a little red hen

East Harlem, Serendipitous Encounter

    FIRE!  Fire...on the street...in Manhattan!  We'd just turned the corner from Fifth Avenue, onto east 102nd Street.  From immersion in Yiddish New York at the Museum of the City of New York a few steps into what was once called Spanish Harlem, now East Harlem.

Getting ready to barbeque, a couple of men use the base of a late 19th century school as backdrop to their preparations.  Futher on, spectators arranged chairs to watch women's softball.  Ron (see gray head) joined them and offered advice on where I should stand to catch the action.  We saw some very powerful players. 

Once more my thoughts went to what those of us in the aspiring middle class had lost.  As we have moved away from the immigrant life that brought us here, have we replaced this kind of community with similar vibrancy?  Some, I notice with longing, still have it in a revised form  as fiber artists in Harlem.

[Posted while a little red hen and spouse visit family in Portland, Oregon] 

Yiddish Typewriter: who knew?

I leaned over the glass case, turned off the flash, snapped this just for  readers who visit here.  This amazing machine was one of two items that spoke to me at "The Jewish Daily Forward:  Embracing an Immigrant Community," currently at the Museum of the City of New York.

The other artifact was harder to get a good  photo because it was surrounded by a glass vitrine.  Why?  A large metal advertisement for Singer Sewing Machine.  Would someone be able to walk off with it?  There was a feel of impersonality to the entire enterprise--especially for those of us who view 19th and early 20th Jewish life as warm and untidy.

How our immigrant families Americanized themselves from tenement life to the suburbs of the 1950s was the subject of a 1990 exhibition at the Jewish Museum.  "Getting Comfortable in New York: The American Jewish Home, 1880-1950."  Because the catalog from it has become wildy expensive, here's a link in libraries to search.  Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett's  fine article,  "Kitchen Judaism," begins:

The beauty of white stewed fish on the Passover table carried a special message at thhe World's Columbian Exhibition...1893.  There, at the Jewish Women's Congress, Mary M. Chohen spoke to interested but uninformed Christians in her audience about the kitchen's role in creating a 'bond of sanctity' between Jewish religion and family life.

But I digress.  We went to the Museum to see a 1988 film, “The Forward: From Immigrants to Americans,” directed by Marlene Booth.  This history of The Jewish Daily Forward, the Yiddish newspaper, was followed comments and answers to questions by Chana Pollack, an archivist at the newspaper.  Ron, who rarely remarks on clothes wanted a tee-shirt like hers with Yiddish written in Yiddish, of course. 

The Forward has amazed readers and scholars with it survival.  Now an English-language weekly, today's publication continues as a link to a rich past, continues a Yiddish edition.  For Ron's parents and friends, it was the life-line to their Eastern European roots.  Ron, after public school classes, would travel on the subway to Yiddish school.  He is our family's link to that tradition though he claims his reading ability is not what it used to be.

No surprise that the entire movie audience was over 55, maybe 60.  Questions were thoughtful and, surprising for a New York Jewish audience, without argument.  Chana shared her extensive knowlege of The Forverts, what my late mother-in-law called it.  Wonderful there is a younger generation of scholars and enthusiasts to continue this link to our socialist cultural past. We have, indeed, changed.

[Posted while a little red hen and spouse visit family in Portland, Oregon] 

 

The Incredible Shrinking New York Times..and Yet

How does this grandmother know she is older, measure her vintage?  Well, she still wants to read the disappearing New York Times.  See...over in the right corner...costs $1.25 these days.  In June, it was only one dollar.   Then it shrunk, by one column.

No demonstration occurred.  All of us old readers, so desparate for something that resembles what we once knew--a real newspaper--that we cling to the idea we still have it.  Even though much of the content is less relevant.  Efforts to appeal to very young, very rich young people who spend a great deal on apartments, clothes, and restaurants will not save this paper.

