DINING

          Whoever showed up in the kitchen at dinner time was served by my mother who invariably stood while she had one hand on what she was eating and the other hand serving. I have a vague memory of what I actually ate.  Often it was something cold, like bananas and sour cream. There was never a salad, except for a bowl of grated tomato (the original gazpacho). The only vegetables we were served came out of a can and most likely were peas and carrots. Oh yes, every Monday we had spinach and mashed potatoes which was accompanied by a buttered roll. The prize was the chocolate pudding with cream floating on top.

          While it was unusual to be joined by my older sister or brother, my father always seemed be present at our small kitchen table when I sat down. Every dinner his meal was the same, potted meat in a gravy (in Yiddish gedempt fleysh) with potatoes. A bottle of seltzer had to be present, as well as a jar of Joe’s sour pickles from Jennings Street or “there would be hell to pay.”

          Eating was never dining in my house. It was just something to get through.  Dining was in Phyllis Garelick’s house. So, after my hurried meal, I would race across the hall from my building 1215 Simpson Street to our joining sister building 1211 Simpson Street to get to Phyllis' third floor apartment. I would timidly and gently knock at her door, always to be answered by Pearl. Although she was a relative, she was basically hired help to clean, cook serve and take care of Phyllis because her mother was emotionally challenged. At the door, Pearl would softly whisper, “Ethyl, the family is dining now but if you are very quiet, you can sit on the couch.”  It was located in their large dining room. The family consisting of Mr. Garelick (still clad in his business suit), Blanche and Larry, both students at City College and Phyllis. They were assembled around a huge dining room table which was covered with a white linen tablecloth and contained matching china dishes, shiny silverware and sparking glasses. They were dining. They were conversing. They were discussing. They were laughing. They were a family dining!!! I sat in awe as I quietly rifled through their liberal PM newspapers. My house only had The Forward, a newspaper completely in Yiddish.

          This was a family that read an English newspaper, sent children to college and shared thoughts, ideas and humor around a dining room table. I’d like to grow up to be part of a family that dines together in a dining room around a dining room table.

Ethyl H.

Apr 2020

The Ladybug who Came for Coffee

In the initial phase of the Pandemic everything was rather haphazard as it dawned on people that this situation would disrupt their lives, slowing down the rather harried pace of their usual existence. But now the situation had become real as the dust settled and everything quieted down temporarily. Even Mother Earth sighed in relief with pollution becoming less severe over the major industrialized cities; wildlife  like jellyfish and dolphins returning to the usually polluted waters of Venice and the Manatees those slow moving leviathans of South Florida, felt less anxiety as they traversed the waterways, no longer afraid of the propellers that could cut them. The effect was that as time screeched to a halt and the dust settled, little changed in the homes of people. Objects that in more normal frenzied times would migrate around a room over time, sat in one place. Into this static environment I decided to brew a pot of coffee and bake a batch of cookies. I put three cookies out with the coffee. While scanning the room and noticing the apparent lack of change, I observed something different, a speck on the ceiling and became transfixed on it, very surprised at its presence having never noticed it before. Slowly, through imperceptible, minuscule variations, the spot moved. It was a ladybug! Momentarily, she flew down and landed on the table staring directly at me as if to say “What poor manners. Do you offer nothing to your guests?” Unwilling to quibble over the apparent lack of an invitation to coffee having been sent and not wishing to be impolite or scare away my uninvited guest, I gingerly eased a drop of coffee and some cookie crumbs near the beetle whom I had named Queen Mum.

To my surprise the ladybug first crawled over to the coffee, had a sip and then a crumb of cookie. In my previously hectic life, I had never noticed how beautiful a ladybug was. Her face and appendages were a dark black. In contrast, her shell was a bright, glossy, luminous red like a very small candy apple, a marvel of nature that in busier times would have been missed except in the hidden research halls of a natural history museum. The black spots on the shell created a beautiful distinction. Queen Mum worked away at the chocolate chip cookie crumbs washing it down with a spot of coffee. Quickly, the sugar and caffeine kicked in and the ladybug did a little dance turning around in circles fluttering her previously dormant wings then returning to the snack. This did not seem appropriate behavior for royalty, but I let it pass. I commented on her beautiful shell and asked if she knew any Queen Bees, but received no reply. To fill the void in conversation I put on the National Geographic Channel which was showing a program on insects. Just then in response to some unseen internal clock the ladybug decided it was time to leave, turning to me as if to say “Thank you for your hospitality!” She flew away, out an open window never to return having been a welcome change to this quiet existence while not bugging me in the least.

