Steve Felson's VISITS to VIRGINIA

In loving memory of Virginia Raphaelson Felson October 12, 1914 – June 30, 2016

Visits to my mother, April 13, 2014 - June 30, 2016

by Steve Felson

HEY, MOM, THE MOVIE’S OVER – LET’S EAT

From January through October April of 2014 I was in the hospital with various lung, heart and liver ailments. While I’m sure mom would’ve been strong enough physically to visit, it was deemed best that we only talk on the phone, which we did many times. After a call I always felt that I had better keep up my resolve because it is not in the nature of things for a child to die before a parent and I did not want to start any negative family traditions.

As you know, mom has five children, 12 nieces and nephews, and a bunch of cousins on both the Berman and the Raphaelson side. Many of these have spouses and kids of their own. Only a few live in or near Cincinnati, however, and it occurred to me after my first post-hospital visit to her assisted-living quarters at Evergreen that I might write something up about my visits and email it to this group. After all, 100-year-old relatives are rare and this is a close family.

After some positive feedback I started putting a little more “oomph” into them, as my dad used to say. Next thing you know my cousin Judy Duchan began collecting them and this is the result.

Steve Felson

April 13, 2014

Saw mom today, first time in three months. I cannot see much change, deterioration, etc., from how she was a few years ago: memory shaky but existent, hearing on and off but comprehending mostly, able to exchange banter with fellow Evergreen residents as before. Some of you have seen her recently -- do you agree or am I missing something?

I also talked to [her grandson] Alex today and he mentioned his soccer team and how rough everyone played, mostly the Europeans and South Americans. It reminded me of a story my dad used to tell about playing pick-up basketball at the Jewish Center when he was in his 40s.

A new player kept elbowing dad out of position to grab rebounds, playing a much rougher game than anyone was used to. Words were exchanged but the rough play continued. Dad came home with bruises. The next day he met his new radiology residents and there was the same guy, Hal Schneider, M.D. Hal later became a close family friend but it took dad a long time to warm up to him.

Not a Virginia story but it will have to do until next time.

May 11, 2014

Ed and Marsha went to pick mom up for brunch yesterday but she didn't want to go out because of tiredness. They persuaded her and we all met at the Sleepy Bee Cafe in Oakley (out Madison Road). Mom was still drowsy when she arrived; she asked us not to order her anything, she would just eat a little of ours. All she needed was some lemon slices for her ice water.

Not willing to be suckered yet again, we ordered a fourth entree, quiche, and put it in the middle of the table. We thus had just enough to eat as mom perked up, twirled her sil- verware, and started sampling vigorously from all four plates. She pronounced everything excellent, especially the eggs benedict. Her attitude towards the chocolate mousse cake dessert resembled that of large carnivores to the Serengeti zebra population.

There's been some question about a persistent cough but I didn't hear it until we were almost home. Carmen, her super-competent chief caretaker, is keeping an eye on it.

May 25, 2014

Rich, Sharon and I visited mom yesterday after lunch. Her hearing was fine and she en- gaged in conversation at a level I haven't seen in a while, probably because she wasn't as tired as usual.

While she mentioned several times -- very casually -- that she would like to find someone to help her die, her heart wasn't in it this time as it sometimes is. She laughed at several jokes and was generally in good spirits. She also was able to use her walker from the living room to the bathroom without assistance.

We were very encouraged with regard to her making it to birthday # 100 in October.

June 15, 2014

Saw mom Saturday afternoon. When I arrived she was watching her favorite station, Channel 64, Turner Classic Movies, which was showing The Misfits (1961), with Mont- gomery Clift as the bull rider (!!), Marilyn Monroe as the girl who loves him, Clark Gable as the guy (named "Gay") who loves her, and Eli Wallach as "Guido," who was just hanging around as far as I could tell. I've stayed away from this movie over the years

!2 | Page because Clift as a bronco buster has about the same credibility as Gable would if cast as Little Lord Fauntleroy.

Mom must have liked it because she wouldn't take off her headphones, pretty much a prerequisite to conversation. She did manage to instruct Shawnee (one of her helpers) to get me some peanuts, apparently forgetting my low-sodium diet. I must have forgot- ten it also, since I ate plenty.

Shawnee reports that mom has been walking around quite a bit (using her walker, of course), despite recent blood clots in both legs and the consequent transfusion. I guess our worries about that event were exaggerated, as usual.

By the time I was ready to leave, Monty Clift was pretty much dead and I never found out whether laying his head in Marilyn's lap revived him. If the movies can sell a professor putting a little dab of ointment on a baseball which causes it to avoid all contact with wooden bats [It Happens Every Spring, 1949, with Ray Milland as the professor], I don’t see why a lap cure for a gunshot wound in the gut is all that implausible.

September 20, 2014

Mom asked me last week about the possibility of bringing in Cincinnati Chili to add a little variety to her bland institutional diet. She quizzed me extensively on the differences between three-ways, four-ways and five-ways, juicy vs. non-juicy, small, regular and jumbo. We never got to "inverted," which only I and a couple of other old-timers have ever ordered, or ever even heard of ("cuts like a pie").

I reminded her that many times over the 70 or so years I've known her she has made it clear that she has no use for Cincinnati Chili, whether Empress, Skyline, or Goldstar, straight up or inverted, juicy or whatever. No, she does like it, she now says. I promised to pick some up after my bridge game the next Saturday (today).

So I go to the drive-thru in Reading and lug a couple of four-ways plus cheese coneys up to her room. I know enough to re-heat her portion on a plate before serving it -- mom likes warmed plates for all meals. While Julia Child recommends warming your plates when serving lamb to avoid congealing fat, and while the Ritz-Carlton in London warms every plate just for the fun of it, I'm guessing this is the only take-out Cincinnati Chili ever served on a warmed plate.

Mom added Tabasco Sauce and ate half of her four-way, praising it to the heavens. Af- ter a brief pause she had some more. At about the 3/4 mark I put the rest away for the next day. Mom had me save the plastic coney containers for future use -- "good to put pickles in." Who knew she encountered that many stray pickles in need of a container.

BTW, mom loved her Camp Joy outing, where the staff and the kids honored her for her work over the years. Carmen sent some photos around.

!3 | Page October 18, 2014

Mama, I'm coming mama, can you hear me? I'm bringin' a 4-way, mama, can you hear me? I'm bringin' brisket, I'm bringin' chopped liver, I'm bringin' chicken soup and matzo balls, can you hear me mama? I'm bringin' corned beef, I'm bringin' a Reuben, I'm bringin' sauerkraut, I'm bringin' pickles, can you hear me mama? What's that, mama? Too greasy? Hey, Murray, hold the latke.

[This passage was obviously inspired by Sylvester Marcus’s telephone conversation with his mother in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), not from a visit with my mom. I had it lying around somewhere and I’m tossing it in as perfectly apropos. Since you ask, Sylvester Marcus was played by Dick Shawn and his mother by Ethel Merman.]

October 20, 2014

Saw mom Saturday around dinner time. She was still ecstatic about the great parties and about all the people who came in for her 100th, and seemed to remember most of them. She criticized a few, but mostly gave praise where it was due, and even where it wasn't.

She was so exuberant she turned away from Fame on Location (1980), with its hundreds of dancing teenagers, to discuss the weekend's events.

I then noticed that she was holding her hands in front of her, moving them back and forth and bouncing a little bit. I found this odd. She kept doing it. I finally asked her. Her response: "Did I ever go horseback riding?" I didn’t know. "Well," she said, "I'm practic- ing in case I have to."

November 16, 2014

Mom asked me to bring barbecue for lunch today but Jim Dandy's turned out to be closed on Sunday – I guess Jim is busy in church – and I had to settle for Skyline. Of course, that is an oxymoron for anyone raised in Cincinnati. You can't "settle" for Skyline because that would imply there is something better, which there isn't.

Mom was pretty busy with the movie and asked me if I'd ever seen it. I took a quick look and noted a bunch of English kids singing and dancing, dancing and singing, all about someone named Oliver. I told her it sounded familiar.

Mom is very anxious to get up to Huston Woods for Thanksgiving, both to see the cousins who are coming in and to work on sorting dad's World War II letters. I think she's been through them all, but fading memory makes every letter a new adventure on the front lines.