And yet, there are still articles to read.  Today it was also a skinny paper because it is August which I think is a poor excuse.  My problem is that I lived in this City in what now seems a halcyon time, the 1950s, just before all the metropolitan dailies began to fold.  But I am addicted to the hand-held paper.  This one rewards me with periodic local stories that I might not find elsewhere, theatre reviews.  And great photos.

fTuesday, August 21..."China Relaxes a Barrier, Letting Citizens Invest in Hong Kong Stock Market"  Cool toward the vagaries of the market, my eye goes to this Reuters photo and what this man holds behind his back--his tea in a glass jar.  We learned about the centrality of a man's tea from the guide who took us around Shanghai in 2000.  He would stop often to drink from his jar, then make a call on his cellphone to find out how the market was doing.

And an upbeat story in the Metro section, "Giving Abandoned Bikes New Life So Students Can Ride" was a cheerful reminder that there are good stories out there about young people, future little red hens, when a newspaper gives reporters the time and space to learn about them.  Curious that the online photo is in color but black and white in the paper itself.  In fact this day's entire paper was absent of color.  Perhaps another economy, one I do not mourn.

[Posted while a little red hen travels to places with even thinner editions of the New York Times. But we are still grateful.]

Focusing On the Prize--Despite Airport Anxiety

Early tomorrow morning we leave to see our family in Portland, Oregon.  Here's Zoe and our daughter on a recent vacation in Michigan ( included some long airport delays).  Last night, this not-quite-two-year-old exclaimed, "Granma," several times on the phone.  Overwhelmed!  Next, her 5-year old brother outlined projects we'd have together during our two-week visit.  I continue to be amazed about having three grandchildren, two of them now talking.

Distractions from impending airport trauma were undermined by today's post at Time Goes By.  Under the spot-on title, Elders and the Unfriendly Skies, Ronni Bennett says it all--not just for us slower-moving people but tall folks, child-carrying families.  Please go there, read it, then write something on your own blog about the way once pleasurable travel has become a drag.  Or should we select a dates on which bloggers would simultaneously post.  My spouse threatens to go barefoot to Security; photo will document the event.

Perhaps a Month of Passenger Indignities would get attention from the TSA, airport personnel, and, let's see, there is another group.  Oh, yes, the United States Congress.  Do you think?  Can't improve health care, can't stop an endless, illegal war--maybe this would be more within their limited abilities.         

Last week the latest sweater for nearby Roxie received its final touch. Maxine, knit advisor at Knitty City, suggested "Flower Power," from Nicky Epstein's recent book of knit flowers (link to review).  Just whenI think I have enough books!   For those who do not knit, see it as a high art, I point out that input from others often improves the work.  I asked Roxie's mother, a graphic artist who does not knit, "Flower on the left or right side?"  Her reply, "How about in the middle?" 

Did I mention there is still a stamped envelope in my baggage so I can reclaim knitting needles confiscated by TSA?   Has not happened in a few years,  but you never...

Update:  When we went to the deli for food to take onto the plane, we ran into Marie Runyon, 92 year old activist from the Granny Peace Brigade.  She was dressed up to go to dinner at a place she says has, "...great Margaritas!"  Legally blind, she travels around the neighborhood with ease.  Next time I'll ask her what it's like for her in airports, dealing with TSA.  You don't mess with Marie!

[Several posts written before departure will appear while a little red hen travels...including one from momentarily-retired blogger, Xtreme English.]

                      

Maple Grove, The Cemetery and Our Park

Conveniently located near the neighborhood where Nick, our son, lives is a peaceful landscape that is our park for outings with our granddaughter.  It is the historic Maple Grove Cemetery, founded in 1875.  Last year Nancy Cataldi and Carl Ballenas co-authored this fact-filled book about the cemetery's history and importance to the surrounding neighborhood of Kew Gardens in Queens. 

This Victorian building at the entrance, now the cemetery's administration and visitor center, was originally built to accommodate visitors who arrived on a train line.  The cemetery is listed on the National Register of Historic Places; a copy of the book, signed by the authors,  can be ordered from Maple Grove HERE.

We're surprised that other baby strollers do not join us in this idyllic setting.  Nick says that some local people are superstitious about walking through the grounds.  Perhaps it's my limited experience with cemeteries that makes it possible to simply enjoy the flowering trees and large old oaks that line paths.   Living in a city that grows noisier by the minute--a podcast would give a better idea of the sounds from the street that come through our windows--the quiet is so soothing.

