needs that little so much.”

It was a day he’d remember as being as whole, with all his senses, as he’d ever been in his life.

“What a great day that was,” Marcy said. “We’ll have to do it again soon,” she added, more of a prayer than a statement. We hoped God was listening.

Alby - Bazooka

Bazooka

“I feel like I’ve been sucking on a tin can,” Alby said, puckering his lips and scrunching his face. The chemotherapy agents were changing his body chemistry. “It’s disgusting. Susie Q, have you got any gum?”

Stupid question. I was raised by a mother for whom gum was a dietary staple and she could reason out how gum actually met some nutritional requirements. I reached into my pocketbook, pulled out a stick of spearmint and gave it to him. “There. That should help a bit.”

“No Bazooka, huh? I could really go for a piece of that right now.”

“Sorry Dad, no Bazooka.”

“Your father and his Bazooka,” my mother said, remembering a life-changing moment so many years ago.

On November 12, 1945 Alby was Honorably Discharged from the army, spent nine days getting back to the United States, and then began to actively pursue a relationship with Mom. They’d met years earlier but Mom always kept herself at a comfortable distance and was not even slightly romantically interested. They corresponded through letters while he served in the army, but they’d never actually gone on a date.

During the 1940’s, Newark, New Jersey was home to many thousands of Jews who’d emigrated from Europe through Ellis Island. Included in what became a very tightly knit community were both my mother’s father’s parents. Within the city every ethnic group and culture was represented and each had its own part of town unique unto itself. These Jewish immigrants shared a common language – Yiddish - and a common goal – they would have well- educated, American children who would be upstanding citizens.

Alby’s parents, Samuel and Minnie Rich, shopped in Mom’s parents’ store. Hyman and Esther Cohen owned and operated a small grocery that sold fresh produce, fresh dairy, vats of home-cured pickles and scads of non-perishables. It also served as a meeting place for the Newark Jews to go and share stories about “the old country” and through this venue, new friendships were made, my two sets of grandparents included.

Upon meeting Alby years earlier, my grandmother Esther decided he was to be her son-in-law and told my mother as much. As was common practice then, children actually valued their parents’ opinions and even though they were complete opposites, Alby liked Mom and wanted to take her out on a date. He’d ask and she’d say no and this went on repeatedly until she finally relented just so he’d leave her alone and Esther would get off her back.

They’d arranged that he’d pick her up and take her to the “picture show” at the local theater near Prince Street. When he rang the bell that evening and Pearl opened it, there stood Alby with a big bubble of pink gum blocking his entire face. He sucked it in, bursting the bubble and quickly pulled it back into his mouth.

“What was THAT?” Pearl asked, wondering why in the world she ever agreed to go out with this unsophisticated, boorish man.

“Bazooka! It’s a brand new bubble gum – just came out. They’re selling it over in Brooklyn and everyone’s buying it. Your father ought to bring it into his grocery store. He won’t be able to keep it on the shelves! There are even comics inside!” Reaching into his trouser pocket he pulled out a piece wrapped in red, white and blue paper. “Here, want some?”

Pearl’s ever-present nod toward proper etiquette wouldn’t permit it. “Thank you, no, I don’t chew gum,” she replied and rolled her eyes thinking he didn’t see.

He had, but wasn’t even remotely discouraged by her off-putting behavior. Taking her arm they walked to his green Studebaker and he purposefully chomped on the gum all the while, the sound of it getting louder and louder until Pearl couldn’t take it anymore.

“Okay, okay, I’ll try it,” she said exasperatedly.

“I knew I could convince you,” Alby said as his playful smile softened her prim exterior.
She chewed, fully prepared to hate it and instead, found herself exclaiming, “This is fabulous!”

“I know! Great, isn’t it?”

By the end of the evening Alby saw a laughing, warm and engaging woman in Mom and knew beyond a doubt that she was going to be his wife. He just had to make sure she knew it.


“So you see Jenny, if not for that small square of bubble gum I might never have gotten Pearl to marry me!”

“Al, I’d have married you with or without the gum. You were irresistible.”

Alby’s eyes were closed but he held his hand out and Mom took it as the two of them decided to stay lost in that sweet memory of long ago.

Alby - Payback

Payback’s a Bitch

Jenny came into the room to check Alby’s access line. She wanted to be sure he wasn’t having any blockage due to the treatment’s length. After a few computer control adjustments and some repositioning she was satisfied that all was well.

“Do you ever take a break?” Mom asked. “You haven’t stopped running around since we got here this morning.”

“Not really. We’re always under-staffed and overworked. I guess it’s the same story in every profession.”

“Why don’t you just sit for a minute,” Mom suggested in her best Mommy Voice. “There’s no harm in taking a breath.”

No sooner had she sat down than Jenny’s Head Nurse happened by. “Jenny!” she called impatiently and with a chill in her voice. “The monitor in room five is beeping.”

“THAT’s why I don’t sit down!”?” Jenny asked, not expecting an answer but knowing that Alby might just have one anyway.

“Having a boss,” he said, “Is much like wearing a baby diaper. It’s always on your ass and usually full of shit. Let me explain it to you this way.”

Alby was drafted into General Patton’s Third Army and began his service as a censor in the Press Corps, Technician Third Grade, on November 23, 1943. He bunked with Ernest Hemingway and together they learned how to be fast and efficient at their jobs.

Many reporters came and went but there was one he never forgot. His name was William Burrows; he was a very tall and burly man, a talented writer, and his public persona was highly esteemed. He knew how to report the war with literary panache and integrated himself into the group.

William knew that the censors were very important in deciding what would be sent over the wire and by whom. Even though Alby wasn’t an officer, his superiors designated him as the one in charge of the press room and gave him complete authority within those walls.

William was very aggressive when it came to his work and toward that end, his attitude toward the soldiers was often arrogant and brusque as he barked out orders. One day in particular, William stepped over the invisible line between what Alby considered acceptable and abominable behavior.

Private Earl James was a young, black fellow from the southern United States and was in the press room working on some copy when William entered with his writing pad and attitude in hand.

“Boy!” William shouted. Earl didn’t answer so William yelled louder. “Boy! I’m talkin’ to you. Does being colored mean you’re deaf?”

Earl turned around and if it weren’t for the sound of the teletype machine, the silence would have been painful. All the soldiers present stood frozen.

“Are you speaking to me, Sir?” Earl asked, standing at attention.

“You bet I am. I’d like a bottle of scotch and you’re gonna find one for me.”

“Sir? I would have no idea how to acquire that, Sir.” Earl never lost his cool or spoke disrespectfully.

“Well, maybe you’d better go and figure it out, Boy. I’ll expect to see it in my tent after mess. Got it?”

“I’ve got it Sir, yes Sir.”

William threw what he’d written onto the table in front of Alby with the sole instruction of “Send this,” and when he left the room, he left behind his stink of arrogance and bigotry. Alby had no patience for it and felt personally insulted. He figured that if William could talk like that to a fine young guy like Earl, he would have no reservations about talking like that to anyone he thought was beneath him. Clearly, that included Alby and just about every other soldier in This-Man’s-Army.

“You know, we’ve got something that bastard wants and needs…” Alby said slyly.

“What is it? A new bottle of scotch?” Earl suggested.

“Better. We’ve got the sole access to the news wires. If his reports get to his newspaper on time, they get published. If they’re late, they don’t. I have a very funny feeling that today, his reports are going to be very, very late.”

Earl expressed concern. “This doesn’t help me find the bottle of scotch for him. And I’ll be the one he points a finger at. That could be very bad for me.”

