Art is 80

This is a follow up to yesterday’s blog about Judy Heumann’s funeral, which I hope you read, and about Rabbi Gil Steinlauf’s column in the Times of Israel (blogs.timesofisrael.com) of March 9.

Last night, by remarkable coincidence, the Haberman Institute for Jewish Studies, sponsored an on-line talk by Rabbi Lauren Tuchman, titled “The Torah of Human Dignity: Exploring What it Means to be Created in the Image of God”. This illuminating presentation should be on our website (www.habermaninstitute.org) under Program Recordings by early next week, and I recommend you watch it, both for the text of Rabbi Tuchman’s presentation and her responses during the question and answer exchange.

Rabbi Tuchman, who is also a regular at Adas Israel, is to her and our knowledge, the first blind woman to have been ordained as a rabbi (she was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary). Like Judy Heumann, she devotes much of her time to dealing with the treatment of persons with disabilities both in Jewish texts and in the contemporary Jewish community.

Rabbi Tuchman says that the ancient texts can be very, very challenging, but that the proper course is not to ignore them, but to grapple with them, and grapple she does. When you consider this rabbinic approach along with the activist approach of Judy Heumann, you learn how much is being done and how much more can be done to ensure that Jews with disabilities are able to reach their potential as part of the Jewish world. And, of course, a similar path could be taken (and probably is being taken) by members of other religious and non-religious communities across the country and world.

Rabbi Steinlauf said Judy Heumann told him that his teaching of Jewish texts on disability was well meaning, but wrongheaded, and changed his entire way of thinking on the subject. Rabbi Tuchman, who was effusive in her speaking of Judy last evening, would agree with that. As would the three current rabbis at Adas Israel (Aaron Alexander, Lauren Holtzblatt, and Sarah Krinsky), who talked at the funeral Wednesday about how Judy constantly rebuked them when she felt they were not approaching the subject appropriately, and how those rebukes were not resented, but welcomed.

It’s a big topic. How to relate to persons with disabilities, how to treat them as equal human beings with talent and potential, what it means when we say someone is created in the image of God.

I recommend to you Judy’s book “Being Heumann” and Rabbi Tuchman’s presentation for the Haberman Institute and would love to know your reactions.

Most of you probably know who Judy Heumann was – perhaps the country’s, or the world’s, most successful and visible advocate for disability rights, whose book “Being Heumann” was published a year or two ago, and who was one of (perhaps the) central character in the Oscar nominated documentary film, “Crip Camp”. She was a former Assistant Secretary of Education, Director of Services for the Disabled for DC, and Ford Foundation and World Bank official. She worked in the Clinton and Obama administrations. She was the leader of the sit-in that helped push the Americans with Disabilities Act across the finish line. Judy was also a long time, and very active, member of Adas Israel, the synagogue that we belong to, in Washington.

When Judy passed away last week (a surprise to us and to most) at 75, her death made the news, from NPR to Rachel Maddow’s show. And her funeral was scheduled for yesterday morning at Adas Israel, with burial to follow at Judean Garden Cemetery in Olney MD, about 15 miles to the north. Because a large crowd was expected at Adas, a group of us was recruited to help out at the synagogue and cemetery.

The funeral was scheduled for 10, but we were asked to arrive at 8:30, which seemed to me to be much too early. But at 8:30, people were already gathering. It had been assumed that many of the attendees would be disabled, and that access to the building was easier into the social hall (the Kay) that to the sanctuary (the Smith) and, as I understand it, about 700 chairs were set up.

It turned out, however, that the Kay filled, and more seating was made available in other parts of the building, where the services were streamed, including the Smith, which itself had several hundred in attendance. The entire crowd was, by my estimation, about 1200, maybe a few more. And yes, many types of disabilities were found amongst the crowd. Many were in wheelchairs, others were walking but clearly mobility impaired, while others were blind or deaf or had some other apparent, or not so apparent, disability. This required the efforts of us all to make everyone feel comfortable and able to get to a seat, to a rest room and so forth.

All of this was accomplished smoothly, and the service itself, which lasted almost two hours and included short eulogies by the three Adas rabbis, as well as by two who worked with Judy, by her brother, and by her niece. Judy and her husband Jorge Pineda (who is himself disabled) had no children.

By my account again, about 150 or so made their way to the cemetery. The service there was brief, and the largest activity was shoveling dirt onto the coffin after it was lowered into the grave. Normally, there is a big pile of dirt and several shovels, with mourners and friends lining up to put three shovels of dirt in the grave. We had to temporize a bit yesterday, as so many attendees were in wheel chairs. We had boards covering the ground so that the chairs could be rolled next to the grave, and we had buckets of soil, and small shovels, that most of the wheel chair occupants were able to handle, with a little assistance.

Judy was 100% devoted to her cause, and had the remarkable ability to push forward for what was needed for her community without insulting or offending those whose actions had offended her. The rabbis talked about bristling anytime there was a voicemail from Judy, because it was a rebuke for something that they could have, and should have, done better. Former Adas Rabbi Gil Steinlauf, now at Princeton, wrote a wonderful piece in yesterday’s Times of Israel, talking about how he had once given a Torah lesson to begin an Adas Board meeting on the subject of how to help disabled people, only to be publicly rebuked by Judy both as to his words, and as to the religious sources he was siting. He said that he didn’t feel insulted, but rather illuminated, and that it changed his way of thinking about a number of majority/minority issues and how it changed his rabbinate.

I will admit that, after helping out and being on my feet here and there, back and forth, for seven or eight hours, I felt whipped. A small price to pay.

Yesterday was a frustrating one. Nothing terrible happened, it was just frustrating. The first reason is that it was the day I chose to get together all of our tax information to send to our CPA. It took me about four hours to answer all of the questions on her many page questionnaire, even though I had already put most of the necessary backup information into a file to make it easy for me. But, although the four hours were not fun, they were not five hours, or six.

After I finished that task, I began looking at the mail that had collected while we were away. One was a credit card bill that I had to pay within a few days in order to avoid interest charges. All looked OK, except for one item. There was a charge from Terminix for $1,590.

Huh?

Here’s the story. We have long had a seasonal ant problem, and have relied on hardware store ant traps to catch them. Maybe, we thought, there was a better way. In addition, from time to time we have noticed some mouse droppings, which meant we probably had a pet we hadn’t met. We tried hardware store mouse traps, but our guy was obviously too smart to fall for that old trick.

I saw an ad for Terminix and said to myself “why not?” My memory (and that is all I have to rely on) is that we could get our house (hopefully) fully protected by quarterly visits that would cost us $265 each. And that this service would cover both ants and mice, and that between the quarterly visits, Terminix would come back out on call for specific problems and that these visits would not cost extra. It made sense to us to try this for a year.

They first came in November, set some traps, and when I looked a week or so later, I saw that we actually caught (through some sort of rat poison that wouldn’t hurt people, dogs or cats) a cute little mouse, for whom I had a lot of sympathy. Because we didn’t know if there were more, we called and told them of their success and asked if they could replenish our traps, which they did. Then, one other time, Terminix called and said they were coming out to do some outside spraying, and that we did not have to invite them in for coffee.

After the first visit in November, we paid them $265. I was expecting another $265 in February. And I assumed they would send us a bill, not that they would use our card information to pay for their bill, much less than their bill would be $1,590.

