"The older the fiddler, the sweeter the tune." (Pope Paul VI)

.....Today, I struck 87...that's a lot of birthdays. However, today was a weird day--happy but not happy.  I was stunned this morning for having received birthday greetings by telephone from China. No kidding; straight from Hong Kong! For me, hard to believe the technology. Well, it was from Magda Machado-Garshol! Magda was an exchange student from Brazil who came to study at North Shore H.S. in the class of '68, same class as Robin. She stayed with another family for a while, but when that didn't work out, she wound up in our house. Now, she's with her third husband, Knut Garshol--yeah, he's Norwegian and a great guy, who just recently got a very good job in Hong Kong--and that's how Magda got there. Now for the "not happy" part. I had to go to a very good friend's funeral today--not something I had planned for the day. When I say a good friend, I mean a friend I've known for over 50 years. We both raised our kids in East Meadow, L.I. I didn't go to the service at the funeral home, but just to the cemetery for the burial. Afterward, we went back to Murray's house to see his wife, Sunny, and their "children" (now fully grown). There was a table loaded with food--bagels, lox, cream cheese, whitefish--etc. We stayed a couple of hours and then came home.

.....At home, I headed for the computer to check my e-mail--and I was amazed at all the e-cards I received from former students: Peter Kehrig, Wally Kaufman, Ellin Jaeger (nee Bliss), Bob Marsden, Hugh Gilson, Vern Graham, Saul Schacter, Deborah French,Bonny Butler (nee Ross)& Betsy Krumrine Hunter. Also got telephone calls from son, JR.& step-son, Jon T. The whalerider, R.Higgins (nee Ross) left a message.But the really big news is that Phil B. not only left a comment on my blog, but also mailed me about 8 boxes of Mallomars from Amazon. I thought they only sold books. I wonder if you could download a Mallomar to a Kindle?? OK that's enough for the birthday. There will be another one next year, but I don't know whether or not I'll still be blogging.

"Homines dum docent discunt.....Even while they teach, men learn." (Seneca)

.....Yesterday I found this email in my inbox and I  was astounded!  I did not have Christine in any of my classes, and I am sorry that I do not remember her...I suppose if she was 17 when she graduated in 1966 she must be pushing 60 by now.  I am terribly sorry that I did not have her in my class.  I have no memory of any of my high school teachers, and I find it hard to understand how former students remember the names of some of their teachers after so many years, and how they have been influenced by them.  (Governors, take notice).  Bruce Mooney, to whom she refers, obviously had a role in how she shaped her life.  I hired Bruce to take charge of the drama department, and he was a master teacher--much loved by his students.  I have no clue as to how Christine "tripped over" my blog--by accident!  I'm glad she did; and I wish her a very productive retirement.


.....Dr. Ross, I literally tripped over your blog by accident while Googling my way to Bruce Mooney.  I graduated from North Shore in 1966.  I didn’t have you, so you won’t remember me, but memories of you and the high esteem so many of my friends had for you lingers.  I have been teaching in North Carolina for thirty-two years and am retiring at the end of this year (!!!!).  As with your lovely student, I MUST tell Mr. Mooney of the life-long influence he has provided me, and now I must add you to that list. We had a glorious school, didn’t we?  Drama, theatre, Shakespeare…the freedom to be joyously geeky….were great gifts. You had a reputation as a Shakespearean and an actor that impressed. I have tried to give my students at least some of that, having taught in the N.C. prison system for a time, at the NC governor’s School for thirteen years, and two large public schools for the last twenty-five, finishing up at NorthWEST High in Guilford County, a proud (and quite exhausted) VIKING.  Funny how that works, isn’t it?  I have  studied the teaching of Shakespeare at the Globe in London with other English teachers for two summers and am known here as quite the “Weird Sister.” You helped plant seeds for that joy,  along with Mr. Mooney and Mr. Haulenbeck.  I still e-mail  my oldest friend (our mothers went to high school together in the 1930’s) Bette Nyhlen Basilevski, and her mother, Agnes, who at 92 has every memory intact and is a delight to me always.  I shall add your blog to my “Must-reads”, and thank God for the serendipity that led me there this afternoon.  With joy,  Christine Chambers-Merriman

"If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear as it is," (William Blake)

.....Perception is everything.  I have one good friend and colleague with conservative perceptions and one good friend and colleague whose perceptions are to the left--or perhaps I should say that they perceive our world from pole to pole, and thus cannot see each other.  Oh, I don't mean that I have only two friends; I do have others who also interpret events culled from different influences in their lives.  Now, my perceptions have been developed over a longer period of time from anyone I know, and from being exposed to wartime horrors which my friends  thankfully have no first hand knowledge of, who have grown up in different parts of this country, who have been influenced by their parents, grandparents, and friends other than mine, and no doubt also from teachers in high school and college.  Our perceptions of everything are colored by the lives we have led.  It doesn't take a great intellect to arrive at that truth.

