It's 3 weeks since neighbors Janette and Paul got married. A wonderful evening for 2 special people. And, of course, pictures were taken including this one of The Ancient One with wife Donna flanking offspring Seth and Alicia. (It would have been nicer if the Brooklyn branch of the family could have been in the photo with us.)
Enjoy!
The Ancient One spends too much time on Facebook. But every now and then something happens that makes it all worthwhile. A few weeks ago I received a "friend request" from a woman who wondered if I was someone she knew many years ago when our families were friends and near neighbors. As soon as she mentioned her maiden name I knew who she was; I had not seen her or anyone in her family since some time before I left Detroit nearly 50 years ago. I accepted the friend request.
Earlier this week, my new old friend posted the following photo on Facebook:
When I saw the post, I gasped. I recognized it immediately. It was taken around 1943. It shows my mother, Martha Cohen (on the left) and her good friend Dorothy Masserman, in their Motor Corps uniforms. They were among a large group of women serving their country during World War II. With so many of the men away fighting in Europe and the Pacific front of the war, these women drove newly manufactured military vehicles from the automobile plant assembly lines to the railroad yards where they were shipped to military bases to be used by the troops.
The Ancient One was only about 5 years old when the picture was taken. But I clearly remember mom in her uniform. I am not sure who the photographer was but it might have been my father who was a photo buff and took a lot of pictures during that period, many of them of the Motor Corps women and troops who passed through the USO in Detroit.
Oh, what a memory. Thank you Sally.
One unusual happening at the party last night was the sight of The Ancient One dancing with Donna. Son Seth recorded the event by grabbing the camera and capturing his parents gliding (?) along the dance floor. Thanks Seth!
Now on to our last full day of celebration with all the children and grandchildren here in Bay Ridge. . .
Yesterday was spent in "the City," more specifically in midtown Manhattan. After lunch with son Bill (father of the Bat Mitzvah girl), we wandered and walked and walked and wandered leading up to the evening's highlight, a wonderful performance of Altar Boyz. A few pictures were taken, 2 of which are offered here. First, a kind stranger shot a photo of The Ancient One and Donna just after their ride on the Merry-Go- Round in Bryant Park. (Those who know her will truly appreciate that Donna is astride a frog, rather than a horse):
Then, as we wandered up 5th Avenue, we spotted the spires of St Patrick's Cathedral and decided to stop by for a visit. In this picture I sort of like the juxtaposition of this great edifice with the glass high rise behind it.
Today we wandered through the area where son Bill and family live and where our hotel is located, the Bay Ridge neighborhood of Brooklyn. We did have some good food and visited a lot of stores and The Ancient One took just one photo along the way. It is of a rather common stone urn on the porch of a home on 86th Street between 3rd and 4th Avenue. Why this picture? Well, there were 2 flower urns just like it in front of the house in which The Ancient Grew did much of his growing up, on Chicago Boulevard in Detroit (ages 7-21 from 1945 to 1959). It just hit me when I saw it and the photo became necessary.
And the day ended on a high note as The Ancient One was surrounded by Donna, all 3 of his children and both of his granddaughters this evening at the Brooklyn Cohen's residence in Bay Ridge. The next few days will surely bring forth many tears of joy. This is one of those wonderful weeks we occasionally get to experience to the fullest extent possible.
Such are the random thoughts and views of the first part of our visit.
We were in San Diego for 4 days for a Brenner family reunion. Relatives were there from Missouri, Florida and across southern California. Part of the reunion was a celebration of Sy's 87th birthday. It was a wonderful long weekend even though there was less than an hour of sunshine the whole time.
Like any good family reunion, most of the activity was carried out in the midst of food. Dinner Friday at Harbor House in Seaport Village, Saturday night at the Jamacha Grille in El Cajon, Sunday brunch at our hotel with deli brought in from D.Z. Akin's, and a serendipitous dinner Sunday night at Brian's Eatery in downtown San Diego. Food, food and more food! Talk, talk and more talk! Memories galore. Remembering places and people long forgotten.
Oh, was it fun. Oh, was the food good. Do you think The Ancient One's cardiologist will believe him when he says that he really lost weight over the past three months . . . but then gained 8 pounds just by attending a family reunion? Well, we'll see what happens at this afternoon's appointment.
I mean, how can you go to a family reunion and not overeat? It's part of a full life. You understand, don't you Doctor?
The Ancient One arrived in Wilmington, Delaware to visit daughter Alicia for the beginning of Passover. She and her radiant smile looked great to me. We had a pleasant dinner and saw her apartment and then back to the hotel.