I called Terminix to try to unravel this. When you call Terminix you call an 800 number and get someone somewhere, but not near you. I got Jessica (or maybe Jennifer), and she was very nice. Somebody I would hire. I explained the story, and she seemed to understand it. She started by saying that we must have signed a service contract for a bunch of services that would total $1,590 a quarter. No, I said, no possible. She told me to hold on while she looked further. I did.

She returned and said that she was confused. I told her she couldn’t be more confused than I was, and she thought she and I were confused about the same. She had no answer for me, and told me that she was going to call the local branch office and that I would hear from them next. So far, nothing.

After I spoke with her, I realized that I could set up an on-line account with Terminix, and I did that, thinking that maybe I could learn something more. It showed the $265 from November and the $1,590 from February, and it had a button I could push to see our “service contract” (which I don’t remember seeing or signing). But when you push that button, you get a never ending moving circle; you never get to a service contract. I assume this is what confused Jessica/Jennifer.

Anyway, we are waiting. Then I called the credit card company (Barclay’s) and ask them to put a hold on that payment. That turned out to be an ordeal, too. I was told, at first, that they couldn’t mark it as a dispute unless I could tell them what services the bill was for. Another “huh?” Isn’t that the definition of a dispute – when you see a charge that you don’t think is legitimate. If I had a charge from Macy’s and hadn’t bought anything at Macy’s, how could I have told them what the charge was for? At any rate, it took a while, but we did get it marked as a matter in dispute or, as Barclay’s calls it, a “claim”.

We will see what happens.

Each year, Adas Israel tries to outdo itself at Purim. Enough already. Let’s have the Megillah read, and have a clever Purim spiel in the interstices. This year we had a skit based on The Survivors, one based on Family Feud, one based on an Abba song, and one I had a hard time understanding and an equally hard time remembering.

There was an enormous crowd. The sanctuary, including most of the balcony, was just about full. That is, I believe, well over 1000 people. About half were masked – some wearing costumes, and some avoiding COVID. I went as a famous blogger, but Edie was a fire chief, and granddaughter Joan was Esther before she became the queen. Know how she dressed then? It was modest and attractive…..but when Joan asked me who she was, I guessed that she was a nun. I got an eye roll. Joan’s Dad read chapter 6 and was on the losing team at Family Feud. The two of us tried to figure out the rules of the show, so that we could understand why his team lost, but we failed at that. Does anyone really watch Family Feud anyway? Anyone I know?

Hamantaschen. What makes a hamantaschen a hamantaschen? And what is the plural of hamantaschen? Is it hamantaschen? And if the plural of hamantaschen is hamantaschen, what is the singular of hamantaschen? Is it hamantaschen, or is it hamantasch? How can I be 80 and not know this, anyway?

I had four hamantaschen today. Three were poppy seed. Two from Breads Unlimited, and one at Adas Israel. The fourth was cherry marzipan. It was made by daughter Michelle. All good, but Michelle’s was the best. Except that it had no poppy seed.

I see I didn’t answer the question about what makes a hamantasch(en) a hamantasch(en). The answer, I think, is that it has three corners – it’s a triangle. Usually, it is sweet, but there is now a trend towards savory.

Which brings me to lunch. I had lunch at Point Chaud Cafe and Crepes on Wisconsin Avenue in Glover Park. Never heard of it? It’s my second time there – the first time was probably a year ago, when I was still masked everywhere and ate at an outside table.

I had a chicken crepe for lunch – chicken, onions, tomatoes and green peppers – cooked to perfection. And the crepe was three cornered. I think I had a hamantasch(en)! Who knew?

Dinner? What did I have for dinner? At Adas, before the reading, there was an enormous crowd in the social hall – and a fair amount of food (and drink). I had a slice of pizza (I’d give it a B-/C+), and that was dinner.

Of course, the tradition is to drink until you can’t tell Mordechai from Haman. I could never figure out the basis of that dumb tradition. But I will say this – there were a lot of people at Adas Israel that I could not identify. I am sure that part of it was that some of them had masks (one kind or the other). But many didn’t, and as to those people whom I couldn’t identify, I decided that maybe it’s because they did have masks on, but that the masks were masks that looked like faces and that if they took off their masks I would know them. I tried to gauge them by height and weight and walk. But they all looked like The Stranger, and they all melded together. If without drinking (or at least without drinking more than sparkling water) I couldn’t tell one congregant from the other, how much would I have to drink to confuse Haman and Mordechai? Not much, I fear. I will let you know.

Why is it that, when on the road, the trip always takes the full day? I expect you cannot answer the question because you don’t buy into the premise, right? But for us……

We left the Dunne NC Hampton Inn before 9 a.m. The GPS said it would take us 4 hours 40 minutes to get home. Even stopping for lunch, we should be home by 2:30. Why did we pull in the driveway at 5:30?

Before I answer that, let me ask a different why. Why don’t the rooms in the Hampton Inn in Dunne NC have closets? If you can answer that, you can answer anything.

OK, back to the primary question. I will give you some hints. Did you know that John Eaton was born in Halifax, North Carolina? Or that there is a very big and very kitschy antique mall in Wilson North Carolina?

Did you know that you can get good Mexican food in Prince George VA? Did you even know there was a Prince George VA?

And so it goes.

But we did get back. The traffic could have been worse. The driving weather could not have been better. Within an hour of getting home, I took out trash and recycling, found two ordered books and processed the orders, retrieved my computer from its hiding place, looked at the mail, write our accountant, reviewed a flyer for the Jewish Funeral Practices Committee, volunteered for assistance at an upcoming large funeral, vacuumed a room, and filled in my calendar for the week.

Enough already.

And it’s a long way from Charleston to Dunn, NC. We got here after 7:30.

This morning, the one thing we knew is that we had to get on the road early. That’s why we got up, packed, had breakfast, and then sat around with our hosts until just before noon. Who knew that it would take that long to solve, first, the problems of Israel and, then, the problems of the rest of the world. But some things, I guess, are just tough.

We also didn’t know that we would spend a few hours in Georgetown SC, the third oldest city in South Carolina and home to both a large paper mill and steel plant. But you see none of that in the old commercial district and get no whiff of either when you have lunch at the very nice River Room. We did go to Morgan Park to see the water, but had no time for the Rice Museum, the Gullah Museum or the Maritime Museum.

Driving on, we hadn’t expected to spend time exploring interesting Pawly’s Island. But we did. Worthwhile, too.

Then we drove through hours of trees until we got to Fayettesville at about 6:30. We planned to spend the night there only because there we were. We couldn’t think of any other reason. But, guess what? No room at the inns.

Onward to Dunne (of all places) and the Hampton Inn. A nice dinner next door at the Sagebrush Steakhouse, a surprise for us. You get 10% off if you show your room ticket from the hotel. That’s probably not the only thing we forgot today.

Our restaurant servers have been good the entire trip. Tonight, we were served by Dejah (as in Deja Vu), who recommended her mother’s favorite wine – a 14 Hands Cabernet. Not so good, Mom.

Finally, a warning. There are no closets in our room at this Hampton Inn. So if you plan to stay here, remember to bring your own. This warning will not be repeated. So make a note.

We are 4 hours and 44 minutes from home. Straight shot. See the marsh grass in Morgan Park below.

That is the question I am not going to answer.

We had two good meals yesterday. The first at a small French restaurant whose name I can’t remember. Nevermind. It’s a name no one can remember. Like Pompineau and Levalier. But with very different words. It has no tables, only curved counters, and, except for the baguettes and things starting with croque, nothing seems very French. In fact, a large part of the menu starts with “O’”. Like someone got an O’Rye, as I recall. I didn’t want to go Irish so close to St. Pat’s Day, so I stuck with something closer to French. A curry. Tres bon.

