Category Archives: Jewish Interests

My Spot

How I wrote my first book

“It was a dark and stormy night. Suddenly shots rang out!” Snoopy

Poor Snoopy! For all his “dogged” attempts, Charles Schultz’s beloved beagle has not yet published his novel. Thanks to The Jewish World, however, I have been more successful. I have published a book.

Actually, it was a bright and sunny day in June 2013, when Josie Kivort, Hadassah Capital District’s Chapter Campaign Chair, and I paid a visit to the Jewish publication’s office. For the past several months, we were serving on the committee to plan the organization’s annual Special Gifts event. Jim Clevenson, the publisher of the Schenectady, New York,-based biweekly, Josie, and I met to discuss the timeline future press releases and advertisements.

I had communicated with The Jewish World, mostly through press releases. For years, I had worked on publicity, first as a volunteer for several organizations in Clifton Park and later as part of my responsibilities at the Capital District Educational Opportunity Cente, a division of Hudson Valley Community College, in Troy, New York.. We had been in “virtual contact” as I had been sending the newspaper articles that I felt would be relevant to the Jewish community.

During our discussion, I mentioned to Jim that I had retired three years earlier. Jim asked if I would be interested in doing reporting for the Jewish World.

“I have done enough press releases for a lifetime,” I told Jim. “However, would you be interested in publishing some short non-fiction pieces about my life as a Jewish woman, wife, and mother in Upstate New York?”

Jim agreed to give the idea a try, and he told me that I should send the articles to Laurie Clevenson, his sister and the paper’s editor-in-chief.

My first newspaper article appeared in the August 27, 2013, school opening issue. “There Goes My Heart” recalled how saying goodbye to my children—whether putting them on the bus the first day of kindergarten or dropping off at their dorms their first day of college or waving them off as they got in their own cars and drove cross country to new jobs—always brought me to tears.

I had asked my mother if the farewells ever got easier. “Oh, Marilyn,” she said. “Every time any one of you gets into the car and drives away, I think to myself, ‘There goes my heart!’”

So started my regular contributions to The Jewish World. Every two weeks, I wrote a story and submitted it for the newspaper’s consideration. Growing up as the only Jewish family in a small Upstate New York town; experiencing anti-Semitism on my first teaching job in the Capital Region of New York; participating in a playgroup for our two-year-olds; adjusting to retirement; leaving the home we shared for thirty-six years to move to Florida—these many once-private moments became very public columns.

Initially, I was afraid I would run out of ideas. As the months progressed, however, I found that even the smallest event— biking up a steep mountain in the Rockies, visiting the Portland Holocaust Memorial, changing my granddaughter’s diaper—could morph from an idea to a story. Family and friends shared their experiences, and, with their permission, wove them into my articles.

Not that the stories always flowed easily from my brain to the Mac laptop. “Writing is easy,” wrote sports writer Red Smith. “All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.” I often found myself up at midnight before a deadline trying to polish what I had written. But, like some people I knew who devoted hours to quilting or photography or golf, I devoted hours to my writing.

When I moved to Florida in 2015, I joined SOL Writers, a group of women who met twice a month to share their drafts or to participate in a free write. A few of the women were published authors; others, like me, had dreams of expanding their audience. I brought in pieces I had either completed or were working on for The Jewish World. The women were not afraid to criticize but they were also generous in their praise. “You seriously need to think about putting these essays into a book,” one of my writer friends suggested.

In March 2016, I got up enough courage to contact Mia Crews, a professional editor who would be responsible for formatting the manuscript, designing the cover, and uploading the finished product to Amazon.

Nothing prepared me for the amount of work required to go from a collection of stories to a polished book. I started editing. And editing and editing. I thought I was close to finishing before we left for our summer trip out west. However, I worked on it on the plane to San Francisco, at nights in different hotels up the Oregon Coast, and during every spare minute during our six week stay in Colorado. I enlisted Larry’s help, and we sat together on the couch in our rented condo going over the manuscript with a fine tooth comb while two political conventions and the Summer Olympics played on the television.

When we got back to Florida, Mia and I completed the final revisions, On September 3, my sixty-sixth birthday. There Goes My Heart was launched on Amazon. I had done it! I had written a real, live book with, as a friend commented, with a cover and pages and nouns and verbs and everything!