“In this room I make the decisions so if anyone is getting blamed, it’s going to be me. And as for the scotch, he’s going to be so mad about missing a deadline that he won’t even think about it. Trust me,” Alby said to Earl.

The pile of edited reports dwindled and because William’s had been moved to the bottom of the pile, it was the only one left at day’s end. “Gee, we didn’t get to Mr. Smith’s article. Shame on us,” Alby said sarcastically. “Guess we might as well go to mess now. Nothing more we can do about it today. Too bad, huh?”

William was eating with the platoon’s commanding officer when Alby made his way over to their table. After a salute and a request to speak, Alby gave William the bad news. “Mr. Burrows, Sir, I’m sorry but there was an unusually heavy number of reports today and we were unable to censor and send yours to your paper.” Alby stood at ease, hands clasped behind his back, trying to restrain his desire to punch William in The Left Labanza.

William stood up, outraged. “I’ve never missed a deadline in all my years of reporting. Damn you,” he yelled. Alby didn’t move and wished, for that minute, that he was as tall and broad as William was because he was scared shitless.

The commanding officer rose from his seat to diffuse the situation. “William, we get mighty swamped here, what with all the columns that come through daily. I’m sure your editors will understand.”

Recognition crossed William’s face. “Bullshit. This was purposeful. What’s the matter, Private? You don’t like the way I spoke to the nigger?” William turned toward Alby. Even though he came only up to William’s chest at full height, he refused to back down.

“No Sir, I don’t like it. But that’s beside the point. You are accusing me of conscious negligence and I take issue with that, Sir.”

The C.O. decided there was no room for diplomacy. “William, I am the commander of this unit and if one of my men says there was no time to complete the day’s work, I believe him and I suggest you do the same. I also suggest that you apologize to Private James.”

William was relentless. “I have nothing to apologize for. I asked the private to get me one bottle of scotch and now I’m being made to pay for that request.”

“William, you aren’t a soldier nor are you under my command so I can’t enforce an order. I can, however, strongly urge you to make your apologies and then move on to another press unit that might be better able to get your reports in on time. I think that’s fair, don’t you?”

The troops were all dumbstruck and a mixture of fear and pride was in the mess tent air. William still wore that haughty, holier-than-thou look on his face.

“I’m sorry for asking you to get me a bottle of scotch,” William turned to Earl but we all knew he wasn’t sorry at all and Earl was a real mensch.

“I accept your apology, Sir,” Earl replied and his gentlemanly manor further incensed William who ultimately stormed out. After gathering his things, William was driven off the base and taken to a nearby division leaving behind a collective sigh of relief. Shortly afterward Alby was called in to the C.O.’s office.

“Private, I don’t want to know if you intentionally pulled Mr. Burrows’s story and I don’t want any explanations from you. Sometimes there are uncanny coincidences and I’m sure that’s what happened today. Mr. Burrows was rude and inappropriate and his article coincidentally didn’t make it to the wire. That’s all my report will show.”

“Sir, yes Sir,” Alby saluted and when he realized he wasn’t going to face any disciplinary actions, he kept his salute a few seconds longer than necessary. He felt like a million bucks.
Alby figured then that just because a person feels like he has more authority it doesn’t necessarily mean that he does and that the assumed authority also doesn’t make a person better-behaved. As long as you do the right thing and live accordingly, the only authority that really matters will smile on you every step of the way. Alby always said the best thing he learned that day was that when you do right by someone worth a grain of salt, he’ll do right by you; because it was Earl who later saved Alby’s life.

Earl, Sergeant Patrick Murphy and Alby were returning to base after an evening at a bar in Northern France. They did that a lot, going to bars in their down time. The ETO was a hell of a way to see the world, huh? Anyway, they had to walk through the woods in the dark which was not at all unusual for American soldiers but this night was anything but usual. The three of them were halfway to base when they came upon a Nazi soldier who had been separated from his unit and was hiding behind a group of trees. In keeping with the Rules of Engagement, Sergeant Murphy drew his weapon and demanded that the Nazi soldier come forward with his arms in the air. Earl and Alby pointed their rifles and Alby hoped his first place ranking in marksmanship wouldn’t be necessary. “Sir, you are now a prisoner of the United States Army,” Sergeant Murphy said.

The Nazi began speaking in German and since Alby was fluent in Yiddish, was able to decipher what the soldier was saying. “He’s calling us American pigs and says he’s not going anywhere with us.”

“I don’t want to tell him we’re press corps soldiers or he’ll know we’re ready to shit our pants,” Sergeant Murphy whispered.

“I’ll tell him we are taking him prisoner and won’t hurt him if he cooperates. When we get him back to camp, we’ll let the Colonel deal with it.” Alby was never as afraid in his whole life as he was at that moment. He was face-to-face with a person, to use that term loosely and allowing for a broad definition, who believed he was superior simply because he was an Aryan and Alby was a Jew.

Who would have imagined that the Yiddish he’d spoken at home with his parents was now being used to communicate with an SS member? Alby spoke the words they’d been trained to say. “We are soldiers in the United States Army. We’re not going to hurt you, but the rules of engagement demand that we take you back to our base and turn you over to our commander. We are not interested in fighting with you and I give you my word that you will be brought in unharmed if you cooperate.”

Alby reached over to try and take him by the arm. “Don’t touch me with your filthy Jew hands. You are lower than the rats in the garbage and you deserve to die,” the SS agent spit out in guttural German and faster than a blink he pulled out his weapon and aimed it directly at Alby’s head. As he went to squeeze the trigger, a gun was fired and the Nazi fell dead from a bullet into his chest.

When Alby looked up, he saw that Earl had fired his rifle, the first and last time he’d ever used his gun throughout the war. Earl reached down and took the Nazi’s pocketknife that had been dangling from his pocket.

“Here,” he offered it to Alby. “For you.”

Alby put the knife in his pocket and then leaned over and puked at the base of a tree. Sweat was pouring down the back of his neck while Murphy and Earl agreed that what just occurred would never be reported and that the three of us would just head back to base like nothing happened.

But so much happened. Alby looked into his enemy’s soulless eyes and saw only misplaced but very real revulsion. In contrast, Alby looked at his friend Earl and saw only his love and respect. The extremes that surrounded Alby made him shiver, and he didn’t stop for many days afterward.

“We are taught that when we do a good deed, we are repaid for it tenfold even though we might not always know it. But Alby knew it that day. Earl James saved Alby’s life, claiming that he did it because Alby saved his honor. They each did what they believed was right at that moment in time and that’s all people can ever do if we hope to live fairly and honestly.

“So don’t sweat it that your boss out there doesn’t know how to behave honorably toward you. You’re helping me to get better and for that, you will be repaid tenfold. And you can take THAT to the bank.”

Jenny left the room with tears in her eyes and I wondered if I could find Private Earl James; maybe he’d be able to save my father’s life one more time.

Alby - Hanging On

Hanging On

The exceedingly slow process of infusion became less and less bearable as the long day progressed. Because of his age and a few other concerns, the infusion machine was programmed to deliver the chemicals in minute amounts. Dad started looking for excuses to get out of the chair just so he could move his body a little. Bathroom trips became more frequent, as did walks up and down the hall with the ever-present I.V. pole rolling along beside him.

He asked me to massage his neck which was getting stiff from immobility. Pressing my thumbs hard into his muscles, I kneaded and pushed as hard as I could in the hopes of bringing him some relief.

