Joe

9.26.08 Joe

I awake on a Friday morning in September to the sound of a tumultuous rainstorm pelting spitballs against my bedroom window. I hurry into the daycare center where I work without giving a thought to breakfast, lunch or snack. Looking like a bedraggled rodent, I am greeted by the kitchen staff proffering a vegetarian sausage on a biscuit. Intrigued, I take one bite. Disgusted, I throw the rest away.

For a few minutes I am alone in the office, realizing that with the storm, and our staff’s rather spotty attendance and, to be generous, flexible work ethic, it’s going to be a challenging day. I visit the classrooms to say good morning before I begin my work. I peek in at the babies, schmooze with the toddlers, and eventually make my way into the preschool classroom in the basement. I brainstorm with the teacher to find a place to post photos so that they’re accessible to parents and children. We settle on the wall by the staircase, so that everyone can see the photos coming in in the morning and leaving at the end of the day.

After checking the office email, I go to my library in the attic; the one no one uses. The library has had a long and mostly unhappy history; originally donated and stocked by a women’s professional organization, it had been my task to enter the 2000+ books into a database. Unfortunately, that project had become a low priority and other tasks came first. The library had been in the attic in 2002; a year ago I was granted the privilege of re-creating the library on the first floor. Alas, that didn’t last long; the executive director decided to rip the library shelves out to create a tiny classroom for 5 three-year-olds and one teacher. The library books went back to the attic, and oblivion. However, today I am fortunate to have the services of an energetic young woman, and together we begin to organize the books according to subject. Any pretense of an orderly system was gone, but I do manage to find some of the most important categories: My Family, School, Colors, Shapes, Sounds, Food, Birthdays and Feelings. The Halloween books (there must be 50 of them, and at least 30 of them will be going home as Halloween presents) are on display for any teacher who wants them. Or has the energy or ambition to climb the stairs to the attic.

The Business Manager asks me to make some changes to the school’s website. I have been administering the website for over a year, and at this point I know more about it than anyone in the office. I suppose it doesn’t matter; the only person who looks at it is me. But I keep adding to the content, creating new pages and uploading photos. The pictures, however, cannot simply be uploaded. I have to create thumbnails through yet another program. It’s a tiresome process but I can do it in my sleep. I make his adjustments.

Phones ring; I answer them, and take messages. I organize the pictures stored in my computer to make it easier to find a picture by date. It probably looks like busy-work to others, because most of the teachers and all of the parents have no idea of how much work I do, or how important my work is to our development, fundraising and marketing operations.
I offer the parents the option to give me their email addresses, so that I can email them the pictures of their children directly, saving the office the price of printing out copies to send home.

I have lunch. It’s either tuna salad or chicken salad; I can’t tell, but it’s good.

Quietly, so as not to wake the toddlers who are sleeping in the classroom beneath the library, I find books that can be sent home with the children. The library books are worthless if no one reads them. I am slowing giving books away, with the approval of the director. I believe she will be happy when there are no books left. I also bring down as many picture books as I can carry. The shelf over my computer, seemingly the only space that I have been granted as my own, will house the colorful, amazingly beautiful and diverse picture books. Saving the teachers the walk upstairs, they will be able to choose books for their classes, until, eventually, that shelf will be taken from me too.

A few kitchen workers, mothers who have fallen on hard times, come into the office and begin discussing their situations with other staff members and me. I show one woman (my morning library partner) different types of resumes that would show off her career goals and special skills. She seems to have neither, but I give her some questions to take home to help her hone her resume, which I promise I will work on with her the next week. I make a bet with myself that she will not return. Everything in our school, from the books to the classrooms to the students to the staff, is so transient. Don’t get too attached to anything, or anyone, because you will probably never see them again. (In the future, I am correct. She does not return.)

While in my library/storage/pantry room, I discover a stash of potato chips. I feel noshy. At snack time I watch the children deconstruct their Oreos as I used to do, 50 years ago. I think I love this place, because it can transport me in an instant to a time when tiny things – a cookie, a coloring book – were large, and huge things – the state of the world, the energy crisis – were non-existent.

It is a hot, muggy, rainy day, and I am moving throughout the building, one room air-conditioned, one not, from floor to floor to floor. Passing through the toddler room as I run up and down the staircases, I see a little boy named Joe standing up, crying. Crying, and nobody paying attention. I suppose the teachers’ theory is that he will calm himself, and so they are not coddling him, but I don’t think they really have a theory governing such situations – I think they are ignoring him.

I don’t like picking up toddlers. Especially crying ones. There are too many fluids exiting too many orifices. I’m squeamish about bodily functions. I have another idea.

I go to the bulletin board, and find a picture of Joe that I had taken the week before.

I give him the picture.

He stops crying.

Pandas Strike Back

Me and my brothers were just playing in our yard when these American ladies came up and started talking to us. One was very pretty and one was very smart.

One of them, the pretty one, I guess, kept trying to feed us eucalyptus leaves. Don’t they know, that’s what you feel koalas, not pandas! They [koalas] are very annoying. We don’t even allow them on our continent! We kicked them to the curb 12,000 years ago and haven’t heard from them since. I think they ended up in that prison camp island, Australia.

We eat bamboo. It’s much more refined than eucalyptus leaves – and it has more fiber which we think helps to make us happy regular kids.

We play in our yard and people think that we’re so cute. Not all of us are cute. Some of our big brothers went to Hollywood in America and got themselves into a movie. They were practicing martial arts and they starred in a movie called, “Ju-Jitsu Pandas” which they thought was so cool because it had that lady Ms. Jolie. We actually like our own actress Gong Li, who makes mostly art-house movies, better. She doesn’t adopt lots of kids, either. I think she has them one at a time.

(We got a little nervous when that Jolie lady was here scouting for new kids for her family but then she skipped right over China and picked up one from Vietnam. She gave him a new name, Pax, which means Peace in her language. I’m sure he is very happy but it’s kind of funny how she changed his name. I think when you are three years old you have the right to decide what your own name is. Whatevs….)

People seem to think that we are very fat, cuddly animals. Don’t they know that we have to dress really warm to play in the snow? We are really very skinny, but we wear extra padded snowsuits when we go outside. They make us look really chubby. But underneath we are not. (All that fiber from the bamboo helps.)

We got a little freaked out by the visiting ladies because we thought they might really be from the Russia. They kept talking about their “fellow travelers.” Maybe we were very paranoid because they were looking in that book called “Red Channels.” They said it was just a guide for their hotel room TV. OK.

They said that they wanted to take one of us back to America with them for a friend. We didn’t want to go. Just give us plenty of bamboo and our furry snowsuits and we’re good to go. Maybe if there were some girl pandas here me and my brothers would be really, really happy.

East Meadow

She stepped outside the ABC studios in New York after the last show, looking for her boyfriend Rootie, the baseball player, the star of their TV show. They had arranged to meet after the finale, but as she looked north, south, east and west, there was no sign of him.

Their late-afternoon daily children’s show had been a phenomenon. The early days of television broadcasting had been a matter of much experimentation, though why some shows caught on, and others sunk into oblivion, there were no definitive answers. She was happy that the show had had its four-year run, and she and Rootie had planned to move to the Bronx, where Rootie was already hired by the Yankees to play ball.