”A writer only starts a book,” wrote Samuel Johnson. “A reader finishes it.” Thanks to Laurie and Jim Clevenson for giving me the opportunity to publish my articles. Thanks to you, my readers, who have helped me reach the finish line of my lifelong dream.

This article was first pubished in The Jewish World, soon after I launched There Goes My Heart in September 2016. is available in paperback and Kindle versions on Amazon.

Growing Up in Coney Island by Frances Cohen

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I have published this blog on September 1, 2024, what would have been Frances Cohen, my mother’s 107 birthday.

I spent most of my early childhood in Coney Island. I loved living in that special section in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, especially during the summer.

We did not have many of the conveniences that we have today. Rather than a refrigerator, we had an icebox. The iceman delivered ice every other day. We
had a pan under the ice box. When we forgot to empty the pan, there would be a
huge puddle on the floor. There were no supermarkets, just local grocers. Milk,which was not homogenized, was purchased from the grocer. It was stored in a large metal buckets and ladled out. As the ladle was often left out with the milk uncovered, flies and roaches swarmed around the bucket. Mice licked the ladle until they were chased away by the store’s resident cat. When we brought the milk home, the cream was on the top, and my mother would make whipped cream with a hand beater. I grew up before radios, washing machines, dryers, and dishwashers. Even toilet paper was yet to be invented. We used orange wrappers and pages from the Sears catalog.

I lived two blocks from the beach and the boardwalk. I loved to go swimming in the ocean and walking the boardwalk. We had two big amusement parks within walking distance, Luna Park and Steeplechase. I preferred Luna Park as it had a circus. It was such fun watching the clowns, the animals, and especially the men and women on the trapeze. Nearby was the famous Nathan’s hot dog stand, where we could buy a hot dog with sauerkraut for five cents.

As there were no televisions, we went to the movies every Saturday. For ten cents, we saw a double feature along with newsreels, a serial, and cartoons. We bought a penny’s worth of candy and enjoyed the entertainment. On rainy days, we stayed indoors, drawing pictures with crayons and reading books from the library. We did not have as many toys as our grandchildren and great grandchildren have today, so we improvised. My brother made a train out of drawers from my father’s Singer sewing machine.

As all little girls, I loved to play with dolls. My mother had bought me a small celluloid doll with moving arms and feet that I could even bathe. I wanted a new doll carriage, but we were in the midst of the Great Depression, and my parents could not afford to buy me one from the store. So, we became creative. A shoebox became my doll carriage. My mother made a hole at the end of the shoebox and put a string through it so I could pull the carriage. The top of the box became the hood. She also gave me scraps of material which I made into a pillow, a carriage cover, and clothing for my doll. With a child’s imagination, I thought that my doll and doll carriage were the most beautiful in the world.

It was convenient to live near the beach, but my neighborhood was not the best. It was all pavement—no flowers and no lawns. One summer, my second-grade teacher thought it would be a good summer project to learn how things grow. The last week of school, she had us bring in a small wooden cheese box and a small potato. She helped us put the dirt that she supplied into the bottom of the box. We cut up the potato, placed it in the dirt, and then covered the potato with more dirt. I placed the potato plant on the fire escape and watered it every day. In July, I was happy to see some green leaves. My parents and teacher had never told me that potatoes grow underground. So, when August arrived, I got so angry that no potatoes had grown on the leaves, I just dumped the plant. I was so surprised to find four little potatoes!

Looking back, I had a very happy childhood. Although we did not have much money, I never felt deprived!

My Mom the Story Teller

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Ever since I could remember, my mother, Frances Cohen, was the family story teller. Give her an opening, and she would regal any audience with stories of her grandparents’ and parents’ lives in Russia, of her early years of marriage to “My Bill,” of their life in small towns and smaller apartments in the North Country, and of raising four children, watching them leave for college and for marriage, and their returning with her grandchildren to visit her and my father in their beloved cottage on Lake Champlain.

For many years, these stories were always told orally. Mom shared them when the family got together around the old oak table in the dining room, when she visited friends, and when her children’s friends came to visit. What was fascinating was that no one ever got tired of hearing them. As a matter of fact, she was highly regarded as the family historian. If anyone needed to know who was related to whom and how my father’s side was related to my mother’s side and what really happened between those two cousins—well, you just had to ask Fradyl, and the truth would be known.

