Tag Archives: #Colorado

Climb every mountain as long as you can…Reflections on Rosh Hashanah

Are the trails getting steeper? Or am I getting older?

These were my thoughts as Larry and I climbed Shrine Ridge Trail in Summit County in early July. We had been in Colorado for ten days before we attempted the hike, so I believed I had acclimated my body to the altitude. But we started at 11,000 feet and would peak closer to 12,000. As I huffed and puffed up the trail, I never doubted I would finish. The bulldog in me would never give up. But could I do this next year? In five years? Who knows?

Larry and I DID finish our climb on that beautiful summer day. We got up to the top and took in the colorful wildflowers and the amazing vistas, grateful we could still climb mountains at our age.

In the weeks that followed, we often chose an easier three-mile hike that we accessed with a short walk from our rental. In early August, however, Larry and I met our friends Sandie and Howie for a more challenging hike up the Herman Gulch Trail in the Ranger District of the Arapaho National Forest. During our four-mile hike, we encountered a couple of around our age descending. I posed my “Steeper or older” question aloud.

“Neither,” the man told me. “We are experiencing geographical uplift, a phenomenon in which the earth shifts to steeper inclines as we age.”

Okay, maybe Earth is NOT in fact shifting. But our lives have. Before we left for our summer in cooler temperatures, a close friend, a non-smoker, had just been diagnosed with lung cancer. Another friend’s cancer had returned. And a third friend, who had biked 86 miles for his eighty-sixth birthday, died a week later of a heart attack while on a shorter ride. “He was doing what he loved,” people said. But I doubt that it was sufficient comfort to the family he left behind.

Our time in the mountains changed as well. Friends we looked forward to seeing every summer developed health issues and/or “aged out” as they could no longer handle the high altitude. One of Larry’s pickleball buddies had told us last summer that he and his wife were opting out of summers in Summit County and renting a place in a mountainous region of Arizona, reducing their elevation by 4000 feet. Dear friends who had been part of our summer plans for over ten years, whether eating out, hiking, or playing cutthroat games of Mexican Train, also had to give up their beautiful home in Dillion, Colorado, and remain in Charlotte, North Carolina, at a more comfortable 671 feet above sea level.

And then the “life can change on a dime” phenomenon hit our own family very hard soon after Larry and I returned to Florida. Two days after coming home from an incredible cruise through the British Isles with my brother, sister-in-law, and a friend, my sister Laura was hospitalized in Upstate New York with breathing problems. Doctors were trying to determine the exact cause of her symptoms when she took a turn for the worse. Diagnosis: a rare form of pneumonia. Grim news followed: Laura was on a ventilator in the intensive care unit. We had two days of optimism when she was taken off the ventilator. She was looking forward to her life after hospitalization and rehab: a highly anticipated move to San Diego, California, to be closer to her children and grandchildren. But her 83-year-old body failed. She passed away on Friday, August 29.

The four Cohen children had been fortunate indeed. Whereas some of our friends have strained or non-existent relationships with their siblings and/or their spouses, we all had remained close—maybe even closer as we had all realized how life can change on a dime. And now one of us is gone, leaving the three of us to grieve with other family members and friends who will miss her so much.

“On Rosh Hashanah, all who enter the world pass before Him,” reads a passage in the Mishnah. One Jewish interpretation is that we march single file like sheep before God to determine whether we will be written in the Book of Life. Another interpretation is that we march like soldiers. But my favorite interpretation, reflecting on my summer in the mountains, comes from Resh Lakish, a third century BCE scholar. The rabbi envisioned this march taking place before God on a mountain, each person walking cautiously, single file, along a narrow, treacherous path.

As I observe the High Holy Days this year, warm memories of my beloved “big sister” will be forefront in my thoughts. Prayers for those we lost and those who are ill will take on even greater significance. Will I be climbing mountains in 5786? Hopefully, I will tackle Shrine Ridge and Herman Gulch with the same vigor and determination I did this past summer. But thanks to Resh Lakish, when I am in one of those narrow and knowing me, not-TOO treacherous paths, I will hope that God is looking down and giving me the strength to move forward in my life, no matter where the path takes me.

Sources:

Liben, Rabbi Daniel. “Sheep, Mountain Hikers, and Soldiers.” Temple Israel of Natick, Massachusetts. Rosh Hashannah 5756. https://www.tiofnatick.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/rh_sermon_2015.pdf

McCullough Gulch. Not sure if we will hike this one again!

Shapiro Publishes There Goes My Heart

Yiddish ta’am and chutzpadik shticks: Carl Topilow

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As we have done since our Mountain Girl was born in 2015, Larry and I are settled into our rental in Summit County, Colorado, to escape the Florida heat and to enjoy family time.

Each summer, we look forward to attending performances of the National Repertory Orchestra (NRO). Eighty young musicians are selected every year through national auditions to perform with the NRO. NRO alumni may be found in countless orchestras both the in the United States and abroad. Along with performances at the Riverwalk Center in Breckinridge, the talented performers take part in free “pop up” concerts offered throughout the county. We have fortunately been able to attend several NRO events throughout our stay.

For the past three years, we have attended the Pops concert, led by conductor, showman, and clarinet player extraordinaire Carl Topilow. Now serving as Conductor Laureate, he was Music Director and Conductor of the NRO for 42 years. In addition to his appearances with the NRO, Topilow is the Founding Conductor and Music Director of the Cleveland Pops Orchestra and has appeared as guest conductor for over 130 orchestras.

