" 'Tis neither here nor there."

Well now, a new record has been set. The blog I wrote yesterday has 11 comments and two by Deborah French because I liked it so much. Then there is a comment by someone named "Taconia". I don't know who that is, but I suspect it is a former student from the class of 1957. I love that class. It was the first that I taught in Sea Cliff. Perhaps Taconia will email me and reveal her/him self forthwith.

There also has been some comments about my use of the tilde as "the little curvy thing." I will rename that umlaut "the little curvy thing" instead of "tilde". It is much more colorful and easier to memorize. I don't know who named it the "tilde"; it doesn't make any sense. If the Spanish want to use the word "ano", (which means anus or ass) to also mean "year" by using a little curvy thing over the "n" instead of just using a different word then I fail to understand the reasoning and motivation about that practice. I also find it objectionable to name a planet "Uranus".

Tonight we went out to Sal's Italian Restaurant to celebrate Rhoda's birthday. Our friends from East Meadow were all invited including my sister and brother-in-law. One couple we invited never showed up because they forgot about it. That should never have happened. It did cause a little disappointment. However, if you're elderly you have a tendency to forget events that are important, as well as other matters. It is written.

"Now is the Winter of our discontent." (Richard III)

I really don't know where to begin. My head is filled with miscellaneous items swimming around in my brain--which I hope, at my age, is still viable enough to cast these in some kind of order onto this blog. Ironically and unhappily, the first topic has now birthed and unfortunately it is about death; John French, the principal of North Shore H.S. has died and I was sorry to get that news from Debbie (Benson) French, his daughter-in-law. John and I were friendly activists for the 30 years I taught at his school. He was a fine educator and administrator, and his leadership was laudable. He will be missed. Debbie is one of my most favorite students; she was and is as bright as a button on a sailor's coat (and where did that metaphor come from?) It's a mutual love affair--as far as love goes between teacher and pupil. Fortunately, Debbie is not the only former student that has popped up in my e-mail; there is Bob Marsden, Betsy Krumrine, Carol Schutzman, Ellen Bliss, Nancy Leo, Bob Perry, Wendy Martin, Alan Levine, Magda Machado--and I could go on. All this happens because of the computer--or it would not happen at all. I love to hear from these people, most of whom are now in their 50s and 60s, and who remembers any of their high school teachers enough to stay in touch with them? These students have wonderful things to say about me, and how gratifying is that after 30 years in the classroom?

And now, sadly, another downside topic has come to this page--the economy. I know there is enough about it in the media, but some of it is quite personal with me. Everything about the economy in this country reeks of--not "recession" but depression. I can clearly remember the situation in the 20s when millions of people were out of work, where homes were being lost, where lifetime savings were disappearing in the market, where homelessness was growing exponentially. I remember disheveled men and women selling apples for a dime on the street, and the concomitant lyric "Brother, can you spare a dime?" I remember how humiliated I felt when the mayor of Miami stopped at our door on Thanksgiving Day one year with a donated turkey. It was then that I realized how poor we really were. And I was eight or nine. In our paper today there was a picture of a homeless man and woman seated on a bench waiting for their turn to take a shower in a church. This was not a pretty picture and served to make me--and certainly others--thankful for what we have and what we are.

Strangely, it seems that only depressing things are coming out of my grey matter, and I'm sorry and apologize for that; but what can I do? I have been feeling ill the last couple of days because of the constant pain I'm feeling from my fractured rib and sore knee. I'm taking pain pills for it, but it doesn't seem to help very much. As a result of a bone density test my internist prescribed Caltrate D, an over the counter pill that supposedly helps to prevent osteoporosis. Rhoda picked up a bottle of that medication and when I saw the pill, I balked like a stallion in panic--the pill was huge and I knew I'd have a problem swallowing the thing, so I told Rhoda that I was not going to take any more pills. I'm over medicated as it is. Every time I come up with another illness, disease, or accident I get another pill prescribed. Rhoda says that I am a "disaster ready to happen." I am tending not to doubt that.

January 2009 saw the election of an exciting new president and February will see two birthdays--Rhoda's on the second (Groundhog Day) and mine on the 27th. If my mother had waited two more days I would have birthdays on Leap Years, and I would only be about 25 now instead of 85! What a nice thought to end this blog with--er, with which to end this blog. Felice año nuevo, and Vaya con Dios.

Toilet Tree

I am gabberflasted! The bathroom in our bedroom has been gutted by a guy named "Lautenslager" if you can believe that. You can't peepee in there anymore because he kidnapped our toilet. You can't brush your teeth because the sink has disappeared. The pretty blue wallpaper has been harshly dealt with. You can't take a shower because he purloined the doors so that you could be seen naked by anyone passing by--that is, if there was any showerhead or water to take a shower with,,,er, with which to take a shower. The walls, devoid of paper have holes in them. Our bathroom now is just a hut without any furniture or decorations. All this because Lautenslager decimated it and then had the nerve to demand threeeee thousand dollars! I wish I could say that this is the end of the noise and the madness, but not so. The bathroom in the den will be next to suffer the same fate--Armageddon. So now I suppose the result of all this will be trips to Home Depot, Lowes, and Bed Bath and Beyond to find replacements for our losses--a brand new toilet, a shiny new sunken sink, medicine cabinets with lots of drawers. We will need lots of drawers, I suppose, because for some reason we have collected five jars of Vaseline, two bottles of hydrogen peroxide, several tubes of neosporin, four bottles of shaving lotion, and numerous other condiments that we will have no use for. I did feel really bad about losing the toilet; I mentioned to Rh+ that it really should be donated to some charity rather than finding its way to the city dump. So what if it was 25 years old? A new toilet will serve the same function as the old one. I am opposed to treating elderly things as if they no longer have any usefulness. I may even form a protest group to carry signs in the street protesting the toilet tissue--issue, I mean. It will be interesting to see how this situation in our bathroom will be resolved.

"How are the mighty fallen!" (II Samuel I)

One of the losses I have encountered is being able to dance. A few weeks ago I saw the movie, "Mama Mia" and then last night in the clubhouse I saw a group calling themselves "Adbacadabra" and their whole performance was music from ABBA and it was smashing! Once they started to play and sing "Dancing Queen" the urge to dance shook my whole body, and at that point I realized that I could no longer dance at affairs like Bar Mitzvahs and weddings, nor anywhere else. This hadn't occurred to me until then. I recalled my younger years--my teenage years when I danced to the music of Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, and Vaughn Monroe. It so happens that I was the best "lindy hopper" in my club. Bernie Masef was pretty close. All of our gang could swing with the best of them. All the girls were great dancers as well, and I did win a couple of lindy hop contests. When I met my ex, Thelma, we were a great dance couple, and fortunately Rhoda is also a terrific dancer--although she was not from the lindy hop generation. She was from the "Hustle" generation, and we were some kind of hustlers when the time came for us to get on the dance floor! But the hustle and the lindy were not the only dances we could do. We also did the tango, the rumba, and the Cha Cha--among some others. But the dancing days are over, unfortunately. Aging is a time for losses. Wherever I am, if I hear dance music, whatever table I'm sitting at, I'll bang on it--in rhythm and also a bit in anger. I don't like losing.