“It feels like it’s in spasm,” he said. “I don’t think this has ever happened to me before.”
“You’ve got to be kidding, Dad,” I reminded him.

After Harvey came home from his I’m-gonna-find-myself-and-live-like-a-pauper-and-shit-in-the-woods trip to India and decided that he preferred the American way of life, he joined Alby’s accounting practice and began working in earnest. Alby couldn’t have been more delighted to have his son by his side. With Harvey’s long, curly hair tucked beneath a short-haired men’s wig, Alby brought Harvey with him on appointments so he could meet all the clients.

“Where’s my daily diary, Pearl?” Alby asked as he got ready to visit the business site of an important client. He misplaced things all the time. We lovingly called him the Absent-Minded Accountant. “And my briefcase. Where did I put it?” Pearl had everything at her fingertips, long accustomed to the routine.

Dad went to the front hall closet, grabbing his heavy black woolen coat and shrugging it on. He looked dashing with his white satin scarf as he and Harvey walked out the door with a wave. Harvey was driving and Alby sat in the passenger seat going over the day’s agenda. As he spoke he would periodically bend his neck from side to side, and complain that his neck was hurting. The drive continued but Alby’s growing discomfort with his neck was causing concern.

“What’s the problem, Dad?”

“I don’t know. I’m just so uncomfortable in my neck; it’s hurting more and more.”

“Did you sleep funny? Maybe you twisted it.”

“Can’t be. I was fine all morning. I feel like I’m being stabbed or something.” With every sharp jab, Alby would groan.

Harvey decided to pull over to the side of the road so he could get a close-up look. “Come out of the car, Dad. Let me see what’s going on.”

It took only seconds before Harvey was reduced to hysteria. Alby, of course, had no idea what was so funny.

“What? What are you laughing at?” Alby asked innocently.

“You know Dad,” Harvey said with all the seriousness he could, “When you put on your coat, it’s important to remember to take it off the hanger first.” Yup. The metal hanger was still inside the coat, its hook jabbing into the back of Alby’s neck every time he moved.

Never one to miss out on a great joke, even at his own expense, Alby calmly took off his coat, removed the hanger, put the coat back on and turned toward Harvey. “I guess we have an excuse for being late at the clients today. We’ll just have to tell them we got a little hung up.”

Alby - Brain Farts

Brain Farts

“I know I came in here for something,” Jenny muttered as she hurriedly pushed papers around on the countertop and opened cabinets in the room.

“Go backwards in your mind and it will help you to remember,” Mom offered. “That’s what I do.”

“I can’t stand when this happens. I can be in the middle of something and completely forget what I’m doing because my brain is so overtaxed all the time. Sometimes I wonder if it’s age…” Jenny spoke to no one in particular.

“And what should I say?” Alby laughed at the twenty-something Jenny. “After all, I’m a few years older than you are. Okay, okay, I’m more than a few years older,” he admitted when he saw Jenny’s contradictory smirk. “But forgetting the little things really isn’t important in the scheme of it all. Tell her, Susie Q.”

Alby had come home from work and his expression was solemn. He didn’t offer his usual greeting of “Hey there, Susie Q. How’s my girl?” Instead he walked in, sat down at the kitchen table and loosened his tie. His green eyes were cloudy.

“What’s wrong, Al?” Mom asked.

“I tried calling you today. I repeatedly picked up the phone but no matter how many times I stared at the dial, I couldn’t remember our telephone number. Blank. My mind was blank. Like I’d never known it.”

“I forget stuff all the time Dad,” I offered.

“You forgetting and me forgetting are two different things,” he said distractedly as he wiped perspiration from his temples.

I had long known that as a CPA he was detail-oriented and numbers, for him, were his native language. He could do complex mathematical equations in his head with astounding accuracy and using a calculator was not in his repertoire. He used an old-fashioned “adding machine” on which he would punch in page-long columns of numbers without even looking at the keyboard and pull the handle on the left to get a total. Long strips of paper would print out the top in red and black ink and that was the extent of his technological assistance. The “ching ching” sound of the adding machine was as familiar a sound as the scratching of his pencil.
He ate his dinner while we all made small talk but I knew he was barely listening. His body was at the table but his mind was somewhere else. Before he even had his tea and apple turnover, he pushed his chair away and went upstairs into his office.

Mom and I left him alone to gather his wits and by the time we were finished cleaning the kitchen, he reappeared with his famous cat-who-caught-the-canary grin. In his hands he held a ledger sheet filled with mathematical calculations and a yellow Number Two Ticonderoga pencil worn down to a nub.

Mom and I looked at him questioningly, not sure where this was leading but the relief in his face was evident.

“It took a little while, but I had a revelation. Susie Q, if there is only one thing you remember when you grow old, let it be this. Never ever worry if you can’t remember where you put your pencil. Worry only if you forget what to do with it!”

“Mr. Rich, you’re awesome,” Jenny smiled sweetly.

“Nah. I’m just an old geezer with a lot of stories.”

“You’re my favorite old geezer,” I said and hugged him. Jenny put a compassionate, knowing hand on my shoulder and the weight of it was unbearable.

Alby - Be Zen

Be Zen

About three hours into the infusion, Alby began to fidget and his eyes were darting around the room, jumping from the television set to me and then back again.

“You okay Dad?”

“I don’t know. I don’t feel right.”

“Should I call Jenny?”

“No, but if you wouldn’t mind, could you just hold my hand for a little while?”

I took his hand in mine and I could feel him trembling. My rock, it seemed, had been reduced to pebbles. “Relax, Daddy. Breathe slowly. Breathe in…Breathe out…Breathe in…Breathe out…”

“You know who you’re starting to sound like, don’t you?”

It was the mid-1970’s, I was eighteen, and Harvey had decided he hadn’t quite “found” himself yet. My brother was an adolescent during the 1960’s and embraced the Hippie mentality, which included a fervent interest in eastern religion. He searched for something that would fit well with his perception of what life should be or an ideology to which he could relate. His search brought him to India where he grew a beard and long, curly hair, donned an orange Nehru shirt that came down to his knees and wore baggy orange pants that looked like pajama bottoms. Around his neck hung a string of brown beads with a picture of Bhagwan Rajneesh, his guru, dangling from the bottom. (You might remember this guru – he’s the one who was investigated many years later in Oregon for tax evasion as he drove away in his Rolls Royce. . .)

Pearl and Alby were distraught. Their good little Jewish boy from New Jersey was living on an Ashram in the Indian wilderness, unreachable by telephone for months on end, and the worry nearly drove them crazy.

Pearl was on edge, her conversations always clipped as though she was in a hurry. Alby, whose normal demeanor was one of calm, was himself distracted and uneasy.

Pearl heard about a man who led massive therapy groups to teach people how to find inner peace. It was a popular if not questionable craze, attracting people from all walks of life looking for coping skills. Pearl convinced Alby, along with their best friends Ethel and Gerry, to attend a seminar in the hopes of finding a constructive way to deal with Harvey’s distance.

Alby found the whole idea quite suspect but kept his thoughts to himself; he knew better than to provoke my mother when she was on her last nerve. So, like a dutiful husband, he coughed up the ridiculously-exorbitant-but-I’ll-do-it-anyway registration and seminar fees and resigned himself to keeping an open mind.

As they left the on the morning of their seminar date, they reminded me that they weren’t allowed to make telephone calls during the course of the day, and therefore wouldn’t be in touch with me until they got home much later. I wondered about that for just a bit, but in my teenaged egocentricity the thought was fleeting. Only much later that evening did I realize it would have behooved me to give it more than a second’s concern. After all, if my logic were sound I would have wondered what type of class would keep them incommunicado for so many long hours.