Carl Topilow, the son of first-generation Jewish immigrants, grew up in a close-knit, extended family in Bayonne, New Jersey.in Bayonne, New Jersey. His mother Pearl, the daughter of Austrian immigrants, was born on New York City’s Lower East Side. Six of his father Jacob’s eight siblings were born in Russia before the family immigrated to the United States at the turn of the 20th century. His enjoyment and appreciation of his rich family history infuse his performances.

“I’ve been told that even when I play Dixieland or jazz, a Yiddish twang seems to be part of my musical vocabulary,” Topilow shared in a 2025 email. “My eclectic musical tastes include performing Klezmer [the dance-oriented Jewish tradition from Eastern Europe] and traditional Yiddish music. Recognizing the fact that so many of the great Broadway composers were Jewish—Jerome Kern, George and Ira Gershwin, Steven Sondheim, Richard Rodgers, Irving Berlin, Alan Menken, and Jules Styne—to name just a few, is a source of pride”

A 2011 article by Violet Spevack in the Cleveland Jewish News spoke of Topilow’s performances in Jewish venues, including at Yom Kippur services and Sisterhood meetings. “Topilow is endearingly ‘one of us,’” wrote Spevack, “with his Yiddish ta’am (flavor) and chutzpadik (audacious) shticks.” He and his brother and pianist Dr. Arthur Topilow often perform together, including for a July 2016 NRO event that included klezmer music.

On July 8, 2023, Larry and I brought our then eight-year-old granddaughter to her first concert performance, billed as “Topilow Pops.” Before the event, we explained to her about the protocols for the concert: her need to sit quietly, to be attentive, to applaud at the appropriate times, and to avoid any actions that would distract from other concert goers. Outside of asking if there would be a ‘half time’ (she and her father are huge Denver Nuggets fans), our Mountain Girl was well prepared. She even jumped up and yelled, “Bravo” at the end of several numbers. Carl Topilow would be proud of her appreciation for his concert!

The highlight for us came when Topilow included the Shofar sounds into his rendition of Fiddler on the Roof. Tekiah! Teruah! Shevarim! echoed through the concert hall. The audience—especially those well-versed in the sweet sounds heard on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur—clapped their appreciation.

In 2024, Larry and I again attended NRO’s pops concert.Topilow and his iconic red clarinet lead a small line of brass and wind musicians into Riverwalk with a somber rendition of “Just a Closer Walk with Thee,” a gospel song frequently played at New Orleans jazz funerals. Once on stage, he led the orchestra in a rousing “When the Saints Go Marching In.” He showed off his clarinet expertise in the final number, the Cantina theme from John Williams Star Wars soundtrack.

Okay, no traditional Jewish music at this concert. But articles about Star Wars’ link to Judaism fill the internet. In a December 16, 2015, article in the Forward, Seth Rogovoy makes an interesting case for the secret Jewish history of the George Lucas franchise. “You don’t have to be a linguist to figure out that the Jedi knights, who use “the Force”–the spiritual power of good deeds, aka the mitzvot—to do good in their battle with the “Dark Side,” the yetzer hara, or the evil urge within us all, bear the Anglicized name of a Jew. In other words, Jedi = yehudi = Jew.” And did you know that in Hebrew, Yoda means “one who knows”? And who cannot fall to compare Darth Vader and his Storm Troopers to Hitler and his SS? Or the motley ragtag band of heroes as modern day Maccabees? And John Williams’ main movie theme is eerily similar to Czech-born Jewish Hollywood composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s theme to “King’s Row”? (Google it! It’s amazing!) So Carl Topilow may, just may, be delving into his family’s immigrant past when he belts out the music from the Cantina scene on his iconic red clarinet. May the Force be with you, Carl!

Originally published July 20, 2024. Updated May 26, 2025.

Sources

A special thank you to Carl Topilow for his input into the article and for permission to use photos.

Photo courtesy of Carl Topilow. Photographed by Robb McCormick. http://www.carltopilow.com

Farnell, Shauna. “The National Repertory Orchestra presents Disney’s ‘The Lion King’ in Concert Live to Film.” www.nro.org website. July 23, 2023.

NRO website. www.nro.org

Rogovey, Seth. “The Secret Jewish History of Starwars.” The Forward. December 16, 2015.

Spevack, Violet. “Maestro Carl Topilow, Cleveland Pops mark a decade together.” Cleveland Jewish News. October 4, 2011.

