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Sunday, July 23, 2017

YOUR OWN WORST ENEMY

One of my parent’s favorite sayings was, “You are your worst enemy. You can achieve anything you wish and the only thing stopping you is you”.  It was good advice and to this day I firmly believe that there is no such thing as luck. Unlucky people sabotage themselves and then blame it on fate because they are too obtuse to realize that they got knocked on their ass because of something they did or did something that they shouldn’t have.

My parents also often said, “Hold your horses” which as a kid sounded stupid because I didn’t have horses to hold. As I got older I realized that when they were kids there were still horses in New York City. The term actually infers, for you uninitiated out there, that you should not let the horses take control and it is your responsibility to insure that you keep control of the situation.

This brings us to tonight’s story. This story is about a poor soul named Barry who failed to learn the lessons that his parents in their wisdom tried to impart on him.

YOUR OWN WORST ENEMY

            I worked late tonight making sure all of the snow and access to fire hydrants and basements of the building development I managed were clear and hazard free. It was cold and blustery and luckily the snowfall had stopped.  My wife was visiting relatives in California and her return flight was cancelled due to the snow storm.

In truth she was a little peeved at me due to going to a nearby bar most evenings and coming home late which was one of the reasons she took a vacation. She insists my drinking is becoming problematic and is insisting I get some help.

Nonsense. I’m a big guy and it takes a lot of drinks to get me even slightly tipsy. Since my wife isn’t home tonight I’m going to go to Bill’s bar and knock down a few drinks to warm up before I go home.

“Hey Bill, how the fuck ya doin’ tonight?”

“ A little slow tonight. I think the weather is keeping most of the regulars away. Always can count on you. How’s work”

“Brutal. I had to clean my car three times to make sure I could drive it home. Luckily I found a cleared out space near my house and hoofed it here. It’s going to take me a few hours to shovel the driveway tomorrow.”

“Give me a rum and Coke and keep ‘em coming. Matter of fact use Diet Coke I’m trying to keep my girlish figure.”

So Bill and I chewed the fat for a few hours and Bill suggested I had enough and to go home.

“ Are you going to be alright going home, Barry? I’d call you a cab but I doubt anyone ‘ll get out here in this weather”.

“What the fuck of course I’m alright. I feel great. You’re starting to sound like the old ball and chain, Bill. I’ll settle up with you Friday”.

“You said that last week. Don’t make me go to your house and break your legs”.

“I love you too. Take care and get home safe”.

“I live right upstairs. See you Friday”.

As I left the bar a police cruiser slowed down and gave a short blast on his siren. The cop on the passenger side happened to be a childhood friend of my son and called out, “Barry… You been drinking?”

            “ A couple. I’m under the limit, flat foot”.

            “ You’re not driving home are you?”

            “ I walked here”.

            “You know it’s illegal to be intoxicated in public even when walking. I’m not saying you are. Just saying.”

            “How about a lift home?”

            “Sure. Hop in”

So my friendly civil servants  provided door to door service and stopped right in front of my house, “You guys wanna come in for a few brewskys?”

            “Maybe another time. The last thing I want is for the Sarge to smell beer on my breath. You want me to walk you in?”

            “ That’s really kind of you but thanks and no thanks. Thanks for the lift guys. Drive safe”.

There are seven steps up to my front door. It seemed like thirty. Feeling a little dizzy. It took me five minutes to open the fuckin’ door and I had to pee so bad I almost lost it. I have to color code the keys to make it easier.

I’m bushed. I think I’m going to go straight to bed. The room is starting to spin slightly. It’s been a long day. Maybe I did drink one too many.  I started to walk down the hallway and there was someone standing there. I slowly advanced towards him and he towards me.

“What are you doing in my house?”

He didn’t say a word. He just stared at me. Maybe I should have taken up the offer and had my friendly police officers walk me in. I said again more forcefully, “What are you doing in my house?”