As she stood shivering in the cold, it occurred to her that she had been stood up. Without Rootie to plan her life, she was adrift, abandoned, and very much alone. The other cast members had their own career paths; Big Todd Russell was headed out to Hollywood to see if he could make the Big Time.

She adjusted her outfit: white blouse with a pink, polka-dot skirt, shoes and socks and a bag that matched her skirt. With no coat, she realized that she had better find someplace to warm up. She started walking, soon finding herself at Pennsylvania Station. Not having any other plans, she bought a ticket for the next train that was leaving for Long Island.

Long Island was a land of opportunity, or so it seemed to be at that time. Families were moving into cozy little homes there, each family with its 2.3 children. She headed for Garden City, because she liked the name. She boarded the train, having no clue how her life was going to change.

But when she got there, she was just as confused and alone as she had been in New York. She stopped into a candy store at the station and ordered a Coke. A handsome young truck driver came and sat down beside her. He drove a parcel post truck. He was headed to East Meadow, where he was dropping off a few birthday presents for a little girl who was turning four years old that day.

The little girl was living in the Golden Zone of happiness in the early 1950s. A loving family, plenty of friends and neighbors, she only wanted one thing for her birthday. She had wanted that present since August of the previous year, when her family had bought its first television set, and she fell in love with a hand puppet on one of her favorite television shows.

She hadn’t lacked for toys; she already had several dolls. But this doll was special; her flirty eyes looking off to one side seemed to have an extra sparkle; her deep dimples punctuating her chubby cheeks; and her perpetually smiling mouth that gave her face a look that was at once both sweet and knowing.

The Parcel Post man drove up to the little house on Gerald Avenue. Polka Dotty got off the truck, and walked into the little girl’s heart.

She became the child’s most beloved companion. Manufactured by the Effanbee Doll Company, Polka Dotty’s head was molded vinyl, her body was stuffed and encased in a vinyl cloth. The little girl spent hours tracing the swirls and patterns in Polky’s molded hair, dressing and undressing the doll, until all her original clothes were lost. No matter; Polky was just as enthralled with her little fan.

The “Rootie Kazootie TV Show” went off the air in 1953. Nothing was heard of Big Todd Russell or any of the other actors on the show. Rootie eventually made his way to California, where he tried out as a Dodger in the late 1950’s. But like many other TV toys from the Golden Age, he ended up on Ebay.

Polka Dotty still lives with the little girl. She has a place of honor in a little wicker carriage with her best friend, Robin, a vinyl doll with a little rosebud mouth, and red hair that you could actually comb, who came to live with the little girl and her doll in 1956. Best friends for more than fifty years, they are both rather fragile now. But they are happy to be beloved friends of the little girl, who is not so little anymore.

The Last Out

It was the final game at Shea Stadium. I don't usually follow baseball -- and I missed the Yankee Stadium ceremony -- but for some reason I remembered that yesterday would probably be the Mets' last game at Shea. I've never gone to a baseball game, but New Yorkers have always had a strange (unnatural?) attachment to its teams and their stadia, so I decided to watch the final game. First I had to local it on my cable station, then had to find the HiDef cable station. So I only popped in at the 8th inning.

The game ended disappointingly, but soon afterwards the ceremonies began. The announcer mentioned the many players who could not be present that day. But then they began calling out the old Mets. And I do mean old. I was shocked to see how much our boys of summer had aged. When a very elderly man came out I thought, oh, no, that can't be Ed Kranepool, and it was, I wondered how he got to be so old! Willie Mays was escorted onto the field with an aide at his side.

But then -- the kid they called "The Franchise," because he was the Mets' biggest asset in his heyday -- Tom Seaver came out to thunderous applause. And, oh, my, Mike Piazza, looking amazing (how did he get out of New York? he belongs here!) came out to even louder applause. And part of the reason had to be, his METS' SHIRT WAS TAILORED!!! Not for nothing do I watch makeover shows. His shirt was tailored for his body.

Finally, heartbreakingly, Tom took to the pitcher's mound, and Mike took the catcher's place, and Seaver pitched one last ball to Piazza. They embraced, and slowly left the field together. They came to the fence, and each took one side, and then, closing the gates for the last time, Tom Seaver and Mike Piazza were....

the last out.

What I Really Know About Civic Duty

What I really know about civic duty I learned from my parents. As young adults, they were Democrats who had worshipped Franklin Roosevelt and in 1948, I’m told, cried when hearing an impassioned civil-rights speech on the radio by an up- and-coming statesman named Hubert Humphrey. I wasn’t around for that speech, but seven-year-old me stuffed mailboxes for Adlai Stevenson. 11-year-old me snuck into the voting booth to pull the lever for John F. Kennedy. (Oops, did I just invalidate his election?) And 21-year-old me registered to vote on that birthday.

There are other forms of civic duty that I practice with some regularity: volunteering; recycling, supporting non-profits (sometimes volunteering to recycle for non-profits). But I think that probably the least effective thing I do is to work in political campaigns. Living in New York State, probably the “Bluest State” there is, much of what I do doesn’t have any impact at all. Al Gore didn’t even campaign on Long Island in 2000 – though I’m sure if he had, somehow my phone calls and stuffed envelopes would have turned the tide on Election Day. I campaigned twice for Hillary for Senator, but just half-heartedly, and darned if she didn’t win both times! So I don’t know if I’m a jinx and a jonah. I just know, it’s my civic duty to pester the citizens of my town to vote, which they promise they will, if only I would hang up the phone.

Sometimes I give my insurance company the willies when I volunteer to drive voters to the polls. Out here in suburbia, if you don’t have a car, you can’t vote. It’s not like it’s a law; more that it’s a huge inconvenience. So I’ll stuff as many folks as I can into my car, and drive around from pillar to poll, hoping that my passengers will do their civic duty and vote for my candidate.

The worst part about participating in political campaigns? Working in cold, unheated, rented storefronts GOTV (getting out the vote) on dreary, rainy First-Tuesdays-after-the-First-Mondays in November. The best part about participating in political campaigns? The impromptu First-Monday-night-before-First-Tuesday-in-November pizza and pot luck parties in those cold, unheated, rented storefronts, bracing for the 24-hour marathon ahead.

I can’t wait till November 3. Thanks, Mom and Dad.

Submitted to AARP Bulletin.

Letter to a Baby Boy

Letter to a Baby Boy (Another in as Series of Letters That Will Never Be Mailed). May 26, 2008

Dear Baby,

Congratulations on being born! I’m not so sure I see the wisdom of being born at this point in time, when you may never be able to drive a car that is powered by gasoline, but I hope that you learn from the example of your family and grow to love mass transit.

Your grandmother and I met each other in a strange, 21st Century mode on an Internet Message Board, in 2001. When we found out how much we had in common, we began to correspond directly through email. In a wonderful coincidence, we learned that not only had we grown up within a few miles of each other, I in Bethpage and she in Levittown, but that we had been standing on the very same street on the very same day in November 1960. We both waited in the rain for a glimpse of Senator John F. Kennedy making a last-weekend campaign swing through Long Island.

My family was standing on the corner of Hempstead Turnpike and Wantagh Avenue, and she was standing on Wantagh Avenue about a mile to the south. As adults, we both moved to the north shore of Long lsland. We have met in person several times, and we share a warm email relationship.

