Will there be a Life to Come?

.....I know that Joel and Barbara had gone to see a B-24 Liberator & I wonder if it was the same as the one Rhoda and I went to see at the Boca Airport (where Robin lands & takes off when she comes here).  I think the name on the plane was "Witchcraft" or something like that.  There was also a B-17 and a P-51 Mustang.  I'm pretty sure the the bombers were the same that JR & Barb went on.  We got there late afternoon so there was no big crowd.  People were being charged $12 to get to see them, and if you wanted a ride, it was only $425.  Just think--I flew on a B-24 for two years for free!  Because I'm a vet, we were not charged to get in.  Rho climbed a small ladder and got inside the B-24 and she got a first hand look at my WWII main venue.  I did not venture to follow her.  


.....Now, I must continue to review my years in retirement in Life #7.  I certainly don't want readers to be "confused" about which life was which.  I'm doing the best that I can at trying to recall some of the events which are not in my memoirs and this attempt is not scientific.  One life sometimes ran into another life.  I thought about it and to clarify, I will adjust them a bit for your and my better understanding...although keep in mind that I am doing this review mostly for my own benefit...I want to see where I've been and try to learn where I'm going--although I have a pretty good idea about that.  Let's just consider for the sake of easy chronology that Life #1 was my childhood in Long Branch until I was nine.  Life #2 would then be my growing up in Fort Apache, ergo The Bronx.  Life #3 would be my experiences in WWII.  #4 would be my college days--(which I said was a life of its own).  It came within what I will now call, for the sake of easy reading,  Life #5--my marriage and my raising a family and my teaching career.  Life #6 would then become my single years (after my ex kidnapped herself) and my trip around the world.  And then Life #7 when I met and married Rhoda and retired to Florida.


.....Besides teaching poetry and Shakespeare to the seniors in my community, one day I read in the Huntington Lakes' newsletter that the Theater Arts club was going to produce "HMS Pinafore", the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta.  One of my early goals was to become an actor--but marriage and kids vetoed that idea...until I auditioned and won the lead role as Sir Joseph Porter, and the show ran four nights in 1992 in our 600 seat theater.  Eventually, my new career landed me leading roles in "The Mikado" (1993) as Koko; as Prez in "Pajama Game" (1994); Captain Andy in "Showboat" (1995); "The Music Man" as Harold Hill (1996); as Tevye in "Fiddler on the Roof" (1997); "Pirates of Penzance" as Major General Stanley which I also directed; and "My Fair Lady" as Henry Higgins (2007).  I also directed that one and Rhoda & Sally Forman did a terrific job as Producers.  Then age, illness, & debilitating accidents to my body caught up with me, and my career as a thespian came to an end.  However, I was not finished trying to achieve all my goals; I became computer literate and since I always wanted to be an author, I started to write my "Memoirs of a Tail Gunner" which was published in 2007.  But I was not finished writing; I started a "blog", chose a persona as the Red Baron von Zorro, (Check me out in the photo) and I've been working on the blog--which really has served as a journal of my life for the past five years, reaching over 3000 pages--more than Tolstoy's "War & Peace".  

So, I have finally, at the age of 88 become a famous unknown author!  Have I achieved "greatness"?  Now, it doesn't really matter; I am what I am--and what is, is.


....

"The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together" (All's Well)

.....We have lived for the last 29 years in a gated senior condo community in Delray Beach called Huntington Lakes.  I first saw it in 1982...there were three four-story units and a long staircase going nowhere. I supposed another building was to be erected, this one to be eight stories.  I think it would have been much cheaper for me to buy the staircase.  The attraction at this venue was a $6 million dollar clubhouse replete with a 600 seat theater, a gym with all manner of equipment, a beautiful lobby with a fountain, a pond, fish, and a six lane indoor swimming pool, a sauna, and a jacuzzi...or whatever you want to call it, a huge ballroom, classrooms, a billiards room and card rooms.  Early on I was the only one in the place.  Of course, now there are about 44 buildings--and several of the eight-story variety.  Each four-story condos has 32 apartments.  And this is how Life #7 began.

.....For the first two years I was here, I taught in a private high school & was selected to coach a very poor soccer team.  Florida then was like Texas--football country.  Rhoda also found a job in a doctor's office and retired in 2000.  When she first got here, she was dismayed that she had no friends and most of the women were much older than she...But now she fits in here like a bee fits in a hive. (Definitely not a cliche!) When I left the school after two years, I taught a six-week course in our clubhouse called "Fun With Shakespeare".  I never suspected that I would get so many seniors to register for that class. I would pick a play that I enjoyed and I used to get from 30 to 60 "students".  I have to say that it was great to teach those seniors who were obviously hungry for some education that they somehow had missed. I'm a professional so I didn't teach pro bono...I charged $30.  I taught this class for many years with unsuspected community interest.