.....For example, in a previous blog's comment, a good friend refers rather cavalierly to President Franklin Roosevelt as "Rosenfeld".  This kind of saddens me; it is obvious that he doesn't think much of Roosevelt for whatever reasons. My perception differs; Roosevelt's administration was responsible for passage of the G.I. Bill which altered my life to a great extent--and not his.  Because WWII did a number on my head, Public Law 16 allowed me to go to college tuition free, with books paid for, and with a stipend of $100 a month.  But the fact is that we do not think the less of each other because of differing views.  I will, however, always respect President Roosevelt.  And I will refrain from calling Bush, President Botch.

.....Our views are firmly entrenched because we tend to see and recall only evidence that supports our beliefs.  The tendency to adopt this confirmation bias is a failure of rational thought. Reason is supposed to be the highest achievement of the human mind, and the route to knowledge and wise decisions. But as psychologists have documented, humans are really, really bad at reasoning.  We follow our emotions and perceptions from voting to ethics; and argument, after all, is less about seeking truth than about overcoming opposing views.  Let it be known that my perception of whatever there is to percept is the correct one, and I can't understand why everyone can't see that.

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." (Lord Acton)

.....I'm really getting depressed.  Depressed and confused. It seems that all of the protesters over there are driving their dictators to seek succor over here.  Take one of them for example: Gov. Walker of Wisconsin.  I'm not actually claiming that he's come from over there--just that he has apparently studied and learned from them. And he's learned that they don't cotton to unions.  So, he's not governing in Wisconsin-- he's dictating--or at least trying to with the help of his misguided, tea partyish, imbecilic, Republican robotic legislature.  Or perhaps Walker wants to morph into a Royal Family and pontificate from his palace; or perhaps he'd prefer, rather, to Pontificate as a Pontiff.  Is there doubt that his primary aim is to use his power and his supporters to bust the unions in his state? It's the story once again of the Emperor's New Clothes.  He's naked (not nude; nude is too elegant a word for him).  Well, go ahead all of you anti-union people out there.  Tell me how wrong I am and how right he is.  But, hear you this; if the protests grow significantly, he will not hesitate, (like his idols in Arabia) to call in the National Guard.  And claim (as I've heard it said) that "...this is what America wants"!  To believe this requires suspending some of our critical thinking faculties and succumbing instead to the kind of irrationality that drives the logically minded crazy.

.....I'm still a member of a union--the American Federation of Teachers (AFT).  I started teaching at $3000 a year with two mouths to feed, and if you count my wife--three.  Oh, and mine also; that makes four.  And, of course, I needed a car to get to work; so I borrowed to pay for it.  During my second year at the high school in Cranford, NJ, I was asked by my colleagues to speak for them to the Board regarding a raise in salary.  So, I did.  So, I got fired.  So, I wound up in Sea Cliff where, if it were not for a strong union with collective bargaining rights, I might still be working, or perhaps holding a cardboard sign at the entrance to the Turnpike, saying "Hungry. Will work for food."  Instead, my union assured me of a pension that I could live with when I retired.  Of course, I contributed toward my pension as I should have--but so did the Board, and so did the parents in the community, as they should have, to entice good teachers to work and stay in their schools.  It could not have been done without collective bargaining rights.  Gov. Walker wants to eliminate that right of public employees.  And have his rich buddies pay them Chinese factory workers' wages.  No, no, not dictator, not King, not Pope--but Emperor is his short term goal.  Don't even think about his long term plan.

"Those were the days, my friend, we thought they'd never end!"

.....It's time to continue with Robin's interviews with the family about their observations and remembrances about the olden days.  This one from Robin's step-granddad is about the Williamsburg Bridge in New York and how news got around about elections in those days before 1911--a 100 years ago.