As my parents got older, my mother realized that she needed to record these stories. We never were one for video cameras and tapes, so she began writing them down on lined paper, usually from the six by eight notepads. . The writing was messy, with words misspelled and whole sections crossed out, but she began to put them down on paper.

My parents retired in 1981 and spent the next nineteen years living six months in Florida and six months on a cottage on Lake Champlain. As it became too difficult to maintain two homes, they sold their cottage to my brother and sister-in-law, and my parents lived in Florida permanently. When I went to visit, my mother would tell me the stories as I transcribed them onto paper. Unfortunately, these scraps of paper remained in their original state for several years.

In 2007, after a number of health setbacks, we children insisted that my parents sell their condo in Florida and move back up North to be closer to the family. Everyone decided that the best location would be close to Larry and me, and on May 1, 2007, they moved into Coburg Village, an independent living facility only four miles from our home.

Initially uncertain about leaving Florida, their friends, and their independence, my parents soon realized that this was an ideal living arrangement that provided nightly five-course dinners in a lovely dining room, a shuttle service that brought them to grocery stores and doctor’s appointments, live entertainment and numerous clubs.

Soon after moving in, my mother called me to tell me she was joining Coburg’s monthly writing group to polish all those stories she carried in her head and on those scraps of paper. The night after her first meeting, however, she phoned to tell me she wasn’t sure she would fit in. “Most of them have college educations and write beautifully, Marilyn,” she lamented. “They will look down on my family stories as being silly and boring.” However, when she brought her first story to the group, her accounting of why she and my father moved to Coburg, she was surprised to find that the group enjoyed her writing style. “They loved my story, Marilyn! They said I have a real flair for story telling!” After that, my mother’s voice in phone calls after the monthly Wednesday meetings was filled with pride.

Mom rarely had difficulty finding a topic and writing it down with paper in pen. However, the group leader requested that the stories be typed so they could be published in the semi-annual collection and distributed to Coburg resident. My mother asked me, “my daughter the English major,” to type them, and, while I was at it, to do some proofing and minor revisions so that they would read more smoothly.

Thus began our five-year collaboration. Every month, about a week before the group met, my mother would give me her hand-written story, and I would bring over the typed version by Sunday afternoon. If I didn’t have it done by Sunday night, the phone calls would begin. “Marilyn, if you don’t have the time, just bring back my copy and I’ll read it from the original.” I would assure her that it would be delivered in time for her meeting, even resorting to sending the final copy to her via the Coburg fax machine.

The oral stories evolved into written documents, always original, always entertaining. She wrote about the Old Country: how her mother’s mother died in childbirth and how the two children were raised at first by an uncaring stepmother and then by a loving women who raised them and the seven others that followed; how my father’s father escaped from Russia in a cart filled with hay; what it was like living in Regalia and Vilna at the turn of the century with the fear of pogroms always on the Jewish population’s mind. She wrote about her mother’s family coming to America: how her Uncle Sam saved enough money to bring over his sister Ethel; how Aunt Lil turned down a job at the Triangle Shirt Factory a month before the fire because she thought it looked unsafe; how Grandpa Joe left his future bride at the jeweler’s as collateral until he got a second opinion of the diamond ring they were purchasing. And she wrote about our family: how she and Bill met on a blind date; how they raised four children in various small towns in the North Country, and, and how they came to buy their cottage on Lake Champlain. The stories were funny, sad, and painful, but they were always ready the first Wednesday of every month for her meeting.

When my father passed away in November, 2008, my mother’s contribution for December was an open letter to my father. She wrote that she was moving into a smaller apartment down the hall, but “Wherever I go, you also go in spirit.” Grieving quietly, she continued with her life at Coburg, going to the concerts, visiting with friends and family who were always stopping by to see her, and continuing with her writing. All of the children asked her to write about our birth and early childhood, but she always postponed those stories, focusing on the Old Country, her childhood, her Bill.

On December 22, 2010, my mother had a heart attack. The doctors recommended Hospice and living her remaining time to the fullest. She complied, enjoying visits from the children, grandchildren, her cousins, and the many friends she had made in Coburg and Clifton Park. She kept writing, and in February, with my sister Laura and I sitting close by, she shared her story: “The Birth of My First Child,” in which she described her joy in having a beautiful little girl and her fears that she would not be able to be a good mother. The last words, written in pencil on the bottom, were “To be continued……” She died four weeks later, one day before the March meeting.