I take some small credit in the circumstances of your conception. If not for my efforts 20 years ago, your life might have begun quite differently.
In the early 1900’s a man named George McKesson Brown, heir to a giant pharmaceutical company, bought several acres of land in Huntington bordering on Huntington Harbor and the Long Island Sound, and built himself a great estate. It was known as West Neck Farm. He had a grand home built, based on a Norman chateau, with a garage and stables and a boathouse on the beach. When he lost everything, as heirs invariably do, he sold off parts of the farm, and then finally the chateau, which he sold to the Brothers of the Sacred Heart to become a Catholic boys’ boarding school, named Coindre Hall, after the founder of that order.

When the school closed down, a combination of bad management and pilfered plumbing led the building to a state of near-ruin. While Suffolk County debated what to do with the property, all sorts of developers came up with plans to develop the land, raising the possibility of destroying one of the last remaining Gold Coast Estates. I fell in with a band of protestors called, “The Alliance for the Preservation of Coindre Hall,” or something noble like that, and together we painted posters and picketed Parliament (aka the Suffolk County Legislature) while we tried to stave off any possible development. At one particular meeting, held in the evening in one of the large drawing rooms, a group of suits from a medical-rehab institute tried to persuade us that having such a facility in that neighborhood, given that there is limited access, no trains or buses, and no nearby support businesses, would be a swell idea, started off strong, but by the end of the evening the 5 men making the presentation had backed themselves, literally, into a corner of the room. Seeing them cower from the assault of the mildest-mannered best-behaved group of concerned citizens was the highlight of my career as a protestor.

Eventually, the County took over the grounds, and Coindre Hall is preserved today as parkland, and the building, now on the National Register of Historic Places, is used as a wedding venue.

Getting the picture? Good, because just a few more details and then you can go burp. The garage and stables became the home of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Huntington. The boathouse is the headquarters for the Sagamore Rowing Club. The grounds of the estate has picnic tables and even a dog run, which won’t do you much good if you do have a dog someday because there will be no gas to power the car for you to drive there.

And Coindre Hall itself? By yet another coincidence, your Mommy and Daddy chose the beautiful chateau as the site of their wedding two years ago.

Dear baby, do you want to know a secret? I did it all for you.

**********************************************************************

Roslyn May 19, 2008

When I was six years old my family lived in a small town named Roslyn Heights for 6 months, from the summer of 1955 to the winter of 1956, while we waited for our house in Bethpage to be ready. Often a town named “Heights” signifies an elegant address, but in this case we literally lived on the other side of the tracks from the well-to-do, just-plain Roslyn. (Not to be confused with Roslyn Kaufman, one of my first friends in Bethpage, who was thereafter forevermore known to me simply as Rozzie).

We lived at #33 Edwards Street in a garden apartment complex, on the second floor. The flat was cramped; it had a walk-in, but not an eat-in kitchen; two bedrooms (my brother and I shared one) and a little dining area and living room. All of our furniture from our house in East Meadow was somehow shoved into that tiny apartment.

We moved in during a brutally hot summer. One day my mother attempted to take my brother, some friends, and me to a nearby beach in our 1952 Chevy. We ran over a metal rod in the street which punctured a tire, and we all had to wait on the side of the road for help. Not having Triple A or a cell phone, I can’t imagine who or what we were waiting for, but a passing truck driver stopped and changed the tire for us. From then on, I always thought of truck drivers as friendly, chivalrous, and gallant.

I had gone to kindergarten in the Meadowlawn School in East Meadow, but I started first grade in the Roslyn Heights Elementary School, where my brother was in fourth grade. The school was an ancient, imposing brick building, probably built 50 years before, which could not accommodate the overwhelming number of students enrolled there. As a result, my first grade class was held in a left-over World War II-issued Quonset hut next door to the big school. (In an ironic burst of symmetry, some of my classes in my freshman year of college were held in old World War II Army barracks on the campus of Adelphi University, and the school theatre was in a Quonset hut.)

Kindergarten in East Meadow had been only a half-day, but first grade was a full day, and so it was the first time I had to eat lunch in school. I think we went next door to the old building for lunch. The looming, cavernous building terrified me, and I was unable to eat there. I would bring my lunch back to the apartment and eat it after school. Eventually I learned to swallow my fear, though others came in to replace it. My 9-year-old brother and I had to cross a fairly large street to get to school and back. There was one particular autumn day when my brother and I had to lug our book bags, lunch boxes (mine was a tartan plaid) and a pumpkin each across the Avenue and up the hill to our apartment. My doll Robin joined me at school occasionally; of course she was another burden, but not a weighty one.

My deepest shame, in all of my 17 years of education, happened in that Quonset hut. We had a substitute teacher one day, who asked us to write our numbers, as high as we could count. I got stuck on 12. I remember remembering that it was either 1-2 or 2-1; but couldn’t figure out which one was correct. Maybe if I had skipped past it, I still tell myself, I would have gotten back on track with 13. But no, I had to stop just when I had barely made it into the double digits.

My brother and I quickly made friends on Edwards Street. I know my friend’s name was Susan, but I don’t remember anything else about her. My brother’s friend was named Gilbert, and he was the perfect buddy to go on boyish adventures. In those days, children were safe to wander far from mother’s eye (although not really; it was only a year later that the case of the kidnapped Weinberg baby in Plainview became headline news) and the boys were able to get into mischief that only little boys can. I remember seeing them walking along a high brick ledge and jumping off onto the pavement. (My mother only learned about this from me 40 years later, saving her from a possible heart attack in 1955.)

I think the apartment complex was filled with other families on their way to permanent housing elsewhere; I know Gilbert also moved away, and he and my brother lost contact. For all I know, Susan, the barely-remembered best friend, is still living there. Interestingly, I went back to Edwards Street several years after we moved out; our apartment number, #33, which was on the left side of the street when we lived there, was inexplicably on the right side of the street when I went there as an adult.)

Despite the heat and the cramped little apartment, we had memorable times in Roslyn Heights. There was a dinky little town on our side of the railroad tracks, but Roslyn High School, and the little town of just plain Roslyn, was on the other, north, side of the tracks. When we drove into Roslyn proper, we had to drive up a hill and wait for the traffic light to change. I developed yet another fear, this one of the car rolling backwards down the hill. Although cars today are more reliable, I’m still not comfortable with that maneuver.

Sometimes on Sundays we would get into the old gray Chevy and drive through Roslyn Estates and Manhasset, looking at the fine homes there and dreaming. We would never have been able to buy one of those houses, but it was thrilling just to dream about. It’s still an if-only….dream of mine.
There was, and still is, a lovely duck pond in Roslyn; we went there to feed the ducks, which is probably frowned on today. We went to the movies in the theatre next to the Roslyn Clock Tower to see “Lady and the Tramp,” still one of my favorite movies, with the beautiful spaniel Lady still one of my favorite movie heroines.

My brother and I also were enchanted by an innovative children’s television show, that had also sprung from the mind, or the studio, of Walt Disney, “The Mickey Mouse Club.” Later I realized that the show was actually a marketing gimmick for Disney to lead families to his new amusement park in California, but we didn’t care. We watched that show and made friends with the Mousekeeters. There was even a Mouseketeer named Cheryl, although she pronounced the name incorrectly; the proper pronunciation is the plosive, fricative CHeryl.