!4 | Page Mom's questions from the past had been written out earlier in the week by one of her helpers:

• Where is Selma buried? [her sister who died in the 1970s]

My answer: We lost the urn with the ashes so she probably isn't buried at all. If she is it's over on Ludlow Avenue near a tombstone which has your name on it. No need to hurry over to join her – she’ll still be there after the holiday.

• What job did she (mom) have during the war? Dad mentioned public speaking in one of his war letters.

My answer: All I know is you worked for the Red Cross.

• Do you [Steve] have any plans for your burial and is there anyone you want to be buried with?

My answer: If it's a warm day I’d like to be cremated. I’m hoping to be buried with Wayne Newton.

• You're joking. And who's Wayne Newton?

December 15, 2014

Ed and I took some Chinese out to mom's yesterday and ate with her and Shawnee. Al- ternating with her protestations of not being hungry, mom asked about each dish and soon had them rotating by her: a crab appetizer, shrimp, ribs, chicken, hot and sour soup, bok choy with garlic. She would take a bite or two from the dish in front of her, point across the table, and say "what’s that?" Round and round we went, and the meal I thought would serve six only served four.

Mom then expressed a desire to hear about my school history. I had to leave so I promised to email something to Shawnee. When I did, a long paragraph, Shawnee re- sponded that mom was not satisfied – she needed to know the exact years, what house she was living in at the time of each change of schools, etc. I complied and Shawnee wrote back that mom had commented favorably on the improvement.

It then occurred to me that if mom is asking so assiduously about my past she might like to hear the same from her other children, as well as from her nieces, nephews, and grandchildren. If any of you has a few minutes for this, I suggest a quick rundown of your schooling, adding the year and the city you lived in. [I heard later that some of you did so.]

!5 | Page January 10, 2015

For better or for worse, mom has now retreated into the world of cinema and doesn't feel much like coming out. Amit, Yifot and I took Chinese food out to her place a few days ago and she came to the table very reluctantly, missing the end of Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938). [If this movie were made today, God only knows what would’ve happened to Judy Garland, the 12-year-old madly in love with Andy (Mickey Rooney). In 1938 Andy ended up with a more mature 15-year-old (played by 21-year-old Ann Rutherford) and Judy found solace in song.]

Mom loved the food but complained she couldn't hear us talking around the table. When we finally got her hearing device working better she announced to her helper, "Now that I can hear, the movie was better."

She did permit us to read her one of dad's letters, then went back to the recliner. We went home.

Today I took her some Skyline and more war letters. She was watching Big Jake (1971). John Wayne played guess who, and the plot involved a lot of prairie interaction between Big John, Richard Boone, and a bunch of soon-to-be-shot cowboys. She asked if she could eat her chili in her movie chair, so we watched together to the end, me having missed the first hour plus.

Afterwards she asked me why the prairie kid did not know Big Jake was his grandfather. I did the best I could: Grandpa Jake had gone off to Mexico when the grandson was very young, panned for gold in the Sierra Madre, lived with the Indians, etc. [Hold on, isn’t that the plot of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)? Now I’m confused.] She was satisfied, and I could she see she was looking forward to the next feature, The Reivers (1969), a Steve McQueen vehicle based upon a William Faulkner story. I left before it started.

I've often said I prefer a movie dialogue to chitchat among humans. However, I like humans also, and even talk to them sometimes. I'm not sure mom wants to do that anymore.

February 8, 2015

Saturday afternoon – mom still “reeling” from watching Gone With the Wind (1939) Fri- day evening: "It was so long!"

I brought homemade chicken soup – don't worry, no chickens were killed in the making of my soup, at least not by me – and homemade matzo balls (no matzos killed either). Unlike some mothers, mine did not automatically praise my work. She tasted it carefully, had it reheated, tasted it again, and finally pronounced the matzo balls pretty good and the soup excellent.

!6 | Page I couldn't stay too long, but not a moment went by when mom did not try to get me to read the newly bound Felson cousin book, project of Judy and possibly Beth. Mom was particularly keen on Beth and her accomplishments. When I couldn't recite them from memory she concluded that I I'd better stop everything and “read this book.”

I only got out of it by complaining that I spend all day reading, that I've known my cousins virtually since birth, and that if I am going to absorb any more information it will not be about my cousins but rather about the meaning of life and where we go afterwards. If that is not available, I will read my father's World War II letters. That seemed to satisfy her. Sorry, cousins.

March 1, 2015

I brought some Skyline over to mom's on Saturday, a little after 5 PM, and found her immersed in the last half hour of Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (1943). The big question, as far as I could see, was whether the villain, played by Joseph Cotten, would succeed in throwing young, innocent Teresa Wright off the moving train or whether she would escape his pretty weak grasp, leaving him to stumble and fall off himself. Ms. Wright looked pretty determined for the first part of the lengthy struggle, so I was not surprised when the villain got what he deserved somewhere between Santa Rosa and Petaluma, California.

Mom then sat down to eat, devouring half of her four-way and saving the rest for later. We had a nice talk as the time for the next movie approached. I mentioned that I thought it was a good one, The China Syndrome (1979). I stayed and watched with her.

This film came out 36 years after Shadow of a Doubt. Movies and morals had changed and the hero (Jack Lemmon) got what he didn't deserve – a bullet in the back by an agent of the evil nuclear power corporation. I ask you: don’t these moviemakers know that corporations are people too, at least according to the Supreme Court?

Luckily for our moral values, the hero’s exposé lived on through the efforts of his best friend (played by Wilford Brimley); of that intrepid TV reporter with the fabulous red hair, Kimberly Wells (Jane Fonda); and of the even-more-intrepid cameraman (Michael Dou- glas, pre-stardom).

About 45 minutes into the movie mom began having some irritation in her left eye and became very agitated about it. She said she needed a doctor. Shawnee brought her a warm cloth, which helped. Then she had a problem sitting and Shawnee had to put pil- lows under her. Shawnee told me this was all fairly routine – mom often has similar pain when she sits all day. I was worried and later emailed Nancy and Carmen, her main helper.

About an hour after I got home, mom called and said she was fine, and Shawnee ex- plained that mom had been upset by the nuclear disaster which almost occurred in the movie. I am still waiting to see what Carmen and Nancy will say, but perhaps there is a

!7 | Page mixture here of mental and physical agitation which is too complicated for easy diagno- sis.

Stay tuned.

March 22, 2015

Ed and Marsha brought ribs, fancy sauerkraut, and salad for dinner with mom yesterday (Saturday). She complained about her hearing device. We tried it on ourselves and it seemed to be working fine. There must be a severe concentration factor involved here, because a few minutes later she was hearing conversation from across the room, when earlier you could look right at her and mouth the words into the device and she said she couldn't hear. I am unable to solve this problem.

With no good movie on TV we made do with bird photos and sounds from Merlin, the Cornell Bird Lab's App for identifying our favorite feathered friends. Mom loved the gor- geous photographs and her ability to scroll to one bird after another. She then had Shawnee look for a bird book which she was sure she had, but it remained unfound.

She was so happy with this pursuit that I wonder if there is some electronic device that would be simple enough for her to use – something less complicated than a cell phone. I should add that we did not merely peruse a few lousy robins and cardinals – for example, we checked out every species of thrush except the kind I had in the hospital.

Any suggestions? [Nobody had any.]

April 19, 2015

Mom has been after me for some time to bring lobster for dinner. I mentioned on the phone to her helper that I would bring some on Sunday and in the background I heard, quite loud: "And egg roll."

Okay, I know she was probably visualizing big chunks of Red Lobster lobster swimming in butter. Instead I went to Uncle Yip's and ordered "double lobster with ginger and scal- lions," a couple of egg rolls, and some spicy seafood soup. The last time I brought Chi- nese she added hot sauce, so I didn't think the heat would be a problem.

When I arrived, mom was watching the last few scenes of The China Syndrome (1979), which I was sure we had seen a few weeks earlier. Once Star Reporter Fonda had wrapped things up by getting a witness to exonerate Jack Lemmon as "not crazy," thus bringing the same big bad corporation to its figurative knees (kids, don’t try to visualize this at home), mom couldn't wait to get to the table to try out the food.

Unfortunately, the soup did prove too spicy and she only ate a bit, although she did not complain. Then she sawed an egg roll in half, certain she wasn't hungry enough to eat a whole one. By the time she asked for more I had finished them.

