Dr. Freud, Wake Up!

Recently I read in the Times that the decision makers of the Psychiatric profession at their annual meeting have declared the malady called “hoarding phobia”, an official mental illness: eligible for treatment by a certified shrink. Covered, thank the lord, by Medicare.

I’ve often wondered how they decided these things. So now I know. And I am delighted. Indeed, Dr. Freud should be alive to share this milestone of medical science. I wondered to myself how he would react to this historic moment.          

With me, saving stuff is sort of a personal thing. Not a disease, simply more of a sentimental habit.

Got it doctor? A habit, not a compulsion. Not an obsession.

I simply don’t throw significant stuff away. Dr. Freud, are you listening? For very logical, non-psychiatric reasons.

I have become more aware of this in recent years since Margie has become my partner. She doesn’t have my compulsion to keep things. She a cleaner, a straightener, a thrower away. As you know that hasn’t been labeled a sickness. Not Yet.

Stuff, it turns out, is in my mind the essence of life in these days of digital non-existence. Without stuff, what is there? what’s left that has any meaning? Digitalized faces and words, down in the bowels of some computer somewhere on a discarded iPhone...only to be relegated onto some cloud up there somewhere never to be seen or heard from again.

That’s not stuff. That’s not essence. That’s not human, doctor.

As I move more deeply into my octo years, I tend to fixate on this kind of stuff. For example, aging photos of my grandfather Maurice and Grandma Lida on the beach at Lake Erie in 1911. I never knew him.

But he is there in my heart, as a good looking man and a warm human being. I cherish dozens of hand written love letters between the two lovers when they were courting. They both worked downtown. Passion. You could feel it growing through the months of courtship... The earliest letter started with “Leda”, then Dear Friend Lida, My Dearest Lida, and then simply, Dearest. You could feel the passion growing, as Grandma Lida began more to respond, sometimes passionately...and then the wedding.

I know Grandpa Maurice through his written, articles in the Saturday Evening Post about Mark Hanna and President McKinley, about theater and politics in the Plain Dealer. His crusade to have Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice taken from the curriculum of the Cleveland schools for their anti-Semitic overtones.

Yes I know, Dr. Freud that sounds like censorship. But things were very different for Jews in the in the 1920’s and thirties. You must remember. When you got kicked out of Germany simply because you were Jewish.

And then, Dr. Freud, there was the fate of Grandma Belle, Grace’s mother, a magnificent woman who taught kindergarten in the New York City schools most of her life, starting in a one room schoolhouse on Staten Island. She died unexpectedly in the 80’s. And by the time we got to the apartment on the west side of Manhattan, her husband, a very pragmatic pharmacist, was cleaning out the closets of every stitch of her clothing.  He piled up the school things and other mementos, and wanted them out.

Sadly, there was a truck driver strike in New York. No one could pick up anything. So we decided to give it all to the custodian, a nice man with a family, who promised to get it all to the proper place, where it would be useful.

A couple of days later, after the funeral, we were walking out of the apartment on busy W. 79^th Street to hail a cab to LaGuardia, and there it all was, strewn on the sidewalk and the gutter. The essence of her life simply waiting for the rubbish drivers strike to end. There was absolutely no distinction on the sidewalk of this busy Manhattan street between the rubbish, the garbage and Grandma Belle. I had a lump in my throat, Grace was in tears as we headed out to the airport. She didn’t stop crying until we landed in Cleveland.

It was over, very much over.   

Today in the antiseptic digital age...they simply close down your Facebook homepage and it’s over. No muss no fuss.

“Dr, Freud, are you listening?” I said “It all started when I was a nervous little kid. I starting saving newspaper articles. I still have them.”

What? Am I covered, by what??? Yes I have full Medicare, and AARP gap.  You’ll be paid in full, don’t worry doctor. As I was saying, I was a little boy. I think I felt guilty when I thought about sex, and...Dr. Freud you’re dozing off again...Dr. Freud!

 

What’s it all about, Tommy?

Back in that other century, on his 90^th birthday, my “Uncle Tommy” jumped rope for twenty minutes at the downtown YMCA, without so much as breathing hard or turning red in the face. So notable was his achievement that there was a picture and story in the Cleveland Press. It was mentioned that he was a physical fitness aficionado, and went regularly to the summer Bernard McFadden health camp in Western New York, and was one of their prized students.

Tommy lived for much of his later years in a quiet house on the road to Chardon. He was never married, but was very successful in business, founding a food service business that eventually served a majority of the city’s factory workers called United Food Services.