Why did the restaurant choose this name? It’s been almost 50 years since companies began shortening their names: Uniroyal, PepsiCo, and so forth. The branding company that advised most of them was not Lipmar. It was and I think, 50 years later, is still Lippincott and Margulies. Go figure. Oh, well, two Frenchmen can’t be wrong.

In the evening we ate at the Grocery. Nothing started with O’, but you couldn’t buy any groceries. You could buy dinner, though. I asked our waiter “Emory, like the university” what the worse thing on the menu was, and he said the octopus, so for one time in my life, I did not get octopus. Yes, that is a fact, I skipped it. Edie and I split a chopped salad and a pasta dish that had a lot of green in it (a long list). Very good.

Emory’s comment about the octopus led me back to the old days when I had a Morrocan Scramble in Savannah. Although his name has already deserted my steel trap memory, I do recall he told me that the scramble was his fourth favorite thing on the menu.

Short blog today. Hitting the road. Heading north by northeast.

To get onto Jekyll Island, you drive across a causeway and pay a $4 toll. We pulled up to the mechanized toll booth, I took my wallet from my pocket and rolled (you know what I mean) down the window. Then I heard the AI voice from the toll machine say “Your pass is recognized. Please proceed.” And the gate raised for us to pass through.

I add this to the growing list of mysteries that will remain with me until the end of my days.

Did I mention we ate at the Driftwood Bistro? (IM me the answer). Let me say this about that. It’s a very nice place with a quirky menu. Not that the dishes are quirky. But every entree has a choice of being “petite” or “regular”. Each petite is $14 and each regular is $17. Yes, dinner for the price of brunch.

And there is more. They have (in addition to a full bar), two classes of wines – “house” and “better”. A glass of house wine is $9 and a glass of better is $11.50. BUT a bottle of house is $14 and a bottle of better is $19. Go figure.

The last time I was on Jekyll was in or around 1972. I went camping with someone none of you know. Other than the campsite, I remember the deserted old Jekyll Island Club buildings, a beach and a lot of untouched land. Apparently, there were also a few hotels, but I don’t know if we saw them. I don’t remember them at all.

Now the island has a fair number of hotels and other establishments, and the Club (former hangout of Rockefellers, Vanderbilts and the like) and the surrounding “cottages” have been restored to perfection. The broad beaches are beautiful. Nature has everywhere been preserved. I’d like to go there someday.

Our only other stop before Charleston was, of course, Savannah. Just time to drive around and once again admire the old residential areas, take a short walk and have lunch. Tell me again. Why can’t all American cities be this nice?

We picked a convenient place for an outdoor, on-the-sidewalk lunch. I had a Morrocan Scramble, which consisted of eggs on pita with, on top of the eggs, ground lamb, sliced avocado (for Edie), greens, radishes, tomatoes, peppers, pine nuts and chick peas. You see, I like to order local and simple.

Then on to Charleston where we found our old friends’ new house with no trouble. We went to a small neighborhood pizza house which was an anti-Villages eating establishment. Add the ages of all the other customers together, and you wouldn’t reach ours.

This was followed by about 4 hours of conversation where we filled each other in on all the good and the bad.

And that was the day that was.

Our final time in The Villages started with a golf cart ride about 4 miles through town to TooJays for breakfast. Here’s my take. Comfortable enough, but you need to hold on as you round corners. Slow (has a monitor that won’t let you go over 23 mph). Noisy. But it gets you there.

Our friends have 2 cars and a cart. But it’s the cart they use. Put on it over 10,000 miles per year, they say. Go figure.

At any rate, TwoJays was very busy, crowded with Don Ameches and Angela Lansburys. A comic scene, we both thought. But top quality oatmeal.

Moving out, avoiding all superhighways, we felt we had left Middle Earth and returned to the home planet. We went through Ocala quickly, surprised to see so many beautiful and prosperous looking horse farms. Didn’t quite look like KY, but pretty close.

North of Ocala, on our way to Gainesville, we passed the turnoff for Micanopy (accentuate the first syllable). Not sure why I found it crucial to go to Micanopy, but I did. We saw several of its 600 residents, fewer than when it was thriving in the 1800s. Interesting old brick buildings, a coffee shop which serves espresso made from Cuban coffee beans (highly recommended – we had had a brief discussion about Cuban coffee with someone cleaning the condo hall in West Palm Beach), and a selective and affordable antique store. We also saw a placque dedicated to Moises Levy, an early Moroccan born Jewish merchant.

This was interesting for two reasons. First (for close readers, and if memory serves) was the same name of the Jewish merchant so prominent in Manning SC (yesterday seems so far away). Second, this Moises Levy was actually Moises Yulee Levy,the father of David Yulee (he dropped his last name), the first Jewish US senator.

A Mexican lunch at a walk up to the window place in Gainesville. A stop at the Florida Museum of Natural History, with their big, big butterfly rain forest building, and their very large and sophisticated lepidopterist laboratories, as well as a spider exhibit (The butterflies were in the open….but not the spiders. Call the SCLU.) And mastodon and mammoth skeletons, enormous jaws of extinct sharks and so on.

Back in the car. Cows and cows and cows and goats. And onto Jekyll Island where Priceline got us a nice room at the Hampton Inn and where the Hampton Inn recommended the Driftwood Bistro and even drove us there and back.

We are in The Villages in central Florida, being very well hosted by a high school friend of Edie’s and her husband. We got a full tour, had a very fine dinner at the Bluefin Grill, and heard a very listenable r and b band play in a town center square.

How do I describe The Villages?

We will start with facts. About 160,000 people, almost all over 55, living in an ever expanding universe controlled by the Morse family, an area located in three Florida counties, larger than Manhattan Island, with middle and upper class families, virtually all white, who like to golf, eat and party the night away. The residents are mostly Trump supporters, some are snowbirds, some live here full time, almost all retired from their jobs somewhere else.

There seem to be more golf carts than automobiles, chugging up the sidewalkless streets. There about twelve golf courses, several recreational centers, three boisterous town centers, a full school system (serving children of outsiders who work in The Villages), and several health care and assisted living facilities, funeral parlors, churches and synagogues.

The governmental structure is impossible to understand and the boundaries are always expanding change, but the entire mammoth development is the product of the benevolent (and filthy rich) Morse family, the paternalistic monarchs who rule their own Magic Kingdom.

There are many restaurants, theaters and the like and more opportunities for extracurricular activities than you can imagine. And every night, in the three city centers, live entertainment with dancing outside. And crowds beyond imagination. Did you hear what I said? Beyond imagination.

All built from scratch over the last forty and for the most part over the last 25. Attractive enough, very American, and very clean and well maintained.

An hour northwest of Disney World, The Villages is a world unto itself.

Everyone seems happy, relaxed, and content.

My final thoughts about the place? HELP, GET ME OUT OF HERE.

We made some new friends. Nemo, Buoy, Grayson among others. They are ill and we visited them in the hospital. One wasn’t eating enough, another was in a boating accident, one had metastasized cancer. Yep, these were three sick sea turtles. But they are all doing well at the Loggerhead Marine Center hospital and we have hope for them.

Now we are in Florida where, as you know, gender identification is important. But you cannot tell a sea turtle’s gender until they are about 25 years old. Poor Governor Desantis. It must drive him crazy.