!8 | Page She accepted that unfortunate situation and got to work on the lobster. She asked what it was, poking it with her chopsticks. She didn't seem to understand the word "lobster," so I jumped up and made clawing motions at her, which did the trick. She poked around on her plate a little more, perhaps daring me to try to help her – I knew better of course.

Every time she picked up a different-looking piece she would ask me again what it was, I would claw the air and make lobster noises, and she would suck out a few morsels and pull some more out with her chopsticks. It later occurred to me that lobsters are mute, but when you’re eating with your 100-year-old mother, laughs, interest, aware- ness, any kind of life in the conversation are more important than scientific accuracy. Lobster goes ARRRRGH-OOOO-AHHH!

She was a bit nonplussed upon finding a roundish piece with two long antennae. "That’s the head, mom." She was incredulous until I pointed to the protuberances on either side – unmistakably eyeballs. Satisfied, she sucked out the head meat as if she’d been raised in Hong Kong.

During dinner mom brought up the Tiffany window that used to be in our house on Rose Hill. I had to go through the whole story about Amit and I driving it to the Christie’s warehouse in Brooklyn for sale at auction. She couldn’t believe we got it all the way up there without it falling off the car. Nancy, she would really love to see that Tiffany window and lampshade catalog but Mila and I couldn't find it. I know I've seen it somewhere recently. Any idea where it might be?

We then talked politics. Mom wanted to make sure I was going to vote for Hillary, and also requested that I vote for Michelle Obama should she happen to run. Then came the next movie, The Third Man (Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten, 1949), which I probably have seen – at least in part – half a dozen times, including a couple of weeks ago (or is my memory shaky on this also?). I watched until a street cat looked up at someone in the back alley shadows who I knew had to be the Orson Welles character (Harry Lime), the fake penicillin black marketeer. I also knew where Harry was heading – the sewers – so I headed home with the excuse that I had to put some Liquid Plumber in my own slow drains.

By the way, unlike the slimy sewers in every other sewer movie I've seen – and I've seen my share – the sewers of Vienna, while dark, contain cobblestones with the polish and character of a Paris street scene by Utrillo. A little overhead lighting and you could condo the entire complex.

Finally, I just had a memory flash of the first time I ever heard a person request a song from a band -- it was the zither music from this same movie. And guess who made the request. (Hint -- he/she was married to one of my siblings at the time.)

A bientot!

!9 | Page April 26, 2015

Answer to last week’s quiz: Roderich Walter, father of Alex and Sabrina, circa 1963.

It turns out mom likes chicken quesadillas quite a bit, pork burritos not so much, beans and rice a little less. The milder of the hot sauces she finds tolerable. All this was total news to me, but then again I've only known her for 70 years.

More likes: Shirley McClain in Irma La Douce (1963) and a documentary she has not yet seen called Monkey Kingdom. Someone gave her a summary of the latter on a couple of printed pages, which she had me read. It is not yet available on Netflix but I have it on my "saved" list. Carmen would have to bring over a portable DVD player in order for mom to see it, but apparently that is not a problem. So – if my 100-year-old mama wants to see Monkey Kingdom, she will see Monkey Kingdom, just as soon as I get my hands on it.

That's the news from El Rancho Felsoni.

May 4, 2015

My smart phone, which is apparently getting smarter and smarter, stopped a podcast the other day to inform me that it was waiting to answer my request but had not heard it clearly. This was annoying, as I didn’t remember asking my smart phone anything. I thought I would put it in its place by inquiring, as clearly as possible, "What is the meaning of life?" It immediately answered: "You have to wait until the end of the movie credits." I guess I have to agree: one certainly is not going to discover the meaning of life before the movie credits.

Let me try to link this all up with Virginia Felson and seafood. For starters, last week mom made it very clear that, while she appreciated my bringing Chinese, Mexican, chili, corned beef, etc., as well as home-made chopped liver and matzo ball soup, what she really wanted was Red Lobster. I notified Ed, since it was his turn to bring food. His response was to buy four one-and-a-half-pound supermarket lobsters, two large bags of mussels, a couple of sticks of butter, lemons, a bunch of corn in the husk, a mallet for cracking the lobsters, and several other tools. I arrived first with a big pot in which I started heating water; Ed and Shawnee then took over the kitchen.

Mom was mildly horrified by the live lobster Ed waived in front of her face while jumping up and down and crying ARRRRGH-OOOO-AHHH! but she quickly went back to her movie – Green Fire (1954) – without showing much interest in the business of boiling crustaceans alive. I tried to watch this film but it quickly proved to be the worst I’ve seen in a while. Farley Granger spends most of his screen time trying to convince his friend, played by Paul Douglas, that there are emeralds in a mine in the hills of some South American country and that the two of them should appropriate said gems despite the strong opposition of "El Moro," a bandit played by an actor named, improbably, Murvyn Vye (1913-1976). Vye, a Yale-trained, highly employed character actor, also played

!10 | Page many other villains with scary names such as Bart Farge, Vieta, Big Chester, Calico Bill, Gunner Gogen, Cut-Rate Joe, Vint Fell, Jamie Craven, Karns, Bugs Moran, Virgie, Deke, Poag, Waxie London, Cravath, Stumpy Jack, Boris, Belden, Kengtu, Boss Tweed, Merlin, and Zoltan.

Grace Kelly was also supposed to be in the movie, and she did appear on screen several times, smiling disinterestedly and saying lines you often hear women say in adventure movies, such as "Be careful" and "Is money really the most important thing in your life?" Something seemed wrong so I looked her up and noted that she made four other movies that year, including the classics "Dial M for Murder" and "Rear Window." I concluded that her contract required her to walk over to the set of "Green Fire" for a smile and a line or two and then return to more important matters. Further research demonstrated that these movies were made by different studios, so I think a taxi may have been involved in the 22-mile round trip between MGM in Culver City (the emerald movie) and Paramount on Melrose (the peeping-Tom movie). I know this sounds banal to commoners but remember that we are talking about Princess Grace, no less a per- sonage in her time than Princess Diana was in hers.

Ms. Kelly was a very busy woman in those days, not only from making all those movies but in her social life as well. Here are the reasons commonly given for her marrying Prince Rainier of Monaco:

• She had really loved working on the Riviera the summer before she met the Prince. • He needed a wife and subsequently a male heir – otherwise, Monaco would return to French sovereignty after his death and its citizens would end up paying French taxes instead of no taxes. • She thought it was finally time to date a guy who would meet with her parents' approval.

That is quite a bit of calculating for one girl to engage in between "cut" and "action." No wonder she was so convincing when she asked Farley Granger whether money was really that important – it was a subject with which she had a lot of personal experience.

Mom finally got to the table but called for only two mussels because she wasn't hungry. Her mussel count by the end of the meal, however, was 14. She also liked the broth, improvised with red wine and black pepper.

Shawnee then brought out the first lobster, which mom thought was for all four of us. However, Ed kept whacking them in the kitchen and mom got into the spirit of the evening, picking meat out of the shell, dunking it in butter, and tossing the shells into the big pot in the center of the table. She didn't say whether this was better than Red Lob- ster and we didn't ask.

!11 | Page When I started this post I was certain I could relate everything in it to the meaning of life, but now I find that I can’t. I will therefore ask my smart phone for its opinion on the meaning of life and lobster.

Answer: "A lobster is a large marine crustacean with a cylindrical body, stalked eyes, and the first of its five pairs of limbs modified as pincers. It has a firm place in the philo- sophical and religious conceptions of existence, social ties, consciousness, and happi- ness, and borders on many other issues."

Works for me.

May 7, 2015

Some of you with good memories may recall my email from a couple of days ago about dropping live lobsters in the pot at mom's place last Sunday, etc. etc. Well, it's Thursday and mom just called me. The following dialogue ensued:

"Steve, I want to thank you and Eddie for going to all the trouble of cooking those live lobsters. How did you like them?"

"They were fine."

"But so expensive."

"As long as you liked them."

"So are you coming out this weekend? How about Red Lobster this time? They have boiled shrimp, fried shrimp, other kinds of seafood, lobster, just get a whole bunch of stuff off their menu."

"Okay, sounds good. How are you feeling?"

"I feel like I'm about to die."

"Besides that how are you feeling?"

"Oh, I'm fine."

May 31, 2015

Ed and I went to the Reds game today, courtesy of our investment advisors. I love to pass on advice to my younger siblings, and here is today’s gem: when the roasted chicken has traveled a long way from the kitchen to the buffet table, choose the thighs and the legs – the white meat will be dried out.