Again he did not answer. He was a big guy. He looked like shit. My adrenalin started to flow, my hair was standing on end and my heart started to race. Fight or flight, baby. I’m not running. It’s my fucking house. I’ll kill the mother fucker if I have to.

I leaned closer to look into his puffy red eyes. He leaned in to look at me. He looked older than me so I should be able to take him. I charged head first into him and that’s the last thing I remember.

The next morning I found myself on the floor. The Sun was out and the birds were chirping. I have no idea how long I’ve been unconscious but the intruder was gone. I went to wipe my head and found blood on my hand. I pulled myself up and looked into the mirror on my bedroom door and saw a small gash on my head.


Funny, the mirror was cracked.

Wednesday, April 5, 2017

PASSOVER REVISITED

Once upon a time a young Jewish man named Joseph was beaten up by his older brothers out of jealousy and sold to a a group of camel herders. This young man went to Egypt, did some jail time, and eventually became an advisor to the Pharaoh due to his uncanny ability to foresee problems and take steps to overcome them. Eventually this man was held in such high esteem he became Pharaoh’s right hand man and the second most powerful man in Egypt, Soon afterwards this man’s brothers came to Egypt to escape a famine and were brought to see the Pharaoh’s number one man.
“Remember me?” Joseph said to the unsuspecting brothers and instead of having them tortured and killed like I would have done, he invited them, their families, friends and sordid acquaintances to seek refuge in Egypt.
Multiplying like rabbits the Jewish people were a threat to outnumber the Egyptians and many years since Joseph had passed on, people who didn’t like immigrants and refuges placed them in a ghetto named Goshen and forced them to toil in building monuments and murdered children to keep the numbers low. Immigration control can be brutal.
Soon a little baby was found adrift in a river by a princess who adopted him into her royal family. He grew and prospered and was greatly revered by the Egyptians until they found out he was Jewish and exiled him. This man, Moses, left had a meet and greet with GOD and came back with a powerful Jewish Lives Matter message. He occupied some public places and eventually got the freedom of the enslaved Jews by releasing plagues on the Egyptians and drowning most of the army.
Being lousy in following directions and the lack of GPS devices back in those days, Moses and his followers wandered in the desert for 40 years before they found their homeland.  Once arriving there the Jews settled down but Moses was informed by GOD that he couldn’t go with them. That really sucked.
This is the short summary of why the Jewish people celebrate Passover. We have expertly made the retelling of this narrative into a two and a half hour filibuster before we are allowed to eat.
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Back in 2012 I wrote a blog entry regarding the Jewish Holiday of Passover and shared my experiences over the years from a wee adolescent to a portly adult.  I enjoy the holidays because it is a time most of the family gets together and spends a few quality hours together. I don’t enjoy the work involved in cleaning for company, preparing the meal and cleaning up after the meal. But all in all it’s always great to see my kids, nephews and nieces and great nephews and great nieces.

My wife, Ilana, really looks forward to these holidays as well. Unfortunately in the past she used to get so stressed out that no one wanted to be near her.  We wondered why stress was omitted as one of the plagues befallen on the Egyptians. Thank heaven she has learned how to deal with that stress which makes everyone in the household breathe a lot easier and we don’t have to fight each other for a hiding place.

Passover, for the two or three people in the world that don’t know what it is, is the celebration of the Jewish escape from Egyptian slavery about 3,800 years ago. We celebrate the holidays by enacting the story of the Jewish plight and eat a meal with symbolic foods that enhance the experience.

When I was a child we went to my father’s family for the Passover Seder as his side of the family were observant orthodox Jews. The story telling portion of the Seder without exaggeration lasted about two hours or so until we could have our first bite of food. As my mother’s side of the family were not religious my brother and I were not raised as observant Jews. Today, while still not an observant Jew and not even a firm believer that GOD exists, I do pray to GOD just in case he or she actually exists and is out there listening. I don’t want to burn my bridges and piss off someone I never met. First impressions are important my old pappy used to tell me.