Topilow, Carl. www.carltopilow.com

Music to our ears; NRO pop concerts

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As we have done since our Mountain Girl was born in 2015, Larry and I are settled into our rental in Summit County, Colorado, to escape the Florida heat and to enjoy family time.
Each summer, we look forward to attending performances of the National Repertory Orchestra (NRO) in Breckinridge.. Eighty young musicians are selected every year through national auditions to perform with the NRO. NRO alumni may be found in countless orchestras both the in the United States and abroad. Along with performances at the Riverwalk Center in Breckinridge, the talented performers participate in free “pop up” concerts offered throughout the county. We have fortunately been able to attend several NRO events throughout our stay.
For the past three years, we have attended the Pops concert, led by conductor, showman, and clarinet player extraordinaire Carl Topilow. Now serving as Conductor Laureate, he was Music Director and Conductor of the NRO for 42 years. In addition to his appearances with the NRO, Topilow is the Founding Conductor and Music Director of the Cleveland Pops Orchestra and has appeared as guest conductor for more than 130 orchestras.
The son of Jacob and Pearl Topilow, he was raised in Bayonne, New Jersey. A 2011 article by Violet Spevack in the Cleveland Jewish News spoke of Topilow’s performances in Jewish venues, including at Yom Kippur services and Sisterhood meetings. “Topilow is endearingly ‘one of us,’wrote Spevack, with his Yiddish ta’am (flavor) and chutzpadik (audacious) shticks,” He and his brother and pianist Dr. Arthur Topilow, often perform together, including for a July 2016 NRO event that included klezmer music, the dance-oriented Jewish tradition from Eastern Europe.
On July 8, 2023, Larry and I brought our then eight-year-old granddaughter to her first concert performance. In the days before the event, we explained to her about the protocols for the concert: her need to sit quietly, to be attentive, to applaud at appropriate times, and to avoid any actions that would distract from other concert goers. Outside of asking if there would be a ‘half time’ (she and her father are huge Denver Nuggets fans), our Mountain Girl was well prepared. She even stood up and yelled “Bravo!” at the appropriate times.
The entertaining concert included themes from The Wizard of Oz, The Lion King, and The Godfather, as well as Topilow’s signature selections from Fiddler on the Roof. We particularlyenjoyed Topilow’s imitation of the sounds of the shofar on his clarinet — Tikiah! T’Ruah! Shevarim,—played by the illustrious violinist Issac Stern in the movie version of the Jerry Bock/Sheldon Harnick classic.
Later in the season, we took our granddaughter along with her parents to a performance of The Lion King. The Disney animated classic was shown in its entirety on the big screen above the orchestra as 80 musicians, led by conductor Jason Seber, performed the score in precise timing with every scene. “Once you watch a movie accompanied by the power of a live orchestra, you’ll be spoiled for life,” wrote Shauna Farnell in an NRO article in July 2023. She was right. We loved it!
This year, Larry and I repeated our Pops visit. Topilow and his iconic red clarinet lead a small line of brass and wind musicians into Riverwalk with a somber rendition of “Just a Closer Walk with Thee,” a gospel song frequently played at New Orleans jazz funerals. Once on stage, he led the orchestra in a rousing “When the Saints Go Marching In.” He showed off his clarinet expertise in the final number, the Cantina theme from John Williams Star Wars soundtrack.
Although she was unable to attend this year’s Pops concert, our Mountain Girl was she joined us for the NRO’s showing of Star Wars: The New Hope, again replete with the symphony lead by Jason Seber replacing the entire musical score. The Force was with us, as we enjoyed every minute.

Sources
A special thank you to Carl Topilow for his input into the article
Farnell, Shauna. “The National Repertory Orchestra presents Disney’s ‘The Lion King’ in Concert Live to Film.” www.nro.org website. July 23, 2023.
NRO website. www.nro.org
Spevack, Violet. “Maestro Carl Topilow, Cleveland Pops mark a decade together.” Cleveland Jewish News. October 4, 2011.
Topilow, Carl. www.carltopilow.com

I Am Enough

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I was always looking outside myself for strength and confidence but it comes from within. It is there all the time. Anna Freud

Since 2015, Larry and I have spent six weeks in Frisco, Colorado, a beautiful mountain town nestled in the Rockies. Our rented condo is a two-minute walk to my daughter Julie and her family. We breathe in the fresh mountain air and savor the beauty that surrounds us. We hike on miles of trail that take us under shimmering aspens, by flowing streams, and onto the shores of blue mountain lakes that reflected the snow-topped mountains.

Frisco has always been a place of peace and renewal, but this summer I carried with me an emotional burden. I had recently launched on Amazon Keep Calm and Bake Challah: How I Survived the Pandemic, Politics, Pratfalls, and Other of Life’s Problems. My fourth book had been met with much initial excitement and congratulatory praise from the family and friends I had notified, but I had sold only eleven copies. Book stores and businesses to whom I had sent copies had not responded, and a planned ZOOM book club centered on my writing fell through. Since my post-retirement venture into writing and blogging, I had published over 300 articles and self-published three books in addition to Keep Calm, but I was disappointed in my perceived lack of feedback and inability to grow my audience.

Larry tried to comfort me by sharing his pride in what I had accomplished, but to no avail. I reached out to a few close friends to share my hurt. One friend offered wise advice. “You put yourself behind the eight ball when you rely on others to make you feel successful,” she wrote in late-night text. “If you can internalize your completing and following through on your passion, you are a success.” I ignored her as well. Two recommended counseling. I told them I’d think about it.

Instead, my doubts spread to every major decision I had made in my life. I questioned every choice I had ever made: my college, my major, my career, my houses, my retirement, even the color I had painted the walls inside of my house.

Outside of entries into my daily journal, I stopped writing. “I’m taking a break,” I wrote to Laurie Clevenson, my editor at the Capital Region of New York’s Jewish World. “Are you okay?” she, who had become accustomed to a submission every two weeks for the past ten years, wrote back immediately. I initially drafted a long explanation of my emotional state then deleted it. “I just need time off,” I reiterated. “I want to enjoy my time in the mountains without deadlines.”

I finally shared with Julie my crushing disappointment I had experienced when sales—and the resulting praise—for my articles and my books—failed to meet up to my expectations. My daughter, as always, was compassionate and understanding. “I’m sorry I didn’t provide the external validation you needed for your writing,” she said.