!12 | Page I made Ed walk with me from his home to the ballpark and back, thereby wearing him out to the extent he had to lie down while I went out to visit mom. He missed a good show.

To find something suitable for dinner I drove around the neighborhood of Vine Street and East Galbraith Road, day-dreaming about low-sodium fried chicken. I didn't see much in Wyoming north of Galbraith, so I went south and spotted a Wendy's. I figured mom might just be up for half a double burger and half a spicy chicken sandwich, and I threw in an order of fries just to make sure she'd be happy.

When I got to her room she was nearing the end of The Carey Treatment (1972), a pot- boiler starring James Coburn as a nosy pathologist and involving, according to one press release, "stolen morphine, blackmail attempts, and a mysterious and dangerous masseur." I have to agree from watching the last 45 minutes that the masseur was in- deed dangerous, especially when he got James Coburn on the massage table with only a towel between them. It was one of those massages – I'm sure you've all had this experience – where everybody ends up on the floor naked and bleeding.

When the movie ended Mom quickly rolled herself over to the dinner table to grab a few bites before the next show. Her hearing was great and she was very talkative, especially about a movie she'd seen earlier in the day, The Bad Seed (1956), starring Patty Mc- Cormack as the unfortunate result of fertilization gone awry. We dissected the plot and she made me promise to order her a subscription to the Turner Classic Movies Maga- zine so she could read the plot summary for every movie.

Looking back, I seem to remember mom calling one of her children a bad seed, but who? Nancy and I were too old in 1956 to be described as "seeds." Ed was only just born in 1956 – although mom often referred to him as the result of an accidental seed, that’s not really the same thing.

My guess, therefore, is that either Mark or Rich was the object of this calumny. I do not believe either of them deserved it -- to my knowledge neither one ever pushed anyone down the stairs, drowned a playmate, or threw a puppy out a window, as the little girl did in the movie. It's true that Mark attempted to burn Rich at the stake, but that was only after reading the stirring tale of Jean D'Arc and becoming, as the Victorians used to say about teenage girls gone bad, "overstimulated."

Mom then asked me whether she'd ever been bar mitzvahed. I said I was pretty sure she had not or I would've heard about it. I doubt whether any Jewish girls participated in this ceremony in 1927 (when she was 13). In fact, from the earliest days of the Israelites until the 20th century Jewish women basically hung out down by the well, hoping to meet a nice man traveling through. They had no problem with polygyny (one man, many wives) and kept everything traditional. In fact, if Rebecca had not offered to water Abra- ham's camels we might all still be out there in the hot sun, fighting to establish a Muslim caliphate. [No, I cannot rationally defend that deep-sounding statement, any more than I

!13 | Page can defend “Roses are red, Violets are bluish, If it weren’t for Jesus, We’d all be Jewish”]

Apropos of bar mitzvahs and rabbis, mom then told me the story of a Rabbi Phillips, who had a long beard and therefore, in her youthful eyes, symbolized God. She re- members her mother, Ida, inviting this Rabbi over on some holiday or other, planning to serve him ice cream. In the end the Rabbi did not come because the Raphaelsons were not members of his congregation. According to mom, she wrote off religion at that point and never looked back.

While this is less dramatic than the reason her father Jake gave for abandoning his religious pursuits – an angel and a devil wrestled for his soul and the devil won – I accept mom’s reasoning as a perfectly rational basis for making a theological choice. After all, most religions will share ice cream with you whether you are a member of the sect or not – in fact, if you're not they will be even more competitive in order to sign you up. After all, why shouldn’t the rules of free enterprise apply to God’s work as well as to Caesar’s?

Let me draw a conclusion from the combined parables of the bad seed, the nosy pathologist, the Rabbi and the ice cream, and the dangerous masseur. In the abstract they are all part of the complexity of the human condition, of parental relations, and of the God-made-in-Man's-image theory. On a more concrete level, to paraphrase P. G. Wodehouse, this complexity can lead to the sort of abysmal soul-sadness which afflict- ed one of Tolstoy's Russian peasants when, after putting in a heavy day's work stran- gling his father, beating his wife, and dropping the baby into the city's reservoir, he turns to the cupboard only to find the vodka bottle empty.

Cheer up, ma, you’ll soon be 101. C’est la vie.

June 8, 2015

I made a lot of meatloaf yesterday – half turkey, half beef, parsley, breadcrumbs, hot peppers – so I took a couple of slices out to mom's for a modest 5 o'clock Sunday dinner. Not only does she usually like what I bring, this sort of meal gives her a chance to get rid of a half-dozen or so little paper cups full of coleslaw, wilted salad and old, very soft vegetables. I never ask too many questions about the age and provenance of these cups; the coleslaw is always okay and I help her out by eating some.

Of course, I know from long experience that the TCM offering on Channel 64 begins at 4 PM, so I was prepared to watch the last 45 minutes of whatever was playing before mom would consent to eat with me. This can be risky – after all, how many times can one hear Judy Garland say, "My mom can sew the costumes" (Babes in Arms, 1937, I think) without losing one’s appetite?

Okay, I get there and mom is absolutely engrossed in Gentlemen's Agreement (1947), a movie I have always avoided because I knew it was going to be preachy and present

!14 | Page the following message: "Jews are not all that bad and we upper-middle-class Gentiles should tolerate them a bit better." Still, I wasn't going home without having dinner with my mommy, and it was only 45 minutes, so I made the best of it.

Here is a plot summary which I cribbed from somewhere:

Philip Green [Gregory Peck] is a respected writer who has been recruited by a national magazine to write a series of articles on anti-Semitism in America. He gets the idea that if he pretends to be Jewish he can experience the real thing and thus write the real story. His girlfriend, Kathy Lacy [Dorothy McGuire], who is also his publisher's niece and the person who suggested the series in the first place, seems to support him until the going gets tough. He has a close friend named Dave Goldman, an army officer still in uniform, who warns him that he's in for trouble, but Green, now Greenberg, plunges forward. [I always thought John Garfield, that tough working-class guy who played the drifter in The Postman Al- ways Rings Twice (1946), was miscast in this Jewish army officer role until I found out he was born Julius Garfinkel.]

So, did Phil Greenberg find any anti-Semitism out there in Connecticut country clubs and cocktail parties? You bet your daddy’s foreskin he did. The words "kike" and "shee- ny" – both etymologically obscure – were used early and often. Emotions ran high, the lovers broke up, the lovers got back together, and suitable liberal messages were transmitted. Afterwards the TCM commentator pointed out the irony that Darryl Zanuck, one of the few non-Jewish studio heads at the time, was the one who pushed the movie through – his Jewish counterparts in other studios preferred a low Jewish profile and begged him to kill the project.

At the dinner table mom tried to explain the significance of this film to her helper, Shawnee's daughter Mila, who is often on duty Sunday afternoons. Somehow I don’t believe Mila fully accepted the idea that anti-Semitism is such a big problem in this country.

The conversation then went in this direction:

Mom: Who were your best friends in grade school?

Me: Well, on Dickson Avenue there were lots of kids and I'm not sure I had a best friend in the immediate neighborhood. Nancy and I used to play doctor with Joanne Greenfield next door. [Mom spontaneously remembered her parents' names, Faye and Bob Greenfield.] I did not yet have a medical specialty so I was only able to give Joanne a general head-to-toe examination. Then a kid named Jeff Levenger used to come over, and Lee Loeb would come up from down the street and we would play ball. Once Lee threw a hardball that hit Nancy on the head as she was walking across our backyard. It went straight up in the air and came down next to her prone body. Jeff, Lee and I marveled at how high the ball

!15 | Page had risen and how it had come down so conveniently. Nancy eventually recov- ered so we saw no need to call anyone.

Mom: Okay, that's nice. Now who were your teachers at North Avondale School?

Me: There was Mrs. O'Leary in third grade – she was mean and made you sit under her desk if you misbehaved. Then there was Mrs. Olmsted in fourth grade, who signed her name "FKO" with a big flourish for Frances K. Olmsted. All the girls loved her. Mr. Bagnoli taught fifth or sixth grade, a nice fellow who sold cars in the summer and related how he used Bay Rum, an old-fashioned cologne, on his thinning hair. Mr. Powell taught gym and probably social studies and was our counselor at Camp Strongheart in the summer. Coy Hale taught something or other and also was a camp counselor, at least for one summer. "Red" Powell had played professional football, possibly for the Canton Bulldogs, was a patient of Uncle Chippie, and lived on Merzen Court off Vine Street near Clinton Springs Avenue until he died young I guess of cancer. And Mr. Ferguson taught math and maybe other fifth grade courses. We all referred to him as "Fergie;" when I did so once within the hearing of one of the other teachers, she chastised me for being disrespectful. And then there was Miss Reszke, the principal.