Needless to say, even though I am not observant, I am proud to be of Jewish heritage and still follow historic traditions. As my wife and I are the now the New York matriarch and patriarchs and have the exclusive family Seder rights of the American Northeast we hold the Seder at our home and have made some slight alterations to the observance. First and foremost we have shortened the reading of the Passover Haggadah to forty minutes instead of the long and tedious traditional two and a half hour reading. We read the Haggadah in English and not in Hebrew because (1) we are living in an English speaking country and (2) I do not speak or read Hebrew. We do some of the prayers in Hebrew and occasionally we have my nephews read the passages in Hebrew as they are fluent in Hebrew. As far as I was concerned the only languages that have any significance in today; world is English, Spanish, Chinese and Pig Latin.

This year we are doing away with the ritual slaughter of the sacrificial lamb because last year when we added that component to our Seder It took days to get the blood off the furniture and walls and everyone was too sickened to enjoy the food afterwards. We should have sheared his wool before ruining it but now we know for next time if we ever decide to go that route again.

For the uninitiated I am including a glossary of pertinent terms associated with Passover:

Matzo/Matzoh: Bread prepared without a leavening agent (yeast). The result is a completely useless carbohydrate with no nutritional value. The Matzoh is flat, hard as cardboard, has no flavors but the Jews absolutely love it. Many supermarkets give it away free with qualifying purchases and we stock up on so many boxes we can eat it for a year. We tried giving it to a food pantry but they didn’t want it. Coincidentally the Hebrew question, “Matzot?” meaning, “What the fuck is this?” has a similar sound to the bread. Coincidence, Hmmmmm.

Charoset: The “ch” has a phlegmy sound like, “chhhhhhhh”. This is a mixture of dried fruits, nuts and wine that symbolizes the mortar used when building the pyramids. Ilana uses 23 different dried fruits and nuts and takes about four hours to chop everything to a fine paste. She will not share this recipe with anyone. Everyone in the immediate family was entrusted with four ingredients and swore an oath never to reveal it to anyone else, She learned that trick from Colonel Sanders.

Malaga wine: No one really knows what a Malaga is but you have to remember to take your insulin before you drink it. At $7.00 a bottle you really can’t claim it is a fine wine, however,  when given to college students and hipsters they thought it was the greatest thing since the Walkman. It’s so sweet that we give it to baby boys just before they are circumcised. We drink four 4 ounce glasses of this stuff during the Seder. I’m not sure how much alcohol is in this wine but after the 2nd glass some of the women in the family get really rowdy and loud. Party in a bottle without doubt and a party on your taste buds.

Bitter Herbs: Bitter herbs are meant to symbolize the bitter times during the Egyptian slavery. We put out parsley, horseradish and romaine lettuce and to this day we still haven’t been able to figure out which one is the Haroset.

Pascal lamb: A lamb shank that symbolizes the sacrifice of a lamb whose blood was used to mark the doors of the Hebrews so that when the angel of death passed over the city (Passover… you get it?) the lives of the Jewish first born children were spared. The Haggadah we read states that Angel of Death skipped over the homes . If that was the case wouldn’t the holiday be called Skipover? Growing up I always wondered why the lamb had a Spanish name, Pascal, when nobody in Egypt spoke Spanish! Any relationship to Ezra Lamb?

Manna: A food that GOD provided in abundance as the Hebrews fled Egypt. To this day no one actually knows what Manna is. Too bad as it could be the key to feeding starving people who live in desert countries. In my family we believe that Manna was actually marshmallow fluff.

The Ten plagues: Because Pharoah refused to release the enslaved Hebrews it is common belief that they were punished with plagues including flies,  boils, frogs, vermin, river turning to blood, and resulting in the death of the first born children. I read an article several years ago which was trying to demonstrate that the plagues were real and each one brought on the next. It was a convincing argument. In short, the Nile turned red (algae bloom) causing frogs to leave the river, animals who drank from the water died from the algae toxin, rats and mice and flies fed on the carcasses, and bit people who suffered from infected boils which eventually resulted in many Egyptian deaths. The Jews practicing more sanitary food preparation and keeping their homes cleaner were spared from the wholesale deaths brought on by the plagues. I left out a few plagues but you get my point.