Shortly after he reached that landmark birthday he was living in a disheveled apartment in the Statler Hotel downtown.  A year later he was dead, having been ripped off a by a couple who befriended him, feigning to care for him. He left no immediate survivors.

He was good gentleman. Short, with twinkling bright blue eyes and curly hair. Frequently giving his nieces and nephews gifts on special holidays. Tommy talked a lot when there was someone to listen and I can remember one lunch time parked at the corner of 12^th and Chester talking for half an hour about something before I got a chance to mention some charitable ideas I had. He always came through with a smile.

And he did a give a lot of money to the Cleveland Sight Center.  There is a plaque there at 101st and Chester that bears his name. He was generously involved in the Hebrew Free Loan and other charities. It is said that on the way home from work he would often stop by the site of many of his beneficiaries to see if all was going well.

His funeral was well attended in the Mausoleum at Mayfield Cemetery. It was so cold that the radiators stated banging during the service, as if someone out there was trying to protest the Rabbi’s words. And then they buried him in the cold wet mud of a Cleveland winter.

I started to wonder: ”What’s it all about, Tommy?”

Is there any meaning in the lonely childless life...that ended with jumping rope and getting ripped off?

Certainly his charitable instincts, regardless of his motive, have done good work that continues well beyond his death.

And it is said that in the light of a full moon, the shadow of a little man with twinkling eyes and a broad smile can be seen merrily jumping rope in the parking lot of the Sight Center or the Jewish Federation.

As if to tell the world, in his own unusual way, that his life had meant something after all.

  

Saying Kaddish for Grace

We were talking about Grace, my wife of 47 years who died seven years ago last April. It was a broad ranging discussion about this very special human being when he unexpectedly snapped the question.
“But Did You Love Her”?
I stopped short, stunned and a bit surprised. Didn’t expect it.
"Did I what?," I stammered.
“Grace, your wife, did you LOVE her?”
Funny. I had to think about that. My mind whirled a bit. It’s a lifetime, we’re talking about. There were the ups and downs that come with the territory. But for 47 years, we shared our home, shared our bed, she cooked for me…took care of me when I was sick, cheered me after tough days at the office. She did the laundry. Did the shopping, helped with the bills, kept the check book. Shared our love for our little girl… raised her sent her off to school and then to college.
A woman ahead of her time, she got her Masters, worked as a high school guidance counselor in poor, rough neighborhoods. And later as a volunteer counselor to released offenders who were eligible for community service jobs.
She loved the work and from what I know, this little woman was respected by those huge guys getting her help in staying out of jail.
But that’s a different kind of love. More like respect, admiration.
Did you really love her? He was persistent. When she got sick with a fatal chronic lung disease, she was tethered to an oxygen canister that she couldn’t live without. It was awkward. Heavy. Yet that gutsy little gal pulled that device around for more than three years to that job downtown on the seventh floor of the county sheriff’s building three days a week. There were days when she couldn't drive and I picked her up.
I watched this brave little gal, walking out the door with a broad smile on her face...talking with sensitivity and enthusiasm telling about these parolees she was helping.
The day before she died was a relatively good day. She had shopped in the nursing home store, sat in the dining room with a bevy of friends and our daughter. I had left early that day and called her from our daughter’s house. We talked for a short time about the Cavaliers in the playoffs. About LeBron James.
And just before we hung up Grace said "Bud, I love you.”
“I love you, too,” I responded, fully expecting to be with her the next morning.
At 2:00 am she died.
Did I love her? Did I really love her? Of course I did…
And by the way, thanks for asking.
For nearly half a century, Grace, this tough, tender little lady, was my wife, my life that we shared together. Maybe we didn’t talk about it enough. Maybe we were too busy dealing with the vicissitudes of life. Whatever it was, thanks for asking.
On the chilly December day before I left Cleveland for Texas, I stopped by her little gravesite in Mayfield Cemetery to place a couple of small stones on her marker, as is our custom. Took a deep breath and repeated quietly the words etched in the marble.
Simple words:
“As long as we live you too will live, as we remember you.” I swallowed hard and once again said good night.
And murmured loud enough for her to hear,
“I love you, really. And I always will."

Musings of a New Father - 1961

Politics and Yom Kippur Don’t Mix. Or do they?

           My magnificent mother, whose lifetime in Cleveland literally spanned the 20^th century, (born in 1898 at 30^th and Orange, died 1989 at Mt. Sinai Hospital), was a tough, independent and lovely woman.