We stayed in Roslyn until January 1956. From the heat of summer, to the bitter cold winter, we experienced four seasons in six months.

We finally moved into our permanent, forever house in Bethpage on January 19, 1956; it was to be our family’s home for the next 33 years. Roslyn Heights had been my home for only a half year of my nearly 60 years; still, it was a memorable slice of time, and the place where I learned to read, write, and feed ducks; to eat lunch away from home; to make and lose friends.

I conquered some fears, and acquired new ones.

I learned I could depend on the kindness of strangers.

I saw my brother as a daredevil for the first time. I shared a room with him for the last time.

I watched a romantic movie about two dogs in heat in the heat of a Long Island summer.

I cried from the pain of my red, chapped hands in the frigid cold of a Long Island winter.

It was only six months, but seemed so much more.

A Sentimental Journey -- October 8, 2007

Summer's Over (July 7, 2006)

An Open Letter to the children of Long Island:


I’m sorry to have to tell you this, kids, but the summer’s over. Actually, it was officially over on June 28th, when I ducked into Marshall’s to escape the sweltering heat and was greeted by racks of the latest in fall fashions. I should have seen it coming when the Bed, Bath, & Beyond’s Back-to-College displays were already getting dusty the day after high school graduations, while the Christmas decorations were, no doubt, on their way out to the selling floor.


It used to be that summer had three “first days of.” There was Memorial Day, in May, that, when the sun cooperated, drove Long Islanders in droves to Mr. Jones’ Beach on the “unofficial first day of summer.” Then there was the day of the summer solstice, June 21 usually, which was the real “first day of summer.” But everyone knew that summer didn’t truly begin until the July 4th weekend. Then, there were eight weeks of summer camp or summer school, and a week for back-to-school shopping. Summer ended on the Labor Day weekend, always in September, when you had the last barbeque of the year and put away the bathing suits. Never mind that autumn doesn’t begin until September 21 (the 23rd this year); on the Wednesday after Labor Day we would don our woolen sweaters and slacks to greet old friends and face new teachers, while wiping off the sweat with our long sleeves.


There was a rhythm to the seasons: it was hot in the summer, cold in the winter, and delightful (though in polar opposite ways) in spring and fall. But I’m not talking about Global Warming (sorry, Al); I’m talking about the merchants who rush the sales seasons and tease, taunt, and tempt customers with their rush-rush marketing schemes. I wouldn’t want to be a toddler (or a parent of one) and be faced with tantalizing Halloween candy in every supermarket, drug store or department store, only to be told, “Hang in there, you’ve got nearly four months, 100+ days! before you can put on your costumes and fill your tummy with bags with of yummy candy.” And, of course, by the time you are at last celebrating Halloween, the Christmas rush is all but over.


Everyone knows that the calendar we use today was man- (probably-not-woman-) made; there’s no earthly reason why New Year’s isn’t celebrated in August, except for the fact that it coincides with earlier, pagan celebrations; the Hebrew calendar marks late summer/early fall as the beginning of a new year, and the Chinese calendar pegs the depths of the winter in the northern hemisphere as the time of its new year. But our calendar didn’t just fall neatly into place: the days and months had to be massaged, maneuvered, and finally shoved into being by everyone from Popes to Emperors to 18th century officials (who imposed the “eleven day” change in 1752), to whom we have to thank for 7-day weeks, 12-month years, and 365 (but sometimes 366) days a year.


Daylight Savings Time is another of those constructs that seems had always been, but was, in fact, only introduced in 1918, and has been fiddled with many times over the past century. And soon Daylight Savings Time will extend longer, and Eastern Standard Time will be shorter; starting in March 2007, daylight time in the United States will begin on the second Sunday in March (instead of the first Sunday in April) and end on the first Sunday in November, instead of the last Sunday in October). The rationalization for the imposition of Daylight Savings Time that I had been taught as a child, that farmers wouldn’t have to milk their cows in the dark, sounds less and less plausible. I would think that those cows would be mighty confused by now, as am I.


The good news is that Halloween, always October 31, will give sugar-crazed children another hour of afternoon sunlight in which they can extort candy from and play pranks upon their hapless neighbors. But the political campaign season, for those who follow these things, will still begin in the heat of the summer, and will still culminate on a cold, dark November night (not the first Tuesday of November, though, but the first Tuesday after the first Monday).


It would be nice to go back to a time when you could buy a bathing suit in July and snow shovels in November. The most I can hope for, though, is that we will rush the seasons so far ahead that, at least for a few years, our calendars and the marketing seasons will be in synchronicity with each other.


So pack up your newly-purchased backpacks with your newly-purchased school supplies and set your newly-purchased alarm clocks for tomorrow morning, children, because school started, like, yesterday.

A Soap Opera Actor Died this Week

A soap opera actor died this week. But he didn’t just die; he shot himself in the head in his home here in Huntington, New York. His name was Benjamin Hendrickson and he played Lt. Hal Munson on the television soap opera As the World Turns for over 20 years.

Hal Munson was an upright, loyal, dependable cop with a wrinkled shar-pei face and a good heart. He was the kind of man who maybe would forget to buy flowers on your birthday, but would step in to do the dinner dishes when he saw you were tired; who didn’t miss a child’s soccer game or school play; who would take a leave of absence from his job to nurse his mother as she was dying of cancer.

Benjamin Hendrickson took a leave of absence a few years ago, to handle what were announced as “personal problems.” He was replaced by a journeyman actor, but fans were overjoyed to see him return. He hadn’t looked well for several years; but no one knew what was happening inside. Surprisingly, I never ran into him in Huntington (which is really a very small town) although I once answered a telephone call from him when a film he was in was playing at our local art-house cinema.

I wonder if he knew how many fans he had. I don’t know if he had a fan club; he never played the sexy romantic character, and I think that fans of the show just liked to see him around Oakdale (the fictional town that mirrors Huntington), as familiar and re-assuring as the cop on the beat. I wonder if I had had a chance to meet him face-to-face at the Cinema or at the Public Library or at Heckscher Park, if I could have said anything that would have touched his heart and pierced through the depression to make his life worth living.

“Mr. Hendrickson,” I probably would have babbled like an idiot, “You are so cool! Millions of people enjoy seeing you on ‘As The World Turns.’ Watching you has made my life a little lighter. Keep up the good work!”

So what can I take from his sudden death? What is the universal truth that I can learn from his life? I once knew a bright, lovely, kind young man who worked for a newspaper. One day he was in an auto collision and poof! He was gone. He was so full of energy and light that it was hard to accept that he was erased from the Earth. Here’s what he taught me: numbers under ten should be written as numerals, and numbers over ten should be written out in letters. Or maybe it was the other way around. I don’t know. But I remember our conversation that day, and that’s what I carry around with me.

What can I learn from Benjamin Hendrickson, what lesson can I carry around for the rest of my life? Maybe nothing as practical or profound as the finer points of proofreading a newspaper article.

I suppose what I have learned from my friend, my cop on the beat, my Hal Munson, is that you can never know the pain a person is hiding deep inside; a pain mere words can never reach. ‘Benjamin,’ I want to say, ‘Your mother is supposed to die before you. It’s terrible, but it’s the way of the world. Benjamin,’ I want to say, ‘Your life has meaning to millions of people.’ ‘Benjamin,’ I want to say, ‘Give me a call and we’ll talk it out. You can save me and I can save you.’