A confusing story in the Seder has several renowned Rabbinical Scholars sitting around a camp fire about 1,500 years later discussing the plagues and each one insisted that the plagues were in multiples of 10 and somehow figured there were something like 10,000 plagues not just 10. I am so glad this argument went nowhere otherwise the reading of the Haggadah would have stretched about two weeks. I have no idea why they included this in the reading. Maybe the original writer just wanted to do some name dropping.

When I was a child I didn’t distinguish between plague and plaque. I kept waiting for my dentist to appear in the reading. He probably was old enough to have hung out with Moses and Aaron.

The Four Sons: There are four sons which demonstrate different ways to relate the Passover story to a different personality. One is wise, one wicked, one immature and one challenged. When we get to this section the first thing on everyone’s mind is, “Who gives a fuck lets get on with the meal”.

The Four Questions: This is the cutest and most charming part of the ceremony as the youngest child asks questions, Why? Why, Why? Why? and sometimes as any little kid will do keep asking “Why” to every freaking’ thing you say and you want to kick the little curmudgeon off the chair.

Passover conveniently arrives near the beginning of Spring so it is the best excuse to start the Spring cleaning.  One of the tenets of Passover is to get rid of all food items that are not Kosher for the eight days of the holiday. A cute trick we (the Jews) have developed is that we sell the food to a Rabbi or a non-Jewish neighbor and put it into a cabinet until after the holiday and tape the cabinet shut. Crime scene tape works well in this situation.  It’s a lot of fun to have guests arrive and see the crime scene tape,] stretched across the kitchen. Sometimes it’s fun to draw a chalk outline on the floor to get a better reaction. When Passover ends we buy the food back. How cool is that?!

Another family tradition we participate in, with the exception of my wife Ilana, who is striving to follow the holiday traditions as closely as possible, is the daily sneaking out to get a slice of pizza. My dad came up with that tradition, a man way ahead of his time. For some reason it really pisses her off as it did my mother.  I can’t imagine why.

There are many foods we don’t eat on Passover because the argument is that the Jews didn’t eat these foods when they escaped Egypt. Like Matzoh, the argument is that the Jews didn’t have time to leaven the dough so they baked the bread without letting the dough rise. They had forty years to wander I can’t imagine they didn’t have the time to allow the dough to rise.

One of the most popular dishes during the seder is Briskit. I always wondered how the Jews wandering in the desert were able to find a butcher who sells brisket and when they did the butcher had enough brisket to feed forty thousand people. We also can’t eat any product with corn syrup because corn wasn’t discovered until three thousand years laterbut we can drink milk with Ubet chocolate syrup just like our ancestors did and make Egg Cream sodas, obviously a staple of the escaping Hebrews.


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We read the Haggadah, drink wine, sing a few lively songs, inject some ribald humor into the ceremony because my kids and nephews are crazy, partake in the meal and fall asleep on the couch. Basically the same thing we do on Thanksgiving. But the most important thing is that we get together as a family and retell a story that unfortunately relates to current events in the world and hope that we see peace before things can get worse.

Saturday, September 10, 2016

Brooklyn State of Mind: THE CONSPIRACY OF CONSPIRACY THEORIES

Brooklyn State of Mind: THE CONSPIRACY OF CONSPIRACY THEORIES

THE CONSPIRACY OF CONSPIRACY THEORIES

I am proud to say that I am not an adherent to conspiracy theories. I do not believe there is a coordinated effort to cover up the existence of aliens (Why would they want to come here anyway? Maybe Holland). There are no United Nations secret police in black helicopters (they are city assessors looking for illegal pools). President Obama is not an Al Qaeda and ISIS agent because he likes shwarma every now and then. Santa Klaus is not a drunk even though he smells of alcohol in the mall. He’s diabetic needing insulin and wipes the injection area with cleaning swabs before dealing with little kids with super sweet personalities that could send him into a sugar induced stupor.