Mom: You don't remember very much.

Finally, apropos of nothing, last night I dreamed I had to address a theater audience before the start of a play I had written. The stage was "raked," meaning it sloped upwards away from the audience, as many stages do. It also had stones and lumps of earth on it, presumably part of the set.

The rough surface made it difficult to get down the stage to talk to the audience, so I picked up a walking stick. When I reached the footlights I realized that I had what mom calls a "blackie" over my eyes and cotton balls in my ears. My audience must have thought I was a blind beggar waiting to be healed (Luke 18:35) rather than the play- wright. Luckily, I woke up before the arrival of either the review of the Times theater crit- ic or Jesus, although many people believe they are one and the same.

July 5, 2015

I had a nice visit with mom yesterday. Luckily for the declining art of intelligent conversation she had just finished watching 1776 (1972), not to be confused with 1984 (1956), 2001 (1968), 2010 (1984), 1941 (1979), or One Million Years B.C. (1966). Since the next movie, Miss Firecracker (1989; Holly Hunter and Tim Robbins) had not yet started, we were able to do a little catching up.

First she reminded me, as she often does, that the part of Benjamin Franklin in 1776 was played by Howard da Silva, supposedly our relative. This is a long-standing family tradition although I have never heard anyone explain exactly how we are related. But

!16 | Page today we have the Internet, Apple, Google, Chinese hackers, and the International Movie Data Base, so why not check it out?

Guess what: Howard da Silva was born Howard Silverblatt in Cleveland in 1909, the son of Bertha (née Sen) and Benjamin Silverblatt, a dress cutter, both Russian-born Yiddish-speakers. Of course! He must be a cousin of Aunt Martha (née Silverblatt). Not a Felson, or even a Berman, but the next best thing – related to the Bermans by mar- riage. I'm expecting confirmation or denial by return email – anybody? Keep in mind that Virginia will be much happier with a confirmation than with a denial. [Various Berman cousins later confirmed the relationship.]

[Aside: in honor of Aunt Martha (Silverblatt) Berman I have just put some gribenes – "scraps" in Yiddish, consisting of chicken skin rendered in its own fat with onion added for flavor – into my vinaigrette and therefore onto my salad. I found it delicious, although obviously not for everyone.]

Mom then went on with great pleasure about the 95th birthday party of a Cincinnati civil- rights figure and old friend of hers, Marian Spencer. Mom went with Nancy, who's been here for three weeks, and Louise Bettman. Mom was happy to report that many people knew her and said hello, although she wasn't able to recognize all of them. She also re- called her days, possibly together with the same Marian Spencer, as part of the Jewish Center Forum lecture series. Mom remembered bringing in Margaret Mead [1901-1978], a famous cultural anthropologist affiliated with University of Cincinnati, and Alastair Cooke [1908-2004], the Masterpiece Theatre guy. After these lectures she and dad would entertain the speaker at our house. I don't remember meeting either of the above celebrities, but perhaps some of the younger Felsons do.

Finally, the conversation turned to old songs, which mom likes me to recall from my childhood so she can ditch her usual mantra of not remembering anything and jump right in with the lyrics. Yesterday it was the following, which you elderly folk undoubtedly remember:

School days, school days Dear old Golden Rule days 'Reading and 'riting and 'rithmetic Taught to the tune of the hick'ry stick You were my queen in calico I was your bashful, barefoot beau You wrote on my slate, "I Love You, Joe" When we were a couple o' kids

Of course she knew every word.

When I got home I went to Google, hoping for some fascinating facts about the song, ready to make something up if necessary. As usual, however, truth was stranger than fiction.

!17 | Page "School Days" is a 1907 tune written by the songwriting team of Will Cobb and Gus Ed- wards. Edwards was born "Gus Simon" in Hohensalza, German Empire, in 1879. The town of his birth is now called "Inowroclaw," since the German Empire is long gone (Baruch Ha-Shem) and the town is now located in central Poland. [The town did not move – Poland did.] Being a little weak on the shifting empires of Central and Eastern Europe in the 19th century, I took a look at the entry for Inowroclaw, which turns out to be a quaint-looking place, population 77,000, in existence since the 12th century C.E. Under "notable residents" the first entry was "Gus Edwards (1879–1945), musician."

The irony? Gus Edwards’ family emigrated to the U.S. with their son when he was sev- en. If they had stayed put, would their descendant still be a “notable resident” or would he be lying in an unmarked mound of bodies in a field near some brick ovens?

July 12, 2015

I go out to mom's on Saturday after bridge, bringing Skyline, in particular a four-way onion. Mom is comfortably arranged in her lounge chair, covered with a blanket, watching a movie and wearing her enormous wireless earphones

Her eyes flick over to me very briefly as I enter, then turn back to her movie. Well, I'm getting used to this so I hand Shawnee the food and take a seat at the table, slavering slightly in anticipation of that first bite of my own four-way onion. I also want to catch up on the movie, but as I am clearly not going to get a word out of my mother, I google the Turner Classic Movies schedule and find out we are watching America, America, a 1963 film of just under three hours concerning the obsession of the head of a Greek family living in Turkey (the Topouzoglous) to make it to America. The actors are unknowns but you may recognize the director, Elia Kazan, born Elia Kazanjoglous into a Greek family living in Turkey, from some of his other films: Splendor in the Grass, Baby Doll, East of Eden, On the Waterfront, A Streetcar Named Desire, Gentleman's Agreement, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, etc. He was also the leading stage director of his time.

Mom never does talk to me. She has her four-way served on a tray and concentrates on the movie. I watch a little bit of it and am pretty sure the leading lady is sincere when she says she loves the head of the family and will do anything for him. I am also pretty sure he sincerely wants to go to America without her. Do I really need this conflict in my life? Shouldn’t I concentrate instead on getting my medications right? And how about these moles growing all over my body?

I finish my four-way, try to get mom's attention in order to say goodbye, and finally dis- tract her enough so that she turns her cheek slightly to me with her eyes still on the screen. I kiss it and hit the road.

In lieu of any more information about Virginia I will pass on a few brief movie reviews – all available on Netflix:

!18 | Page

Where the Wild Things Are (2009) – semi-animated Sendak reprise of book, or were there real actors in those gigantic costumes? If so, then it wasn't animated at all. Either way, strictly for kids under 12 or over 80.

The Life of Birds (1998) – documentary – colorful, informative, lots of flapping.

Orange is the New Black – second season – I had no idea women do these things.

Her (2013) – Indie Drama / Sci Fi / Futurist Baloney.

There Be Dragons (2011) – drama of the Spanish civil war (1936-39); for reasons Americans will never understand, fanatic communists hunt down and shoot priests, even those who are trying to help the common folk.

For the Love of the Movies (2009) – documentary about film criticism; of interest only to film critics.

Albert Nobbs (2002) – set in Victorian England; is Glenn Close a man, is she a woman? A woman, it turns out – I knew it all the time.

Russian Ark (2002) – 867 Russian actors (really!) walk through the Hermitage Museum, down a grand staircase and out into the snow, for reasons never ex- plained.

Last Year at Marienbad (1961) – directed by one of my favorites, Alain Resnais – lots of gaps in the dialogue and lots of carpets; just as slow today as when I saw it in 1961

Return of the Killer Tomatoes! (1988) – George Clooney has a lead role but can you find him? Best line: “I have never seen such vicious conduct by a vegetable.”

August 2, 2015

I picked up some Mexican take-out for mom and me today at Taqueria Valle Verde on Vine Street about five minutes south of Galbraith Road. No hablan mucho Ingles but I managed to order a burrito and a quesadilla. I hope to go back for a sit-down dinner because of the seafood soup I saw some of the patrons eating. It consisted of a large bowl filled with aquatic creatures and topped with a giant snow crab, legs spread all over the table, something like this Louise Bourgeois sculpture Amit and I once saw outside the Louvre:

!19 | Page

Food for thought. And when we think, we think of the movies.