.....While here I played golf almost three or four times a week with neighbors who also moved here eventually from East Meadow where we had first settled in NY. We bought a small ranch house there.  My golf game got steadily better, and there were many courses available to play.  I was proud that I got to be a 7-handicap player.  Early in the 80s, our Board established a "senior olympics."  In the first year I won a gold medal in the 3-mile walk, racquetball, golf, and in swimming--for the 50 yd. freestyle and the 50 yd. backstroke.  (I was a swimmer since I was 5 yrs. old).  I won an awesome "MVP" trophy.  I no longer am able to play golf or any of the other sports.  However, if they held a walker or a scooter race, I might enter. I love a sporting challenge. After all of this, I still couldn't decide if I was "great".  I finally decided that the proper thing to do was to let other people make that determination.  

Life #7 has gone on now for 29 years.  So, it has to be continued.  A lot more to come!!  My books, my blog, my musical and acting career, my medication, & etc.

  

"Greatness knows itself" (Henry IV)

.....As promised, Life #5 typically began with a traumatic event sometime in 1976. All four children had left the nest empty.  Well, not really completely empty; my wife and I were still inhabitants, as well as a dog whose name I have forgotten.  I was never too fond of dogs ever since I was confronted by two enormous St. Bernards who lived with our neighbors in Long Branch.  They were really harmless, and neither had a canister of brandy dangling from their necks. However, my daughter, Bonny, was very fond of dogs and other four-legged beasts; so it seems we always had one in the house--as well as a white cat we called Simba, if I recall.  But to get on with it--we had been married for 29 years at the time, but the marriage just seemed to have lost its excitement and its joy.  Bonny had gone to California to seek her fortune--or whatever, and Thelma became severely depressed; I guessed that she wanted to go out west so see how Bonny was faring & so I bought her a ticket and away she went--never to return, as I have said in a previous blog posting.  So, I was left alone and lonely with a four bedroom house, a load of furniture, silverware, dishes, a dog...and lots of memories.  We were divorced after 30 years.


.....And now, after a fashion, I was single again. I had no inkling as how to go about living a single life--what with the war and the hospital and college, and the marriage, I never really led the normal single life.  However, I decided that it was time to put down the dog, sell a whole lot of stuff in a lawn sale, and then take a sabbatical leave from school after selling the house.  This time I took a whole year at half pay.  I bought an Around the World ticket from SAS for a ridiculously low fare.  I flew to England, France, Holland, Denmark, East and West Germany (great beer!), India, Indonesia, Israel, Iran,Turkey, Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, Bora Bora, and on the island of Morea, a Club Med.  And then I returned home and back to school where I had been Chairman of the English Dep't. as well as the Varsity soccer coach and coach of the Track team. The Board did not want me to coach anything while I was in charge of the English Dep't.  So, I resigned that job and continued my coaching. I simply could not abandon all those kids on my teams to someone they did not know...or trust.  When I got back to the States, I bought a blue Mustang, rented an apartment in Syosset, and filled it with furniture of my choosing.


.....Then I went about learning how to lead the single life.  It started by going to bars where I could meet women...and this venture was a huge success.  I met and dated about a dozen of them, and it became a dazzling, awesome life.  However, on New Year's Eve, 1978 I went to a house party sponsored by B'Nai Brith where I met RH+. And I stopped dating all but her.  She was 39, but about to turn 40 on Feb.2. I made her a birthday party in my house.  She lived in the same development.  From that time on we became...shall I say, enamored of each other?  Of course, and our relationship as singles lasted for five years. She came to all my games and waited at the finish lines for me while I ran two 26 mile marathons in my fifties.  By this time, I began to believe after all I had accomplished in my life, that if I hadn't achieved "greatness", I was pretty damn close.  But as Shakespeare said, "Greatness knows itself."  However, there were still some mountains yet to climb.  When I retired in 1982, I went to Florida and bought a condo in Delray Beach.  In 1983 Rhoda and I were married in New York, and she joined me in Florida where we have lived for the last 29 years.  
......And that's about it for Life #5.  It began with trauma and ended with trauma; I understand that marriage and retiring and moving to a new environment are considered traumatic events. And so they were...but they were fun traumas...if there is such a thing.  Life #7 has some surprises.  Be there.


Life #7