Pearl and Alby sat in a massive ballroom at a Holiday Inn, surrounded by hundreds of people looking for that ever-elusive inner peace. Some were devotees of the program, some were newcomers, and some were groupies who followed their leader wherever he went. The attendees were a potpourri of working professionals to people whose last shower was nothing more than a stroll through the rain. Alby looked around, his suspicions building rapidly.

With pomp and circumstance and a lot of zip-a-dee-doo-dah, the leader strode confidently onto the stage and was welcomed with resounding applause and a deafening roar of screams and shouts. Alby chuckled aloud and Mom elbowed him, the ever-present behavioral compass of our lives.

“FUCK, FUCK, FUCK,” the man bellowed into his microphone and his captive audience replied in turn.

“FUCK, FUCK, FUCK!” they screamed.

NOW he had Alby’s undivided attention. What could possibly be the point of this?

“You’ll soon find out that words are only what you want them to be. They’re nothing more than a string of letters put together to make sounds and we, as people, assign those sounds meanings. It’s all what you make it. FUCK doesn’t have to be bad; it could mean something as benign as “Here, have an orange.” We have made it nasty but we can mold things into what we want or need them to be.

“FUCK, FUCK, FUCK,” he continued. “Let’s all say it together! FUCK, FUCK, FUCK.”
Alby thought he’d fall off his chair with glee. This was going to be better than he ever imagined; a comedy show with an audience who didn’t know the joke was on them! He watched mom loosen up and actually chortled when he heard her scream “FUCK” on the top of her lungs. Gerry and Ethel were busy waving their hands in the air as though experiencing some divine intervention. Alby made himself comfortable as he sat back in his metal folding chair, waiting to see how the show’s next act would progress.

It didn’t take long to find out because Alby had to use the bathroom. Even in his younger years, his urges to urinate were sudden and emergent. When he had to go, he had to GO. He stood up and began to make his way across the row of seats, squeezing past “FUCK” screamers just to get toward the aisle.

“And you would be going WHERE?” the leader’s accusatory voice rang out above the “FUCK” din.

Alby stopped and turned to look up toward the stage.

“I’m talking to YOU,” the all-powerful Oz said, pointing a stern finger.

Alby was psyched now. “I’m going to the bathroom. That is, if it’s okay with you,” he answered sarcastically. The room fell silent. Not a “FUCK” in the bunch.

“It’s not okay with me, my friend. No one is allowed to leave this room. You take energy out and it interrupts the flow of your inner search.”

“That’s not the flow I’m concerned about right now,” Alby said as he continued to walk toward the rear doors.

“You can’t leave.”

What little dander Alby had was up. “Listen my friend, I took orders in school, orders in the Army, and sometimes I even take orders from my wife. I will not, however, take orders from you. So, as I see it, you can either back off now or you can watch me pee right here in front of everyone in the room. Your choice.” Alby stood tapping his foot, getting more and more pumped for a challenge. When he received none, he went to the bathroom to empty his bladder and was sure THAT was Nirvana!

When he reentered the ballroom ten minutes later Alby heard “Shit, fuck, piss” being chanted by a closed-eyed audience. “Have you found IT? Your inner self?” the leader shouted.

“Yes,” the majority called out in unison.

“Grab that self. Feel the weight of IT! Learn IT so you can always find IT.”

“Shit, fuck, piss!” Alby yelled out, but not for the same reasons as everyone else. For this I paid money? “Shit, fuck, piss,” he repeated as his own private reprimand.

When Pearl and Alby got home that evening, I asked them how the day had gone.

“Ask your father,” Mom answered angrily with more than a little annoyance.

Ooh, I knew this was going to be good. I was positively shaking in anticipation and didn’t miss Alby’s sideways smirk.

“Susie Q, did you know that if you really want to find out what you’re made of on the inside and you need to learn about your inner self, just have someone deprive you of taking a pee.”

I supposed that’s what it meant to be full of piss and vinegar.


By the end of the story Dad forgot that he’d been frightened only minutes before but it was so comfortable holding hands that we just didn’t let go.

Whistle A Happy Tune

Whistle A Happy Tune

As Alby sat in the chair he began to whistle quietly, an unconscious habit he’d had for as long as I could remember. It was soft and gentle and reassuring in its consistency. When Alby whistled, all was well with the world.
He never whistled any particular tune, perhaps because he couldn’t carry one, but I loved to listen nonetheless. It was kind of like the ticking of a clock in its rhythmic comfort and it turned Room Number Seven into a warmer and more palatable place. My mind couldn’t help but wander back. . .