My parents were not wealthy people, and had little of material value: a wedding ring, two beautiful framed pictures of my father at thirteen and my mother at six, a few nice dishes. As my siblings and I sadly dismantled Mom’s apartment, my daughter was surprised that I wanted so little. “It’s ok, Julie,” I said, “We have her stories.”

And we do….Over one hundred typed pages as well as a file of her handwritten notes that she had kept over the years. What a gift to her family, her friends, and all who knew and loved this amazing woman!

Was It the cabbage soup? How one romances a nice girl in 1912.

Pressing Questions

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When one is looking for a home in today’s market, one of the featured perks is the laundry room. Multi-functioning washing machines and dryers, fancy cabinetry, shining stainless steel sinks, and granite countertops appear to make Wash Day a joy. What a contrast to the way my mother handled the laundry in Upstate New York in the 1950s!

In 1952, my family moved into a two-story house in Keeseville that had been built at the turn of the century. Compared to the 1200 hundred square foot “box” we had lived in Potsdam, the four bedroom Victorian with its large living and dining rooms, ancient but large kitchen, office, a large unfinished room off the kitchen, and three (!) porches must have felt like a castle.

Our laundry room, however, was more like a dungeon. Out of necessity, the the wringer washer had to be set up in the basement, a dark, damp room with dirt floors, old stone walls, and a small window that looked out to the crawl space under one of the porches. A single hanging bulb provided the only light.

With two adults, three children —including one in cloth diapers—and lots of company, my mother had plenty of laundry. The wonders of polyester and wash and wear were still several years away. Either clothes were dry cleaned or “put through the ringer.” After a scare when my older sister Laura got her arm caught in the wringer mechanism, the old machine was replaced with a more modern top loading model. My mother must have thought she was in the lap of luxury.

Electric dryers had not yet found their way to Upstate New York, so all the wash had to be hung to dry. Mom carried the wet laundry up the steep basement stairs, walked through the kitchen and through the door to the back of the unfinished storage room. She opened a large window and hung the clothes from a thirty-foot clothes line that was attached by a pulley system. One end was attached to the house and the other end to oak tree that marked the far right corner of our property.

During the good weather, sunshine and warm breezes would quickly dry the sheets, pillow cases, towels, diapers, shirts, pants, dresses, and underwear that hung ten feet above our backyard. If an unexpected rain storm came through, Mom would have to quickly pull everything off the line and hang them over available chairs and radiators to finish the process. During the long winter months, cold air poured into the unheated room as Mom, fingers red and raw, pinned the laundry to the line with the wooden pins. If the snow was too frequent, she resorted to hanging the laundry in the basement.

On the good days, Mom pulled the line of dry clothes towards the house, unpinned the items, and piled them into waiting laundry baskets. The cotton fabrics would smell like fresh air and sunshine but would feel more like stiff boards of wrinkled matzoh.

As a result, almost everything had to be ironed. Mom filled an empty soda bottle with water and stuck an aluminum and cork sprinkling head into the top. She lay out each item of clothing on the kitchen table, sprinkled the material well, rolled it up, and placed it in a laundry basket. She let all the dampened clothes sit awhile so the moisture would be well distributed. If she was afraid of mildew, she stuck the clothing into the large freezer chest that was housed in the shed.

When she and the clothes were ready, Mom set up the ironing board in the kitchen, plugged in the iron, automatically licked her index finger on her tongue, quickly touch its wet tip to the bottom of the iron to check the temperature, and then pressed the steaming metal plate into the fabric. Taking each damp, rolled piece out of the laundry basket, she ironed for hours while listening to the songs of Frank Sinatra, Patti Page, and Tennessee Ernie Ford on WEAV-AM out of Plattsburgh. The kitchen would be filled with the sound of sizzling clothes and the smell of hot metal against the damp cotton.

The laundry increased with my sister Bobbie’s arrival three years after our move. By the time she was out of diapers, my parents had purchased a clothes dryer. Her lap of luxury had grown. Pink boxes of Dreft and plastic bottles of Clorox sat on a brown metal table between the two appliances, along with yellow bars of Fels Naptha soap, stray buttons, and assorted painless missing socks.

The clothes line was only used on beautiful summer days as Mom still loved the smell of sunshine and fresh air smell on the sheets.