Worth Avenue in Palm Beach looks to be thriving. Clematis Street in West PB? Not so much. It needs help – give what you can. And if you happen to be in the market for 10 or 12 empty store spaces, this street’s for you.

Yes, we went by Mar-a-Lago. Nuthin’ happening there, I don’t think. Skip it. We also went by Manatee Lagoon. Nuthin’ happening there, either. I wondered why, and then it was clear. It must have been Manatee Day at Mar-a-Lago. Imagine it. Donald and the manatees cavorting in the pool. Having a great time.

Good food yesterday at two chain restaurants. Rocco’s Tacos and Seasons 52. Sort of a surprise. Reminds me of a time in London years ago when I was at a restaurant and asked the waiter whether the restaurant was a chain. In a heavy accent, he said: “No, it’s Italian”.

That’s it. Thanks to our great hosts. On to The Villages. Yes, that’s where we are going.

Wow. We saw the Nats win two games in a row. First, against the Cardinals and then against the World Series winning Astros. In each game, the Nats used a different pitcher each inning. This may be the secret to a winning season. We saw both Gore and Cavelli and they looked good, as did all the relievers. We saw some of the youngsters get hits and make some great fielding plays. We even saw Victor Robles strike out twice. What more can you ask?

Other news. The food at the Nats’ park is much better than the food at the Cardinals’. No question. The location off the Cards’ park (surrounded by restaurants and stores) is much better than the Nats’ surroundings (scrub and grass). The Cardinals have a fine scoreboard. The Nats, to put it mildly, do not. The Nats scoreboard has writing so small that it’s a strain even for my eagle eyes, and when you do see it, it doesn’t tell you much. That is for three reasons: it doesn’t try to tell you all you’d like to know, it was completely off part of the time, and what information it gives you is not reliable.

Seating in both parks is good and mostly shaded. Parking is adequate but set up very differently. The Nats win the Star Spangled Banner competition, but lose the Take Me Out to the Ballgame challenge. It’s like the song disappeared midstream, but the words stayed on the scoreb, until the last two lines, which we’re neither audible or visible.

The morning was spent on a forest and dune walk at the MacArthur Nature Center, with our volunteer guide, Gregg Olsen, a retired psychiatrist. We learned a lot. How to tell a mangrove from a manatee, how to predict the sex of a sea turtle, the difference between red, black and white mangroves (nothing to do with color) and how to distinguish talk from shorter palm trees. Seriously, folks, it was one great tour, and Ed our cart driver back to the parking lot, a retired computer science professor from Czechoslovakia, was also an interesting companion. And his driving was good, while the driver who took us to our car at Nats Park was clearly a frustrated Formula One driver, who narrowly avoided hitting people while ignoring the difference between pavement and grass. One great ride.

Last night, dinner at The Old Key Lime House in Lantana with our hosts and a high school classmate of Edie’s, who also brought along her husband.

The lime green restaurant opened in 1887 and had more customers than either ball park did. It has about two hundred rooms, inside and out, and we waited over an hour in one of its floating bars to be seated. In addition to people, there was loud music and screen after screen, and I was sure we had landed in the worst possible place. Until we were seated at a nice round table, with plenty of room, and the food came. Plank salmon and salad were excellent. And eventually everyone but us disappeared. We arrived at 6 and left at ten.

After a morning of sitting around, catching up, we went for a trip up the road to the John D. MacArthur State Park, a nature reserve and beach. We never got to the beach and paid no attention to the nature reserve, but took a short walk and got back to the car. Why? Because we spent so much time catching up that we didn’t leave enough time for the visit. We had a ball game to get to.

Digression. John MacArthur founded the MacArthur Genius Awards. Helen Hayes was his sister in law.

And we did get to the game on time. The Cardinals/Marlins spring training stadium in Jupiter is well set up, seating 5000 plus, mostly in the shade. We sat behind the plate a little to the third base side. The weather was 84, no humidity, cooling breeze. Perfect.

Our last spring training venture, when the Nats were in Viera was not much fun. This one was great. The Nats held the Cardinals to 5 hits and won 3-2. A different pitcher every inning. Got to look at some of the new guys. All looked good. The Nats are on a roll.

With the new pitch clock, the game took.2.5 hours. But it will take some getting used to. As will the larger bases. More balls will hit the bases, it will be harder to throw out someone at first, etc.

After the game, we went to Juno Beach Pier, where there were quite a number of fisherman. They all had something in common. Not catching anything. On to the Jupiter Lighthouse (closed) and down Ocean Boulevard back to our home away from home.

Dinner at Carmine’s, a very, very loud and crowded Italian restaurant. The valets handle Bentleys, McClarens and Farraris. We were in an Acura and parked ourselves. It was fun. My food was ok.

Late night conversation. And this morning? Getting ready for another ball game. Split team, two games today. Ours is against the Astros. They can’t be very good, can they?

We started our day in Florence SC.

Let me divert a minute. I remember driving through the beach town of Florence, Oregon. On the beach was a young man with a saddled camel, standing next to a sign which identified him as Lawrence of Florence.

Still diverting, here is a trivia question? Why did the Nightingales name their daughter Florence? Because she was born (conceived) in Florence, Italy. Google it.

Back on the road, heading South. People driving fast. Big trucks. No problem.

So let’s take a break. Get some coffee. Manning, SC. What’s there? Small town, seen better days. Nicest building. The high school, which has been in use over 100 years. Biggest surprise? Stores with the names Levy, Schwartz and Weinberg. That led to a Google search. Manning had quite a Jewish history from 1850s through early 20th century. Who knew? And a great cup of coffee for only $1. McDonald’s.

Onward. Let’s have lunch in Darien GA. Why? Because we can also go to Fort King George. What’s that? We’ll find out.

Small waterfront town on a river whose name starts and ends with an A. Lunch was a pastrami Reuben made of too much pastrami, the right amount of cheese and sauerkraut and two slices of dark rye. Not bad, but I didn’t do it justice.

King George was George I. The fort was the first British fort in Georgia, from1721 or so. Beautiful site with water and marsh views and many live oaks. Fort has been completely rebuilt. As well as an house like the native American tribe members had, and a Scottish looking house to memorialize the Scottish legion that was quartered there, and a cemetery. The fort did not last long. The enemies were the Spanish. They never fought there.

We watched a short intro film, toured the small but interesting museum (worth more time than we had), and hit the road.

And we drove and drove and drove, getting to our friends’ condo in Riviera Beach/West Palm Beach/Singer Island at about 8:30.

Ended with dinner at Johnny Longboat (I think). Very crowded in a commercial area with a lot of very crowded restaurants. Foreign country, this. The food – my ahi tuna wrap could have been better. Just sayin’, Johnny.

Tomorrow, baseball. I have a good chance of being the Nats starting third baseman. Stayed up all last night trying to decide what number I wanted on my jersey. Thoughts?

We are on our way to Florida. We won’t be there for the winter, just for about 5 days. Don’t ask if driving was a good idea.

We are in Florence, South Carolina. Enough said. We had dinner at an Outback. Too much said.

It took us longer to get here than we expected. That’s because someone had the brilliant idea to close a short section of I-95 while doing some road repairs. For over an hour, we averaged between 2 and 6 miles per hour. Edie thought that was a better speed than 70.

We were welcomed to South Carolina by a billboard that told us Jesus Lives and gave us a phone number to call for proof. I forgot to write down the phone number. When we pulled in to the Hilton Garden Inn parking lot, we saw a car with a bumper sticker that said God, Guns and Trump. It belongs to a beekeeper. There is a beekeeper convention at the hotel. At least, that’s the buzz.