.....1903 the Williamsburg Bridge was built...and they had a celebration on opening night.  And President Teddy Roosevelt was president then, and they shown pictures of him on the water; there's a reflection from these cameras, which was beautiful.  I haven't remembered seeing anything like it.  And that was a celebration of the Williamsburg Bridge.

.....They had a different way of reporting the election those days.  They didn't have any radio and they didn't have any television, so the only way they could bring back the results which took plenty o' time, they didn't have any of the methods to bring results like they do now, in wonderland, y'know, world o' wonders now with all the equipment .  And they'd have a big screen at a popular location in the city--several places.  And to celebrate the election, they would burn big bon-fires, and they'd put , anybody that had an old couch or an old chair, and they'd heap it high.  And you could see blazes all over the city.  And then when the election returns came in, if you was interested in a certain man that was running for mayor and all those offices, you found out what it was, see, and that's how they used to celebrate an election.

.....And even the transportation in those days was different; for 3 cents you could ride from one side of the East River to the other, by ferry--3 cents.  And the horses and wagons and trucks, y'know, sugar trucks, they had a section down by the river, refineries and all.  It was a busy, real busy thing.  And I can even hear the horses, when they docked, and the horses would, heavy horses, y'know, like the Anheuser Busch you'd see on television.  And they would go clok, clok, clok, clok and then when the cobblestones, there were cobblestones then, and they would make a different sound, it was really a sight t' see.  And something t' hear, those trucks coming off and all that.

.....Well, Baron hopes you have all learned a little history right from the horse's ...er...Mike Kallman's mouth.  It's a little weird knowing that he was there when Teddy Roosevelt was President, and I was there when Franklin Roosevelt was President.  Would they were here now--as a tandem.  And what would they both do about the Middle East, about the budget, about the recession, about Sarah Palin?  Gee, I hope she runs for president.  What fun!

Can't dunk, can't hit a homer, can't throw a touchdown pass, but I can coach, write, and perform.

.....Hi Viking stars: How about Samantha Nadel the brightest new star at NSHS!  She has her picture and a blurb in February SPORTS ILLUSTRATED.  She won the girls' mile at the Millrose Games in 4:50.58, the third best time in the meet's history.  Two weeks earlier she ran a 9:41.36 in the 3000 meters, the fastest time in the NATION.  In November she led the Vikings to the Class A cross-country title, the school's first state championship!  God! I wish she was around when I was coaching.  And she's only a junior; imagine what she will do in her senior year!  How do you account for a girl coming along with her talent for running--a once in a lifetime occurrence?  A girl who runs a race with the fastest time in America?  It's exciting and amazing.  I can't wait to hear what she does next year.  I trust that her coach will enter her in all the National high school events.  I'm not really jealous of his success with her; he's no doubt a fine coach.  But I've had my own success with a mile relay team who won the Nassau County championship and this also qualified them to run in the Millrose games.  Anyone interested, can watch the race on UTube.  My "four horsemen" were Bobby Marsden, Barry Meyer, Chuck Hendrickson, and Bill Sherwood.  We are still in touch with each other even though they are already approaching 60!

.....Speaking of North Shore H.S. students, I met Bob Fox for lunch today.  Bob was a kind of scrawny kid when I first met him; he played on the soccer team, and he played pretty well; he was not an academic star, but he is now.  He has had a great teaching career, and just recently retired.  He is here in Florida with his wife for a few weeks, and claims that retirement involves a lot of work.  How right he is.  We spent a couple of hours at the table--mostly talking about students that I knew from his graduating class. If he's retired you can assume that he is a "senior" now--but not the high school kind.  He indicated that he and his wife would like to come to the show that I will be in.  I'm no longer in one of the leading roles and do not wish to be.  I sing one tune, and that's it.

.....This blog keeps on growing and I don't know what to do about it.  I already have nine books of the blog published dating from August 2007.  I don't expect anyone to buy a single book--but for someone who hasn't read this blog, I truly believe that any one of the books would be very interesting reading--especially the comments that follow a posting, like dessert on a menu.  I might as well keep preserving this venture in published books.  It doesn't cost me a dime to have a book printed in either paperback or hard cover.  But why should anyone buy a book when they could go all the way back to 2007 and read the blog on the internet for nothing.  But they would have a helluva lot of catching up to do...more than 2000 pages.