This morning is beautiful; bright sunshine, cloudless sky and cool (!) temperatures (just under 40 degrees). As I stepped outside, I was greeted with a sight I haven't seen in nearly 30 years. There was a Robin Red Breast hopping along the ground outside our door. It evoked memories of long ago when the appearance of the first robin was a true sign of spring. But we don't have robins in southern California, at least none that I have seen in the nearly 3 decades I have lived on the left coast.
What a wonderful way to start the day and our visit to Delaware!
But I am a biased observer so I won't talk about the quality of the direction here. I won't mention the outstanding casting, selection of musical and vocal directors, choreographer, technical director and costumers. You see, my son the Director gives them all the credit, ignoring the fact that he selected the production team and cast. But I know better, even if I am a proud father who is just a little bit biased.
Instead, I will talk about the quality of the performances I witnessed although I am not sure where to begin. I guess, when you are talking about Fiddler you have to begin with Tevye. I have seen Jake Tieman perform before and I was a fan of his before this production. But I was still totally excited watching him perform. He was Tevye! He became the character and took charge of the stage. He is both an outstanding singer and actor and showed us both his skills and Tevye's soul. I particularly liked the twinkle is his eye when he had his conversations with God.
The rest of the cast was also outstanding. Golde (Kate Graham) looked like Tevye's wife and her singing voice complemented his very well. The singing and characterizations presented by the 3 older daughters Tzeitel (Mackenzie Gomez), Hodel (Samantha Hill) and Chava (Katie Segal) were outstanding and you just knew that they were sisters. Zach Barryte (Motel the Tailor) is a wonderful comic actor and provided a delightfully nuanced characterization of the bumbling young tailor. (I talked about Zach's comedy last December in my post on The Face on the Barroom Floor.) And then there was Koray Tarhan (Fyedka), the young Russian displaying both wonderful singing and dancing in the tavern. Finally, the choreography inThe Dream was brilliant, the best I have seen in any production of Fiddler, and the entire scene was made even better by Grandma Tzeitel (Dorothy Hayden) and Fruma Sarah (Christina Leslie).
I don't think I have ever singled out for plaudits so many actors in a single production. And then The Ancient One reminds himself that this was a cast of high school students. And while I have mentioned 8 performers by name, I personally want to congratulate the entire cast/ensemble for providing us with a wonderful performance. (If you click on the list below, you will get a more readable view.)
This production of Fiddler has 4 more performances, Thursday, March 19 through Sunday, March 22. There may be a few tickets left. If you are in the area, check at www.penhighdrama.com to select seats and buy tickets.
L'Chaim!!!!! And, again, CONGRATULATIONS to the cast, crew, director and entire production team!!!
Inside the bag I found an iPod nano. It is one of those music players (whatever they're called) that young people have attached to their ears with little speaker "buds" while they listen to the music contained thereon. I had just read about this particular device (along with many others) in a recent issue of Fast Company with heralded the arrival of SSDs (solid state drives) with a prediction that they would gradually replace the current HDD (hard disk drives) in our computers and such. This little iPod nano that I received contains 8GB (gigabytes) of memory which is a lot although my son told me I would fill it far more quickly than I thought possible.
My nano (I immediately became attached to the cute little thing) measures 3½ inches by 1¼ inches. It is all of ¼ inch thick. To get a better sense of its diminutive size I took the below (not too clear) picture of it in the palm of my hand.
Although I am a septuagenarian, I decided to not let myself become intimidated by such a tiny piece of new technology. Since Tuesday, I have been uploading my (mostly jazz) music collection on to my computer's external hard drive (an HDD drive) using iTunes software. Then I plugged the nano into the computer via a USB port and downloaded it all to my new toy. Thus far, I have moved 25 albums, containing 17.1 hours of good music to the nano using about 942MB (megabytes) of its memory. In other words, it is only about 12.5% full. Amazing! But then came the test: How does the music sound?
Off I went on my morning walk. Since the device is solid state, it can be shaken and jostled about without a problem. Following the claims of the literature, after I inserted the buds in my ears (they're even marked L(eft) and R(ight), I gave the nano a good shake which put it into "shuffle" mode and songs, randomly selected by the toy, began to play. I must say that once I mastered the volume controls (sliding a finger left or right around the center dial), I was amazed by the high quality of the sound entering my ears. If I had not decided to "shuffle" the music, I could have selected the album or artist or musical piece I wanted to listen to. It truly is amazing.