There was still a great deal to be ironed, so my mother gave her children pressing lessons lessons at an early age. Starting with relatively easy handkerchiefs and pillow cases, we soon progressed to pants (“Make sure the seams are straight!”) to shirts and blouses (“Start with the back and progress to the front and sleeves.”) to dresses.(“First do the bottom skirt, pushing the iron gently but firmly up to the waistband.”)

I don’t recall my father never helping with laundry his entire life, but Larry has been by my soapy side since our apartment laundry room days. Once we moved into a house in Clifton Park, we set up an ironing board next to our washing machine and dryer in our basement/laundry area. To this day, he washes our bedding every week and does most of the laundry, including a weekly sheets and towel load.(Another reason I love him!)

Our Yes!-We’re Retired! Florida wardrobe doesn’t require extensive pressing. No matter, at least twice a month, I pull out the steam iron and the twenty-year-old ironing board. I spread our shirts and blouses and pants and handkerchiefs one by one on the ironing board. I wet each item with distilled water from a plastic spray bottle, automatically lick my index finger on my tongue, quickly touch its wet tip to the bottom of the iron to check the temperature, and then press the steaming metal plate into the fabric. I hear the familiar sizzle, and I breathe in the distinct aroma of cloth and water and and heat and traces of laundry detergent. I am happy knowing that our clothes will be pressed and ready to wear—just like my mother taught me sixty-five years ago.

Photo by Michael Jastremski courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

A version of this story was originally published in The Jewish World in July 2017. As it fell throuugh the cracks, I have added it to my blog seven years later.

Another meaning to “Through the glass darkly”!

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In ancient times, Jewish brides may have brought into marriage a nedunyah, or dowry, “those assets of the wife which she of her own free will entrusts to her husband’s responsibility.” This could take the form of money, slaves, or cattle. As Larry and I look forward to our fiftieth anniversary this fall, I reflect back on the “dowry” I brought into our marriage: a collection of Warner Brothers Looney Tunes glasses.

Larry and I announced our engagement to our families on October 6, 1973. Fresh out of graduate school, Larry was working at his parents’ store, Shapiro’s of Schuylerville, making an astounding $78 a week. Meanwhile, I was in my second year of teaching high school English in a suburb of Albany, with a starting salary of $5200

We obviously were not coming into this marriage as “well off.” But we had a plan for starting our new household. Who needed a wedding registry, where we could list china and silverware that we could never use? I just needed to stock up on free glassware from the nearby hamburger joint.

My apartment in Rensselaer, New York, was a short distance up Route 9 from a Carrols. The burger chain, which was founded in 1960 in Syracuse, New York, by Herbert N. Slotnik, was viewed as “incredibly popular as an alternative to

McDonalds,” with over 150 outlets, mostly in upstate New York and Pennsylvania.

During our engagement, Carrols was running a promotion sponsored by the Pepsi Corporation. For the price of a large soda product, each customer received a Looney Tunes glass with Warner Brothers’ characters painted on the outside. Daffy Duck! Bugs Bunny! Elmer Fudd! And, over the course of several months, fifteen more glasses were released. My quest was to get all eighteen options, which was a great deal of Diet Pepsi.

Each week, whatever day the newest one was up for sale, I would stop by, order a Diet Pepsi, slurp it up, and then bring the prize home. To be honest, I can’t even remember if I purchased the their signature Club Burger! Six glasses in, I wasn’t even bothering to drink the soda. I dumped it out, wash out the glass when I got home, and tucked it away in a cupboard.

After our September 1974 wedding, we moved into our tiny apartment in Guilderland. Thanks to a bridal shower and gifts, we had a kitchen stocked with a Corelle dinnerware set for eight, Oneida silverware, Farberware pots, and several pieces of the classical Corningware with the blue flowers. And, thanks to Carrols, we had over two dozen Looney Tunes glasses, many with duplicates.

We did receive a lovely set of glassware from Tiffany’s, with an S engraved on each one. They went onto the top shelf of our apartment’s galley kitchen. Why would we use those when The Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote could fight it out at our tiny kitchen table? Beep! Beep!

Bugs and the Gang came with us to our first home and, two years later, to our second. By the time he was five, Adam was old enough to graduate from sippy cups to Sylvester. Julie progressed to Petunia Pig three years later. Of course, a few met their untimely death on our kitchen floor, but we managed to hold on to many of them. About fifteen years ago, I found some replacements at a secondhand store. Again, more were lost to breakage, but we still had five remaining when we made the move to Florida in 2015.