Would it have made a difference?

July 10, 2006

Book Review: "The Telephone Gambit" by Seth Shulman

A thrill-ride, roller-coaster, can’t-put-it-down detective story you can devour in one day. Seth Shulman, a technology writer working in an office at MIT’s Dibner Institute, inadvertently happens upon a mystery regarding Alexander Graham Bell’s 1876 patent for the telephone.


Documents that had been sealed for more than a hundred years which were now open to the public through the Library of Congress, online, led him from Bell’s home-life and education in Scotland to courtrooms in the U.S. as he faced challenge after challenge to his questionable patent. But it was just a crucial few weeks in Bell’s 1876 notes that piqued Shulman’s curiosity and urged him to dig deeper into this 100+ year-old mystery. Bell paid a visit to Washington D.C., filed his patent, and then returned to Massachusetts with a completely different idea from the one he had been working on before his trip. Interestingly, his notes (when superimposed on inventor Elisha Gray’s own notes) seem to be influenced by Gray’s invention. The question is, did Bell have access to Gray’s notes, and if he did, how and when would he have done so? And what role did his future father-in-law, wealthy investor Gardner Greene Hubbard, play in obtaining the patent?


It’s all water over the Charles River Dam now, of course, with the humble telephone becoming obsolete while cell phones have supplanted what is now called, derisively, a “land phone,” meaning that contraption attached to your wall. Technology is racing so fast that an invention that, while still perfectly serviceable, is more at home in an antique shop than your home/office/media room.


But Shulman raises more important issues than just the possibility of wrong-doing at the Patent Office. Just who is Alexander Graham Bell? A teacher of the deaf, an elocutionist, an inventor. I can stare at photographs of the real Alec Bell, but in my mind he will look a close second to the iconic Alexander Graham Bell, as played by genial actor Don Ameche in the 1939 film, “The Story of Alexander Graham Bell.” The real Bell spoke with a thick Scottish burr, but the voice of Bell for nearly 70 years has been a mid-west American one. And his famous interjection, when he spilled battery acid [what was he doing with battery acid? It’s complicated; read the book] on himself and cried out, “Mr. Watson, come here, I need you!” in my mind’s eye brings forth another mid-westerner, young star-in-the-making Henry Fonda. (Whether that interjection was ever uttered, of course, is up for debate. History is what happened, but time refines, and what serves the story is what will survive as the truth. As with the rivalry between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse, between Nikola Tesla and Guglielmo Marconi, there is the truth, the myth, and what lies between.


What makes a myth? It needs four key components. First of all, a hero. A handsome young man with a vision and the intelligence and resourcefulness to see it through. Second, a storyline that moves inexorably from the beginning to a foregone conclusion: the man has a dream; he faces challenges along the way; then, when he’s almost at the point of despair, Eureka! suddenly his dream is realized! It helps, too, that there’s a villain – in this case, inventor Elisha Gray, of Western Electric, working on the same technology, claiming that the methodology was his, and that he was only thwarted by the time-stamp on his paperwork at the patent office in Washington D.C. And finally, a love interest for our hero. Mabel Hubbard, a lovely young hearing-impaired lass who was Bell’s student; a bright girl with a quick mind who was his cheerleader and champion. It didn’t hurt that Mabel’s father was a wealthy, influential mogul with the contacts to help Bell “jump the line” past Gray, as rumor has it. With a hero, storyline, villain and the girl, you have an irresistible concoction that is easily swallowed by the public.


Bell got his patent, but the years of litigation seem to have left him uninterested in furthering the technology of the telephone. It’s his name, ironically, that survives through all this: Bell. Bells are ringing; Bell Telephone; the symbol of Bell Telephone: a silhouette of a bell.


Shulman wisely limits his own personal details in the story; I was interested in his research methods, and his colleagues and contacts are described briefly, but they fade into the background and it’s Bell who remains on center stage.


When Alec and Mabel Bell at last retire to their estate in Canada at the turn of the last century, Shulman points out, it’s Bell’s scientific bent that leads him to remark on the greenhouse effect that was already causing the Earth’s temperature to rise. The man, after all, was not just a technician, or a scientist, or a lucky, well-connected patent jumper; he was, indeed, a visionary.

Book Review: "Let's Cook Together" by Bernice Stock

It’s not hard to shop or cook healthy foods for a child – the trick is to get them to eat what you have prepared! In “Let’s Cook Together,” a cookbook/guidebook dedicated to helping today’s child to enjoy healthy, nutritious foods. The meals are not simply presented to the child – the child is very much a participant in the process.

As an Early Childhood Educator, I have seen pre-school children go hungry at lunchtime rather than to eat unfamiliar foods. Bernice Stock gives novel strategies to entice the child into the world of natural, whole, organic foods.

In a word? “Relax.” Introduce new foods little by little, and without comment. Eat your salad without discussion. Be creative: Serve snacks on doll’s dishes.

Ready to begin? Begin at the beginning. Stock advises you take the time to plan a shopping trip with your child to your local health food store, farmer’s market, or even a well-stocked supermarket. Once home, explore ways to prepare the food. Stock gives more than 50 recipes to cover breakfast, lunch, and dinner, along with salad, snacks, and special treats. Each recipe lists ingredients and preparation instructions, as well as information on the nutritional value of the dish. The pages are decorated with charming, full-color illustrations by young children.

In her first book, “The Smorgasbord of My Life,” Ms. Stock recounts the ways in which her upbringing, always centered around the Family, both nourished and starved her; in any case, it all came down to Food: the food she was fed; the food she cooked as a young wife and mother; and the food that nearly destroyed her body. Ultimately, though, it was through the thoughtful, intelligent way that she learned to regard food as a friend, not an enemy, and the balm which helped her heal.

Book Review: "101 People Who Are Really Screwing America" by Jack Huberman

Dr. Phil is the LEAST Repugnant Person in this Book

Out of 101+ people in this book, Dr. Phil (#91) comes across as the least repugnant person who is really screwing America. After all, adults who are dumb enough to appear on his show deserve what they get and any child dumb enough to have parents who are dumb enough to appear on his show deserve what they get.

But the rest of the list? Scary. Far from being “Compassionate Conservatives,” the members of the Imperial Presidency (where is Richard Nixon when you need him?) and its Court have pulled a coup against our democratic system, with the result that we have a government of the Bushies, by the Bushies, and for the Bushies.

(To be clear: I am using the term “Bushies” to stand for everyone who stands against whatever I stand for: ending the Iraq War; respecting the environment and the scientific method; First Amendment, Second Amendment – OK, let’s say all the amendments, when interpreted by a fair and balanced Supreme Court – and yes, compassion.)

From the outdoor environment to the privacy of one’s own home, the Bushies do seem to be preoccupied with sex: from raping and pillaging our national natural resources to determining what happens in the privacy of one’s bedroom. Small-minded people, they hoard what they have, and then want more. From Pat Robertson (#55) and his “Christian Coalition” to Bradley Smith 1 (#79) and Bradley Smith 2 (#78), they seem to believe that they are the ones to set the national agenda – and why shouldn’t they? Since January 20, 2001, they have been.