“You’ve got to put your lips together like this,” my father said patiently as we sat together in the backyard and he was teaching me to whistle. “There’s got to be just enough space for the air to get through.”
I tried and tried but all that came out were sprays of spit, most of which landed on him. He gallantly pretended not to notice. This was the third time he was giving me lessons and the third time I was unsuccessful. At six-years-old, I was impatient, unable to sit still, and was always determined to do something my mother didn’t want me to do. I also had an uncanny ability to annoy everyone around me except my father. Because he was always so mellow and relaxed, my personality amused him and he had a real soft spot for me.
My mother pleaded with Alby not to teach me to whistle. “Don’t you know that if she learns it, she’ll never stop?” My mother knew me oh-so-well.
“Pearl, that’s ridiculous. What’s the big deal?” He was sitting on the grey vinyl chair in our Pepto-Bismol-pink kitchen. “She wants to learn how to whistle. I’m not teaching her how to shoot spitballs for goodness sakes!” That would, of course, come later.
“Do what you want Al, but I think it’s a mistake.”
The lessons continued until finally, about two weeks later, I whistled with a minimal amount of salivary mess and danced around proudly as though I had accomplished world peace with a single blow.
Peace, however, was about the last thing that came of these lessons. I whistled everywhere I went, annoying my mother and siblings, and had substituted a whistle for silence at every possible opportunity. Meanwhile, Alby was delighted that I’d mastered the skill and soon we moved on to whistling songs. I learned “Bei Mir Bist du Schon”, a Yiddish tune my grandfather was fond of singing, and blew out the notes with all the gusto my small body could muster.
Then came my mistake and it was a mighty big one. It was during nap time in my kindergarten classroom. Napping, my teacher Miss Jaggers believed, was crucial in the development of our young minds and of critical importance for our intellectual well-being. It didn’t occur to me then that all she wanted was for her students to shut up for awhile so she could have a break.
Nap time? I wanted none of that. To me, resting was reserved for nighttime, in my bed, with my pajamas on and my sister next to me with my mother hollering “Be quiet” up the long stairs of our home. This nonsense of napping during the school day would have to end and I was just the one to end it.
The classroom was quiet as all the dutiful students put their heads on their desks as Miss Jaggers had instructed, and closed their eyes. Ever so surely I felt it coming, welling up from way back in my throat until it squeaked past my lips. A quiet but distinct whistle. Could I help it if the sound happened to travel into my table-mate’s ear? Should I be blamed if she was a light sleeper? Clearly, the answers were yes and yes.
It was very abrupt – a few whistles and I was out of the classroom and sitting in Principal Krumbiegel’s office where I was informed I needed to stay until my parents came for me.
“Your mother and father will be here shortly, Susan. You must stay here until they arrive,” Principal Krumbiegel-with-the-big-ears-and-fearsome-voice said.
What I heard was altogether different. “Your parents are on their way and your mother is going to make you sorry you were ever born. She’ll rip into you like a cleaver into beef and shred you into teeny tiny pieces, leaving you to bleed until there’s nothing left inside of you. And when she’s done with you she’s going to give your father a piece of her mind until he, too, leaves this office a beaten man.”
By the time they got there, I was shaking and it was all I could do not to wet my pants. Pissing off my mother was not a good thing to do and yet, I did it so well. Another feather in my cap, I suppose. They walked in and I couldn’t see my mother’s face because she wouldn’t even look my way. I thought I heard a hissing sound, probably the steam coming from her ears. I was doomed.
And then, I looked over and saw the laughter in Alby’s eyes; he hadn’t cracked a smile but I knew he wanted to in the worst way. It relaxed and appeased me but when my mother spoke I immediately sat up straight in my chair and readied myself to pay the piper.
Principal Krumbiegel reported every detail about how my whistling disturbed my classmates and how, with this warning, the next time I would be removed from my classroom and sent home for days! He made me feel small enough to disappear.
“Susan is very sorry for disturbing her classmates, aren’t you?” Mom said more than asked as she finally turned my way. I guess I hadn’t disappeared after all and almost melted from the fear my mother’s anger could elicit.
“Yes, I’m very sorry.”
“And you’re not going to do this again, are you?” she demanded, wielding her invisible scepter over my bowed head.
“No. I won’t do it again,” I said meekly, hoping beyond hope that I could live up to my word.
“Can I interrupt for a moment?” Alby asked. “It seems to me that this is pretty harsh for such a minor infraction, don’t you think?” He casually rested his right ankle over his left knee and drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair.
What in the world is an infraction? I wondered.
“So she whistled during nap time. She didn’t hurt anyone, she didn’t damage any property. She’s only six and hasn’t learned to tame her impulses. I don’t think she deserves to be made to feel so corrupt. Do you?” Alby’s green eyes bored into Principal Krumbiegel’s.
A dare with words I didn’t quite understand but I loved it!
“Well Mr. Rich,” Principal Krumbiegel interjected, “We cannot have the children do whatever they feel like doing whenever they feel like doing it, can we?”
“Hmm, I’ve got to think about that one. I guess the answer is really another question…can we have the children do what they’re told when they’re told or is it okay to walk over the yellow line sometimes as long as no one gets hurt?” Alby always had a way of getting his message across without sounding impertinent.
“How you choose to raise your child is up to you, Mr. Rich, but I strongly advise you to watch out for this one. She’s trouble.”
After leaving the office we walked toward Alby’s blue Bonneville with the license plate ECO-910, each of my parents holding one of my hands. Mom took small, brisk steps and essentially tried to drag me without ever looking my way while Alby’s strides were slower and calmer. My body nearly ripped in half from the dichotomy.
“Susie Q,” he said as we got into the car. “Just remember something. It’s never wrong to bring a little life to a dull party, but always remember who your host is.” With a wink and a smile he got behind the wheel of the car and as he drove the mile from school to home, he whistled softly the entire way.

Alby - Run, Run, Run

Run, Run, Run

Together with my brother, sister and mother, I ate bagels and made conversation.

“Do you mind that we’re eating in front of you, Dad?” I asked. Alby always had a healthy appetite and enjoyed his food more than most. In fact, we had our own unit of measure with which we could determine how much or little he enjoyed his meal: Dad had a problem with his nose – when he ate good food, it ran and he needed to blow it. Constantly. Restaurants get star ratings, our family meals got blows. Good meal? Four blows, easy. Great meal? Five blows. Exquisite meal? Buy stock in Kleenex. The “Blow Barometer” was at work, no matter where or when he ate.

The first time I cooked for him I was a teenager. My mother had been mildly ill and was resting in bed so I decided to save my father from starvation and make dinner. Short of boiling water, I’d never cooked a meal before that day but had watched my mom enough times. I thought surely I knew what to do and after quite a bit of mixing and mashing, I formed a meatloaf. This ought to be good, Alby loved meatloaf. Funny though, it didn’t look like mom’s and I was surprised at how heavy it felt. Surely some ground beef, lots of bread crumbs, mashed Rice Krispies, ground Corn Flakes, oatmeal and bran buds should taste okay.

I put the meatloaf into a five-hundred degree oven, set the timer for forty-five minutes, poured a pound of spaghetti into boiling water, ripped up a few pieces of unwashed lettuce and cut up a carrot for a tossed salad that I drizzled with about one-fourth of a jar of vegetable oil, and voila!

After about ten minutes I opened all the windows to get rid of the smoke that was pouring from the oven because the exhaust fan wasn’t strong enough to clear the air. Odd how the oven never smoked when mom cooked. The water from the spaghetti was boiling over the top of the pot but that eventually stopped after about thirty minutes when the pasta absorbed all the liquid.

We sat down to eat and I watched my father cut into his slab of meatloaf..I had to replace the regular knife with a serrated-edged steak knife…and he put a generous piece of the meat-and-other-stuff-mixture in his mouth. I continued to watch his nose as he chewed. And chewed. And chewed.

“Delicious,” he said. I thought I saw him struggle to swallow a few times because his face kind of contorted and if I hadn’t known better, I would have thought the contortion was from pain. I still watched and waited for his nose to run. Dry as a pile of dead leaves. He ate another piece and another and another until the slab was gone. He twirled his spaghetti on his fork, putting in mouthful after mouthful, and he didn’t even react when it crunched a little bit. I didn’t know that cooking pasta al dente browned it too.

I didn’t dare eat my own portion because I was too busy willing his nose to run. We didn’t talk, he just ate and I watched. Alby cleaned his plate, wiped his mouth with a napkin, and said, “You did a great job Susie Q, a great job."

I cried. It was the first time in my consciousness that my father lied to me and I knew it as surely as I knew that he looked like he was going to vomit.

“I didn’t do a great job. It was awful and you know it,” I yelled petulantly. “You didn’t blow, not even once. You’re lying, Daddy!”

With that, he reached over to the meatloaf tin, sawed off another equally large piece, and while he chewed he reached for his hankie and blew his nose so loudly that I thought his eyes would pop out. Success! One blow. A few chews. Another blow. A few chews. Another blow. Four blows altogether. He blew before I even had a chance to see his nose run…he just needed more of the food to get his blow barometer working. I knew it!

“I can’t eat another bite,” he exclaimed after finishing what was on his plate and carrying it to the sink.

I was so proud I thought the laces on my peasant blouse would come undone. As I cleaned the table and put everything away, I didn’t even notice that it was hours before I saw Alby again, when he came out of the bathroom red-faced and perspiring.

“You know dad, you were my inspiration to learn how to cook,” I said as I swallowed the last bite of my bagel. “I don’t know how I didn’t kill you all those years ago with that meal,” I laughed.

With a sideways grin and a bit of the devil in him he replied, “If I lived through that dinner, I must be indestructible.”

If only.

Alby - The Fifth Putt

Lining Up Your Fifth Putt

“Your veins don’t want to cooperate,” Jenny said as she tried to find another spot to insert the I.V. “This happens sometimes, it’s nothing to be concerned about.”

The chemotherapy drugs were infusing when Dad’s vein shut down, stopping the entire process cold. He had been peacefully drifting off a bit while the rest of us watched The View. Well, we weren’t watching really; we were each just looking at the television set while seeing our own mental movies being acted out. In the distance I could hear Barbara Walters yammering on about something unimportant in the scheme of my life yet her voice was somehow comforting in its familiarity.