By then, the painted characters had faded, and the glasses were cloudy. The former owners of our Kissimmee home had left a set of glasses in the cupboard, and we opted to use those for every day use. Our Looney Tunes treasures only came out on special occasions, and we only lost one over eight years, until the college football playoff in January 2023.

We had met our friends Joel and JoAnn Knudson, from a tiny town in North Dakota, many years earlier at a Jamaican resort. That began a close friendship that we maintained through a few more trips to Jamaica, a visit they made to Albany just before Hurricane Sandy, and time together in Florida. We were thrilled when they purchased a home in our 55+ community.

Soon after their move, the Knudsons, lifelong fans of North Dakota State University’s football team, were looking forward to the January 5, 2023, championship match between their beloved Bisons and their arch rivals, South Dakota State University. As their television set hadn’t arrived yet, we invited them over to watch the game on our big screen.

At the end of the first quarter, the two teams were tied 7-7. By halftime, however, NDSU was behind 14-7. Time for refreshments! We replenished the chips and dip. I offered Joel a cold beer in one of our favorite Looney Tunes glasses, Bugs Bunny.

“Get that @#?$ jack rabbit out of here!” Joel yelled.

How was I supposed to know that the SDSU’s mascot was a jackrabbit??

I quickly transferred the Yuengling into a less threatening Elmer Fudd. According to Joel, however, the damage was done. The Bisons faced a blistering 45 to 21 defeat by the despised Jackrabbits. The Knudsons went home disappointed; both Bugs and Elmer went into my dishwasher to see another day.

Two days later, I was reading the newspaper on my kitchen counter.. As I turned the page, my hand brushed against my glass of iced tea. Seconds later, our beloved Bugs Bunny met his demise on my tile floor. Larry and I refer to it as “The Knudson Curse.”

Recently, with our Looney Tunes supply down to four glasses and the former owners “gift” set of glasses etched with cloudiness that no amount of Cascade or vinegar would remove, I pulled down the Tiffany glasses we got for our wedding. “What are we saving them for?” I asked Larry. After fifty years, the beautiful set are being used for everything from an orange juice to an Old Fashioned.

In retrospect, using that now collector’s set of Looney Tunes was not such a great idea. According to Tamara Rubin’s Lead Safe Mama webpage, tests run on athe paint on a sample Looney Tunes glass revealed that it contained 71,800 parts per million of lead, 800 times more than the 90 ppm considered unsafe for use! “Please do NOT let children in your life use them,” Rubin wrote in her 2/19/2019 article “I personally would not use something like this in my home for any purpose!” Yikes! For fifty years, I had been exposing my family and friends to high contents of lead, caladium, and arsenic. To quote Sylvester, “Thufferin’ Thuccotash!”

What happened to Carrols? By the mid 1970’s, Slotnick saw the writing on the wall as competition by sheer numbers from McDonalds and Burger King dwarfed his company. “He figured if you can’t beat ’em, join ‘em,” Alan Morrell wrote in a 10/25/2021 article for the Democrat & Chronicle. Slotnick cut a deal with Burger King in which all his restaurants would be converted into the home of the “Big Whopper.”

But the Looney Tunes “vintage” glassware continue to thrive on internet, where collectors can pay anywhere from $16.99 for Porky Pig on Amazon to $300 for a complete set of 18 on Ebay. I say, I say, maybe my Foghorn Leghorn still has some life in him yet!

Sources:

Morell, Alan. “Rochester loved the Looney Tunes glasses and Club Burger. Whatever happened to Carrols?” Democrat and Chronicle. October 25, 2022.

Pacheco, George. “Top 10 Most Iconic Looney Tunes Catchphrases.” Watchmojo.[Date unknown]

Rubin, Tamera. “1973 Warner Brothers Pepsi Collector Series Daffy Duck Drinking Glass: 71,800 ppm Lead (90 ppm is unsafe for kids.)” Lead Safe Mama. February 19, 2019.

Larry and I on our wedding day in 1974.. Who needs fancy crystal when we have Looney Tunes glasses?

Magical Norway

Sherpa or schlepper?

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As many of you head out to family vacations, I am posting this story that was originally published in The Jewish World in July 2018.

A sherpa? Or a shlepper? When it comes to packing, I’m both!