In a prescient and eerie choice, #19, Alberto Gonzales, comes across as the worst Attorney General ever, in a book that was written well before this month’s (March 2007) events: the purge of the U.S. attorneys for purely partisan political reasons. And Condi Rice at #10 ranks even higher (the lower the number, the higher is your Screwing America listing) than Gonzales, most notably for her horrid, heartbreaking joke about 9/11: The Bush government was completely surprised on 9/11, she claimed, despite the title of the President’s Daily Briefing on August 6, 2001: “Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.” It must have been a joke, because she couldn’t have been serious.

Media figures in all forms come in for a drubbing: Rupert Murdoch (#14,) Clear Channel Communications (#50), and even the so-called Liberal Media (#13) are called on the carpet. In a system where a 24-hour news network, proclaiming itself “Fair and Balanced” (#28), is nothing but a mouthpiece for one political party, a confused Average American (#57 – oh, my, is no one spared from Huberman’s wrath?) had better turn off their Ipods and TV’s and cancel their newspaper subscriptions and curl up with a good book. (My Pet Goat would be an excellent choice. Just ask #2.).

My one quibble? #44. I’ll never forget my first time. And I refuse to give it up.

The book is amusing but infuriating. Keep away if you are a Democrat with high blood pressure. Everyone else, read at your own risk. But read it.

Book Review: "The G-d Delusion" by Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins can read my mind. That's the only explanation I find possible, because as I was reading "The G-d Delusion" I kept exclaiming to myself, "That's just what I always thought!" Except his language is more elegant than mine. Although, not always so elegant; his writing is accessible, engaging and clever, and some of his footnotes are LOL (Laugh Out Loud) funny.

[I Don't Know Why: Because of my religious upbringing, in this review I personally write the name "G-d"; observant Jews avoid writing the name casually because of the risk that the written name might later be defaced.]

Who's Got the Whole World in his Hands?: Dawkins, a respected biologist/philosopher, takes his reputation as Charles Darwin's fiercest supporter and asks how a scientist, or any educated adult, can possible believe in religion (the monotheist ones; he gives Buddhism and Confucianism a pass as "ethical systems or "philosophies of life"). I know I should feel insulted when he calls my G-d, the one I grew up believing in, the G-d of the Hebrew Bible, a "psychotic delinquent," (p. 38), but I like to keep an open mind. I was raised by parents who were themselves raised as Orthodox Jews, but as a family we slipped to Conservative Judaism; then I fell backward into Reform for a few years. I've flirted with the Reconstructionists, as well. I believe in Judaism as a culture, but find it hard to believe in the religion. Right now I'm a Jewish-born Questioner, but as a Questioner, for absolutely no reason, I still don't eat pork.

Teach Your Children Well: Dawkins was born an Anglican child, but rightly points out that a child isn't really a member of a religion, but basically a small human mimicking the words, prayers, and beliefs that were taught by his/her parents, who were obviously taught those words, prayers, and beliefs by their own parents. So the game goes on, and for thousands of years the collected weight of all of those maters and paters impress on the child, leaving him too laden by layers of guilt to make a conscious decision to question his faith. Every religion seems to have the same principle: pile on the guilt, until the child-turned-adult is paralyzed by fear of some version of fire and brimstone, and is afraid to declare himself an atheist, agnostic, or just a questioner with an open mind.

Did You Dance Along the Light of Day?: The book is a real page-turner, careening through space and time, language and culture, from a dissection of the Old and New Testaments, quoting from another recently published book, "Misquoting Jesus" (in England titled, "Whose Word Is It?") by Bart Ehrman on the perils of taking a book that had been translated and transcribed (and modified) by hundreds of translators and scribes over thousands of years, as gospel truth; to an overview of the Universe, with its billion billion available planets, and the probability of life on just one of them; to the political battles over creationism vs. science in school curricula, both in Great Britain and the United States. Along the way we, of course, meet some monkey-obsessed fanatics, and for the gazillionth time, Dawkins must explain, as he did in "The Ancestors' Tale," that we did not descend from monkeys, but do share a common ancestor. He most emphatically does not imply that your mother is a monkey.

The Fools on the Hill: The most devastating comparison in the book (although they are discussed at opposite ends of the book) is between Thomas Jefferson and his fellow Fathers who were most responsible for America's Founding, whom Dawkins describes as "passionate secularists" (p. 43) and the recently-disgraced Pastor Ted Haggard - his disgrace revealed too recently to be included in this first edition - as "the interviewee who most appalled the British television audience." (p. 319). In fact, according to Dawkins, the British are horrified by the influence of religious Fundamentalists in the United States. I must have some British genes, because I am equally horrified.

Now I Don't Claim to be an A Student: The worrisome thing about the anti-science bias promulgated by religious fanatics is the way that they need to subvert scientific knowledge to fit in with their religious beliefs. It's as if their Intelligent Designer just created the Earth about 6,000 years ago - the Young Earth theory - populating his arts and crafts project with both dinosaurs and homo sapiens, disregarding any evidence that biologists, geologists, and anthropologists (and many other -ologists) have discovered over the course of human history. If the Bible is a "major source book for literary culture," (p. 341) and the King James Bible "includes passages of outstanding literary merit," Dawkins will admit that the Bibles and holy books of religion are beautifully written stories, allegories, and a glimpse into the minds of the men who wrote them, but they most assuredly are not science. Thus the religious -ologists must twist the scientific facts to fit their faith.

But I'm Trying to Be: The rigorous scientific method demands measurable evidence and experiments that can be replicated independently by others. Expecting a book or series of books written thousands of years ago to explain phenomena that have been discovered in just the past hundred years is like expecting the Albert Einstein of 1905 to fly a rocket to the moon - he was responsible for making moon rockets possible, but in 1905 he could only imagine the dream, not fulfill it.

Fall In to the Gap: "Gap" is the favorite explanation by the religious of events or processes that are not understood right now, leading them to rush to fill in the Gap with their Designer, rather than using objective, impartial inquiry, with the knowledge that is known to date, and pursuing questions that have not been answered yet.

Dites-moi, Pourquoi (Tell Me Why)?: Dawkins doesn't know it all. I don't know it all. Yet.

I'm a Questioner.

Thank you for reading this review. Give yourself 5 points for every song title or lyric that you recognized.

Book Review: "The Merchant of Power" by John Wasik

The Most Famous Man You've Never Heard Of; Subtitled: "The more you know, the more you know you don't know."

Coming across "The Merchant Of Power" by John Wasik, I was intrigued by the title and book jacket, but I half expected this book to be a clever spoof, like a book-bound Zelig. It was hard to believe that one person could have had such an effect on the history of the United States, indeed living a substantial part of his life in New York City, but had been almost erased from history less than a century later. In fact, I Googled Mr. Insull, and found that yes, he did exist, and yes, he was that influential in the modern industrialized America of the late 19th- and early 20th-century.

Insull was the business "brain" behind the eccentric tinkerer, Thomas Edison, who comes across as something of an old fool, and in the New York years, Insull was deeply involved in the Edison/Westinghouse/Tesla/AC/DC controversy, and the bitter J.P. Morgan takeover of Edison Electric (which became General Electric). Getting the heck out of Dodge before things got too dicey, he headed west to a primitive outpost on the edge of the American frontier, Chicago. Finally he was able to work his magic without running up against adversaries like Morgan or George Westinghouse; he bought and consolidated several small electric companies that were serving the city and created the complex electric grid that we know today.