"Don't grow old along with me--the worst is yet to be." (Apologies to Rabbi Ben Ezra and Browning)

.....Susan Jacoby's book "Never Say Die" is a call for boomers to look at what she (65) calls, "real old age, as opposed to fantasyland."  It's a kind of a balloon buster to the belief among the younger set that if you work out often enough, watch your weight, and stay stressless, you'll "practically live forever."  Scholar Jacoby writes, "...We need to face reality...that by the time men and women reach their eighties and nineties, not the best--but the worst years of their lives generally lie ahead."  It's like Burns writes in "To a Mouse,"  "....mousie, thou art blessed compared wi' me, the present only toucheth thee...but forward, tho' I canna' see, I guess and fear." Ms.Jacoby goes on to claim that anyone who lives beyond 85 has a 50-50 chance of winding up in a nursing home.  RH+ keeps telling me that when she's gone, I'll wind up in a nursing home.  NO WAY!  I refuse to be nursed.  And, by the way, the chances of her going before me are astronomical since I'm 14 years older than she is, and her car is 10 years younger  than mine.


.....But that's not the worst of it.  Jacoby goes on to say that the Beyond 85s Club, (of  which I am a member), has a 50% chance of developing dementia.  I'm not too happy about that idea--not so much that I might be demented, but that my blog will be very difficult for people to read.  They will have to figure out what I'm trying to say.  But I have no doubt that Phil, and Ruthie, and Bob Fox, JR, and any other Ph.Ds will have no difficulties in translating my dementianess into modern English if they work together as does our Congress. (Am I making sense here? Or are things getting out of control?)  Well, the truth is that I am approaching 87 at the end of this month.  I only wish that my mother had waited two more days so that I could have been born on Leap Year.  In that case, like Rafe Rackstraw (born on Leap Year) in "HMS Pinafore", inasmuch as I would have had only 21 birthdays since 1924, I would currently be only "a little boy of 21" who only has to look forward to getting laid.  

"Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be" (Browning)

.....Since these interviews that Robin taped for a college project are a part of history, it behooves us to publish a few on this blog.  The one for today is from my stepfather, Mike Kallman--my father's cousin, son of my grandmother's sister.  Mike married my mother in 1946.  She had been a single mom since 1933 when my father died.  I was a patient in a VA hospital at the time, and I have always suspected that the sudden marriage came about because my mother did not want to be a burden to me after I was discharged.  Nevertheless, Mike was a good soul and I have no reason not to believe that they were both happy in the marriage until he died.  In this interview Mike describes his job with the Army in WWI when he was about 16 and too young to enlist.  


....."In the first war, I wanted to do my share somehow, and I wasn't of age yet, so I got a job in Sandy Hook (NJ) and there was this proving ground t' prove all the big guns, all the guns, so I got a job there and, I think, for a salary of $19 a week, that was a lot of money, $19 a week.  And I had a special train, I'd have to go from the Highlands (NJ) they drove us right into Sandy Hollow, the government property.  So I got a job and the job consisted of picking up these here shells, loading them on trucks, bringin' them out to the guns to try them (out), to shoot it off, into the ocean they would shoot it.  And when they shot that gun off, they'd give you a signal, all yell 'under cover!'   And put your hands to your ears, you could hear the vibrations miles and miles away, see?  And from there, they gave up that, and they got more of a suitable place with more facilities...So they went to Aberdeen, Maryland about 25 miles away from Balt-ee-more, and I went along with them and we had a special train.  And they went from Sandy Hook and it took us two days to Maryland where now it's only a few hours.  Had t'sidetrack the train to let the regular trains go by.  It was the coldest year, that was 1917.  That was the beginning of the first war.  It was cold...And while I wasn't a soldier and I wasn't bound t' the gover'ment, I still felt that I was doing my duty...And I was assigned to a barrack with other civilians, and we lived just like the soldiers did.  We had a stove in the center of the barracks, big logs, and thin Army blankets, and we lived that way, we slept that way.  And we ate just like the soldiers did, we stood in line, but we wasn't reprimanded, disciplined or anything.  We went out when we wanted......"


.....I find this to be very interesting; don't even know if Mike ever graduated from high school.   Up until he married my mother he earned his living by being a bookie--but mom made him give that up and he got a job at the Monmouth Racetrack in Long Branch (NJ) as a ticket seller.  They settled in a comfortable, but small house, only about a block from the ocean.  They eventually came to live in my Glen Cove house, where I converted our large dining room into a bedroom for them.  I cannot remember why they had to come to us, but they did, and that's where Mike eventually died and my mother went to Florida with my sister and brother-in-law taking up residence in Century Village in Boca Raton.  And life does go on--and on.