By and large, the drive was otherwise OK. We tried to learn a few things. We saw a van from Johnson Smith University, the Golden Bears. Who dat?, we said. Edie looked it up and discovered from its website that it’s an HBCU in Charlotte that has 11 faculty members for every student. Don’t believe me? You look it up, too.

Enough for now. On the road again.

If we had kept to our schedule, we would be in our trusty Prius heading south on I-95, on our way to West Palm Beach and Nationals Spring Training (I was thinking I might be the starting third baseman this year). But it was not to be, and the future is……..ahead of us.

It all started over the holiday weekend, when I felt (at first) a small discomfort in one of more lower molars and, as time went on, a larger discomfort. I was able to reach my dentist on Presidents Day, although his building wasn’t open, and he said he could see me at 8:30 yesterday (Tuesday).

I dutifully reported on time, we exchanged typical dentist-patient pleasantries, he looked and poked at my tooth, took an X-ray or two, looked some more, and said: “The nerves are dead; you need a root canal. Everything else looks fine.”

His assistant then called a endodontist two blocks down the street (“you will love her; she’s very good”), booked me an 11 a.m. appointment, which gave me almost two hours with nothing to do, so I wandered a bit, had coffee at Paul on 22nd Street (which I couldn’t really drink) and wound up about 45 minutes early for my appointment.

I filled out my life story on a tablet, and then I was taken to get x-ray after x-ray, including a three dimensional x-ray; I felt like I was a suspicious character and the technician was a TSA employee up for promotion.

I got into the chair, met the doctor (who was very friendly and professional) and she explained to be exactly what my dentist had told me about the root canal procedure (I have had one other root canal, but it must have been 25 plus years ago and the technology has changed). Both my dentist and my endodontist assured me that I would be all fixed up by the end of the day, and that driving to Florida the next day would be no problem.

Here is where my mind gets a bit foggy. I remember that she stuck an IV-like needle into my mouth, which fed me novocaine and, after several minutes, numbed me (numbed me enough, so that I was sure that doctor had asked me “Are you dumb yet?”), and then she and her assistant went to work.

Throughout all of this, I was relaxed and unworried, and looking forward to tomorrow (today) when we could get on the road.

The process was very detailed. The doctor would ask for something, the assistant would give her something. Whether it was the novocaine or something else, I don’t know, but I couldn’t understand any of it. It sounded like “Give me a red”, or “Give me a yellow” or other things that made as little sense. Then, the doctor said (I think), “time for the bite blocker”. And a piece of something was handed across which was fitted inside my mouth to keep it open for the rest of the procedure.

It was quite uncomfortable. In fact, the pain from the bite blocker (if that is even what it is called) was as bad as the pain from the infected tooth. Although the blocker was only on one side of my mouth, my jaw hurt equally on both sides.

You ask “Did you complain?” Ha, Ha. Talking was the one bodily function most beyond my ability at that time. I could moan, I could grimace, I could point, I could do a lot of things. But I couldn’t tell her about my pain or my concern about the bite blocker. Or perhaps, I could tell her, but she did not understand my sign language.

At one point, she realized that I was complaining about the blocker, and she told me it was necessary because otherwise it was too long to keep my mouth open (about 90 minutes, I guess), but she said “I can move it up a bit, and that will give you more flexibility”. She did do that, but I noticed no difference in the pain. I was able to convey this and she told me that this was very unusual, as she went on her business.

The procedure was over. She told me I could close my mouth. But I couldn’t. I could barely move it. She told me to give it a little time. OK, but I can’t move it. I certainly am not going to be able to close it. It seemed more than stiffness.

I guess this is when she realized there was a problem. She said, I am going next door (or maybe down the hall) to get one of the oral surgeons to help. “Huh”, I thought? The assistant told me not to worry, this was not a problem. She came back with a young man to whom she introduced me to as Dr. _______, and he said that my jaw was displaced and that he would set it back in place for me. Just like a dislocated shoulder.

Well, you can bet that that made me feel good. I asked him if it was going to hurt (of course, it was already hurting pretty badly and not moving at all), and he said something very reassuring like “Well, I can’t say it’s pleasant, but it will be ok”.

My mouth itself was still numb from the novocaine. Only the jaw hurt. He stood in front of me and told me he was going to, first, push it down, and then, push it back and up. Oh, yes. That I should just relax. He pushed and said “relax” and pushed and said “relax”. Ha!

Then, he said, “OK, let’s go down to my office. We can get it back in place there.” I asked him if he could sedate me, and he said yes. So I went down the hall to an office which apparently has three oral surgeons, two of whom were there. After I retold my life story on their tablet, I was led into a room that looked like the room in my endodontist’s office and given something through an IV that must have put me to sleep. I remember one of the doctors asking me a random question, but don’t remember the answer, but when I woke up, my jaw worked and I was in a different room (I think).

(An aside: That morning, I had driven to the dentist, and parked my car in the garage in his building. It was only two blocks away, but I was clearly not going to be in shape to drive home, so we called Edie. Edie was home, baby sitting Izzy, who was taking a nap. It all seemed so complicated logistically. I wasn’t involved in the arrangements, but I think Hannah and Andrew came over to our house (Joan was with her other grandfather, who had come in town for Presidents Day), and Michelle drove from her house to our house. Michelle then drove Edie to the oral surgeon’s office, and she and I walked back to the dentist’s building to get my car, which she drove home. It does take a village.)

I was pretty spacey by then. I wasn’t very sure of anything. I hadn’t really had a chance to talk to the doctors about what (if anything) all this meant. Then, I made what I later learned was a mistake. I yawned with my mouth wide open. Boom…….my jaw separated again. This was obviously an important event, although my memory of it is a bit hazy. I remember going to the doctor (or maybe the front desk) and I know that he fixed it again. But I don’t remember how he fixed it. Edie tells me that she was told that they repeated the procedure with a new IV to knock me out again. I don’t remember that, and I don’t remember the surgeon manipulating the jaw without anesthesia. I draw a blank on this.

I was told then not to yawn with my mouth wide open and, if I was going to yawn or sneeze, I should put my finger under my chin and press upward to keep my jaw from dislocating. Jeez. That’s a big responsibility.

I was also given a cloth band (looks like the cartoons of people in olden times who had toothaches – you know what I mean) to wear to keep my mouth from opening too far. I am not sure how long I am supposed to wear that, or if it is optional, or what. I don’t think it’s very long, but this is one of a series of questions I have for the surgeons today. We will call them after I get my list together. I remember asking if I should wear it while sleeping and was told that that was probably not necessary, because I won’t open my mouth that wide while sleeping.

In fact, I don’t think I need it during the day – I am just keeping my mouth closed. I can yawn without opening wide. I haven’t had to sneeze yet. But last night, I slept with it on – and that wasn’t a problem. The problem is, of course, that I want to know how I am. I want to know if I am OK if I open my mouth as wide as I can. It’s tempting. I just have to overcome that feeling.

I have done a lot of on-line reading about displaced jaws. Not fatal. Takes some time to really heal. A jaw displacement is more likely if you have had one previously. But that doesn’t tell me much – does that mean I can expect another, or just that one is more likely for me than, say, for Edie. I don’t know.

I also have to watch my diet for a while – nothing crisp, no nuts, no raw vegetables. But that is as much for the sore tooth as for the jaw. And they told me to take painkillers. Quite a heavy dose of both n-saids and ibuprofen, or whatever works for me. Again, I think that is more for the tooth than the jaw.