As you all know from my incessant and repetitive emails, all of the world’s best dialogue comes from the movies, as well as most of its wisdom. For example, from Them! (1954) we know there is only one way to deal with giant creatures on the attack, especially if they're created by atomic radiation: "Get 'em in the antennae, they're helpless without the antennae."

And as long as we’re on the subject of creatures, movie wisdom tells us that if we come across a large object encased in ice, let’s say at an isolated research station near the north or south pole, we can call in the Army or the Marines, we can notify the scientists and the professors, but whatever we do, we should not thaw it out, especially if our group is only armed with a single pistol. The creature always wakes up and always proves impervious to gunfire. Soon we are fleeing for our lives out on the tundra without our L.L. Bean fleece-lined warm-up jackets ($89-$99). Goyische kopf – no thawing!

So, back to Evergreen and dinner with mom. As I walked from my car past the bocce court, Ed and Marsha flagged me down from a bench near the little pond to the south of the Evergreen buildings, where they were hanging out with mom, Shawnee, and two cute little white doggies. Our aged relative was quite alert and wanted to hear about new legal cases as well as the whereabouts of various children such as Mark (call your mother!). After Ed and Marsha and the little doggies left, mom, Shawnee and I went up to eat.

Mom still likes Mexican! A couple of items were pretty spicy but she was undeterred. Af- ter she ate she felt a little dizzy and also quite cold, so Shawnee bundled her up in her lounger and turned on Channel 64, which was presenting Having Wonderful Crime [as in "wish you were here"] (1945), with Pat O’Brien and George Murphy. And how about this for a movie summary sure to bring in the crowds: "Three amateur detectives try to find a missing magician.” Good luck, gumshoes.

In case you’re wondering, and I know you are, whether Senator-to-be George Murphy ever made a movie with President-to-be Ronald Reagan, the answer is yes: This Is the

!20 | Page Army (1943), directed by Michael Curtiz the year after he directed “Casablanca.” If you ever try them as a double feature on a long, lonely, rainy, winter evening above the Arc- tic Circle, be sure to watch “Casablanca” last. And keep an eye on those freezer set- tings – something hairy might be thawing out in there.

October 19, 2015

A Day or Two in the Life

Mom has had a lot of excitement recently and seems more tired than usual. She had one 101st birthday party two days before her actual October 12 birthday, down at her cousin Jon Zipperstein's restaurant, Kaze. Alan and Joanne Travis came in from St. Louis, as did mom's Hong Kong son, Peter Ho (driving in from Dayton, Ohio, not Hong Kong). They are very close – in fact, when Peter and Josephine's wedding clashed with mine, mom and dad went to theirs.

We'd taken mom to Kaze a few months earlier and she loved the happy hour wine and sushi, plus the other great hors d'oeuvres. This time she said the same food was terri- ble, even though she could be seen munching happily on chicken wings and ribs, brisket sandwiches and little hamburgers. You figure it out – I can't. I would ordinarily associate taste with mood, but she was in a great mood at the party, recognizing and talking to everyone.

Ed and Marsha and I, and Mark and Mary in from Texas, also took her out to dinner on her actual birthday, to a Thai restaurant, which she loved. Then I brought her ribs on Sunday, yesterday that is, and she had a wonderful time cutting them ("Don't you dare cut my ribs"), and chewing on them like a 14 1/2-year-old hound dog (that's 101 in human years).

However, none of this apparently was associated with mood either. In fact, before getting her hands on the meat she sounded pretty depressed, telling me she didn't want to live out the week. I said I would like to help her but the cemetery did not appreciate people coming over unannounced and digging graves, and besides my back hurt. We agreed that on the next fine day we would drive over to the Ludlow Avenue site where dad is buried and see if there was an open grave near his. If so I was to look around to make sure no one was watching and then push her in. If my back pain allowed it I would also shovel some dirt over her. She made me promise to toss a TV remote in after her, just in case she needed it.

After this light banter and a couple of ribs, death took a holiday. (See the 1934 Para- mount movie of a similar name, with Fredric March playing Death; I hope he had the wit to call it "the part of a lifetime.")

The next venture: a few months ago mom read somewhere about a documentary called Monkey Kingdom, and I finally found it in the all-Ohio library system. It came in today and I took it out to her. I have no idea what it's about except for the certainty that our

!21 | Page hairy primate cousins (not our ancestors, it turns out) will make an appearance. I'll keep everyone informed.

Back to the real world: as I was entering my apartment in Clifton just now, a college-age lad came out with a Crystal Deth (sic!) T-shirt, reminding me that not everyone is as ag- ing and backward-looking as my mom and I are. On the other hand, this kid was taking out the garbage just like I do (when Jesse is not around), so what's new?

For fun, check out Crystal Deth (one of their songs is You Love Her Coz She's Dead) while trying to hum "Tea for Two" at the same time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpHOX8I9ejI

December 20, 2015

I haven't been inspired to write lately, probably because Virginia hasn't been feeling well, hasn't been hearing well, and hasn't seemed to want to interact much, at least when Ed and Marsha and I visit. For example, today I brought fresh bagels and cream cheese and mom kept on watching the movie, Meet Me In St. Louis (1944), which doesn't produce much excitement for 2015 viewers but did produce, if you know what I mean, Liza Minnelli, as it was directed by Vincent Minnelli and starred Judy Garland.

Virginia is apparently hearing better, at least when she takes off her TV-oriented head- set, because we conversed on the usual issues – how am I feeling, whether Ed and Marsha have sold their place, etc. – before going back to the show.

Her excuse for not coming to the table and having a bagel was that she'd had one earlier in the day. I always worry when she does that because eating seems to be one of the few pleasures remaining to her – when she gets into a meal she often becomes quite animated.

However, as I leaned down to kiss her goodbye she told me, "Next time bring matzo ball soup." And then she added, "And remember our five-dollar bet – Bernie Sanders will beat Hillary.”

January 6, 2016

I made it through many decades without making a single matzo ball. Now, with mom asking for it every time I see her, I'm averaging 20 1-inch balls a week and proud of it.

This time the soup broth actually came from various parts of a fresh and rather young chicken. Classic chicken broth of the Julia Child variety is made from a more flavorful 7 or 8 pound hen, not available anywhere I know of. I'm sure Jon Zipperstein could find one, but I wouldn't bother him for a lousy couple of pounds.

!22 | Page I got to Evergreen at about 1:30. I usually see mom on weekends but on Wednesday from 1 to 3 Jesse, who worked for mom for many years, cleans my apartment and with this broken wrist (as some but not all of you know about) I can't go to the gym like I usually do. So – soup.

The Turner Classic Movie playing when I came in was These Glamour Girls (1939). Many actresses got work on this one, including Ann Rutherford, who played Polly Bene- dict, the love interest for Andy Hardy (Mickey Rooney) in a good half dozen films. Judy Garland appeared in at least three of those, and Ms. Rutherford beat her out for Andy's affections in the only one I've seen, Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938), reviewed above.

Instead of watching the movie, mom was sitting at her table going through a pile of dad's World War II letters, hundreds of pages of them. I've been sending letters elec- tronically to mom's helper, Carmen, who prints them out in large type for her. Mom said she thought she had read some of these before, and Carmen has mentioned that she does read them over and over, so she's happy and that means I'm happy.

We then went out in a wheelchair to the yard, 43° Fahrenheit but actually pretty nice in the sun. A daughter of one of the residents came over and talked to us for quite a while, with mom asking her all sorts of personal questions, only some of which she was willing to answer. It was very lighthearted, however, as you can tell by the fact that mom and the woman ended up trading lyrics to "Anything You Can Do" – two perfect strangers, with excellent timing, singing "No you can't, Yes I can, no you can't, yes I can," and "Can you bake a pie? No? Neither can I."

The song, of course, is from "Annie Get Your Gun," which opened in 1946 and ran for almost 3 years, with songs by Irving Berlin, and Ethel Merman in the title role. How about these wacko lyrics:

[Annie:] Anything you can buy I can buy cheaper I can buy anything cheaper than you [Frank:] Fifty cents [Annie:] Forty cents [Frank:] Thirty cents [Annie:] Twenty cents [Frank:] No, you can't [Annie:] Yes, I can! Yes, I can!

[Did you all hear the music in your head? Did any of you actually sing it out loud?]