Why did I enjoy my life as a psychotherapist?  Because the whys and hows of the lives of others have always interested me. Ask me to look at an album of your forebears photos and you have my full attention.  The book about Maple Grove tells that Millie Tunnell, a former slave was 111 years when buried here.

I have not found her but these  two gravestones are among those with stories that  intrigue me.  Once you enlarge the pictures and read the what's written, please pass along any of your thoughts about the meaning of the message.

More background on how this neighborhood emerged and developed in Kew Gardens: Urban Village  in the Big City  by Barry Lewis, well known  architectural historian and longtime resident.

August Birthdays and Beaches

Brighton Beach, the next stretch of sand, east of Coney Island.  Each summer and early fall, Ron hears the call of the sea, needs another swim in the water.  This is where he grew up, was a lifeguard.  These days he is amazed how few join him.

The non-swimming family member, I sit on a bench and knit.  Hold up camera, snap the passers-by.  In Ron's day, Brighton was a Yiddish-speaking enclave of first and second generation Jewish families.  Today, late 20th century immigrants are still largely Jewish.  But Russian is the language in the air--no Yiddish.  New grocery stores line Brighton Beach Avenue to sell imported delicacies, curious meat products, cans and jars filled with different--to us--tastes.

Which brings me to MILLIE GARFIELD, a sister Leo and Elderblogger, 82 years today.  Millie would be hard pressed to find responders to her Yiddish lessons on the Avenue.   (Have you learned yet?  The lessons are on her blog.)  Last year, she was the first inductee of The Society of Little Red Hens-- for her spunkiness in blogging and her video-documented efforts to open those remarkably well-sealed containers that make America great.  A Gutten gebortstug, Millie! 

 

What a baby sweater has to do with HIV

"Grandmotherhood Now" is both a category here and a concept I like to discuss with my peers.   At the outset the women I address are those who believe they have political concerns.  Most are comfortably retired, do not have to worry about how to pay living expenses in the years ahead.

And they call themselves, when asked, "feminists."  As in, "Of course I'm a feminist."  When I was a younger feminist, I had thought it would become an easy self-definition for many of us as we aged.  But no, I still startle others by calling myself one. 

Being a grandmother who is a feminist carries much responsibility.  I am unable to ease into mindlessness about the impact of our current state of affairs on the lives of my grandchildren.  Like the implosion of HIV/AIDS in the world, in the city where I live.  Not ingenuous enough to believe that knitting Condom Amulets equals finding a cure, I see my role as nudge [Wikipedia disappointed, so here's a better definition from Reverso that includes "nudger." ]

So I give you these words from another older, feminist blogger, The Crone Speaks.  The link takes you to recent information about the resurgence of syphllis (remember when?) and the connection with abstinence education and our government's wish-it-away attitude toward condom promotion.

Grandmas need to talk about safe sex...with congressman, their grown children who are parents, with 50-plus dating friends of both sexes.  How would you tweak this notion of Grandmotherhood Now, a sub-cateory of The Society of Little Red Hens. 

First photo, above, is recent sweater for Roxie.  Pattern is by Minnowknits (Confetti #190QK), seed stitch band added at bottom and sleeves. Classic Elite Four Seasons 70 cotton/30 wool with a little Plymouth Encore  (pink/white).  Vintage buttons.

To the left, Emergency Preparedness Condom Amulet.  Designed to hang on hook in bedroom. Cut open net cover to release.

How Did She Know?

August...my birthday month, usually very hot.  When I had a therapy practice, the month for vacation.  In 1983, particular focus for therapists and their clients arrived in a new book, Judith Rossner's novel, simply titled, "August."  Looking for a link to add here, I am sad to read that Rossner died--in August--two years ago, at 70. 