Part biography, part history, part science (or, electrical engineering, at least) and part gossip, the book illuminates a forgotten man, and a never-to-be-forgotten period of the American story.

Book Review: "Dangerous Nation" by Robert Kagan

Be prepared to be shocked (and awed) because Robert Kagan posits some of the most controversial theories about the United States' foreign policy including:

Washington's Farewell Address: a speech not for the ages, but one only intended for the first few years of the young republic Monroe Doctrine: much debated, but not implemented, because of the issue that tore apart the nation in the second quarter of the 19th century Hawaiian Statehood: applied for annexation to the United States in the first half of the 19th century, but because it fell south of the Missouri compromise line, and thus would be classified as a slave state, refused, and had to wait more than 100 years to join the nation as a state The Spanish-American War: perhaps the most popular war in U.S. history?

Kagan takes us on an exhaustive, exhausting thrill-ride through the foreign policy decisions of the United States from its pre-Revolutionary War era to the Spanish-American War at the end of the 19th century. (The reader will have to wait for the next volume to find out what happens in the twentieth century.) Forget your dull high school history books; what you'll find here confounds the complacent reader who can name the Battles of each of our wars, but not the battles that were fought before, during, and after the bloodshed.

The saddest, most shocking section of the book focuses on the issue that eclipsed America's external focus of terroritorial expansion in the 19th century as it imploded in the years from the 1820's to the 1860's: slavery. Kagan describes a time when the United States stood alone among the nations of the world as our shameful sin, slavery, was denounced by intellectuals and the common man throughout the rest of the world community. We were founded on a belief that all men were created equal, and indeed had certain inalienable rights, yet we were hypocritically ignoring the denial of rights to our fellow human beings toiling in our own backyards.

The war that erupted between two sections of the country, sections as diametrically opposed to each other as the primary colors of red and blue, was the most wretched, hard-fought, emotionally-charged conflict in our history. And the aftermath was just as devastating as the lead-up to the war, with the South feeling itself to be an occupied country, with its "colored" population hardly any better off than they were before the War.

Kagan introduces us to characters who were the rock stars of their time (think Bono, not Britney). John Quincy Adams emerges from the shadow of a much-respected Founding Father father to become the leading abolitionist in public office. And William Seward, who, alas, has gone down in history attached to the unfortunate moniker "Folly," is revealed as one of New York State's (and the nation's) most principled, distinguished statesmen. (And Seward's Folly? Hardly. The 20th century Cold War would have heated up to a boil if Russia had still maintained a presence in the North American continent.)

Perhaps the biggest revelation in the book concerns the Spanish-American War, over the issue of Cuban independence. Cuban rebels, in an attempt to repel the Spanish, ceased working in any industry in an effort to force the Spanish out; the Spanish, playing hardball, removed hundreds of thousands of Cubans from their homes and settled them in (re)concentration camps, where as many as 300,000 are believed to have died from starvation. The citizens of the United States, Kagan maintains, demanded military action, fueled not by revenge for the sinking of the Maine, not by the lurid stories of the so-called yellow journalists, but by humanitarian concerns.

Heroes and villains, brilliant minds and darkest hearts, Kagan introduces you to a country, a people, who struggled to create a society that reflected the very best in human achievement, sometimes attaining it, sometimes not.

Book Review: "Amazing Grace" by Jonathan Kozol

Jonathan Kozol’s 1995 book, “Amazing Grace,” is intriguing, yet infuriating. While I was drawn to the subject, a study of the children of New York City’s South Bronx neighborhood, I was put off by the “Note to the Reader” at the front of the book, which warns that some names have been changed (I can live with that) but also that “conversations have been condensed” and “some events have been resequenced,” which leaves me wondering what parts of which conversations with whom have been resequenced (a word that Microsoft Word 2003 does not even recognize) and when? Because the book is presented in a chronological order, one would assume a natural progression: as a general rule, time goes by, seasons change, and children mature. In real life we don’t get the chance to resequence

The book is basically a series of conversations, with Kozol trying to be the unbiased questioner, who lets his characters, excuse me, interviewees, write his book for him. Very rarely is his voice heard; he only allows some sadness, and some delight, filter through. Statements are made, facts are reported, but one must keep referring to the Notes at the back of the book to substantiate the facts, and check the dates, because we just never can be sure what has been resequenced. It would almost have been more efficient to include the notes in the body of the book, so one does not have to continually flip back and forth from the text to the notes.

The children in the book are lovely, and it is their amazing grace shining through the constant sorrow that gives this book its title. Although it is true that we are all equal, in truth we are all different, and Mr. Kozol’s skin color, clothing, speech and demeanor mark him as a stranger in this strange land called the Bronx. (The villain of the piece is actually New York’s master builder, Robert Moses, who cut a deep swathe, the “Cross Bronx Expressway,” through the heart of the neighborhood and created a slum where there had once been a thriving community.) And because Mr. Kozol is a foreigner, indeed he wears the skin and clothing of The Powers That Be, one must wonder if his conversations with the children and parents are indicative of their true feelings, or are they just telling him what they think he wants to hear?

Mothers and grandmothers are the true heroes of the piece; guiding their precious children (including one, here called, “Precious,” although who knows if that name has been changed) through a drug- and crime-infested hell, while fathers, sons and daughters bounce from hospitals to prisons to the cemetery. HIV-infection is a very real force here, although since the book is now 12 years old I do not know what effect the disease has on the community today.

The book’s structure is flawed, but the story is inspiring, and makes the reader question how the children can be saved. Is it the obligation of the City government, which seems to have done a fine job relocating its “problem children” from their visibility in homeless shelters in Manhattan to the far, far away, out-of-sight, out-of-mind Bronx? Is it to be solved by mentoring, one-on-one, as 13-year-old “Anthony” is guided in his education by an older gentleman, a writer and poet? Should Kozol have just picked up Precious and adopted her into his Massachusetts family life, thus rescuing her from her certain tragic fate?

And those of us who are teachers, what is our role? Kozol seems to leave us in despair, as if there is nothing that a human being can do to turn this tide. We have to hope that the influence of an inspired teacher could make a dent in the defenses that these children have built up, like a shield, to guard them from the hard knocks of their hard lives. Maybe a teacher can, because if we didn’t believe that such a thing was possible, we might as well turn in our chalk and go home.

Book Review: "Louisa May Alcott, A Modern Biography" by Martha Saxton

I can't remember the last time a book made me cry; it was probably 50 years ago when I first read "Little Women"; Beth's death was unbearably sad, but there is a death in this book that is even more shocking and unexpected, all the more so because it is a biography, and not fiction. Louisa May Alcott (the middle name "May" was not added to her name for the lilt, as in Cheryl "Lynn," but was in fact her mother's maiden name -- a charming custom at the time, but not in the best interest of security, today, almost like my telling you my mother's maiden name) lived a mean, hard-scrabble life. Growing up in a family of four daughters, with a transcendentalist-philosopher father who did not believe in working for pay, owning property, or running a business; Louisa and her sisters subsisted on a diet of raw apples and cold water for much of their childhood, with the occasional hard cracker for fiber. Her father did believe in charity, however, so her life -- and her mother's life -- was a constant scratch for money to support the family, any way they could.