WAIT! Wasn’t that what my friend had referenced when she tried to console me in June? I went back to read over her text. “You also cannot make others feel obligated to stroke your ego,” she had said, a comment that angered me at the time. “I have learned that it is unimportant what others think, you need to be proud of YOU.”

For the first time in my life, I realized how much I had depended on external validation.This was not limited to my writing. Almost every aspect of my life, I had required the approval and thumbs-up from family, friends, and even strangers. Did I choose the right career path? Buy the right house? Wear the right clothes? Weigh the right amount on the bathroom scale? Choose the right doctor? Travel to the right places with the right cruise line/tour group or guide book? Plan our retirement the right way? My need for validation was obsessive, intrusive, and self-defeating.

With this new insight, I finally began to heal. Walking outside, surrounded by mountains and aspens and waterfalls and creeks, I realized that I write because I simply love to write. I took pride in the fact that my articles had been published in media sources from as close as Orlando’s Heritage and as far away as Australia. I was grateful for the time I had taken to interview, research, and write stories about Jewish Holocaust survivors so their sacrifice, strength, and survival can be recognized. And yes, I had gotten positive feedback from many readers, including my blog followers. Even though my books may never be on the New York Times best seller list, I have given my children and grandchildren a gift of my stories that will be my legacy.

Moreover, I extended this new-found self-acceptance to other areas of my life. I chose not to focus on what Robert Frost called “The Road Not Taken,” Instead, I took pride and joy in all the decisions I had made alone or with Larry that led us to the life we have now, which is filled with love, joy, thankfully good health, and happiness. Rather than depending on others to validate my choices, I decided to trust myself.

The weight I had been carrying for my whole life began to slide off my shoulders. As the poet e.e. cummings wrote, “ “Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.” Since the pandemic, my mantra had been “I am exactly where I need to be.” I now have added the following: “I am enough. I do enough. I have enough.” And I don’t need anyone but myself to affirm that fact.

What a lovely way to start off the Jewish New Year! L’Shana Tova!

A Meshugganah Summer

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This was, to say the least, a different summer in Rockies. No matter how well one can plan for time away, life still happens. Meshugganah!

After eight wonderful days in California with my son Adam and his family, we flew into Denver and then headed for my daughter Julie’s home in Summit County. While unpacking, I realized my Kindle was lost in transit. I wish I had been able to brush the loss off as a human error, but I spent too much time trying to track it down (no luck at Southwest Airlines, either airport, or Enterprise), deciding on whether to order a replacement (thank goodness for a well-timed Amazon Prime Days sale) and beating myself up for losing it in the first place.

Although Summit County normally experiences the monsoon season in late July, this year it started soon after we arrived. Two days were complete washouts, but “weather” came in most days in early afternoon. As a result, most evening outdoor concerts, a favorite summer activity we have done in the past with family and friends, were cancelled.

Meanwhile, as has happened throughout the country, this very contagious COVID variant hit Summit County hard—and close to home. On July 1, the day we moved into our rental, we stocked up on groceries at City Market, along with many other maskless vacationers. We brought home chicken, produce, ingredients for challah baking, and COVID. By July 3, Larry was feeling under the weather; by July 5, he tested positive.

My May encounter with the nasty virus somehow protected me from this variant, but Larry was not spared. He was down for the count for five days and, as he was still testing positive, isolated for five more. He missed out on our Mountain Girl’s birthday party, several trips to Main Street to get her mango bubble tea, and many games of Sorry! FaceTime may be a blessing when we are in Florida; it was a poor substitute when our rental was literally a stone’s throw from their house.

We also both passed on the planned weekend getaway with Sam’s family in Granby, Colorado. Sam’s parents, Marilyn and Bill, who are also our dear friends, cancelled their second attempt to see us when Larry was hit by a mean head cold.

Although I hiked almost every day during Larry’s illness by just walking out of our rental, we were able to take our first hike together two and half weeks into our stay. Outside of my taking another one of my famous pratfalls on one, Larry being attacked by mosquitos despite the bug spray on the second, our almost getting caught in a thunderstorm on the third; and encountering a snake on the fourth, we had finally were able to spend quality time together on the trail.

By this time, Larry was well past COVID and colds. On July 21, Marilyn and Bill drove up from Fort Collins with plans for the seven of us to attend the National Repertory Orchestra’s annual pop concert in nearby Breckinridge. An hour before we were supposed to leave, the Mountain Girl came home from the fourth day of science camp with a live jelly fish and a lively case of COVID. The four grandparents went to the concert while Julie and Sam stayed home. Wisely, Marilyn and Bill drove the two hours back home immediately following the concert to avoid further exposure. The parents, however, were not so lucky. All three—five if you include the dog and “Jelly”—were now in quarantine. Sigh! We are back to FaceTime visits.

Meanwhile, a funny thing happened on our way to the Lake Dillon Theater. Soon after the NRO family no-go, we got an email stating both musicals for which we had purchased tickets were cancelled due to a COVID outbreak among the cast and staff. Yes, any live indoor performances in any “forum” were just an “impossible dream.”