Never one to make public my natal day (till this post), I was surprised to be wished, "Happy Birthday" as I stepped into my friend Bethene's apartment for lunch.  As usual, we had a list of important things to discuss.  But first lunch, Soba Noodle Chicken Salad"  pictured here, a different and delicious spin on the familiar.  She was delighted to learn that her recipe book, "Cooking for Two," co-authored by Bruce Weinstein, was someone I know from Kitty City where he started the Wednesday Men's Knitting group.

Most of the time we talked about her idea-filled trip to North Carolina for the Women Living in Community conference at the end of June.  She has written three posts about it at her blog, Sensei and Sensibility.  Shared what I had learned from time spent in meetings for a hoped-for co-housing development in New York City.  If this type of idea interests you, look for Jane Porcino's 1991 book, "Living Longer, Living Better: Adventures in Community Housing for the Second Half of Life." 

Bethene passed along something useful she had learned about facilitating work in partnerships, the State of Grace Document. The idea is people need to begin by clarifying goals as well as acknowledge what causes stress for each before beginning a shared task--in business, organization, or personal life.  There's much more to it.  I can think of times that it would have been very important if I'd told someone on a committee what my limits were--too many phone calls, for example.

My contribution to lunch was raspberries and blackberries.  Both of us are good at eating and talking!  The one question still on my mind is how she found out it was my birthday, but that mystery enhances my pleasure with this unexpected gift. I told her that my personal goal is to accomplish something special in time for the next one--seventy-five.

If you're wondering about a gift for next year (Bethene tried to find something artful in the hen category), I'd like to make a request.  Peace--for all of us.  Please work on it over the next 12 months.

New York City: Thunder, Lightning and Loss

Two days ago, as we stepped off the #1 subway at our 125th Street stop, the sky rumbled.  We were stranded on the open air platform with excellent seats--under the overhang-- for a long, crackling lightning display.

In the hour Ron and I watched the sky, trains came and went.   Quite a changed transit experience from what we'd just seen in The Taking of Pelhman One, Two, Three, a 1974 movie.    Part spoof, part the NYC we know and knew, the film holds up surprisingly well.  It has everything-- stereotyped attitudes by and about the City's underground passengers, police, transit officials.  All wrapped around the hijack for ransom of a subway car from the Bronx.  Kept my attention with its scenes in our old neighborhood in the east twenties, now known as "little India," and the artful writing that kept the suspense going to the end.  Spot-on description at the link above from the Film Forum on Houston Street.

We were especially open to prolong our return to our apartment.  Earlier in the day we said goodbye to Lulu, our much-loved, tabby of 15 years.  Both of us will miss her sweetness and spunk.  An indoor/outdoor cat in Baltimore, a brief sojourn in Boston with our son, with us for ten years in Manhattan.  She models, in her younger life, a knit red wiggler worm on my Cityworm website.  Great patience. Lulu is our last cat.

Life-After: What's Out There, Elders?

[After reading post by Time Goes By, July 30, 2007]

My final photo of a favorite view from my kitchen window, autumn, Baltimore, 1995.  We had made the decision to retire to New York City.

Why would we do that? Large attractive house, now all to ourselves, children gone. Elsie Ferguson, artist and shop owner, said we were crazy.  From her perspective-- native Baltimorean, began life there, morphed from high school graduate to department store exec to hugely successful entrepreneur in her own business (an inside view of her Something Else shop, listed by Frommer's-- there was no place else.  A person could travel elsewhere but Baltimore was home.      

Native New Yorkers too, longing to go elsewhere, anywhere but the City, also questioned our decision once we moved here.  So, when we started to look into CCRCs (continuing care retirement communities), we were not surprised by edgy responses from peers.

Even in The Transition Network, the organization I belong to for women 50-plus, there has been reluctance to have a conversation about what's next.  Thanks to Ronni Bennett at TGB; I urge you to read what she writes. Last summer an effort on this blog met with little response.  The coments at TGB indicate many are now ready to look out that window.

[Check out the Kendal Corporation CCRCs, "...integrating Quaker values...fostering continued learning, outreach programs in the field of aging... "   Many are connected with colleges.  We are particularly drawn to their idea of programs for residents developed by those who live there rather than "activity directors."]