People who believe in conspiracies tend to be uneducated, uninformed, fearful and anti-social people who are so desperate to belong to one group or another. Religions and cults are a good outlet for most people but conspiracy theorists need to be more focused and aliens, cattle mutilations, men in black suits and Scientology fit the bill so well.

I was in the Waldbaums supermarket on Ralph Avenue with my son shortly after the World Trade Center attack.  The man behind me at the cash register line seemed to be relatively normal and started to make conversation.

Man: You know this could’ve been prevented.

Me: Really, How? Better information from the CIA?

Man: The owners of the world trade center could’ve prevented this.

Me: So, what could they have done?

Man: They never activated the force field.

I kid you not, this guy was completely serious about this. At that moment my son who was nineteen looked at me trying not to laugh and did everything in his power not to verbalize to the guy that he was a freaking moron as he was wont to say to several prior bosses and teachers.

Me: You do realize that force fields are science fiction.

Man: Nooo. They use them on Star Trek all of the time.

Me: Maybe they could have used tractor beams to pull the planes back before they hit or shot them down with photon torpedos.

Man: EXACTLY! That’s what I have been saying all along.

Conversation over. I am not making light of the horrendous attack on our soil but I need to illustrate the sick puppies that are walking amongst us.

The next person I spoke to later that day said that the attack was actually the Jew loving United States government and Israel inciting a war to eradicate Muslims. Our forefathers threw tea overboard to start the Revolutionary war, the U.S. sunk the Maine to get into the Spanish-American war, The U.S. sunk the Lusitania to get into WWI, Roosevelt allowed Japan to bomb Pearl Harbor to get us into WWII (that’s the big one you know). So what’s so far fetched about the World Trade Center attack bein insitiated by the government of the United States and Israel?

Why is it that when a catastrophic event occurs the crazies come out en mass? Hurricane Katrina was God punishing African Americans in New Orleans, Hurricane Sandy was God punishing liberals in New York. Those tornado in Kansas was due to a little dog biting the general store lady.

As I mentioned previously, I am not a subscriber to conspiracy theories. They are not true. They are a product of a troubled mind looking for acceptance unless you’re talking about the cable industry. I have been victimized by a coordinated effort by Verizon to separate me from my hard earned money. They appeal to my vanity by selling me fancy tiny super computers that can make phone calls and send pictures of my cat. They sell me thousands of channels showing absolutely nothing that I want to watch but I am forced to keep them because I don’t want my friends to think that I can’t afford all of those premium channels that I don’t watch or need. They made me switch from regular phone and cable service to fiber optic phone service because fiber optics are so much better than coaxial cable.

Let me ask you something Mr. Smarty Pants … If fiber optic is so much better than coaxial cable why is their a coaxial cable from the junction box to my set top boxes?  To illustrate my point you are in your car driving on a three lane side of the highway at 50 miles per hour. Assuming there are no accidents you will continue driving at 50 miles per hour and reach your destination 50 miles a way in one hour. Now, lets say you are on the same highway that was improved so you can drive 100 miles per hour. Assuming that there are no accidents you would expect to reach your destination in half an hour. But now lets say the three lane improved highway hits a point where you are forced to do 50 miles per hour. A traffic jam would ensue so regardless of the spankin’ brand new highway you started on you are still going to get to your destination in an hour and not in thirty minutes. I will refer to this in the future, if I ever have to refer to this again, as the pebble in the stream theory. Don’t ask me why but it’s easier to say “Pebble in the Stream Theory” than to write a long inane paragraph.

After the World Trade Center attack we had no television reception for a few weeks with the exception of the Spanish stations. El Guerro de la Sexos quickly became my favorite show along with Sabado Gigante. I couldn’t understand most of what they said but every ten minutes or so everyone would get up to sing and dance which was very cool. Wouldn’t it be cool if Al Roker and Glen Beck and the panelists in Face the Nation would jump up to sing and dance after every discussion?