Louisa was a teacher, governess, and paid companion to an invalid woman; until at last she was able to bring in enough money through her writing to keep her parents comfortable; although there were no luxuries in the Alcott homestead, eventually she was able to install a furnace. Even then, it seemed, when she was a famous author, earning large advances for her books, there was never enough money for her to feel secure.

She did indeed have an older sister, who married a steady, boring young man (the Meg and John Brooke of "Little Women") and a frail sister, Beth, who met the same fate as her eponymous doppelganger in "LW", and a young, pretty artist sister, the baby and beauty of the family, named Abigail, nicknamed Abby (after her mother, who was nicknamed Abba) who changed her name to May (to distinguish herself from her mother).

The world of the Alcotts in Massachusetts was populated with the era's greatest thinkers: Ralph Waldo Emerson was their next-door neighbor; as a teenager Louisa had a mad crush on a local gardener, Henry David Thoreau, a misogynistic mama's boy whom one could kindly describe as a "shrub shlub." Nathaniel Hawthorne was another neighbor; Walt Whitman made an appearence in Concord; May, studying painting in Europe, befriended no less a light than Mary Cassatt, the pre-eminent female artist of the time. The Alcotts' world was peopled with women's suffragists (Louisa voting for the first time -- in a school board election!) and abolitionists such as John Brown and William Lloyd Garrison.

Louisa's greatest personal triumph was probably her service as a nurse during the Civil War; although the adventure ended badly, and left her health in ruins for the rest of her life, it was there that she used her hands, and head, and heart to heal the broken young men in the Grand Army hospital. Surprisingly, and sadly, the writing of "Little Women" was not the heartfelt outpouring of a romantic soul, but a simply a work ground out by a sick, tired woman to pay her family's endless debts.

When, towards the end, Emerson appears in the family's parlor -- for he had been asked to "break the news" of yet another sad passing (and you know your family is distinguished when America's greatest living [and perhaps all-time] philosopher is in your home to deliver sad news) -- you'll reach for your Puffs, with Aloe.

But don't cry for Louisa, when death finally comes, it is an almost blessed relief.

Book Review: "The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll -- The Search for Dare Wright" by Jean Nathan

Just as every little girl wonders about the secret life of her dolls -- teddy bear picnics and dolly tea parties when Mommie is not at home -- so we adults wonder about the lives of the authors who have brought us our favorite childhood books. They must have been beautiful princesses, we surmise, or else lonely old maids whose lives were lived through their characters. Dare Wright was an odd combination of the two -- a beautiful child/woman, who was primped and shaped by her mother, Edie, a well-known, well-respected portrait painter of her time, though a devastatingly domineering mother -- but who, after her mother died, indeed became a lonely old maid, bereft of any family ties.

Jean Nathan's "The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll: The Search for Dare Wright" strips away the pink and white gingham cover facade of the Lonely Doll books to show us the bizarre, unconventional life of Dare Wright, a model/photographer/and author of the books, and her mother, a two-for-one pair all-but conjoined throughout Dare's life.

When first introduced to a child, the adventures of the lonely doll, Edith, and her companions, Mr. Bear and Little Bear, are enchanting. The lonely doll seems to be living in a swanky New York City apartment, but there are no scenes of a little girl's room, or even any evidence that a child lived in that home at all. In fact, Edith doesn't seem to belong to anyone; does she live alone? Is that her apartment? Whose dressing room and jewel box do Edith and Little Bear pillage and plunder? And how exactly did the Bears come to show up on the lonely doll's doorstep?

Reading Jean Nathan's book, it is quite clear to the arm-chair psychoanalyst that Mr. Bear and Little Bear are substitutes for the father and big brother that Edie callusly cast out of her life and her daughter's. For many years, Edie pretended that she had never had a son, while Dare tried to make sense of her buried memories of a family of four people that she could not clearly picture in her conscious mind.

There are parts of the book that don't seem right, and as a doll collector (and owner of a very old cloth doll) I wished had been explored more carefully: the doll in the picture book series is made of fabric (by the Italian doll company Lenci), but doesn't photograph as a 20+year-old doll; the fabric looks immaculate, and shows no signs of wear. In later books, the doll keeps getting makeovers, but somehow the cloth's integrity is sturdy enough to keep up with changing fashions. And I have long been fascinated by the photo of Edith and Little Bear, standing with their backs to the camera, on the totally deserted Brooklyn Bridge. The mechanics of managing that location shoot must have entailed months of paperwork and permits and I would have liked to have just a few details of the artist's creative processes, and the actual task of wrangling those dolls (who truly seemed to have minds of their own) into such perfect poses.

"The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll" is a book for grown-ups; once you have read it, you can never again look at the series of Lonely Doll books with child-like wonder. But for the adult reader it fills in the missing pieces of the books; the lonely Dare Wright created for herself a mother-less universe, with a father and brother who promised to never leave her, and together the three of them would live happily ever after.

Book Review: "Fast Food Nation" by Eric Schlosser

(This review was written on December 31, 2006, and is being posted today in light of recent news events concerning beef recalls due to the possibility of diseased cows in the food supply chain.)

This book made me sick. Literally. And figuratively. Figuratively, while reading about sweetheart deals between some members of a certain national political party who are in bed with (literally, in the case of former Texas Senator Phil Gramm and his wife) food processing companies and manufacturers (and yes, food is manufactured, just like any other industrial product), my blood seemed to boil.

Literally, while I digested the chapters on slaughterhouses, Escherichia coli O157:H7, Salmonella, and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (Mad Cow disease) coursed through my body. (Perhaps hypochondriacally, perhaps not.) Author Eric Schlosser follows in muckraking writer Upton Sinclair’s (The Jungle, 1906) muckraking footsteps, and what a lot of muck there is to rake! The book covers such a broad range of issues, political, scientific, and sociological, that there are enough topics for any reader to order from a menu (with more choices than you’ll find at the local McDonald’s) and find a choice sure to enrage. Dead-end career track for fast-food workers? Check. Obesity in America? Check. Union busting? Check.

Wait, whatever happened to unions? In the earlier part of the last century, unions protected laborers and acted with one voice to speak for many. Now food processing companies are forming conglomerates to stifle the voice of the individual worker, demanding greater productivity at cheaper wages, and union-busting techniques are simply business-as-usual.

Back to our menu. Inspiring stories of young mavericks like Carl Karcher of Carl’s Jr. restaurants, and J. R. Simplot, of Idaho potato fame, give a glimpse of what some remarkable individuals with grit, gumption, and not much else, can achieve. It’s only when we reach the 1960’s when the spread, through franchising, of fast-food chains throughout the country (and later the world) that we see nutrition disappearing from America’s dinner tables (and car seats!) as healthy foods are replaced by chemically-processed fake foods.

But by far, the slaughterhouse descriptions are the most revolting chapters of the book. Do you care about unskilled laborers working with barely any protection from OSHA? The accident rate among those workers? The poverty levels of the workers? If you don’t, that’s OK, because I wasn’t referring to that.

I’m referring to the blood and guts of the slaughtering process.

And I’m referring to the hamburgers that the public has been eating. I have eaten my last hamburger. On page 197, line 22, of the paperback edition, you will find out why.