          Although she was a member of The Temple and often turned to Rabbi A.H. Silver, a personal friend of the family, for advice and comfort, she was more a pragmatist, and fatalist, than a religious Jew.

          When her husband William Weidenthal, publisher of the Jewish Independent, died in 1931 at the depth of the Depression, she was left, in her 30’s, with twin five year olds. She courageously (or perhaps stoically) told her friends, “It was meant to be”, and plunged ahead, without complaining, doing what was necessary to maintain a stable family.

          She took over the Weidenthal Co., our printing and publishing plant on Bolivar Rd. (just west of 9^th St.) and successfully ran it for a number of years. She insisted years later that she was no feminist. She left the kitchen and got into business because, “I had no choice”.

          Mother was by nature a serious Republican. She Disliked FDR and the New Deal with a passion. (It should be noted that in pre-depression days, much of the Jewish political establishment in Cleveland was Republican).  As a loyal son, I stood by her, and the cause.

          When Alf Landon the colorless governor of Kansas was nominated to challenge FDR in Cleveland Public Hall in 1936, I was excited about it and determined to do my part for the family.

          I recruited two friends at Coventry School, went down to the printing plant and printed out posters declaring LANDON FOR PRESIDENT.  Then we walked over to the Landon headquarters at the Hollenden Hotel, scooped up as many sunflower buttons we could fit in our knickers pockets and then headed back to the Heights.

          We were naively certain that our campaign efforts would swing Landon for Ohio, or at least Cuyahoga County.  As it turned out, it was a landslide for FDR. 
 Among my young Jewish friends who by now were almost entirely New Dealers, I was a rebel with a lost cause.

          In 1940 it was Wendell Willke, the One World idealist from Indiana who captured my allure. I was taken by his world view, and mother, now owner of Evelyn Wayne, a children’s store in Shaker Heights, continued her dislike for FDR. (Among other things, she resisted posting an NRA sign in her store window, as dictated by Washington.) When it was announced that Willkie would be coming to Cleveland for a campaign appearance at Public Hall, there was no doubt that I would be there.

          The situation got dicey when Grandma Kolinsky, an observant Jew, discovered that Willkie was coming to town on Yom Kippur. Her grandson, she declared at the dinner table, would not attend a political rally on the holiest of holy days. (It had been my habit to walk her to and from the synagogue on Superior Rd. up from Mayfield each year on the High Holy days, which complicated the problem.)

Courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society

Wendell Willkie, Republican presidential candidate, campaigning with Harold Stassen in 1940.

        Over her protests, and somewhat guilt stricken, I rode the street car down to the terminal where the man from Indiana had arrived on his campaign train. I raced alongside his open car up Euclid Ave., down Ninth St. to Public Hall, where he gave a stirring speech in front of thousands of enthusiastic Gentiles and one Jewish teen-ager from Cleveland Heights, who thought he was cheering on the next president of the United States. Sadly, no such luck.

        Again a landslide for FDR. No hanging or pregnant chads. And no one even thought about asking for a recount.

“There’s a Booik”

      When I was a little guy, perhaps four or so, it is said that I would stand at the window looking out onto busy Euclid Hts. Blvd. and declare without a moment’s hesitation,” There’s a Booick, there’s a Thevrolet, there’s a Pymouth!”

It is clear that even in those tender years I was hooked on cars; marking the beginning of a lifelong, passionate love affair with automobiles.                                             
 And, I have come to recognize, the feeling is mutual.

This is part of that story.

Cars that have loved me

         To almost everyone, the yellow, American Motors Hornet Sportabout, with the fake wood sides looked ridiculous. I thought it was really cool. Bought it from Tom Ganley at his first agency on Lake Shore Blvd. back in the early 70’s.

Andrew and Me

Andrew and I spent last weekend together without his mom, who was off to a high school reunion in Wisconsin.

It turned out to be a somewhat traumatic and intellectually challenging experience for both of us.

He’s three, and pretty smart for his age.  He knows and understands words.  He has good instincts.  He seems to sense what is happening around him. He knows when it’s time to go to the bathroom, and almost always knows how to tell me. He announces in his own way when he is hungry or thirsty. And when I put his food in front of him he won’t touch it until I put grated cheese on top.

I sense that he really likes me. He follows me wherever I go, even into the privacy of my bathroom. He sits under my chair when I eat. He even comes with me to den to watch the Indians game…and unlike me he seems rather relaxed about it.