When the vein shut down the fluid backed up rapidly and was forming a nasty looking welt before any of us even realized what was going on. No sooner had we called for Jenny than she was in the room working hard to set things right again.

“I’m so sorry to have to poke you again. I know how unpleasant it is. Bear with me, I usually get a good vein on my first try.”

“You know,” Alby said as he turned to Jenny while she pierced his fragile skin, “This reminds me of something. I’ve got a story for you…” he began.

Alby was a golfer. He’d say it was terrific exercise because he’d get to chase a white ball through fields and forests, commune with the forest where his tee shot would magically disappear, make artistic designs in the sand, and have a captive audience for his repertoire of jokes. His average score was somewhere between 100 – 110 with a thirty handicap. Plain and simple, he sucked at the game but always held onto the hope that one day the Messiah might come and walk the course with him, allowing him to break 100 and not lose any balls in the process.

Alby had numerous golf partners, none of them in it for his skill of the game. They just liked to laugh and his jokes could them forget that they were witnessing one of the worst golfers to ever walk a cleated step.

Even though I grew up watching my father golf, I hadn’t taken on the sport myself. On one Mother’s Day my husband Gary bought me brand new titanium clubs with a vivid purple grip and took me to the driving range a few times to give me some pointers.
We have a local Par-3 course and Alby didn’t need much convincing to come out and play nine holes with me.

“Wow! If I play with you then I’ll actually look like I know what I’m doing. How can I turn down such an invitation?” Always the smart ass, my father. I wouldn’t have traded him for all the chocolate in the world.

When he showed up to play with me, I was forced to shield my eyes. Alby was a vision. He had what I liked to call a “Fashion Disability” and it’s certainly not nice to make fun of someone’s handicap. But there he stood, in all of his splendor, and it was impossible not to fear blindness from the mere sight of him.

From head to toe he was a study in fashion faux pas and exquisitely poor taste. He wore a red Kangol cap (he had those caps in every color, making them hip long before Samuel L. Jackson had ever even heard of them. . .) and had a scoring pencil behind his ear. His golf shirt, a navy blue and white horizontal plaid, was tucked into his blue, green and white vertical plaid pants which were being held up by a black belt. His brown golf shoes added just a touch of panache and almost hid the grey socks he was sporting.

“Dad. Oh my God, Dad. Look at you!”

“What? What’s the problem?” he asked, always delightfully unaware that he looked like a clown reject from Barnum & Bailey. Bozo would have run for his life.

“What’s the problem? The problem is that I’m nauseous looking at you. Besides the fact that the conflicting patterns are making me motion sick, your colors don’t even remotely go together!” I could barely squeak out my words.

“What do you mean? The shirt is blue, the pants have blue in them, therefore they’re both blue and therefore they match.”

Who could argue?

We teed up at the first hole and Alby immediately set out to make me the next champion women’s golfer. Okay, okay, so all he was trying to do was get me to make contact with the ball so I might actually hit it and it might even move off the tee a few feet. He repositioned my grip, fixed my stance, and told me to concentrate on the ball and my swing.

Thwack! The ball lofted high in the air, soaring straight and falling to the ground just yards from the green. “Whoo hoo!” Alby exclaimed. “Susie Q, you’re amazing. That was a perfect shot!”

I was jumping up and down like a child. “I can’t believe I hit the ball like that!”

“You had a great teacher. What do you expect?” he chuckled.

No matter that it was my only good shot of the day; my dog would have played better than I did. Each hole was more painful than the next for me, although I must admit there were some really interesting flowers growing in the rough where I consistently found myself.

But the real story was how Alby handled it all. Yes, he was a terrible golfer but in comparison to me, he was Tiger Woods without the Green Masters Jacket (although God knows he’d have thought it matched what he was wearing). I knew he was better than I and he knew he was better, but he derived no pleasure from looking good at someone else’s expense in any avenue of life and even more certainly, not in golf with his daughter.

He proceeded to miss every single shot pretending that he was trying his best, leaving crater-sized divots and “losing” ball after ball after ball.

“Let me tell you something,” he said as he took a shot out of the trap. “In golf, you ideally want to putt no more than twice on a green. But things just aren’t ideal no matter how much you want them to be, whether on the course or in your life. I always wanted to write a book and I would title it Lining Up Your Fifth Putt. The entire book would consist of only one sentence: When lining up your fifth putt, just remember that at least you’re still playing the game.”

By the fifth attempt at Dad’s weary veins, Jenny had gotten the needle in and the chemotherapy drip had resumed. “I guess I lined up my fifth putt correctly,” Jenny said with an apologetic smile.

“Sweetheart, you can play the game with me anytime,” Alby said as he planted a kiss on the young nurse’s cheek. “And at least in this game I didn’t lose my balls.”

Alby - Cool Whip

Cool Whip

“I’m ashamed to say it, but I feel scared,” Alby reached for my hand. “I need some air.”
Although it was early spring and the air was still quite cool, we opened the window in Room Number Seven. Alby wanted to be able to smell something, anything, other than cancer. The moment the breeze came through and ruffled our hair, Alby and I were transported.

It was during one of our Fallsview Hotel weekends that Alby was teaching me how to ice skate. He was a phenomenal skater with speed, grace and skill. He would glide around the rink with a stride so light that his skates would barely make marks on the icy surface despite the fact that they were heavy ice hockey skates. My parents had bought me my own trainer skates, white as marshmallows with pink pom-poms at the end of each lace. Alby’s were deep black with newly sharpened blades that shone under the bright lights of the indoor rink.

Mom was apprehensive as she watched my father lift me up and place me on my virgin double-bladed skates atop the ice. I was pretty sure my ankles were going to snap.

As I teetered like a foal taking her first steps Mom called out, “Al, hold her up.”

“I always do, don’t I?” His answer was directed more at me for reassurance than toward her.

Alby stood behind me, holding both of my hands up in the air, his skating propelling me forward while I didn’t lift one foot off the ice. “Look at you, Susie Q! You’re going to be the next Peggy Fleming!”

Peggy Fleming? Was she clumsy too?

Harvey and Marcy, already seasoned skaters having been taught by Alby, flew around me shouting their own brand of encouragement.

“You’re doing great!” Marcy yelled. Older sisters are great.

“Not bad for a midget,” Harvey teased. Older brothers are jerks.

“You’re gonna fall!” Mom yelled, always the voice of encouragement.

After a few chaperoned laps around the rink, I pushed off with my right foot and glided with my left. Then I pushed off with my left and glided with my right. Over and over I repeated the steps until Alby needed to hold only one of my hands.

“Don’t fall down,” my mom continued to shout from the sidelines. She was sitting on one of the folding chairs placed around the rink’s perimeter, clearly nervous that her baby might fall, break a leg, go to the hospital, need surgery, go into rehab, end up with a limp for the rest of her life, never get married or have children and live out a life of solitary depression.

Alby, meanwhile, said to me, “It’s time.”

“Time?” I asked.

He guided me to the back wall, instructing me to wait. Alby, Harvey and Marcy were in the middle of the rink, arms around each other in a huddle, and although I had no idea what was being said, I knew Alby well enough to know that I was in for something. I waited impatiently, anxious to get back on the ice.

Finally the three of them skated toward me and from the corner of my eye I could see my mother put her hand over her mouth as though stifling a scream, shaking her head back and forth until I thought her permanent wave would straighten. What was happening?

“Susie Q, do you trust me?” Alby asked.

I nodded but couldn’t help wondering why my siblings looked like the proverbial cats who swallowed the canaries and my mother looked like she’d faint.