We got broadcast back eventually and enjoyed it for a few years but could never get CBS which is channel 2 in New York City. Then the Feds in collusion with broadcasters and electronic manufacturers went from analog signal to digital. I had to buy two convertors but they could never get all of the channels. I bought a digital antenna, then an amplified digital antenna and still couldn’t get all of the stations. I was under the impression that a digital signal was much better than analog. Bullshit!

This is how they get you to subscribe to a satellite or cable TV system. I live less than seven miles from some of the most powerful broadcast antennas in the world and I can’t get half the channels. What is wrong with that picture? They want you to get pay TV so they can have a two way channel to your house and spy on you to see if you’re watching subversive shows like Roseanne and Ellen. No way, no how, I will not pay for something that God gave us for free!  When I was a teenager we had a dollar movie theater in Sheepshead Bay called the Graham Theater. The carpeting in the theater was so grungy that there were times the stickiness of the carpet actuall pulled my show off while walking. Before every movie they would play a public service announcement that said Fight Pay TV. I had no idea what they were talking about back then. Now I know and should have joined that crusade instead of protesting the war in Vietnam and fighting for the 18 year old vote.

I finally broke down and ordered Dish Satellite TV, then Direct TV but every time there was a wind storm I lost reception and they informed me that they would charge me to re-align the antenna. I eventually went to Verizon for their phone, internet and TV triple play.  It’s cable it won’t need alignment, ever. The internet worked fine for a few years than I started having problems. You must upgrade to a faster speed. So I did and my internet worked fine. Than problems again. You need a new modem they told me so I bought a new modem. Everything is fine for another two years and problems begin again. You need  FIOS fiber optic and a faster speed plan and a new modem for the fiber optics they tell me.

Convince me there is not a conspiracy here.

Growing up TV was free, there was no internet, there were no cell phones. My parents paid about $20.00 a month in total for all their infotainment and telecommunication needs. If you had to look something up you went to your World Book Encyclopedia or walked to the library.  Currently I pay nearly $6,000 a year for all three must have services and my cell phones and tablets and I don’t even have all of the premium channels or the fastest service. $6,000 a year, believe it or not, is a lot of money even in Brooklyn and covers the rent on a two bedroom apartment for a month in Brooklyn Heights.


So now you know. There are no conspiracies, only the machinations of bored, lonely people who sit at the computer all day posting on Face Book and tweeting on Twitter and hanging out with their cat when they are not napping or noshing.  No conspiracies with the exception of one insidious, dark corporation that is one step closer to controlling the matrix and the simulation that we are currently living in.

Thursday, September 1, 2016

THE PHOTOGRAPH: OR HOW I NEARLY STARTED WWIII

John F. Kennedy, the future 35th President of the United States, married Jackie Bouvier on September 12, 1953. On that very same day a bouncing baby boy was born in Brooklyn, New York. That intelligent, witty and impossibly impulsive brat was me.

Why do I mention this trivial tidbit of information? I’m not sure but like every kid born in the 1950’s we all felt an affinity to Jack Kennedy. I called him Jack because of our perceived and imaginary friendship. I knew him as well as I knew my friends. Impeccably dressed, dashing, war hero, Pulitzer winning author. The only person in the world more famous to an eight year old than Jack Kennedy was Jerry Lewis. Jerry was too busy hanging around with Dean to hang around with me.

I found out through my school that the government’s Office of Public Information (it may have went by another name but I can’t recall it) had all of these pamphlets available for free on the Constitution, the founding fathers, the Civil War, the revolutionary War, Songs of the Union and the Confederacy and much more. All you had to do was send a letter and tell them what you wanted and in a few weeks you received it in your very own mail box delivered by the United States Postal Service by an official emissary of the government of the United states of America.