Jim

Apr 2020

Scenes from my Childhood

    

“It’s time to go to bed!” my mom yells from the kitchen of our Brooklyn railroad apartment. It’s around 9pm on a weeknight and I’m around eleven years old. Oh, and I’m a chicken. You know what I’m afraid of? You know what’s going to keep me up tonight? My closet.


     It’s built into the wall of my bedroom, farthest from my bed. I share this room with three siblings. The closet is painted white like the walls and has two doors on it. One closes if you push it really hard. The other stays open, taunting me.



     My two brothers and my sister have no trouble succumbing to the powers of the Sandman. Not me. He doesn’t even bother to acknowledge my presence until around 11pm or so. Even he knows it ain’t gonna happen now.



     Trying to ignore the envy I’m feeling towards my peacefully slumbering siblings, I crawl under my blanket and get into position on my right side. I take a deep breath and face the closet. You’re probably wondering why I’d want to face an open box of nightmares. If you were being pursued by creatures of unknown origin, would you feel comfortable turning your back on them? I didn’t think so.



     I’m lying there, the blanket over the back of my head and tucked under my chin, covering my entire body. I’m wrapped in a self-made cocoon. I’m staring hard into the gap between the closed closet door and the stubbornly ajar one. Immense and hideous birds with protruding bones and dark gray feathers fly across my ceiling. Shivering from a coldness deep in my bones, I squeeze my eyes shut.



     Realizing I prefer to have some kind of warning before I’m shredded to death by several nasty talons, I force my eyes open. Big mistake. The birds are gone, but replaced by big, fat, skittering insectoid creatures with oily black carapaces and too many legs to count. Shuddering, I have a sudden urge to tear my blanket off and scratch at my skin. But I ignore it, because I’ll be damned if I’m leaving any part of me exposed, other than my face. There are too many of these horrid things, and they’re crawling rapidly in a chaotic formation on the walls and ceiling.



     I pull my blanket over my face, willing sleep to come. Unsuccessful, I try to take deep breaths and calm myself down. But my mind is shooting off images and thoughts in a rapid-fire succession and giving me no reprieve with which to process anything.



     Now I feel tears rolling down my cheeks. My thoughts become a mere trickle. The bug-like creatures are gone, which I determine when I peek out from under my blanket. But there’s a really tall man standing over my bed. Not tonight, I cringe inwardly. He seems male but I’m not entirely sure. His features are blurry and he’s wearing indistinct dark clothing. His expression is unreadable. I don’t like that. It frightens me the way it does when my father comes home drunk and I can’t tell if he’s the happy drunk or the angry, paranoid drunk.



     The tall man is sprinting around my room – sometimes in midair – so quickly that I can barely keep up with my eyes. I don’t want to lose sight of him but he’s too fast and there’s no real pattern to his movements. My eyelids are heavy but I can’t fall asleep yet. I have to wait until he’s gone. Squeezing my eyes shut again, I inwardly beg him not to kill me.

Moments later, I open my eyes to a world where I’m running really fast and jumping effortlessly from one roof of a building to the next. I’m swinging a sword that’s light as a feather but looks wicked cool. I’m hitting gigantic monsters with it, saving my two younger siblings from their evil grasp. I grin at the dead beasts as I lead my brother and sister to safety. I may have fallen asleep a coward. But I’m waking up a hero.

Jessica S.