"Hold Death awhile at arm's end." (As You Like It)

.....Yesterday with nothing much else to do while RH+ went lunching with her sister and sister-in-law I joined a neighbor, his wife & friend and drove to the Isle Casino in Pompano.  I can't tell why, but I've always been fascinated by slot machines--perhaps because of the sounds that they make; something akin to the sounds of the Sirens that Ulysses heard in Homer's "Odyssey"; the three goddesses that lured sailors to their death with the sound of their voices; they just suck you in--or for a better word, "sucker" you in.  I managed to lose.  But the entertainment and the expectation of hitting a jackpot was worth it, I suppose.  I keep telling myself that.  I hit a jackpot once; in Las Vegas.  It was about 1a.m. and Rho had gone up to bed.  After awhile, I decided to follow her, but not before playing a $5 slot for the first time in my life.  I put $5 in and lo and behold! The three wheels came up with the three red 7s--the $5000 jackpot!  But don't go away; I haven't ended the story.  Since I only put in $5 instead of three times that amount, I did not collect the jackpot.  I told Rhoda that story and she sent me back down to try again.  I won $500 and went to bed not knowing whether to be happy or benighted.


.....Speaking of the Sirens luring sailors to their deaths, on the way home from the casino, Lou asked me if I ever think about "mortality".  "Do you mean do I think about death and dying?"  "Yes," he said, and I replied, "Yes, at my age, of course I do--almost every day."  Am I in fear of it? No, I'm not. I am too busy enjoying the life I am leading now, and proud of the life behind me.  When it comes, it comes, and I can't do anything about it. As Hamlet says, 'the rest is silence'." 

.....Perhaps it not so bad to die at an advanced enough age, for people who live long enough may be ground down by life until they give up many of their goals.  Also they will have attained many of their aspirations.  If truly satisfied with having lived a full life, or we have given up because of ill health, or we lose our motivation for living, death ceases to be objectionable to us.  Perhaps death is bad for us only if premature in the sense that it comes when we still have interests or desires that propel us forward in life, and only if achieving them is a real prospect. We leave that to the young.  If we die and go to heaven, I suppose we've hit the jackpot--provided that we have put enough cash into life's casino.

"...the best laid plans o' mice an' men gang aft a-gley" (Burns)

.....Back when Robin was in high school--or college, she had a project which required her to interview her grandparents and perhaps other relatives about their "olden days".  Some of these responses need to be kept for posterity before they get lost forever.  The following is a response from my mother about "the nickel caper".

" Well, I told you that the best years of my life were when I was a little girl, childhood.  I remember way back--between the ages of 6-14, truthfully were, I think, the happiest years of my life because like everyone else remembers we were very , very poor and I had absolutely all hand-me-downs, my sister's hand-me-downs and my father, he used to give us about a penny a week.  We came home from school and had bread and sugar for lunch.  We didn't  know what milk looked like.  And I was happy, 'cause I knew no other life.  One time, it was very, very cold, winter time; I went into the street.  And those days, all the rich kids had sleds.  I didn't have sled, y'know what I used, was a milk can, the milk cans with the covers?  And I'd sit on the cover and I'd go sliding, I enjoyed that, y'know I didn't have any toys or whatever.  Then, the thing that I remember vividly.  There was like  20 cents, there were four nickels in the ice, those years when it snowed, and snow piled real high, took months to clear away.  And I saw these four nickels in the ice.  And I started digging with my nails and fingers.  I couldn't get it up fast enough.  I finally found those nickels and I went out and I bought my two sisters and three brothers 2 cents candy--you could get about  20  pieces for a penny, those days.  And all through my childhood, I mean as a little girl, I enjoyed my life. 

.....It makes me heartsick to think that that was the only time in her life that she might feel once again that kind of happiness.  It was never to happen.  It reminds me of Robert Burn's poem, "To a Mouse" when the farmer says, "....but mousie, thou art blessed compared wi' me; the present only touches thee. But backward, och, I cast my 'ee on prospects drear, and forward tho' I canna see, I guess and fear."  There are several other stories from family members regarding events they could recall in their lives which might be of interest, and thus "blogged".    I'll think about it.