And yet, despite lost electronics; despite monsoons, despite curtailed concerts and cancelled curtain calls; despite pratfalls and pests and the pandemic, Larry and I remained focused on the positive (no pun intended). Several mornings, with the help of FaceTime, Larry and I followed the Tour de France with Adam (who loves cycling) and our grandson (who kept asking for Elmo on the “TV”). For eight nights, Larry and I watched historical wins at the World Track and Field Championships out of Eugene, Oregon (Go Sydney McLaughlin! Go Armand Duplantis!). I researched future stories, wrote, articles, worked on my fourth book, and updated my blog. One of the pictures I took on a hike was featured in a local newspaper, prompting a friend email with the subject line, “Thinking of you…as a photographer!”

Once healthy, Larry resumed playing pickleball with the Summit County Pickleball Club (“We play with an altitude!”), along with doing several more hikes with me. Thanks to the local library and my new Kindle, I read lots of books. And even though Southwest has yet to locate my old Kindle, I was assured by a lovely woman in the Denver office that as it is one of 9000 items accumulated by the central lost and found office, I have a good chance of it being recovered by Chanukah. (Chag Sameach, Larry! You have been regifted!)

By the time we left the mountains, all my family members had completed recovered from COVID. We were safe and in one piece. We did not have to cancel entire vacations due to illnesses, a fate that befell two close relatives. We are not grieving and traumatized like so many families in Buffalo, Ulvalde, Highland Park, and other sites of senseless violence. And no matter what the weather, we spent six weeks basking in the beauty and cooler temperatures of the Colorado Rockies.

Furthermore, as I have done since the beginning of the pandemic, I kept calm and bake challah.On a Sunday afternoon, as a torrential rain storm raged outside our balcony, I cooked up dinner for my quarantined family—chicken, rice, carrots, and two freshly baked braided loaves. I kneaded in prayers for their quick recovery and prayers of gratitude for all the joy and happiness and love we have experienced this very different summer.

View of the Rockies at Mayflower Gulch. This picture was featured in an issue of the Colorado *Summit Daily*.

Misplacing items, but holding on to the important stuff—I am no Sherlock Holmes

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I have spent half my life looking for things I’ve misplaced. I have spent the other half finding things for Larry that he claims I lost to make his life more difficult.

Recently I was visiting my daughter Julie, her husband Sam, and my granddaughter Sylvie in Colorado. That morning, I had unplugged my charging cord for my phone from the power strip next to my bed. I was sure that I had plugged it into a kitchen outlet. Later in the morning, however, the only charger, looking mysteriously larger than mine,was connected to Julie and Sam’s iPad.

“Sam, are you using my plug to charge your iPad?” I asked.

“No,” said Sam. “That one is mine.”

I spent a good chunk of the next few hours looking for my missing cord. I looked in my traveling charger case, my pocket book, my suitcase. I rechecked the outlet next to my bed and every other outlet in the house. After we returned from a walk and lunch on Main Street, I rechecked the outlet, my charger bag, the pocketbook, the suitcase. Then I pulled off all the bedding (maybe it got tangled in the sheets when I was making the bed?) MIA. Julie just rolled her eyes. Mom has lost something- AGAIN.

Misplacing something is part of my personality. Keys.Cell phone. Favorite water bottle. Sun glasses. Larry has grudgingly accepted that every time we head out, we have to allow enough time for me to make one more frantic trip into the house to search for my frequently lost or left behind items (which I refer to as FLI’s)

I know that my misplacing things is not tied to cognitive impairment, a concern as I work my way through my sixties. I have not yet found my cell phone in the freezer or my keys in the microwave. Thankfully, my losses are usually a result of multitasking or not giving myself enough time to put the item in its proper spot in the first place.

To compensate, I have established assigned places for the FLIs. My keys go on the key rack next to the door. The cell phone goes on the kitchen counter, plugged into the permanent charger. My favorite water bottle gets rinsed and put back into the refrigerator. On my good days, the system works.

I’ve given up on the sunglasses. After several last minute scrambles,I finally purchased several additional pairs for my pocketbook, each car, the beach bag, the lanai. This system also works—on my good days.

Larry, on the other hand, rarely loses anything. His keys, his wallet, the checkbook, even his clothes, are organized in such a way that he can find them quickly and without angst. He even has a system for items on his desk, where he can locate exactly what he needs from the piles that totally defy my sense of order.

Unfortunately, as we share the same house, our lives—and stuff—intersect. For example, we share laundry duty, but it is usually on my watch that one of his socks goes missing.

“What did you do with my Smart Wool?” he demands.

“You’re missing one?” I respond. And the search begins. The washing machine. The dryer. Then the rest of the laundry to see if it got stuck to a recalcitrant tee shirt or pair of shorts. The loss is yet to be permanent.

The second most FLI is the checkbook. Larry has a particular Spot for it. There are times, however, that I need it. Invariably, I either don’t put it back in the Spot fast enough or I don’t put it exactly where it belongs. Then, the scenario begins.

“MAR-i-lyn! Where is the checkbook?” The situation is quickly resolved. (EXCEPT when we moved into our Florida house, and one of us put the checkbook in a “safe place” before we left for a long trip to Colorado. If anyone has any suggestions as to where our “safe” place was, please contact me! Two years later, and the checks are still missing.)

Remember I said that Larry rarely loses anything? Let me relate the Famous Missing Fleece Incident.

While still living in Upstate New York, our son Adam came home in July for a visit. One surprisingly cool morning, the three of us went on a bike ride. Larry had Adam use his road bike, and he took his hybrid.

A couple of weeks after Adam left, Larry asked me what I had done with the University of Rochester fleece he had worn on the bike ride.