April 2020

Bananas

     Yesterday finding myself with some mushy, over-ripe bananas, I wondered:  What to do with these?   And then I thought of doing something I haven't done in 40 years: bake!  Except for the baking powder to make them rise a bit, I realized I had all the other ingredients on hand to make banana-applesauce muffins.  Excited by the idea of finally doing something constructive on one of these long days at home in which I've been frankly "going bananas",  I pulled out my old muffin tin, threw everything in a bowl including some cinnamon and dried cranberries, placed the tin in the oven and wished the little muffins well.  I was winging it, working from long-distance memory, but once upon a time I'd made banana breads till they came out of the ears of my friends, so I remembered the proportions of the ingredients -- more or less

     Out of the oven they came, very short, -- muffettes, really, muffinis (?)  I tried one with a cup of tea.  Surprisingly tasty!  Now I was in heaven.  And I remembered, yet again ...


     Before my father was my father, he wrote to my mother, before she was my mother, hundreds of letters during the three years he served in the U.S. Army during WWII.  My mother, then a teenager, saved every one of them, including the envelopes and taped them chronologically into an album.  In 2009, after the passing of both my parents, I read that long chronicle of my father's year stationed in the U.S. followed by his years of service abroad in a mobile unit in England, France, Belgium and Germany.  It was one of the great reading experiences of my life. Among the letters I most cherish is a strangely moving one that he wrote one day from just over the Mexican border while he was in training in Texas.


     He had been given a free day to spend in Mexico.  There in a border town that he wandered through for an afternoon he found on some street corner a fruit vendor and purchased from him a banana.  Such a mundane, trivial event that would normally have not been rescued from oblivion!  But he so relished eating this particular banana.  It seemed better than any he had ever tasted!  I'm guessing this was in large part because he had not eaten one, -- nor probably any fresh fruit or vegetables -- in the previous two years.  From the start of our involvement in the War these foods had not been not available to the American public sector being reserved for the fighting forces overseas.  At home you had to grow your own in a "victory garden" that you planted in your back yard or on your rooftop, assuming you had a back yard or a rooftop.  That surely must have been why this felt like such a luxurious moment to my father.  He stood there eating his ambrosial-tasting banana while thinking only one thought: how could he send one to my future mother in Brooklyn so that she, too, would, for a few instants, be teleported to heaven .  But of course he realized this wasn't even faintly feasible.  It would arrive in Brooklyn as mush.
 

     Often when I am in a meditative mood while eating a banana, particularly an over-ripe one, and especially during these uncertain days when food shortages of all kinds pop up at the groceries and supermarkets, I think of my father. There he is, standing on a Mexican street corner dreaming of the delight his sweetheart would have in opening her mail and finding there the royal gift of a rare tropical fruit: a banana.

Maxine F.

Apr 2020

Pandemonium at Home

During this pandemic, as I travel from room to room, I despair as my quarters have become more and more Jackson Pollack and less and less Marie Kondo. The online joke reads: “I always said I would clean my house when I had time. Now I have time and I know that wasn’t the reason.” So far during this lock-down I have tripped over a broom that fell over and I never had bothered to pick up. I broke the glass top to my torchiere lamp while pushing the recliner back to look for my glasses under the chair. I found the glasses two days later when I stepped on some tossed aside newspapers and heard a crunch. The frames were not fixable. I had no problem while I ordered new glasses; I had a back-up pair. Same thing happened to those glasses when I swiveled out of my computer chair and stood up. Another crunch. Ah well, I still had glasses with an old prescription in them. Good to be prepared.

 In the kitchen, there is a lush pile of metal pots and porcelain plates blooming in the sink.  The cats haven’t been any too neat with their dry food either. The table in the dinette has grown several inches as I’ve left the mail to age there, to allow any possible Covid-19 virus to crumble and self-destruct. 

In the living room, the nap of the Oriental rug has grown with a soft layer of cat fur and bits of nuts, while the picture frames and furniture have developed a patina of dust. And the above mentioned newspaper pages provide a nonchalant footpath across the floor.

The bedroom is a display for carelessly unhung clothing and casually kicked off shoes. Some jewelry slumps off the dresser dejectedly, half in and half out of the jewelry box. There is no outfit to pin its hopes on, no place to go and parade pearls or silver or baubles of flickering color.

