Where I was born, and first lived

Going thru some family papers.  Have to get birth certificates so Nadine and I can apply for new passport books, so we can immigrate to Canada (or at least visit Adam and family there).  Our old passport books have expired, and the passport cards we got in 2013 to drive with Stan and Judi to Quebec are not valid for air travel to Vancouver.

Came across an envelope (January 1936; 3 cent stamp), which was used by the hospital to mail my birth certificate to my mother.

Pretty amazing; if you use Google Maps, you can find pictures of both these places: 

• Episcopal Hospital where I was born: First Street and Lehigh Avenue, Philadelphia
• Stonehurst Court where my family first lived: Upper Darby, PA

Facebook

I tried Facebook about two years ago.  I made some posts which I thought were clever or funny or meaningful or whatever.

Then I would check back in a day or two, to find out how many people "liked" my posts.  I would feel good if there were a few or a lot of likes, and bad if there were none.

I got bored searching thru all the posts of my "friends",  most of which were about people I did not know, or activities in which I had no real interest.  It became a real time killer for me.

Then I realized that the undertaking was mostly my ego trip, and I stopped.

Where are you now, Emily Menifee?

My cousin Ada is ten months older than me.  During several of our grade school years, she lived four blocks away from me with our grandparents, and right across the trolley tracks from our elementary school, Oakmont School.  We went to 3rd, 4th and 5th grade together in that school. Then my grandfather retired, and they all moved to Luray, Virginia. 

Recently our friend Cyrice invited us to meet her at a new coffee shop, HyperSlow,  a few blocks from where we live. This being Los Angeles, the coffee shop is also a yoga and meditation studio.

Cyrice introduced us to one of the owners named Emily. We met and chatted for a few minutes. Then, I remembered the first “Emily" in my life.

After Ada moved to Luray, her best friend, Emily Menefee, lived down the street. We always went down to Virginia for a few weeks in the summer, my mother and me and my brother. Once summer when we were there (I was probably about 12), Ada and  I went down the street to play with Emily at her house. She lived in a very large house with a very large front yard.

We were playing a game at a card table, I think it was Monopoly, or maybe a card name game. Emily Menefee started playing “footsie" with me under the card table.  She must have instigated it. I've always been awkward with girls (and women). 


Remembering all this, I wrote to Ada and told her of this recollection. She emailed back and said, humorously, that she was surprised to hear I was playing footsie with her best friend. I replied and asked her if she knew whatever happened to Emily Menifee. 

Ada responded. Emily Menefee married a pediatrician, and moved to Richmond Virginia. 

Household Languages

A real conversation, overheard this morning, by two males acquaintances:

First man: I have been reading that it is now established, by social research, that children who grow up in homes where two languages are spoken, are better at learning additional languages later in their lives!

Second man: That's great!  I grew up in a home where two languages were spoken: One by my father, and another by my mother!

Laundry Responsibility

One of the things I am aware of now is how our married children (5) deal with giving responsibilities to our grandchildren (9). It varies from family to family; It's just interesting to observe the differences.

One are the things my first wife did with our children was that she had each of them doing their own laundry by age eleven.  When we separated and she moved out of our family house, I was left at home with responsibility for three children, ages 11 to 17, for the immediate future. One of the things that made it easier for me was that, by that point in time, each child was doing his or her own laundry.

This got me thinking about my laundry situation when I went away to Dartmouth. I had never done any laundry in my life.  My mother brought me to Hanover, and left me with a shipping container, made out of sturdy fiberboard, with two web straps around the outside.  About once a week, I would put my dirty underwear and socks into this, go down to the post office, and mail it home (Buffalo, NY).  My mother would do the laundry, put it back into the container, and send it back to me.  Then the cycle would repeat.  Talk about being tied to your mother’s apron strings!  

It’s hard to imagine this process being used today,  I’m wondering if any classmates used this system when they came to Dartmouth, or was I the only one?

Abortion and Personhood

Just finished reading "Our Only World", ten essays by Wendell Berry, given to me by Elliott and Nadia for my recent birthday.  Very much enjoyed it.

In essay number six, he discusses his thoughts re (1)abortion, and (2)gay marriage. While Berry is personally opposed to abortion, he comes down to this position: the government should not be involved. The decision should be left to the woman, her family and her doctor.

One of the arguments against abortion is that it takes away the rights of the fetus, which may regarded as a person. Berry says: "The legal definition of a person evaporated when the Supreme Court defined a corporation as a person. If a corporation is a person… then personhood can be conferred upon virtually anything merely by decree." For me, Berry nails the idiocy of that court decision

Book of Job

Yesterday, in Rabbi Wolpe's Torah study class, he began the discussion of the book of Job. We have been urging him to teach Job for at least two years.  He seemed reluctant, I'm not sure why.

In the first verse, the narrator describes Job as "blameless and upright, fearing God and shunning evil".  In verse 8, God describes Job in exactly the same words.

The primary issue is: does God allow bad things to happen to good people, and if so, why. I am looking forward to the classes that are to follow.