Mom then asked the woman to fix her up with the woman's 90-year-old father, but only on condition that he liked older women and that he was "slim," asking about this factor twice. We never got around to an actual match, and mom was disappointed that the daughter did not take her room number and so probably wouldn't be able to find her if Poppa was in fact looking for action.

!23 | Page Mom was pretty sharp during the three hours I was there. Her hearing aid was working, and she spontaneously raised the following subjects without any prompting from me: We belonged to Wise Temple where Rabbi Wohl was in charge. [I remember him from the 1940s – somehow his teeth whistled when he spoke, don't ask me why.] Israel has one of the four safest airports in the world. The Israelis are burying bullets which they may need later if there's a war. The Israelis are taking in lots of refugees from the Mid- dle East fighting. Miss America is an Israeli. Movie stars are giving lots of money to Is- rael, including Michael Douglas and his father, Kirk Douglas (who I was sure was but apparently is still alive at age 99).

More: There is a product called a car handle which will help you get out of your car and she thinks I should look into it. When her sister Nettie was burned in a fire, dad brought his professor (a burn specialist) over to the hospital and mom fell in love with him (dad) because he was so solicitous in their time of need. (Nettie eventually died from these burns.) Mom was quite surprised that I no longer charged for dad's "Humor in Medicine," written over 25 years ago . She was disappointed that ballgames are now fixed in advance, that heroin is so prevalent, and that people are shooting each other with guns. She also expressed concerned that workers were not getting paid for over- time, and was quite definite that Bernie Sanders will be able to fix all this. She thought Hillary was doing too much flip-flopping; it’s Bernie all the way.

Back to the room after an hour or so outside. Mom was invigorated and happily settled in for The Golden Fleecing (1940), in which a mild-mannered insurance salesman named Henry Twinkle (Lew Ayres) gets mixed up with gangsters. Now there's a name that dates a movie.

Feb 16, 2016

Mom was in lousy spirits when I got there at 5 o'clock with some fried chicken – she'd been sitting all day; she felt weak, tired, and in some discomfort. However, she soon got warmed up and presented the following thoughts:

For her birthday she wants a big globe so she can understand the location of countries in relationship to other countries. She would like an explanation of the tides – they come in, they go out, but why? She wants to know how it is possible that all that natural gas can be located un- derground. What's it doing there? She would like some learning about cities that are built on top of older cities. She is disappointed that she has reached a hundred and one and still knows very little about Ireland or Scotland; she hopes someone will remedy that. She believes there is a Canadian computer with everyone's name on it and that we need to make sure our family's name is on it so that people can find us.

!24 | Page She reminisced about Mr. Sellers in North Carolina, who I believe used to live near our cabin.

March 1, 2016

Saw mom on Sunday. Ed brought roast chicken. She was hearing quite well – maybe the new device is working better, maybe it was because I was sitting close and the TV was off. No movie talk because mom is excited about Bernie Sanders and who will win the Democratic nomination, so she watches more news and fewer movies.

Here are some of the topics we discussed: She sent one of dad’s books, Humor in Medicine, to Bernie Sanders’ wife and also sent one to someone she identified as “a Jewish comedian.” No response as yet. She reminisced about Uncle David, remembering mostly that he was short. She knew he had two daughters and identified one as Beth, but was confused about whether Louise was the other one. She wanted to know if she would be able to stop paying taxes at age 100, as if that was a future event. I told her she could stop paying at 105 and at 110 the government would refund all her back taxes. I do this sort of thing on a regular basis because it’s the easiest way to give mom something to live for, a constant theme in her life. Also, the financial incentive method reminds me of a great scene from that memorable classic film we all know and love, Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay (2008). In the scene a loony CIA guy (played by Rob Corddry) is trying to force witnesses Goldstein (David Krumholtz) and Rosenberg (Eddie Kaye Thomas) to tell him what they know about the “terrorists” Harold (John Cho) and Kumar (Kal Penn). His interrogation method consists of dropping a stream of coins onto the table in front of them – if they talk they get the shekels. The witnesses are deeply insulted by the anti-Semitic aspect of this ploy, plus they insist they know nothing about their friends being terrorists. How- ever, when the agent leaves the room, Goldstein and Rosenberg look around furtively and then start scrambling for the coins. Then mom wanted to know why she gets a pension and other people do not. I speculated that it was because she had suffered so much when she was young, scrubbing floors etc. She considered this but claimed she did not remember any scrubbing. We discussed a party for her 102d birthday in October but she insists it will be a waste of time since she doesn't like cake, plus serving cake in the afternoon will spoil everyone's appetite for dinner. The next order of business was mom’s request for a freestanding globe, one that spins around so she can see where every country is located. I’m hoping someone else can supply this need, as I am too busy cooking matzo ball soup.

!25 | Page Besides the earth, Mom also mentioned the sun, the moon, and the stars, so I’m pretty sure she is also thinking about the kind of device that E.T. came up with in his movie of the same name (1982), when he demonstrated the location of his home planet to Elliott and Gertie. This sounds complicated, however, and perhaps we should simply start with the globe. By the way, one of the actors who played E.T. was Pat Bilon; he was 2 feet 10 inches tall, Ukrainian-American weighed 45 pounds, and died the next year of pneumonia, age 35. Mom also mentioned an Orthodox rabbi who comes every week and sings her a song but won’t shake her hand. He has a long beard and the song is Let Me Call You Sweetheart, music by Leo Friedman, lyrics by Beth Slater Whitson, pub- lished in 1910 and first recorded by the unforgettable Peerless Quartet. However, I am beginning to wonder if this could be accurate; I can’t see this song in the repertoire of a bearded chassid who won’t touch a woman not his wife. In fact, some say there are Orthodox Jewish sects where the men won’t even touch their wives, and instead make love through a hole in bedsheet. While doubted by many, this turns up in a scene from the 1992 film Como Agua Para Chocolate (Like Water For Chocolate), set in the late 1800s, where a scene from the wedding night of a young Mexican couple shows the new wife nervously arranging a sheet over herself. Also, Simon Louvish's 1986 book The Death of Moishe-Ganef uses the sheet belief as a plot point. Obviously bogus, says a reliable-looking ar- ticle from The Snopes Report, dated February 8, 2015, read by 736 people, and reproduced as Google Gospel. Mom’s last tale was of feeling very weak earlier in the day and not being able to find the call button for the floor nurse, her helper being away at the time. Accord- ing to mom, Ed floated in and sat on a chair, staring straight ahead, and didn’t see her from three feet away. She tried to call to him but he didn’t answer. When he came in for real at about 6 PM she asked him very seriously whether he had been there earlier.

Stay tuned

April 25, 2016

While Virginia tends to deny it, she had attended cousin Margie Zipperstein Stayton's Vegetarian Passover Seder for 25 years in a row until last night. I'm not really sure how accurate that is – maybe there was a break for the War in Vietnam – but I'm going with 25 until corrected. Margie is the daughter of Sandy Berman Zipperstein, Virginia's first cousin.

The standard menu is hard-boiled egg soup, matzo-based lasagna, spaghetti squash with green pesto and Parmesan cheese, spinach pancakes, homemade haroset with home-grown uncut horseradish, and sponge cake with chocolate and vanilla hand- whipped cream. This year I was shocked, shocked to see spinach quiche replace the pancakes and fresh berries replace the sponge cake, but I got over it and ate my usual modest portions.

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Mom was going to go right up until about 4 o'clock yesterday afternoon, when Shawnee, one of her helpers, informed me that she was feeling ill and had decided to stay home. As many of you know, she has been quite weak for the last 2-3 weeks, has had some problems with her blood pressure, and has been very tired, to the point where Mark and Mary, Rich and Sharon, and Benji and Jake have all been in to see her in the last couple of weeks, fearing the worst. During this time she has not enjoyed the food we have brought or that she has gotten from the kitchen at Evergreen, usually complaining in every case that it was too salty, including my virtually salt-free matzo ball soup.

So, today, Sunday, I went out to Evergreen at about 6 PM., expecting more of the same. [Aside on optimism: In Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint 1969), Alexander Portnoy's father, always constipated, hearing about the first atomic bomb, could only react, "Maybe that would do the job."]

Well, my pessimism was unjustified. The first thing mom said when I got in there was that she was "feeling great." She then proceeded to tell me about medicines being de- livered by pigeons. I must've looked skeptical, because she thought real hard and then corrected herself: "Not pigeons, drones."