So tomorrow I will make an attempt to change the ambience of my pandemic abode.  I’ll outload some newspapers, pluck old seasonings from the spice rack, and rid the drawers of orphaned socks. Dust cloth and vacuum in hand, I’ll make the place Frank Lloyd Wright-straight and I.M. Pei-shiny. Tomorrow. Tomorrow will be a constructive day.

Marsha H.

Apr 2020

Alfred

Like many others, coronavirus has kept me in my home. I have the company however, of my friend Alfred, who has been confined to my home for many years. Years ago, my wife Ethyl took a class to learn to play the guitar. One day her teacher mentioned she had a friend who taught sculpture at Queens college. Would my wife and several of her friends be interested getting together with the sculptor who would teach them sculpturing? Ethyl asked around and four of her friends were interested, as was I. Arrangements were made for the group to meet in our basement for six weekly Thursday evenings. We were given the necessary material and instructions. The instructor’s father-in-law Alfred, was the model for us to make a clay bust. After six weeks the class ended and only my piece resembled the model Alfred. But of course since the class ended and was not being renewed, I never learned how to finish the piece. Never-the-less, I placed it on one of the chests in our living room. Ethyl felt otherwise and put it in the basement. I would retrieve it, but down to the basement it would go. The back and forth caused an ear to fall off and the nose to become disfigured. I finally gave up and the basement was its home.

Many years later my wife retired from her teaching job and took a ceramics class at Queensborough Community College in Bayside, Queens. After I retired my wife told me that in the class room next to where she did her ceramics, there was a sculpting class being taught by Phil Listengart. She thought he was a good teacher and suggested I take his class. I gave it some thought and when a new session was scheduled, I enrolled. Ethyl was right, He was an

excellent teacher. I learned how to finish a clay piece, have it cast and made to look like it was bronze.

Once I understood the above, I recalled my sculpture of Alfred sitting in the dark basement and decided to retrieve and attempt to finish him. Fortunately, the clay used was oil and not water clay. The latter would have caused the bust to fall apart, but that was not the case with oil clay. So up Alfred came. I replaced his missing ear and did plastic surgery on his nose and elsewhere, When I was satisfied, with my new found knowledge, I proceeded to turn the clay piece into a heavy plaster duplicate. I then made a mixture of bronze powder and clear shellac, applied them to the sculpture and rubbed over it with burnt umber. Subsequently I lightly rubbed off some of the mixture with a soft cloth so the darkness of the paint would remain in several sections. I followed all of this with a dark wax or shoe polish and rubbed it to give it a sheen.

When done Alfred looked like he was alive. Indeed when I sit on a chair in my living room, facing Alfred, I think he speaks to me. Our friendship has lasted for many years and will

continue to do so to my mortality. Alfred has the company of a variety of many other pieces of sculpture I have made over the years. Attached is a photograph of Alfred, and perhaps when you face him, you may believe he is saying hello to you.

Ben Haber

Apr 2020

The Heist

Joel Smith was a derailed train that had never gotten back on track. At twenty-five, he had wandered through life a lost soul who squandered the formative years getting into trouble and avoiding proper studies, the result being that he now stood facing adulthood with little to show for his tenure. A dabbler in petty crimes, he resided outside of town in a nearby hunting area not used during the off-season, squatting in the cabins on rations left behind by hunters for the following year. At the time of this particular incident, Joel – who was slightly balding, five foot six inches in height and exhibiting a very nervous disposition – had broken into a cabin a few months before with a large supply of canned goods. This combined with the fish Joel caught and the wild plants he procured provided a sufficient diet. He was able to disappear from society for the better part of six months without newspaper, radio or any contact with the outside world. As supplies were now running low, Joel pondered a way to get some funds with which to buy some more.