“Then just do what I tell you and I’ll do the rest. Trust me, okay?”

Alby took hold of Harvey’s hand, Harvey took hold of Marcy’s hand, and Marcy took hold of mine. My father turned to look at me and said, “Okay. We’re doing the Cool Whip. Susie Q, keep your eyes closed and whatever you do, don’t let go of your sister’s hand. Got it?”

The Cool Whip? I’d had some on pudding but somehow, I knew we weren’t talking about the same thing and this one didn’t sound very good; and I suspected that once I found out, I was never going to forget.

Within a very short time I went from being led gently around the rink to being whipped around it at great speed. Would my blades snap off and send me careening into space? It was as though we were all train cars and I was the caboose, getting snapped into place after turning a corner. Although I had my eyes closed I imagined my father’s devilish smile as he engineered the voyage.

“Hang on,” he called out.

Oh, like I had a choice?

Harvey and Marcy had been initiated long before I, so they were experiencing the pure enjoyment of it all while I worried about how I would hide the pee I would surely make in my pants. I was scared but exhilarated and the more times we went around, the more I began to enjoy it. The cool breeze of the temperature-controlled rink became nothing short of refreshing and dried the perspiration that had formed in my pre-adolescent armpits.

Soon the Cool Whip wound down and we eventually slowed to a stop. The muscles in my legs began to go slack and my ankles ached but I felt like I could fly. “So, what did you think, Susie Q?” Alby asked as I opened my eyes and searched for my bearings.

“It was so much fun!”

“Were you scared?”

“Only at the beginning. But then I wasn’t anymore,” I was surprised to hear myself say.

“Susie Q, sometimes things in life can be really, really scary but if we just close our eyes and LIVE them from the inside, we find out that we’re bigger and stronger than whatever it is we’re afraid of.”

“Do you trust me, Dad? Then close your eyes and hold on tight. I’ll lead the way.” I held his hand, wishing more than anything that I could engineer this train for which he was the anxious and frightened caboose.

Alby - Polar Explorers

Polar Explorers

It was subtle, but I could see my father wince as a bolus of chemotherapy pulsed through him. He shivered and I ran to get a blanket, tucking it around him as he had done for me so many times. “Warmer now?” I asked.

“Couldn’t be better,” he answered. Liar, liar, pants on fire.

I went down the hall and got Alby a cup of boiling water and flavored it with a little lemon. It was an old Jewish remedy for upset stomachs that Alby swore by. I offered it to him and he held the cup near his face to feel the steam.

“I’m still cold,” he complained. I went behind the chair and put my arms around his waist, holding him. I figured that if I held on tightly enough, neither of us could fall.

“Please, Daddy, please? I really want to.”

It was our annual winter week at the Fallsview Hotel, a popular Catskills resort in Ellenville, New York. We went winter after winter, year after year, and every time we went I rejoiced in being there. Every inch of that hotel was home and as December turned into January into February, I would count the days until we’d make our pilgrimage.

This one year in particular the snow was deep and tightly packed and the snowmobiles were lined up in a queue by the lake, their motors humming a quiet rumble as they waited to be boarded.

“It’s too dangerous,” Mom said. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.” Mom was always the worrier of the family and she excelled at it.

“Oh, come on Pearl, I’ll drive and Susan can just hold on behind me. I’ll go nice and slow, just kind of a ride through the woods to look at the scenery. Really, it’ll be fine.” She didn’t notice the twinkle in his eye but I did and I almost couldn’t keep my feet still in anticipation.

“Yeah Mom, pleeeease?” I gave my angelic look that I reserved for just such occasions.
Okay was barely out of her mouth than I was on the snowmobile and Alby was tucking the plaid woolen blanket around me. “Sit on it so it doesn’t blow off,” he instructed, wrapping me tightly.

“Now listen, we’re going to drive very slowly so that we can have a nice, pleasant ride. All you have to do is keep your arms around my waist, okay? Just hold on and don’t let go.” He said all of this within earshot of my mother. He winked at me, climbed on in front of me, and slowly pressed the gas. We pulled away from the base camp and as we rode, Alby said, “Smile and wave to Mom.” I did and she returned the wave, comfortable in the knowledge that her husband was going to take good care of her baby.

Yeah, right. The very moment we got into the woods, Dad stopped the snowmobile and turned to me.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Ready,” I answered and with his hand pressing the throttle to its maximum speed, we took off. My long braids stood out behind me like flags in the wind as we raced along. Everything was a blur; trees whipped by at an amazing pace, their icy branches just barely missing the pom-pom on the top of my snow hat. Our speed made the frosty air feel as though my face was being pricked by toothpicks but I felt no pain. I was holding onto Alby and knew that getting hurt was impossible. I lived safe, warm and dry under my Alby Umbrella.

“Ride ‘em, Cowboy,” he screamed and I could hear him laugh above the deafening engine of the snowmobile. “Yee Hah!” He looped in and out of the woods and even the snow rabbits scurried for cover as we relentlessly carved new paths in the mountain. The pre-approved snowmobile trail was nowhere in sight and I felt like Alby and I were explorers in a new world, conquering undiscovered territories.

I can’t quite remember how much time had gone by, but when we left the woods and returned to the sedate trail which would bring us back to Base Camp, I still had my arms around his waist and rested my head on his back. There was such peace, such comfort. He radiated warmth through his winter jacket and even at that young age, I knew I had reached nirvana.

We pulled up to where Mom was standing. “Did you have fun?” she asked me as she bent down to straighten my hair and feel my hands to make sure that I wasn’t dying of frostbite.

“It was very nice,” I answered. Even so young I understood that sometimes errors of omission were necessary for détente.

“Oh yes, it was very nice,” my father echoed and as we walked back to the main lobby, Alby and I shared a conspiratorial smile.

Yup. It was very, very nice.

Alby - Do You Hear What I Hear?

Do You Hear What I Hear?

“Al,” my mother said as Alby tried to relax in the chair. “AL!” she screamed when he didn’t answer right away.
“What is it, Pearl?” he replied, adjusting the volume on his state-of-the-art computerized hearing aids that, as he was fond of saying, weren’t worth the cost of a flea’s fart. “Why are you shouting?”
“Because you didn’t answer me the first time.”
“Pearl, just because I’ve got cancer doesn’t mean everything is going to change. I NEVER answer you the first time!”
“Your father has selective hearing,” my mother complained to me for the umpteenth time in my life.
Alby began losing his hearing when he was in his early thirties, the result of having had scarlet fever as a child. Although the loss was gradual, he eventually grew deaf in both ears and conversing with him was an effort at using controlled shouting as he read lips. Yet, I had no choice but to agree with Mom’s assessment that surely my father heard what he wanted and needed to hear.

“Dad, can you lend me a few bucks?” I’d ask often as a teenager.
“Kiss my what?” he’d reply.
“Seriously Dad, I need some money, I’m all out.”
“Gotta get these hearing aid batteries replaced. I can’t hear a word you’re saying.”
“I love you, Dad.”
“I love you, too Susie Q.”

Selective hearing at its finest.