She was quite upset about the Flint, Michigan, water system. She worries about the fi- nal destination of her furniture. She expressed her delight with all her New York and Connecticut great-grandchildren, showing me photos and relating recent conversations.

She once again requested a globe so she could the master some of the more obscure countries in this world, a request that I sent around to my siblings about a month ago, hoping one of them would bring a globe on his or her next visit. Would that be so hard? One single round globe on a little stand?

She still has high hopes for Bernie Sanders. That reminded her of her old friends Sadie and Marcella, because Sadie had married Bernie Siegel. Apparently, anything named Bernie is okay with mom.

Corned beef: a must for her future eating pleasure, when will I bring some? She expressed some horror that people eat chopped liver with their corned beef – a good rye bread was all it needed. And another major deli question: sauerkraut? Why bother? Why do people like it? Why would you ever put it on corned beef? I told her I was not in pos- session of answers to such existential questions, but that did not stop her.

She mused about cognac and whether it would help her sleep. I told her that fancy cognac like Courvoisier XO Imperial was going for 180 bucks a bottle. "That's okay," she said, "we'll drink it out of paper cups."

We discussed why Clark Gable finally had enough of Vivian Leigh – she kept talking about Leslie Howard, and after a while he just didn't give a damn. Mom also pointed out that Leslie Howard was too passive; she would've done better with Clark.

!27 | Page Suddenly, in came the night nurse asking if everything was okay. Only then did I notice that mom was fiddling with the emergency call button hanging around her neck; she must've pushed it. Mila, the helper on duty when I was there, told me that the night nurse gets a lot of exercise out of mom but not much of a chance to show her skills.

That said, another day of conversational drama comes to an end. As Walter Cronkite used to say on CBS from 1953 to 1957,"What sort of day was it? A day like all days, filled with those events that alter and illuminate our times... all things are as they were then, and you are there.”

May 21, 2016

Racing Brainwaves from the Past

I am under strict orders from a respected physician to keep my sodium intake under 2000 mg per day. A Cincinnati chili four-way (cheese, spaghetti, chili, onion), regular size, whether from Skyline, Empress, or Goldstar, contains 2100+ milligrams according to the Skyline website. A cheese coney (hot dog, chili, cheese, onion), heavy mustard, has only 600 mg. I haven't been to Skyline in nine months, whereas I used to go once a week. I still make an exception when my brother Rich comes to town, but that is more out of pity, since he obviously needs the stuff so badly he often goes there directly from the airport.

So, while I used to take mom some chili now and then, I have redirected her in recent months to take out meals from places which do not publish their sodium content, like Red Lobster, Wendy's, and Taqueria Valle Verde. On the phone earlier today, however, mom said "chili" and so, chili it was.

Since these emails are decidedly not all about Yours Truly (or are they? you be the judge), I will simply give you the topics mom raised during dinner, with very little prod- ding from me. For example, I posed questions such as "seen any good movies lately?" Or "get any interesting calls?" etc., and here are some of her many responses:

This plate needs warming Don't they usually put in more onion? I loved my party [101 + 1/2 birthday, last week]. Louise [Bettman, a friend of the family] came to visit. How did she look? Heavy. She has a boyfriend, she's living with him and driving his car. I told her she looked nice in that dress and she reminded me that I had given it to her. She ate everything I put in front of her and went back to the refrigerator for more. I gave her some sweaters. She looked great. I never saw anybody eat so much. Steve, what about those black pants I gave you – have you taken them in yet for alterations? Next time you visit I want to see those pants. If we go down to the

!28 | Page dining room here [at Evergreen], I want you to wear those pants and a nice shirt. And socks. Who is Stanley Berman? [Brief explanation by me about first cousin Stanley, son of Joe Berman, Berman Printing, Stanley's sister Margie, Stanley's sons, Andy and Cliff] [Long discussion of her other cousins, including the Mattlins.] Have you read that book but I gave you by Ben Mattlin, who went to Harvard and was in a wheelchair. Unbelievable, Harvard in a wheelchair. Yes, I saw a good movie about an African-American woman with a light-skinned daughter who refused to come and see her until the end of the movie [Imitation of Life (1959); mom’s helper, Shawnee, discloses that a number of her relatives were passing for white, one of them in Hyde Park with kids at Kilgore Elementary. I didn't press her much but it sounded like it might turn into a more interesting story than the one in the movie. On the other hand, it's 2016 and these things aren't quite so shocking anymore.] It was great seeing Beth [who came in for the above birthday party], she's really smart, where does she teach again? Same for Lainie, what was her husband's name? She or her sister is a wonderful gardener – no, I am not mixing them up with Julie. I'm not going to live until October [but she thought she might make it to Sep- tember and could we move the party up a month?] [She remembered her "80-year-old boyfriend" Julius Grad and wondered about his urn, since he was cremated.] “Don't lose my urn.”

That is just a sample – there were another at least another 15 or 20 of these references and observations. In other words, mom was having a good day, including her hearing.

June 12, 2016

Goldilocks and the Hot Soup

Ed and I and Ed's little doggies visited mom today. Mom loves these dogs and tore a chicken thigh into little pieces to feed them on the carpet, along with some carrot, which you can do when Marsha is not around.

Mom loved the matzo ball soup but sent it back several times for reheating, even though it was practically boiling. She often complains that her food is cold, but this was something beyond that. Medical explanation, anyone?

On the other hand, her hearing was perfect from start to finish. She asked us the whereabouts and doings of many older relatives; sadly, Ed and I had to confess igno- rance about every question, not wishing to state the obvious – that they had probably left this world. For example, Aunt Teresa, if alive, would be at least 140.

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Ed and I then discussed some legal cases which she followed very carefully, under- standing some of it but not all. For example, she was a little unclear on how a university can comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act when it sends a student to an ex- ternship in a private office and that office doesn't want anything to do with accommodat- ing a disabled person. On the other hand, no court has ever decided this issue and the lawyers for the University of Cincinnati are having a tough time with it also.

Then mom disclosed something to us which she was very embarrassed about. She's having trouble sleeping, with a lot of pain on her behind, but when she puts a flashlight under her body at night she sleeps better. She didn't say whether the flashlight was turned on or off, but she (and Ed and I as well) thought the whole story was a little strange: "I must be going crazy," she said.

Finally, mom had a movie complaint. Her favorite scene in Sabrina (1954; Audrey Hep- burn, William Holden, Humphrey Bogart) is when Sabrina, the chauffeur’s daughter now grown up, comes back from cooking school in France, having learned to roll an egg around in her hand and then crack it one-handed on the bowl. Mom claims that in the remake (1965; Harrison Ford, Julia Ormond, Greg Kinnear) this scene was left out. I looked up the Turner Classic Movies schedule to see if they ran one after the other, in which case she would have just seen the rerun. Since it was not on the schedule, I as- cribe this movie comparison to mom's good memory.

June 17, 2016

Mom has been sleeping badly and feeling very weak when she wakes up in the morning. She gets a little better during the day with oxygen and care from her helpers. For example, by yesterday evening when I dropped in she took three or four steps with her walker over to the table, sat down pretty much without help, and we had a nice conversation.

She just called me to ask about my health and was extremely gratified to hear that I was feeling fine. She asked several times to make sure, and each time I pushed it up a notch until, by the end of the conversation, I was feeling absolutely fabulous.

Conclusion: if there's anybody on this list who is actually in good health, or even in fair health, or who is willing to fib a bit about his or her health, you might give mom a call and tell her how great you feel (and anything else you can think of).

June 30, 2016:

As you all know, both from your own experience with Virginia and from reading about my recent visits, she had pretty much had enough of this world, accompanied as it was by memory loss, hearing loss, incontinence, pain in many places, and the inability to bring forth new thoughts. Nevertheless, she carried on.

!30 | Page My last visit was on the morning of June 30, 2016, when my sister Nancy, who had been sleeping at the Evergreen apartment, called me to say that mom had passed away peacefully during the night. I dressed and drove out to Evergreen, as did my brother Ed. The three of us sat in her bedroom, where she was lying as peacefully as a human being could lie, peace without the complications of breathing, heartbeat, or any other kind of movement. Her skin was soft and cool as it had been in her later life. She was subject to no distraction, no movie dialogue, no helpers, no food, no struggling, no remembering and no forgetting.

Ed, Nancy, and I reminisced quietly for a few minutes and then started making the sad arrangements which all survivors make.

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