I have a friends who has the art of packing down to a science. No matter where they go or how long they stay, they manage to fit everything into a shove-into-the-overhead bin carry-on. Part of their strategy is resourcefulness, and part is just bad experience: their luggage was lost twice on the way to their destination, and they vowed never to be in that situation again.

The proverbial schlepper,* I can’t even go to the supermarket with less than a trunkful. Shopping lists and coupons. Shopping bags. Ice packs. Light jacket. (Why do supermarkets have to keep their stores so cold?) Rain coat. Water bottle. Library books to drop off on the way home. The trunk is filled before I even back out of the driveway.

My purse alone could keep me going for a week. I am absolutely addicted to those click baits on the Internet that list everything one should carry at all times. Along with the regulars—keys, wallet, cell phone, sunglasses, regular glasses for driving, hand sanitizer, lip gloss—I come fully prepared for minor emergencies. A charger and headphones in case my phone battery dies. A small pad of paper and a pencil in case my writing mu.se hits. A tweezer and a nail file for quick fixes. A traveling toothbrush and floss. And a whistle that I purchased in Colorado to help scare away bears and to signal rescuers in case I am lost in the woods. (I bring the whistle on cruises in case I get stuck on a floating door like Rose in the Titanic. In Florida, it helps me feel safer when I am alone in a parking lot.)

So packing for a trip—whether it be a weekend in a family member’s home or eight weeks in a rental—usually results in a stuffed suitcase. You’ve probably heard the rule to “lay out everything you want to bring and then only pack half the amount?” Somehow or another my suitcase only gets heavier the closer the deadline for our departure approaches.

I wonder how my grandparents handled their trips from Eastern Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century. Did they carry a steamer trunk? Or was everything in a huge satchel? My father’s father carried brass Shabbat candlesticks and prayer books. From my research, I learned that clothes took second place to food for the journey on the boat. Fearing that kosher food wouldn’t be available, immigrants carried loafs of black bread and huge chunks of salami to sustain them until they arrived at Ellis Island. I can only imagine the odor in steerage of unwashed bodies, unwashed clothes, and smelly deli.

When I traveled to Peru and Ecuador, I schlepped a suitcase that weighed slightly under the fifty pound limit. Not only did I overpack but also I spent too much time pawing through my suitcase looking for a pair of hiking socks or the dressy top I needed for dinner. I vowed never to travel like that again. In all subsequent trips I managed to reduce the weight and the stress caused by overpacking.

Of course, this strategy only works to a point. At four o’clock in the afternoon before our recent flight out west, the zipper on my fifteen year old suitcase broke. We had to make an emergency trip to JCPenney to replace it with another the same size but with cool 360 degree wheels, which made the unexpected purchase a little sweeter. Larry invariably weighs his bag and mine at the airline’s check-in, getting some perverse satisfaction knowing that mine outweighs his by at least five pounds.

Which brings me to my sherpa role. For those unfamiliar with all the books written about treks up Mount Everest, Sherpas originally referred to a tribe in Nepal. According to Wikipedia, along with their role as humane and courageous mountain guides, they often carried necessary equipment for their foreign trekkers and mountain climbers.

Larry serves as the sherpa when it comes to the paperwork needed for the trip. But I carry the responsibility for the first-aid kit, the electric toothbrush, lotions and potions, the guide books, the contact information, extra batteries. Thanks to modern technology, some of the bulk has been reduced through cell phones and electronic readers. However, I do often remind Larry that the extra pounds in my luggage are a direct result of my sherpa role.

And I have learned some strategies for packing over the years. First of all, I have a master packing list that covers every climate, state, and country. The list is printed out two weeks before we leave, and I check off items as they get piled onto the guest bed. . With the additional use of packing blocks—the various sized zipped bags that fit neatly together—I have also been able to separate out clothes based on the needs: dressy clothes in one bag; warmer outfits when the temperature drops; my bathing suit, cover-up, and flip-flops in a small bag to grab as needed. Larry and I have also become huge fans of quick dry options that result in fewer items of clothing and less time in coin-operated laundries.