“I have no idea,” I said. I probably washed it and put it in your closet.”

“Well, it’s missing,” Larry said.

Thus began a three-month intermittent search. I checked our closet and every other closet and dresser in the house. I called Adam and asked if he had taken it back with him to California. Nada.

“Maybe you gave it to the Salvation Army,” Larry said. “I can’t believe you would give away my favorite fleece.”

At the end of October, Larry and I decided to go on a bike ride. The roads were wet from a recent rain, so we took our hybrid bikes for better traction. Halfway through the ride, it began to rain again. Larry paused to put his phone, which was in a case on the handlebar, into the saddle bag to better protect it.

“Hey! Look what I found!” Larry exclaimed. “It’s my missing fleece! I must have put it in there in July when it began to warm up on our bike ride with Adam!”

“YOU misplaced it!” I said. “Don’t you feel badly for accusing ME of losing it?”

“No, that’s okay,” said Larry. “All’s well that ends well.”

And the charging cord I “lost” in Colorado? Turns out that Sam had rolled it up and put it into a canister where he and Julie stash all their extra cords. So I actually wasn’t at fault that time either.

Elizabeth Bishop wrote: “The art of losing isn’t hard to master; /so many things seem filled with the intent /to be lost that their loss is no disaster.” In my world, losing “stuff” may be a problem.” As long as I keep what is important—my family, my friends, my memories—it will just be small stuff.

A version of this article originally appeared in the Jewish World News, a bi-weekly subscription-based newspaper in upstate New York.

Hat Tricks, or All’s Well That Ends Well

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“I’m organized. I just can’t find anything.” Saying on CJ Bella Co. Tea Towel

Spending a good part of last summer in Colorado with our six-year-old granddaughter reaped incredibly wonderful moments for my husband Larry and me. The first hugs after a year of seeing her only on Zoom because of the pandemic. Reading her books and playing Candy Land and War and Pete’s Birthday Party. Having her knock on the door of our rental at 8 a.m. on a Sunday morning with a newspaper in her hand and her announcement, “I am here for breakfast.” Extending my stay so I was able to join my daughter Julie and son-in-law Sam in walking her to her first day of first grade. I made enough memories to almost sustain me until we can see her again.

What was not incredibly wonderful was keeping track of all the items our six-year-old dynamo left behind. Larry and I had rescued her baseball butterfly hat from the local recreational center’s lost and found. Julie found her lost raincoat at her Fun Club two weeks after my granddaughter had left it there. In the meantime, Julie had to buy another one in a larger size. It was a little big, but Summit County was getting above average rain in July, and there was no choice.

Both Julie and Sam dealt with the lost-and-found-problem quite calmly to a point. But when Julie realized that their daughter’s favorite hat was missing the day before they were to leave for their planned one-week rafting trip, well, Julie lost it—her cool that is!

The first we heard about the missing hat was on the Sunday morning before their trip.

“Come over for pancakes,” Julie’s text read. “And can you check your condo to see if you have the butterfly hat?”

Yes, our granddaughter was wearing a hat on Friday. She had it in the car when we drove down to Main Street for some bubble tea at the Next Page Book Store. In the picture I had taken of her sitting on Zayde’s lap listening to a story in the town promenade, she was hatless. But I vaguely remember taking the floppy hat festooned with butterflies and dragon flies from her outstretched hand before she hung upside down from the ropes at the playground in Walter Byron Park. I thought I had stuffed it in my pocket and returned it safely when we drove her home.

But it wasn’t in their house. And it did not appear to be in our condo. Or in our car. Or at the condo’s pool area. When we arrived at their house that morning, Julie was flipping her oatmeal pancakes with obvious annoyance.

“I can’t believe that people don’t keep track of her things when they are responsible for watching her,” she said, digging her barbs into both her parents and poor Sam. “First one hat; then a raincoat, now another hat!.Doesn’t anyone ever check to see if she has left anything behind?”

Even though I was thinking, “Maybe the child needs to be responsible!” I kept my mouth closed. Besides, Julie’s guilt trip was working. After breakfast, I walked the two minutes back to our rental and did a second, more thorough search. I checked pockets and backpacks and drawers. I checked under the bed and under the couch and under the seats of our car. It was nowhere to be found.

By the time I got back to their house, Julie and Sam were fully engaged in getting ready for their seven day trip. Having to limit myself to under fifty pounds of stuff for our nine weeks Out West, it actually looked easier than gathering everything they needed for camping and rafting. Larry and I entertained our granddaughter with books, puzzles, and games, trying to stay out of the way of the oars, coolers, rucksacks stuffed with clothing and towels, bottles of suntan lotion and bug spray, sleeping bags, a paddle board, and enough food and drink for a small army.

By the time we finished lunch, I needed a break and a possible chance at redemption.

“I’m walking downtown to see if I can find the lost hat,” I said. “If that fails, I will see if I can find a replacement.”

I first checked the bookstore’s lost and found. Lots of sunglasses a set of keys, but no hat. I then walked through Walter Byron Park, Someone had hung up a slightly worn “Get high in Colorado” teeshirt on the park sign, but no hat. I then walked back to Main Street and began checking out the hat racks that were set up in front of many of the stores, another exercise in futility. Too big. Too small. Wrong print. Wrong color. I stuck on my mask and began checking out inside inventories. I finally saw a possibility. Right size. Pink (Her favorite color). No butterflies, but lots of bright flowers. I snapped a picture, texted it to Julie, and then followed it up with a phone call.