Yes, this old dog is hooked on his new toy. And now I face an additional challenge: Am I up to multi-tasking, i.e. can I continue to read my thrillers and mystery novels on the morning walk and listen to fine music at the same time? I think I am up to it. You know, some things happening in the 21st century are pretty nice.
I can attest to the accuracy of Fran's advertising. I have experienced fiery food before (and I like it) but have not associated fire with nuts. I did like them and decided to mention them here. That's the commercial!
Thanks for sending the nuts Fran! They were great! I hope a couple of folks who stop by go to your website (here) and decide to try them. Let me know if they do. Do you need a west coast rep?
And from now on, back to non-commercial blogging. . .
Donna and her dad looked very relaxed and happy. . .and that was before their horse won the 2nd race.
And, in a rare moment trying to be a sports photographer, I can tell that the winner is #1:
Thank you Bob and Millie et al. We had a great time.
The phone rang yesterday afternoon. When I picked it up, a woman's voice asked, "Do you know who this is?" I paused for a moment and she continued, "Don't you know who this is?" Hearing the combination of voice and tone, I quickly replied, "Evelyn."
Evelyn is my last surviving aunt; my mother's youngest sister. She said that she is now 91½ years old. I had not talked to her in 13 years. She said that she was talking to my sister and asked why I was mad at her and never called. My sister told her that I was convinced she was mad at me. Evelyn asked me why I felt that way. I recalled for her in great detail the last phone conversation we had in the late spring of 1994. She has no recollection of the conversation and is convinced it never took place. I remember it as if it had been just last week.
We talked for a while. She asked about my children and I filled her in on their accomplishments in life. She gave me great, wonderful details about her grandchildren. We shared some stories and by the end of the call we were friends again. That is the way it should be!
Family is too important to let old disagreements get in the way of the common memories of good times and loved ones now gone. Aunt Evelyn also is my godmother. I wonder if she thought that was an awesome responsibility when she accepted the role. I was born when she was just 21 years old. I always liked her. She was a bit brash and sassy! She always spoke her mind. Where my mother was a quiet and refined "lady," Evelyn made sure that everyone knew exactly what she thought. In those days long ago I thought that was refreshing in my vibrant young aunt.
I am not sure when I last saw her. It may have been at my mother's funeral in Detroit in January, 1984, at that time the coldest day ever recorded in the local area. At the cemetery, as everyone was leaving after a necessarily brief graveside service, Evelyn, who had come from her winter home in Florida, stood at the grave after others had left, shouting at my mother for being so inconsiderate to be buried on a day when temperatures were well below 0°F (not including the windchill). Oh, Aunt Evelyn loved her oldest sister and one way she showed her own grief (as well as the degree to which her own bones were frozen that day) was to give mom a piece of her mind. That was vintage Evelyn.
Now that our "feud" is over, I feel a bit more at peace. That which seemed so hurtful 13 years ago is not very important today. Thank you for calling me Evelyn. You are the last surviving family member from your generation and you will hear more from me in the future.
The good doctor was here at the house yesterday. He arrived about 4:00 p.m. and did not leave until after midnight. And while Colin is an outstanding MD who has a special way with children, that is not why he was here. For the price of one of Donna's wonderful brisket dinners, he was willing to apply his skills to attacking the various gremlins that have afflicted our computers recently. Like the good doctor that he is, he arrived with not one but two emergency kits. And he went to work.
As a result of Colin's visit we now have a true wireless network among our computers. . .and it is secured against outside intruders. Unwanted software is gone from the computers, Donna's Vista operating system is running a bit more smoothly, Microsoft XP's Service Pack 3 is now installed on my computers and I am a much less cantankerous curmudgeon than I was a day ago. The only remaining obvious glitch is that Microsoft Office Outlook still won't send and receive messages but I can simply stay with Outlook Express a bit longer.
There also is some back story that goes with our friendship with Colin. We met him in the latter 1980s when he was a classmate of my eldest son Bill at Occidental College. I can't remember what he did right after college but around 2000, he decided that he wanted to become a doctor and was accepted to medical school. If my memory is accurate, he received his MD from USC the same weekend that daughter Alicia received her B.A. from Occidental College. Prior to yesterday's visit, Colin's most recent act of friendship to The Ancient One's family was to accompany Alicia on her drive last week from L.A. to Wilmington, DE. (By the way, they were there by Friday, the moving van arrived Sunday, and Alicia is settling in.) Colin truly is both a true friend and a member of this family!
So, as I sit here writing this on a more perky, responsive computer, there is only one more thing to say. . .
THANK YOU DOCTOR!!!! Your assistance makes technology a bit more agreeable!