OK, for now that’s the end of my story. I will say this: I like my dentist (I wrote him about what happened). I like both of the oral surgeons (especially considering I just barged in on them – a big surprise). As to the endodontist, I can’t say she will be my choice for my next root canal. She told me she had been doing root canals for 30 years and this was maybe the 6th time there was a jaw displacement. I can’t argue with that. I don’t know. But she does get very good ratings. So was this her fault? Was it something in my jaw that made me more susceptible? Was it just happenstance? I don’t know.

We don’t have dental insurance, and root canals are quite expensive for the amount of time involved. Oral surgeons aren’t free either. The endodontist volunteered to cover the cost of the oral surgeon (between $500 and $600). Was this good-will? Was it because she thought I might make a malpractice claim? Was it because she doesn’t want a bad Yelp or Facebook review? I don’t know. I also don’t know what all those consent papers I signed for everyone really say.

I don’t plan on making a claim. But I guess things could change if things (other than Edie, I and the Prius) go south.

I have a number of regular(ish) Zoom chats. My regular Thursday morning breakfast group. My five high school friends and significant others. Leadership meetings for two non-profits I spend a lot of time with. And more. They are all enjoyable and important to me. But the one that sticks out in my mind today is the discussion that I have with a number of college friends every six weeks or so.

Basically, it’s a group of us who were in the same freshman dorm (there is one couple – he Harvard she Radcliffe – that were not in that dorm, but have remained friends with all of us). The dorm was Stoughton Hall at Harvard (Stoughton was formerly named New Hall, but how long can that name have stuck to a building completed in 1804?).

First, it’s the occupational diversity – 3 lawyers, 2 doctors, a physicist, an economist, an anthropologist, and a classicist. Second, the geographic diversity – Washington, Annapolis, St. Louis, Phoenix, Austin. Third, the fact that we were college freshman 62 years ago, and that we have remained in contact all these years (with some notable gaps, to be sure).

So what did we talk about last night in a little less than 90 minutes? Struggles: one spouse recently diagnosed with breast cancer and in treatment, and one friend’s unmarried daughter having recently delivered a baby in a place where external support will be a challenge. Travel: plans to go to Amsterdam, Lisbon and Chile, and recent travel to the Panama Canal and Ireland. Health: Covid experiences and current practices. The New Yorker: 6 of 8 homes subscribe to the New Yorker – discussion about recent article on Austin and various other articles, and the cartoons.

While all of these things may seem normal, let me assure you that the contents of these discussions were more substantive than you might expect. But there was more.

The physicist (retired as a prominent academic) is studying the relationship between Newtonian and quantum physics, looking at the mathematical basis for the operation of the smallest particles yet discovered by science. One of the doctors (retired from running a laboratory at a major university) is partnering with a young colleague to gt an NIH grant to continue developing a nasal vaccine for C-diff. Discussions about both of these topics.

It goes on and on. The next class Zoom will probably be in April. No telling what that will focus on.

I am still running through my collection of Penguin paperbacks. The past week or so, my luck has been mixed. I have started four books, but finished only two of them. The other two I dropped about a third of the way through – for two very different reasons.

First, the successes.

(1) Andre Maurois was a very important French intellectual and writer of the early twentieth century. According to Wikipedia, he wrote 57 books and at least that many short stories over his career. What you probably don’t know about him is that his birth name was Emile Salomon Herzog, and was born into a Jewish family in Alsace. Surprise!

The book I read was “Ariel”, his biography of Percy Bysshe Shelley. He only lived to age 30, when he and a friend drowned off the coast of Italy in a small boat in a storm. Shelley was born to a wealthy family, but was never on good terms with his father, who wasn’t a fan of a life dedicated to atheism, poetry and literature and a sort of philosophy. Shelley ran off at a young age with the daughter of a pub keeper, had a child and then abandoned her in favor of Mary Wollstonecraft, the future author of “Frankenstein”. Their life was one of poverty, uncertainty, and movement. Maurois depicts Shelley as sort of a luftmensch, a man with his two feet planted firmly in the air. One of Shelley’s good friends was Lord Byron – who comes out even worse, not as a luftmensch, but as a unsympathetic cad, looking only to seduce women. Both Shelley and Byron were very attractive.

The book worth reading? Sure. The best possible biography of Shelley? Probably not. But very well written, as you would expect.

(2) Next, I read Thomas Mann’s final book, “Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man”. Like Schubert’s 9th Symphony, the book was not finished when the author died. The Penguin version is about 350 pages – the first person narrator is just beginning his round the world tour, year long journey, so who knows? This book could have been longer than “War and Peace”. I don’t know what Mann had in mind – maybe the narrator would have stopped in Lisbon (that’s where he was at the end of the unfinished manuscript) and never crossed the seas.

Felix Krull, the narrator, was born in a small town in Germany. His father made sparkling wine and was a big man in town, but then went bankrupt and died. Felix, his sister and mother were left to their own devices, and a family friend arranged for Felix to get a job in a Parisian hotel.

Now Felix, if you ask Felix, was the most attractive youth ever, and also the smartest, most clever and luckiest person alive. He is also the best linguist. And the book shows it, as he excels at his hotel work (starting out as an elevator operator, but quickly transitioning to a dining room waiter). He meets a young aristocrat who is in love with a lady of the night, and whose parents want him to take a trip around the world to rid him of his infatuation. Felix and the young man decide to change identities and Felix, now a marquis, travels to Lisbon, where he falls in love with the daughter of a scholar he met on the train. Her name is Zouzou, not to be confused with the love interest of the real marquis, who is Zaza.

The first half of the book, I think, is terrific, but after Felix starts on his journey, the narrative falls apart, starting with a long talk on the train about the nature of man and the universe. Without knowing, I would expect that, had Mann lived past 80, this part of the book would have been edited and extensively shortened. I would expect. But I still recommend the book – for some extraordinary scenes, such as Felix convincing the German army doctor that he is totally unfit for military service.

(3) I couldn’t get through Stevie Smith’s “Novel on Yellow Paper”, a stream of consciousness novel that I couldn’t understand at all. Maybe I would have in 1936, but maybe not. At any rate, about a third through, I decided I was really wasting my time.

Smith was basically a poet, and she took, when she was a young woman, a book of poems to a publisher, who said “No, thanks. Why don’t you come back with a novel?” She did just that, and when he saw the novel, he said “No thanks”. I and that publisher see eye to eye. Another publisher thought differently, and apparently the book was a success.

(4) The Autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila. The introduction of this book says it was the second most read book of the 16th century in Spain. OK, and it does have some interesting.

Teresa, born in Avila in 1515, less than 25 years since the expulsion of the Jews, was the daughter of a “formerly” Jewish father and a Christian mother. Clearly, there was some Jewishy stuff going on in her house, and she was close to her father, who she describes as quite religious (in a Christian sense, to be sure).

She was the youngest of a large family and her father’s favorite. She was a self-described sinner (although her sins seem to be limited to wearing nice clothes and looking in the mirror) and wound up in a convent. Her story is interesting – she was very sick, she was miraculously healed by St. Joseph, she became very contemplative and mystically oriented and wound up reforming the Carmelite order, creating new convents all through Spain.

But her book reads like a Christian Marcus Aurelius. Every line is advice on how to live a good and godly life. That’s ok, and of interest, I thought – I agreed with some things, not with others, and still others I had to think about.