“Okay, Mr. Rich, are you comfortable? I’ve begun the infusion and it’s going to take a few hours. Can I do anything for you?” Jenny asked. Such a loaded question to pose to a man like Alby; she had so much to learn!
“Well, let’s see,” Alby said and I could just see his green eyes getting that devilish look that always accompanied an off-color remark. “My wife is here so I can’t really say,” he whispered conspiratorially, “But I guess it wouldn’t matter anyway. After all, I’m eighty-three-years-old and most of my good parts are out of order and no longer in stock.”
Jenny laughed and I knew that Alby’s humor was probably a wonderful respite for her in a job that was filled with a lot of sadness and gloom.
“Well, if you think of something just holler and I’ll be right in,” she winked.
“Hey, Jenny,” Alby called as she was turning to leave the room.
“Yes?”
“I’ve got to tell you something.” Alby was quite the scalawag when he wanted to be. “Jenny,” he said slowly, “I’ve been sleeping with the same woman for almost sixty years…Just don’t tell my wife!”
We could hear Jenny laugh her way down the hall and Alby turned to me and said, “Susie Q, no matter how bad you feel, humor will remind you you’re still alive.”
He kicked back in the chair and we waited for the chemicals to begin their onslaught.

Alby - Introduction

I'm trying a different approach with my writing. I've decided to post my new book in chapters on this blog in the hopes of getting a wide readership. For many, the art of writing is cathartic. For me, it is not just the process of writing, but the knowledge that other people are reading my words. Everything I've ever written and anything I will ever write again has personal meaning. "Write what you know", the standard creed for authors, is evident in this, my very first BLOVEL (I've just coined a new word!!! Blog and novel!!! Consider this copyrighted!!!)

If you like what I write, please forward my blog to your family and friends and feel free to comment on anything at any time; my ego isn't fragile.

So here it is, the birth of my first BLOVEL.

In Memory of Albert Rich, H.B.E. (Human Being Extraordinaire)


"There are stars whose light reaches the earth only after they themselves have disintegrated. And there are individuals whose memory lights the world after they have passed from it. These lights shine in the darkest night and illumine for us the path . . ."

- Hannah Senesh
(The New Mahzor, page 568; Compiled and edited by Rabbi Sidney Greenberg and Rabbi Jonathan D. Levine; Consulting Editors Rabbit Irwin Grower and Rabbi Harold Kushner; The Prayer Book Press of Media Judaica, Bridgeport, CT; c 1978.
~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~

The nurse’s name tag said JENNY and as she led the way, Alby and I took in our surroundings. The linoleum floors and painted walls of the center were white, and the only splash of color was in Alby’s cheeks. To look at him, you’d never know he was dying. We held hands, mine sweating, his warm and dry. Letters of gratitude from patients hung on a bulletin board and cheerful fabric daisies dangled from every door knob. There was a small food area, stocked with bagels and cream cheese.
“Make sure to get yours early – these bagels go really fast,” Jenny offered. Yeah, that was pretty much what I was worried about – would there be any bagels left for me? We continued what felt like an endless trek down the hallway that smelled of coffee and cancer. It made my nose hurt and the pain traveled down to my heart and made me want to cry.
With a smile and a welcoming motion of her hand, Jenny brought us into Room Number Seven. Strange, seven had always been my lucky number; two of my three children were born on the seventh of a month and during my first trip to Las Vegas with my father all those years ago I won $10.00 on number seven on the roulette wheel. My first thought was that seven might be lucky for my father, too. Maybe within these walls the chemicals were stronger than the cancer. We entered with trepidation, hope, prayer, and a lot of humor.
“Have a seat and make yourself comfortable, Mr. Rich,” the nurse said. Comfortable? You’ve got to be kidding. Without missing a beat my father replied, “I’d certainly be a lot more comfortable if you could get me a Chivas and soda; and hey, could you go light on the soda?” And that began our foray into a new world that would forever change the old one we’d lived in for so long.
Alby was diagnosed with Stage Four Adenocarcinoma of the lung, an ugly name for an even uglier disease. But if you knew Alby you’d know that there was nothing ugly about him. At five feet, five inches short, he was the tallest and most dignified person I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing. “It ain’t the height and it ain’t the heft, it’s the heart,” he’d always say. He’d always say a lot of things.
















What a Pain in the Ass

As Jenny prepared the cocktail (unfortunately, NOT the Chivas and soda!) for Alby’s infusion, she dropped a glass vial on the floor. It shattered and the paper-thin shards dusted the floor like glittering talc. Alby began to laugh and said, “Hey, did I ever tell you the story…”

Before being called for service in the United States Army during World War II, I was an accounting student attending New York University. My Jewish immigrant parents from Russia, Samuel and Minnie, couldn’t afford to pay for my room and board so I was forced by circumstance to commute from Newark, New Jersey into Manhattan daily. I never complained because, to quote Lou Gehrig, I felt like the luckiest guy in the world. My parents had never even completed a lower school education and here I was, a college man. The world was in my pocket.
On one particular evening, my friend Murray and I decided to share the expense of a city motel room so we could stay overnight and study for a big accounting test the next day. If we stayed in the city, we would have more time to concentrate on cramming without having the commute to worry about. We pooled our money and for about a buck we got a room in what was probably the dingiest and most bug-infested room in all of New York City. Even the bugs were looking for somewhere else to stay.
The only light was a single, low-watt light bulb dangling from the ceiling. It was so dim that it barely cast a shadow. You know how humid and thick the air can get around here? Well, the air was so stifling and heavy that we stripped down to our skivvies, opened the windows, and began an all-night studying session. Our dinner that night consisted of Nesbitt’s Orange Crush soda and two corned beef on rye sandwiches from the kosher deli and some cinnamon raisin ruggelach my mother had baked especially for us.
Murray and I tested one another on the ins and outs of Cost Accounting, from cost allocation systems to unit cost determinations. The soda, which had been cold when we first arrived, was turning into piss water from the heat in the room. But we kept studying and drinking the warm soda; a few hours into it, the lone bulb flickered and died, leaving us in the dark. It was bad enough there was no air conditioning and we were sweating like we’d just run a marathon, but now we couldn’t see past our own noses.
There was a black phone mounted to the wall and picking it up connected us directly to the front desk which, by the way, was nothing more than a small table with a bored college student earning a few cents an hour. I asked for a replacement bulb. Since studying was out of the question until the light was fixed, I decided to climb onto the bed and take down the bulb so when the desk manager came we’d be ready. I unscrewed it, put it down on the bed, and as I went to climb down, lost my footing and fell square on my ass onto the bulb. It shattered and slivers shot like bullets into my skin, piercing both butt-cheeks.
Try imagining how you’d feel if you walked through a row of thorns that tore your skin and you’ll have some idea of how I felt. I was moaning because all the tiny cuts felt like hot, burning pokers. I shouted to Murray, “You gotta help me. My ass is on fire!” But it was dark and he had nothing that could remove the glass splinters. Embarrassed as I am to admit it, I was moaning so loud that Murray was unnerved. He didn’t know what else to do, so he had me lie across his lap and, in the dark, Murray put his face up as close as he could to my ass, began feeling for the glass, and used his fingers to pull out pieces one at a time.
“Get it out! Get it out!” I can remember yelling as the front desk manager walked through the door. This was the late 1930’s remember, not a particularly open-minded era, so when the young manager saw and heard what was going on, he naturally assumed something far from the truth and ran screaming down the hallway, leaving the replacement bulb rolling on the floor.
I can’t begin to tell you how hard we laughed. My ass was killing me but every time I thought about the horrified expression on that young guy’s face, I was reduced again to hysteria. Murray spent the rest of the night pulling out the splinters and laughing uncontrollably. We never did get to study after all. And you know what? We both got A’s. A for ass.

Jenny looked at Alby, put an arm around his shoulder and said, “Keep on telling stories like that and I might just grow to love you.”
She had no idea.