It was early afternoon the day that Joel decided to undertake his plan as he started his old motorcycle for the trip to town. He traveled lightly carrying only a backpack containing a cigarette lighter in the shape of an old gun, a cloth bag and a bandanna in the pocket. It was late afternoon when Joel entered the town and as he waited at the traffic light, it seemed extremely quiet for a business day with few citizens on the street. Driving down near the bank, he parked his motorcycle, tied on the bandanna and entered the bank, pulling the cloth up over his nose. A curious bizarre sight met him as he entered the marbled lobby of the old bank. Everyone was wearing a mask, some very similar to his own. Patrons, bank tellers and security guards all sported a covering. A passing thought passed through his mind that all of these people had decided to rob the bank, which he quickly dismissed as absurd noticing that even the Girl Scout sitting at a table selling cookie boxes wore one of these masks. Joel dismissed this odd development and walked right up to the teller putting the cloth bag on the counter and pulling out the gun/cigarette lighter. He did not speak, feeling that the circumstances were self-explanatory, an idea not shared by Miss Rolunda Clogg.

 “Can I help you sir?” Miss Clogg initiated.

 “Put the money in the bag and nobody gets hurt,” exclaimed Joel in a most menacing tone that he had practiced in the mirror all morning long.

 “Where is your note? I need a note,” Miss Clogg insisted.

 “I didn’t write a note. Just put the money in the damn bag!”

 “There is no need for profanity,” Miss Clogg reprimanded him. “Now here is a paper and pen. Please jot down a note for me. Oh, and make it sinister. I need it to frame for my wall to show my grandchildren some day while reminiscing with them over the exciting times of my life. I have been waiting for you to show up for a long time.You can use the table over there and come right back to me without waiting on the line again.”

 Grumbling, Joel went over to the table, scribbled the note and returned to the teller.

“Here is your note, now give me the money,” he grumbled.

“Well I can see why you don’t have a proper job. This is illegible. Is that supposed to be an E?” inquired the teller while adjusting her facemask.

“Yes it is an E! Now give me the money or you won’t have to worry about ever having grandchildren to impress,” threatened Joel.

“Oh really! With everything going on, the pandemic and all, I do not have time for your nonsense. Now put that cigarette lighter down, you’re not fooling anyone. I have the same one at home!”       

Reaching below the counter for two aerosol cans of Lysol, Miss Clogg came up, guns blazing like Doc Holliday, shooting Joel in each eye with the disinfectant. Joel screamed. Momentarily blinded, he staggered back. Sally Ann the Girl Scout saw her opportunity and grabbing a bottle of Purell, pulled off the cap splashing the slippery liquid behind Joel’s feet. Joel lost his balance, slipped on the polished marble floor and banged his skull. Two old ladies, infuriated that their stimulus checks were delayed let loose on Joel with their canes. Beating him mercilessly, they relieved their pent up frustrations, simultaneously providing a needed public service. By this time, the security guards finishing their coffee break and ready to get back to work apprehended Joel, cuffing him and bringing the sorry bank robber out to the arriving patrol car that the bank manager had summoned.

As Joel sat hogtied in the back seat pondering the mess that his life had become, the officers filled out the necessary paperwork while arguing where to have dinner.

Sally Ann came over to the patrol car.

“Hey Mister, that was not a smart thing to do.When you get out of jail, I think you should get a job, maybe  as a bank guard since you have related experience.”

 Sally Ann was not trying to be sarcastic, only helpful .

 “I think that you are right young lady, thank you for the advice,” Joel said.

“I would be happy to help you when the time comes. I am going to be a successful businesswoman someday. Sally Ann Walsh. Remember that name.”

“Ok Sally Ann I will.”

Before returning to the bank, Sally Ann gave a box of Samoas to Joel and one to each of the officers asking them to treat him well as he was a personal friend of hers. All three men thanked her, their dispositions sweetened by the cookie boxes.

Twenty years passed and on the day Joel got out of prison, June 6,2040, he returned to the bank looking for employment. He was dressed neatly in his Prison issued suit although the years had not been kind to him. As he filled out the application, he put down Sally Ann Walsh as a reference and handed it to the interviewer.

“Do you know Sally Ann?” inquired the clerk.

“Yes we had occasion to meet in the past,” stammered Joel.

With that, the clerk made a phone call and Sally Ann walked into the room.