Why didn’t I finish the book? It was Ground Hog Day. Page 265 was just like page 43. Too much repetition. Probably not meant to be read straight through.

That’s all for now.

First, you wonder who Martha is. My guess is that she really isn’t Martha. That Martha is a professional name. Martha is an Hispanic woman, who is a barber at the Bradley Barber Shop in Bethesda.

Why is she poor? Well, I don’t really know that she is poor (in the financial sense). I have no idea of her finances.

But she is poor in the sense that she had to listen to one of her customers this afternoon, who just didn’t stop talking.

Poor Arthur…….

Arthur is poor because he was getting his hair cut in the chair next to Poor Martha and heard the entire monologue.

A young looking man sits down in the chair. After asking Martha how she is, and telling her that he is great, he tells her that he wants his hair clipped very closely on the sides – “give me a 1, an 0, no a 1”, and to leave it as-is on the stop.

Then he tells her that he has been very busy, that business is good, that he just brought on a new person and already has 15 or 20 appointments of new people for him to see. His business, he said, is financial advice, teaching young people how to save and how to invest their money (“it’s hard to do these days”), so they will have savings when they are older. If she has any financial questions, she should give him a call; he’d be happy to talk to her.

Then he switched to Valentine’s Day. “Do you know my wife asked me why I didn’t get her roses on Valentine’s Day? I told her that roses on Valentine’s Day were $45 a dozen (no baby breath, no anything, just the roses. At Safeway, no less), but today you can get a dozen roses for $11. So I got her roses ten days before Valentine’s Day – that’s the smart thing to do. There is not reason to waste money. I got her chocolate back then too, and gave her a little each day. I gave her the last part on Valentine’s Day. So I did my part.”

Then he told her he just had his 41st birthday. “You think I don’t look 41, don’t you? That’s what everyone thinks. 41. Well, I really hide it well, I guess. But I am 41. 41.” His own son is 13. Maybe he should come to the Bradley Barber Shop, too. “I think I may bring him next time”.

During all of this, and more, Martha said nothing.

In announcing her campaign for the presidency, Nikki Haley called for competency tests for any candidates over 75. That would affect only two known candidates – Donald Trump and Joe Biden. So, it’s a clever comment.

But she didn’t make it sound like a clever comment. She made it sound like a serious position. And her supporters will, I guess, take it seriously.

Let’s unpack it a little. First, Joe Biden is the only individual to be elected president over the age of 75. He was 78 when inaugurated. When we think of other “older” presidents, Trump, Eisenhower and of course Reagan, we sometimes don’t realize they were all younger when first sworn in. When Ronald Reagan was first elected, he was only 69, for example, and he was the oldest until that time.

26 American presidents were in their 50s, 8 in their 60s, 9 in their 40s and the last two in their 70s. The average age at first inauguration was 55. Times, they have been changing.

But a competency test? What would it test? Perhaps, it would test for dementia. I know those tests exist, and perhaps they are reliable. But dementia can hit at any age, even though it is more common with advanced age, and it can progress at varying rates. Perhaps it should check for disease in general, with requirements of transparency. Perhaps it should check for stamina. All these things are probably important, to be sure.

But Roosevelt was president with several disabilities – he couldn’t walk because of polio and, at least for some time, he had serious cardiac issues. Lincoln suffered from depression that now and again put him out of commission. Wilson had a stroke that was kept from the public, as his wife apparently acted as a pseudo-president. Eisenhower had both a heart attack and stroke during his presidency. Young John Kennedy had Addison’s Disease. And the list goes on and on.

Mental competency? Trump passed a “test”, right? Did that show him to be competent? And if we were looking for mental competency tests, who would decide the appropriate test? Who would grade it? If a candidate did not pass, then what? Back to the courts for another constitutional crisis?

And what about the Constitution? It says you have to be 35 to be president, but sets no outer limit. How could any requirement for a competency test based on age be constitutional? Or any competency test, for that matter, not based on age?

Of course, you could have voluntary testing and disclosure that could be added to the mix of information presented to the voting pubic. But all you need is a Trump to say “not me”, and you are back where you started.

So, the Haley comments cannot be taken seriously, although they will be and will add to the prejudices against older candidates. For better or for worse.

A couple of other thoughts on, or close to, the subject.

(1) Any test of this sort should also apply to the vice president; that seems obvious. But what of applying it to the next few in line of succession to the presidency? How about to every public elected official? But then why limit it to elected officials? What about applying it to all presidential appointments? Etc. etc.

(2) Because a constitutional amendment might be necessary to have any of this mandatory, should the amendment refer to competency tests (which would always be subject to subjectivity and debate), or to simply an age limit. Such as “No individual shall be elected president if under the age of 35 or over the age of _____”. 70? 75?

There is a lot of talk about older people not being able to perform as well as needed. But, for example, look at federal judges in the United States, most all of whom have lifetime appointments. There have been suggestions to cap the age of Supreme Court justices, to cite one group, so that they would have to retire at a certain age. In many (perhaps most) countries, this is how it works. And we certainly have a history of older Supreme Court justices. But have you ever heard of one being criticized because of his age? I don’t think I have.

So, maybe we just let the people decide when they cast their vote whether they believe the candidates are competent. At least at this point, I am not sure that any change we could make would really help the situation.

I am on a campus somewhere. Red brick buildings. Green lawns. White walkways. Rolling terrain. I am walking. I run into a former Senator whom I know. We say hello and he suggests I follow him and another man. We get to a door, where a tall, somewhat stately, but elderly woman is standing. He introduces me. She used to be the British Prime Minister.

The former Senator and his friend enter the building, motioning to the two of us to wait outside. We do. The ex-PM tells me that they are deciding whether or not she can get a 7 million pound grant to go on a speaking tour around Britain. I ask her what she wants to speak about. She tells me she wants to speak about that awful female politician……but she can’t remember her name. I say “Corso”. She says yes, and that freedom of speech is very important.

I respond by saying that the Queen was a big supporter of free speech. “Look at how she let her children speak their mind”. She gave me a blank look and said “the Queen?” “Yes”, I said, “Elizabeth”. Oh, yes, she said “Elizabeth”.

I told her that “Of course, they couldn’t discuss politics”. She nodded, keeping her blank stare.

Whether she ever got her grant, I do not know. But I am not going to hear her speak.

Pretty random, I say.

So, it’s clear that the first object we shot down was a Chinese surveillance balloon. It isn’t clear what it was surveilling, but the front page article in today’s New York Times about a Professor Wu who for years has been designing balloons such as these both for peaceful and potential military purposes is fascinating. I would assume that “people” knew about this activity, and it seems to me that is not surprising and, from China’s perspective (and potentially ours), makes sense. And what about the thought that the Chinese system would not be too different from Elon Musk’s Starlink? Should China shoot down Starlink? What really is Starlink anyway? If you haven’t read the article, do so.

So we watched it for a week or so, and then shot it down off the coast of North Carolina. Should we have shot it down sooner, or should we not have shot it down at all? Was there really a danger to people on the ground if it was shot down over Alaska or Montana?

Was it the first balloon like this that China sent over our territory? Did they have reason to believe that we would shoot it down, or was this a surprise? What about all those Republicans who yelled that we should have shot it down over Alaska as soon as we saw it? What about Trump, who said that the Chinese would never have sent such a balloon over the United States when he was president? He said that just before it was announced that actually they did – at least 3 times – and that nothing was done (or said) about it? Did it even come to his attention? Should it have? Should they have been destroyed?