“The hat wasn’t in the bookstore or the park, so I decided to check the stores,” I said. “Look at the picture on your text. I think you will love it.”

“Mom,” Julie replied a few seconds later. “ The hat is adorable, but we are not missing the floppy dragonfly hat.We are missing the baseball butterfly cap!”

“She wasn’t wearing her baseball butterfly cap on Friday,” I said testily. “She was wearing her floppy butterfly hat.”

“That’s her dragonfly hat as it has dragonflies and butterflies,” Julie said. “We have that one!” Then she added sheepishly. “I guess you and Dad didn’t lose it after all.” Long pause. “Hey, at least you got your exercise in!”

She was right. By the time I got home, I had walked over three miles looking for a hat that we had never lost in the first place.

I also realized that we had seen a girl’s butterfly baseball cap the day before at the REI in the next town over. I called the outdoor retailer and asked the clerk to put it aside for my daughter. No longer feeling magnanimous or generous, I made no move to pick up either the hat or the cost. After realizing the Fun Club lost and found box was locked up because of a field trip, Julie drove over to Silverthorne and bought it herself.

The following Sunday night, Julie, Sam, and my granddaughter returned from their camping trip, First thing Monday morning, Mother and Daughter walked over to Fun Club, where the missing hat was waiting in the lost and found box.

“This warrants a story, you realize,” I told her the next day while sitting at her kitchen table on my computer. Julie just shrugged. And I started typing away.

A version of this article originally appeared in the Jewish World News, a bi-weekly subscription-based newspaper in upstate New York.

Close Encounters of the Moose Kind

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As 2021 comes to a close, I have much for which to be thankful. The armadillo that took up residency under our house decided that we charged too much rent and moved out on its own before we had to call in an exterminator. Despite inflation pushing up the cost 25%, I still had the means to buy a 23 pound turkey for Thanksgiving at the supermarket, not necessitating my shooting one of the wild ones that wander our yard. And I am grateful that our close encounters of the wild kind have ended well for both us and the animals.

As Upstate New Yorkers, Larry and I rarely encountered threatening animals. Yes, we watched out for rattlesnakes while hiking the eponymous trail in Lake George. And, yes, our cats’ frequent skirmishes with skunks showed us the stinky scent of nature. But the closest I had come for most of my life to seeing “animals gone wild” was when we woke up to the sight of a herd of cows that had somehow escaped from a nearby farm grazing on the lawn of my parents’ cottage on Lake Champlain. When we opened the door to take a closer look, our Irish setter ran out and started barking at them, triggering a mini-stampede. At that very moment, our neighbor opened up her drapes to see a bunch of berserk bovines charging towards her sliding glass door. Local lore is that her screams still can be heard echoing throughout Willsboro Bay.

My first encounter with more dangerous beasts came in a 2012 trip to Florida. While Larry and I were waiting for the guided tour tram to take us through the Shark River section of the Everglades, I spotted a huge alligator less than 10 feet away. Naive—make that stupid!—me insisted Larry take my picture while I was kneeling near its tail. When I proudly showed the picture to one of the guides a short time later, she warned me against a repeat performance. “Alligators may look slow, but they can move quickly,” she said. “You were lucky you weren’t bitten.”

After that encounter combined with research and “alligators in the news” stories, I now have a much deeper appreciation of these ancient reptiles. We usually have at least one alligator in the pond in our backyard, either sunning itself on its bank or floating just below the surface. It is not unusual to see one crossing the road or even lounging in a doorway or an open garage. Just this morning, a neighbor posted on our Next “Please be careful. There is a large gator is crossing the road on its way to Glendora Lakes.” We have learned to live by side with them by maintaining a healthy distance when walking near water and encouraging our guests to do the same.

Ever since her move to Colorado in 2003, our daughter Julie has shared with us her frequent close encounters with Rocky Mountain wildlife. In her first month there, she had to detour to avoid a brown bear who was helping itself to an unlatched garbage bin. Stories of other unexpected meet-ups with more bears, as well as elk, moose, fox, and coyotes, have always been part of our conversations with our daughter, her husband Sam, and since she could talk, our granddaughter.

Julie and her Sam are both experienced backpackers and outdoors people. When they are hiking, they can recognize the presence of animals by their hoof prints as well as their scat (poop).They also know what to do when they encounter an animal, whether it be on the trail or in their backyard. Like alligators, the best approach is to distance oneself from any wild animal to avoid a confrontation. And they are sharing that knowledge with their daughter.

Despite all their experiences, Larry and I had only seen wildlife from a safe distance. That changed this summer. We hiked up a popular trail and made our usual left turn only to find a huge moose less than 25 feet away. We quickly and quietly turned around and headed down the same trail.

I shared the news with several friends on social media, many whose first question was, “Did you get a picture?”

“No,” I responded. “We just got the hell out of there!”

After waiting 18 years for our “Close Encounter of the Wild Kind,” I was not expecting to see another moose until 2039. However, less than three months later, on an early November before-the-snow-falls trip, my granddog Neva and I took a hike up to Rainbow Lake, my favorite spot in the world. On the way down, with only a slight pull on Neva’s leash as a warning, I caught sight of the back end of a moose in the trees about 10 yards in front of us. Now the seasoned moose-avoider, I quickly got us “the hell out of there.”