Is he suffering like I’m suffering? I asked myself, after my once beloved team began to fall apart.  My jaws were tight, my mouth dry I was sweating, wondering what this embarrassing performance  means to the reputation of my beleaguered town…I’m beginning to hate the coach, the owner and everything about the team. I even hate the announcers. 

There's Something About Ann Arbor

Three Wolverines - One Happy Family

     There is something about Ann Arbor that seeps into the soul almost unnoticed shortly after one arrives on campus.  For each of us it is something different.  For me it was football and getting my act together after two years of combat in WW II. (It wasn't easy, but it was memorable)  For my daughter it seemed to be the opportunity to stretch. To become herself, to explore graphic design, and enjoy the company of a talented group of young people who have become lifelong friends. And my granddaughter, well, she just seemed to fit in. That's her style and she has become an integral part of AEPhi and of the Department of Communications, as a Social Media expert.  I am so proud of her. For me it is kind of a summation of the thing called family.  The picture was taken in front of the Union last Fall when my granddaughter returned for her Senior year.  We will be back in April for her graduation.  Can you believe that?

Seeing Black in the Red, White and Blue

It was Stephanie, my 18-year-old granddaughter, on the phone calling me from Northwestern. It was the day before the 2008 presidential election.

”I’m going to Grant park tomorrow night,” she declared. You could sense the excitement in her voice.

I paused a moment and in a grandfatherly manner cautioned “There will be a huge crowd, hundreds of thousands. It might be a little risky.” (remembering the riots in that same park in '68)

"Papa!", she exclaimed.  "This is a great moment in history!  We will be there when Obama accepts the victory. I wouldn’t miss it for the world."

Photo ©2007 Susan W. Saltzman

Our Last Christmas Tree

  The troubling news that Wal-Mart, Walgreen’s and several other big box stores had caved into the pressure of religious Christian right and will bring the theme “Merry Christmas” back into their stores, replacing the more palatable, “Happy Holidays” sent my mind spinning back to the early 1930’s and the year of our last Christmas tree.  I suspect that we were not the only secular or Reform Jewish family in Cleveland to erect a Christmas tree in the living room during those blustery final weeks of December during the Depression.

  Our tree, of course, in my impressionable young mind, was special.  It was enormous, majestic. And the center of a lot of excitement and anticipation, that had absolutely nothing to do with the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ.
    For me Christmas was sneaking downstairs in the early a.m. of that “holiday” to get a look at what “Santa” had brought. It brought joy to our house. At age five I thought nothing more of it than that. In fact, Christmas, the tree, the gifts, the songs was the major topic of conversation among classmates and in the classroom at Coventry School in Cleveland Heights.

My Dirty Little Secret

Lida & Maurice Weidenthal 1911

   There are photos of my grandmother Lida and my grandfather Maurice romping in the water in the strangest kind of swimming attire. Defying simple description. There was my Dad hanging from a tree limb over the beach, playing some kind of ball with the others and running in the the water.

  I cannot identify the day my body and my mind become completely obsessed with the need to swim.  Not the ordinary, once a week “let’s go the beach” kind of need. That’s controlled, modified by weather, where you happened to be, one’s mood etc. This is uncontrollable. I need to do it every day. The circumstances are irrelevant. Much more scary, much more psychologically mysterious.

  I certainly wasn’t addicted when I was a kid. I had ear trouble, and kept away from the water much of my youth.  When I went to Cumberland pool as a youngster, my friends would jump off into the deep end.  I would timidly approach the three feet, splash around pretending that I knew what I was doing, and then return to the safety of the deck and hide behind a book or something. 

Remembering Uncle Leo Weidenthal,The Lion of Willowdale

  Sitting across the dinner table from him, as I often did, one would be hard pressed to recognize that this quiet, scholarly man had been the hard hitting, investigative City Hall reporter for the Plain Dealer. Revered and sometimes feared by the town’s leading politicos.  City fathers dubbed him Leo the Lion of Willowdale for his journalistic tenacity. (“Willowdale”—the English translation of Weidenthal).   When he got on to a story or a cause, he never let go.  Among the more esoteric were the Shakespeare Cultural Garden which he campaigned for in 1916, the Hebrew Gardens, and the Cleveland Cultural Gardens which came eleven years later.  He and his brother (my grandfather Maurice who later founded the Jewish Independent) successfully campaigned for the creation of the Mall surrounded by stately public buildings, from Public square to the lake.