And now, all of a sudden, we seem to know a lot about Chinese balloon history. We now all of a sudden know that Chinese balloons have been sent over 40 countries. And the Times seems to know that at least one was sent on an all-around-the-world trip and recovered. We know all of this from “stored” information – what does that even mean? And how did we find it so soon?

OK, since then at least three other “things” (hereinafter “UFOs”) have been shot down over the US or Canada. What were they? Apparently we don’t have any idea, because we have not yet recovered any debris. Why is taking us so long to recover debris?

These items are smaller than the Chinese balloon. They operated at about 40,000 feet, rather than 60,000 feet. They didn’t hover and couldn’t be controlled from the ground but were just carried by wind currents (how do we even know that?).

The first was described as the size of a small car. I have been thinking about what size a small car is. There is a Fiat down the street. But maybe a small car is a Smart Car; everything else is bigger. But some would even say that our Prius is a small car.

What is the size of a small car? I know – a small car. Could someone have small car into space? They did in “Back to the Future”, and the Israelis are now apparently development a car that can also fly – maybe they were testing it?

Another of the objects was cylinder shaped. What could it be? A cylinder? A football? A box of Pringles? Again, so many possibilities.

The third was not any set shape, perhaps, but had strings hanging down. What’s your guess on this one? I think it could be a flying jellyfish – we haven’t seen one of these in quite some time, I am told.

Why are we finding all these things now? Because we are looking harder – using more refined equipment?

And a few more questions. Are they from outer space? I find it doubtful that an advanced civilization from another galaxy would send a small car, a box of Pringles or a flying jellyfish into our airspace, so I think you can ignore this possibility.

Is it from an enemy power? The Chinese again? Or how about from Kim Il-Un and North Korea? I don’t know. But I bet it is Un-known.

I think it unlikely that these are simply privately owned, commercial UFOs. If so, I would think companies (Kia, Proctor & Gamble or the Baltimore Aquarium) would already have fessed up.

Or maybe they are just American military skeet. Skeet shooting works like that, right? You send up the skeet and you shoot it back down. I have always wondered what a skeet was. Maybe now I have found out.

(1) I was a young senior – high school? college? Hard to say. But in my school, they were helping an estate get rid of a lot of written material that the deceased had collected in boxes and files. They took up the entire gym. Volunteers from the school were assisting by going through the files and making sure that there was nothing in them that was of value and should be saved. I was one of the volunteers.

While I didn’t find anything of monetary value, I did find a few things of clearly no value, but which interested me and I decided to save. They clearly were not the things the estate wanted to save, so I put them in my pocket for myself. One of the school officials saw me do that, and yelled at me to stop. We spoke and I explained what I was doing and he told me to sneak out the back door, but not to come back.

Later I ran into a rabbi whom I knew, who had heard all about this incident and balled me out, telling me it was just another example of my problems, and that this shows why nobody likes me. I told him that I thought he was my friend; why was he talking this way? He told me that I was sort of a friend, but he was just being honest.

Later I was at a lunch, or I was going to lunch, or something and I was talking to two “friends”, one male and one female. They had heard about the incident, too, and told me the same thing. This is why no one liked me or wanted to be around me. And never had.

I was shocked, and told them that I never knew people didn’t like me until now. It was their turn to be shocked, as they couldn’t believe that. I vowed to myself to change my ways, so more people would like me. But then I realized that I had no idea what was wrong, so I had no way to know how to make it right.

Then I woke up.

(2) I was traveling to Europe. I was on a plane by myself, but going to join a group (I knew no one in the group) there for a tour or a series of activities. I met the group. All seemed nice. We were all dressed in nice travel clothes (remember those days?). The men had on sports jackets; the women dresses and heels (not stilettos). It was a warm, sunny day.

Our tour leader told us that our first stop was going to be a work camp. We didn’t know what that was, but it sounded like something interesting to see. When we got there we learned, we were not there to see it, but to work. We were all overdressed and tired. We were led into a room and given uniforms and told to change. We did.

When we went back outside, we asked how long we would be working. It was approximately 3:30 in the afternoon. We were told that our shift would end about 10 p.m. We were aghast. This is not what we thought we had signed up for. I said that I was 80 years old and couldn’t do this kind of work (I have no idea what it was) for over 6 hours. I was ignored.

I woke up again.

So why am I thinking about restaurants? And especially about restaurants that I ate at when I was growing up?

In the first place, we really did not eat out very often. At all. It was quite a special time when we did.

I think that the first real restaurant I ate at was The Green Parrot, which I remember being on Big Bend, maybe in Kirkwood or some place like that. Some neighborhood where I hardly ever went. The other place that I remember from those early days was Buckingham. It was on Manchester, not as far away as The Green Parrot, but again in a strange part of town for us. Buckingham specialized in fried chicken. I don’t know about the Green Parrot. I probably ordered a club sandwich. Fried chicken and club sandwiches were my go to foods at restaurants.

This was largely because I never ate hamburgers. Everyone I knew ate them all the time. But I just didn’t like the idea of ground beef. I think it had something to do with how my mother made hamburgers – my memory is that she put chopped onions in the hamburger meat. I certainly didn’t like chopped onions. I know no one else put chopped onions in their hamburger meat, but I was making sure I wouldn’t be played a fool. Years later, I asked my mother why she put chopped onions in her hamburger meat. She told me she never did such a thing. So who do you believe? (I also told my mother that the pie that she made that was my favorite was a cherry pie. She also told me that she never made cherry pies. Again, was she just playing me?)

Going back for a minute to the fried chicken. At some point, I stopped going to Buckingham’s, or maybe it went out of business. I don’t remember much about restaurant fried chicken after that. (After a great deal of research – ha! – I see that the Buckinghams sold the restaurant in 1962 and that it closed in 1968; Trixie Buckingham lived until the mid-1960s, until she was 103 years old) Until high school, when we discovered The Stoplight in East St. Louis. That was the best.

I really don’t remember much else about St. Louis restaurant eating until junior high school or high school. Then there were a few places I went to quite a bit. The Parkmoor and Medart’s, although I always thought Medart’s was overrated. Rinaldi’s for pizza in U. City. (Rinaldi’s opened in 1956 and closed, or rather moved, in 1969 – it served thin, square cut pizza. Best was it’s home made Italian sausage.) The Lotus Room for Chinese food. Schneithorsts. (Schneithorsts opened at Clayton and Lindburg in 1956. I now see, but did not know, that the family had, before that, operated Bevo Mill in South St. Louis and two restaurants that the St. Louis airport.) Garivelli’s on Debaliviere That’s about it. I was deprived.

But then there were the downtown lunch spots I ate it, while I worked in my father’s office during the summers. Miss Hulling’s Cafeteria, and Pope’s Cafeteria. The Brown Cow in the Mark Twain Hotel. And, most of all, the little hidden restaurant in my dad’s office building at 722 Chestnut St, that no one knew but me.

Not very exciting, I know. But I don’t think St. Louis had very many exciting restaurants. I know there were the Italian restaurants on The Hill, but I don’t remember them when I was young. And I remember when Nantucket Cove opened up in mid-town. What? A seafood restaurant in St. Louis? Amazing.

Were there other ethnic restaurants? Japanese? Indian? Even French? Not that I knew of. Of course, there were the delicatessens – Pretzels, L & E. More? But those were for Sunday carry out food, not for eating in.

That’s it for today. And I am no longer hungary.