I than wrote to the White Houses and asked Jack if he would send me a signed photograph.  And he did. A full color 5 by 7 photo signed by the President of the United States of America! This was my proudest possession of all time. I treasured this more than my worthless mint condition Gil Hodges, Jackie Robinson, Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, Roger Maris, Warren Spann, Stan Musial, Ted Williams, Mel Ott and Ralph Kiner trading cards which I threw out to make room for my new prized possession.

I showed my parents the photo and they were so proud of me for being a personal friend of the President of the United States. I sent another letter to the White House and told Jack that if he is ever in Brooklyn he could come by and have cookies and milk together.

My father, Harvey, was a hard worker and put in 60 hour work weeks and worked six days a week. His only day off was Monday so we rarely spent time together other than talking at the dinner table. My father rarely disciplined us as this was usually my mother’s job but when we did something that required additional discipline my mother would say wait until your father comes home. My dad hit me once in my entire life and that amounted to a few light slaps on my leg. But nevertheless my brother and I feared my father’s anger.

When my father got angry he would start to whistle. I believe this was his way of counting to ten so he didn’t go completely ape shit on us. He would then stick the tip of his tongue out to the side of his mouth and his fair skin would start to turn red. At this point we knew it was time to start to quiver. He would then begin to yell and pick up his shoe on the floor and throw it down and pick it up and throw it down again and again while yelling at us. After he finished the tirade and we were still in one piece we would wipe the sweat from our brows and thank God that he didn’t beat us with that shoe. My mom was the one who hit us. Usually with a belt, a shoe or a hair brush and many times left a bruise but it was my father we feared despite the fact that he never hit us.

What is it about yelling and shoes? Nikita Khruschev, Chairman of the Communist Party and Premier of the USSR, used this tactic effectively. Sitting at his table at the United Nations smashing his shoe on the table yelling. “Nyet, Nyet, Nyet!”  This was pretty damn cool. Like my dad throwing his shoe on the floor! So I promptly prepared a letter addressed to Russia and asked Mr. Khruschev, I called him Nick for short, for an autographed photo to keep next to my Kennedy photograph.

Who else can I write to? Brazil! So I promptly wrote a letter addressed to the President of Brazil and not knowing exactly where to send it to I asked my father if he could mail it for me.

He looked at me and said, “You can’t send this!”

“Why not?”

“You’re going to start a war! Who else did you write too?”

“I wrote to Russia”.

“Oh my God!. You can’t do this. There are things you just can’t do”.

Did he really think a letter from an eight year old would start a war? I know Tommy the Turtle constantly told us to go under our desks and cover our heads when we heard a siren in case of a nuclear attack. Everyone was really scared that we lived on the brink of a nuclear cataclysm. Gary Powers was shot down while spying on Russia from his high flying spy plane and if this didn’t start a war I surely didn’t think that my letter asking for a signed photo of Khruschev would start World War III.

“What is this?”

“It’s a leyter from a boychik in Brooklyn, New York from the United States asking for a photograph of you”

Taking off his shoe and banging it on his desk, “Nyet, Nyet! Unacceptyable! Who is this American boy to create international incident! Launch the nuclear missiles!”

I don’t even think it was the letter to Russia that bothered my father. I think it was the letter to Brazil that was the nexus of his angst. If the Brazilians were upset by my letter they would stop the export of Samba music and coffee. You know they grow an awful lot of coffee in Brazil.

Even while growing up I can remember the day that Jack was assassinated as well as the days that ensued. The only other memories that are etched so vividly in my mind is the attack on the World Trade Center. It was a tumultuous decade with the deaths of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King and the escalation of the war in Viet Nam. But Jack Kennedy who may or may not go down in history as a particularly effective President did catch our imaginations and projected the image of what a President should embody.


Over the years the signed photo from Kennedy disappeared along with my copy of Profiles in Courage and model of the PT 109. It’s probably somewhere with my baseball cards, my American Flyer train set and my number one issues of Spiderman and Daredevil.