While winding our way down a longer but hopefully safer trail, Neva pulled hard on the leash, straining to run after something. “Oh no!” I thought. “not another moose!” No, it was just a squirrel, which our granddog obviously rated higher on the “wildlife-of-interest” scale than a unpredictable half ton mammal. So much for feeling safer when hiking with my granddog!

Moose sitings continued. Later that day, when Larry and I avoided stepping in the piles of moose scat that adorned awns and sidewalks in the neighborhood. We learned later that soon after trick or treaters had headed home with their junk food stash, the moose had moved in and devoured all the Halloween pumpkins.

The next morning, we were woken up to the sounds of our granddaughter clambering down the steps to the guest bedroom and her yelling, “Moose alert! Moose alert! A mommy and her two calves are in our front yard!”

Larry and I are now back in Florida, but we need to remain on the lookout. Oh well. At least alligators don’t leave scat.

A version of this article originally appeared in the Jewish World News, a bi-weekly subscription-based newspaper in upstate New York.

Into the Woods—a place for contemplation and renewal

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The mountains are calling, and I must go. John Muir

Across the street and behind the houses on the other side of my Upstate New York home was a wooded area. I remember it as a mountain . I am sure it would not look so imposing if I viewed it now from my adult eyes

On many a summer day I would take a path to the right of the Douglass’s home and head into the oaks and maples. I would sit on logs and imagine myself as Heidi or Lcittle Red Riding Hood.

This was a lone adventure. Although we were perfectly situated between the shores of Lake Champlain and Adirondack Mountains, our family never headed for the woods.

When my parents purchased a cottage on Willsboro Bay, I replaced the trips to the woods with walks to The Point, an area about a quarter of a mile from our cottage that offered views of Lake Champlain and Burlington, Vermont. It was my get-away, my place to sit and think and deal with teenage angst.Even as a adult, I viewed The Point as one of my favorite places. I shared it with friends and, of course, Larry the first time he visited me in the summer of 1973.

And then I finished college and married and started a family. Larry and I purchased a home with a private, wooded backyard. We biked along quiet country roads in Saratoga County. We took occasional short hikes into the woods in Lake George or Vermont or Williamstown in the fall. But I felt that I had lost touch with the woods, with the mountains.

That all changed in 2003. Our daughter Julie moved out to Colorado after graduation from college She took a “one-year” job as an environmental education teacher two hours west of Denver and in the middle of the Rockies.

Julie soon fell in love with Colorado, the mountains, and Sam, not necessarily in that order. On our first visit in June 2004, she took us on easy hikes in Eagle and Summit Counties. By the following summer, Sam and she were trusting us to accompany them on longer, more challenging heights.

As our hikes became longer, so did the length and frequency of our visits to the mountains. Julie and Sam completed grad school degrees, got married, found jobs, and bought a house in Frisco, elevation 9096 or 9097 feet above sea level, depending on which tee shirt you purchased. In anticipation of the birth of our granddaughter in the summer 2015, we rented a place for several weeks, a tradition we have continued every year.

Frisco, located in Summit County, is amazing in the summer—once it stops snowing! This year a long hard winter gratefully came to an end June 21.Even my then three-year-old granddaughter had had enough. “I’m so over winter,” she said. “I am ready for summer and my birthday!”

When we arrived June 30, the still-snow topped mountains had already exploded in shades of green Our first hike was to Rainbow Lake, only a mile up an easy trail near Julie’s home. As we got more acclimated to the altitude, we hiked such colorfully named trails as Lily Pad Lake, Shrine Pass, McCulloughs’ Gulch, and Cataract Lake. Creeks churned through meadows and fields. Columbines and wild roses and cone flowers peaked out between fallen logs and rocks on trails that led to waterfalls and lakes and vistas that took my breath away.

We often share the trails with both locals and others who have found, like us, that it doesn’t get much better than a beautiful summer’s day in the Rockies. We pack water and a snack and find a spot in the middle of the hike just to sit and take in our surroundings.

Larry has found a pickleball league in Summit County (“We Play with an Altitude!”), and several days a week he heads out the courts. On those days, I get ready for my alone time to Rainbow Lake.

I apply the only “make-up” I need, liberal amounts of sun screen. I put on my hiking clothes and lace up my boots, fill a small backpack with water, bug spray, dog treats and poop bags. I then pick up our granddog Neva, and we head up a trail to Rainbow Lake. Neva pauses frequently to sniff at her “pee mail” and to check out a squirrel or magpie. I savor the beauty surrounding me—the columbine growing from a dead trunk, the sunlight reflecting through the aspens, logs stretching over a small stream.

Once we get to Rainbow Lake, I let Neva off her leash and toss a stick into the lake. After a few dog paddles into the chilly water, Neva settles down next to me on my favorite rock. A beaver paddles away from its lodge and few ducks swim across the still water with its reflection of trees and mountains. A woodpecker hammers away on the bark of a pine tree.

Images of Heidi have been replaced with images of Cheryl Strayed on the Pacific Ridge Trail or Bill Bryson on the Appalachian Trail. It is my time. I am grateful to G-d for the opportunities open to me in the mountains and for the health to enjoy it. I am at peace. I am back to my Adirondack roots.

Marilyn and Neva at Rainbow Lake July 2019

A version of this article originally appeared in the Jewish World News, a bi-weekly subscription-based newspaper in upstate New York, in the July 25, 2019, issue.