As I write this, Larry and I are between two trips. After spending a long weekend in San Francisco with our son Adam, we flew to Colorado and spent another five weeks in a rented condo a mile away from our daughter’s family home in the Rockies. We just flew back to Florida for a week, giving us enough time to turn around and head for a seventeen day trip to Norway and Iceland. Fortunately, the weather in Colorado is similar to that of these two European countries, so packing will be simple. I will leave half of the stuff I brought to the Rockies home and repack only the clothes I actually wore on the trip. Running shoes, exercise clothes, dressy tops, the heavy fleece, the jeans stay behind. Instead, I will fill my bag with lots of layers that don’t show dirt and dry quickly Who knows? Maybe it can all fit in a carry-on. And that will make Larry, me, and all the baggage handlers very happy.

*A schlepper is a Yiddish word for someone who carries things or is a servant.

Wandering, wandering!–Where do we settle?

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A version of this article originally appeared in the June 18, 2015, issue of the Jewish World News. I am publishing this blog post as we celebrate nine years in our “new” home.

This year marks the fortieth year Larry and I have celebrated Passover as a married couple. Unlike the Israelites, we have not exactly spent it wandering in a desert wilderness. It has been a fruitful, productive life spent in the Capital District. For us, next year will not be in Jerusalem, but in Florida.

A real upstate girl, born in St. Lawrence County and raised in in Essex County (Since when is Westchester County upstate?),relocating to Albany for college in 1968. Larry also had spent all but his college years in Saratoga County. We met in Albany, married, moved to Clifton Park, raised two children, made wonderful friends, and spent holidays with our families.

When did the desire to live someplace else begin? The germ was planted twenty years ago when our parents spent six to eight months a year in Florida. Our circle began to expand geographically: our children moved to California and Colorado; my sister moved to Arizona; an aunt moved to South Carolina; a niece moved to Virginia; and a number of friends and family started living two to four months in warmer climates. Other friends were spending time with their own children, who were scattered over the country and the world. We began a nomadic life, visiting friends and family and traveling on our own to Germany, Peru, England, Greece. Although we enjoyed our numerous trips, we felt finding “our spot,” a place that fit all our criteria, would keep us more grounded.

Every place we visited raised the question, “Could we live here?” We did some California dreaming, but the high prices of real estate and the high possibilities of earthquakes ruled it out. Julie and Sam live at 9000 feet in Colorado, truly a Rocky Mountain high. Summit County is beautiful in the summer, but the winters last nine months, and you think Boston gets snow? Try twelve feet a year, every year. Other places in Colorado offered warmer temperatures, but the homes we viewed were close together, and we would still need our snow shovels.We also Arizona would be out of the mix: The desert can be lovely, but no manna—and little rain—fell from the heavens, and we were always happy to get back to “green” and water on the East Coast. Ever the English major, I even fell in love with the small villages in England, but we knew that would never be where we settled.

Once we retired four years ago, our interest in relocating intensified. The long winters and grey skies hadn’t bothered us when we were working, but once we were home all day, the weather became a factor. Our friends and family changed from asking, “Have you any trips planned?” to “Where are you going next?” And after forty years, Larry and I were ready for our next adventure.

This fall, everything fell into place. Julie told us over Thanksgiving that, after eight years of marriage, she and Sam were expecting our first grandchild in July 2015. After I stopped jumping up and down with joy, Larry and I made the decision that we would like to spend our summers in Colorado and the rest of the year someplace warm. We found that warm spot on a rainy December day in Florida, when we checked out an active adult community where we were staying near Orlando. From the moment we drove in, Larry and I were impressed with the tranquil setting and the amount of green space and lakes. We fell in love with an immaculate home for sale on a lovely piece of land overlooking a pond and bordering a wildlife preserve. The community itself offered all we were looking for: indoor and outdoor pools, Hadassah chapter, book clubs, a writing club, bike paths, pickle ball courts, movies and shows, and exercise classes.It was close to world class entertainment and an international airport with direct flights to all major cities in the country.

We came back to Albany, to grey skies, piles of snow, and sub-zero temperatures. Even with the miserable weather, we still needed time. After much research, thought, discussion, and several sleepless nights, we decided to purchase the home in Florida and spend two to three months in Colorado. So, after forty years of New York Passovers, next year we will be celebrating with the Shalom Club in our new neighborhood.

If physically packing up the house is a challenge, emotionally leaving behind family, friends, and years and years of memories will be even more difficult. For the last twenty years, I have had the following framed quote hanging in our home, “Come my love and we shall wander, just to see what we can find. If we only find each other, still the journey is worth the time.” Like our Israeli ancestors, Larry and I will be wandering far from the home we have known to begin our next adventure.