“Hello Joel it is good to see you again. How can I help you?” she asked, shaking his hand vigorously. Sally Ann was now thirty years old, President of the bank, with an MBA in finance and dressed in a business suit.

“Hello Sally Ann I have paid my debt to society and am looking for work,” Joel stammered.

“I’m sure that we can find something for you, come back tomorrow at 8am.

Joel thanked her. Feeling hopeful, he returned the next morning in his suit. Sally Ann lived up to her promise starting Joel in a clerical position and eventually transferring him to security guard when a position opened.After two years with a great attitude, aptitude, and  appetite for work as well as a perfect attendance record, Joel received the Employee of the Year Award. The award was presented by Sally Ann who also gave him a case of Samoas for she had become a Girl Scout Leader whose daughter BeckyAnn now sold cookies in the bank lobby during their annual fundraiser and by all indications was even more gregarious and business minded than her mother. 

Jim

Apr 2020

                                                                                  

WALKING UNMUZZLED

April's trumpet sprays rain and chilly winds.  

She sounds the alarm.   

Heralding tidings north and south east to west.  

The first bulbs and vines peek out moist colors that gently greet friendly eyes.

Tiny creatures undeterred by fear robustly remind us life is dear.   

Their frailty camaflouges such fierce wonder worth contemplating.  

Will caterpillars emerge from cacoons and fly with silky flutter to and fro?  I daresay, "just so."

 

Yvonne A

Apr. 2020

Spider Hiders

Hello spider
Bring me some luck
Hello spider
Are you looking to bunk
Hello spider
I hope I don't see u in my trunk
Hello spider
It's time for goodbye
Jump into the flower pot
And hide, hide, hide

Laura M

April 2020

Ambrosia

Love is an elegant elixir 

Mystical magnetic dance 

Springing escalating passion

Igniting fire, feeding flames

Spinning us into an exquisite intimate 

Cocoon

Metamorphosis

Laura M

April 2020

A Black Summer

Momma had three boys and two girls between 1918 and 1928. I was the youngest. Knowing Momma, I believe had there not been a depression between 1929 and the 1930s, she would have had more children. It did not occur because we had very little money and Poppa was fortunate if he had at least a day’s work as an operator in a shop that made ladies’ dresses. My siblings and I had a daily allowance of one penny, given to us before we left for school. We clutched that penny because after the luncheon break and on our way back to school, we stopped at Dreyfuss’ candy store and spent about 15 minutes examining the counter on which there were many trays filed with candies so as to select one piece of candy for our penny. It became very clear to me at an early age, if I ever wanted more than a penny in my pocket, I would never ask Momma or Poppa for it. To get it I realized I would need a part time job after school. The first I had was delivering chickens to the customers of Hoffman the butcher. That followed with a variety of other jobs after elementary school, high school, college and law school and did not stop until I retired at the age of 71.

 

Some of the jobs I did not mind, some I liked and some I disliked. One of the latter is what I

wish to set down on paper. My mother’s first cousin Sam Klein with whom we shared a small two family house on Pulaski Street in Middle Village, Queens, now called 68th Avenue was a waiter in an upscale restaurant called The Lobster located on 46th Street In Manhattan. It was well known at the time for its $2.95 dinner called The Shore, that consisted of clam chowder, shrimp cocktail, a pound and a half lobster accompanied by fresh corn and a vegetable and finished with coffee or tea and a large slice of Nesserole pie. I must have been 16 or 17 at the time when Sam got me a summer job as a bus boy at the restaurant. The restaurant closed after lunch to be opened again for the dinner trade starting at 5 P.M. I was required to be at the restaurant at 3 P. M. and worked until 12 midnight. When I arrived there at 3 P.M., I helped set up the tables and prepare various condiments. About 4:30 P.M., the staff was given their dinner

food, never of course lobster or shrimp. When I left after midnight, I had to take two trains and a trolley to get home which would be close to 2 A.M. I went to sleep and did not wake up until about 10:30 A.M., I made my own breakfast and got on the trains about 2 P.M. to be at the restaurant at 3 P.M. I worked 6 days a week and had off on Thursday.

 

I did not even spend Thursday, my one day off, with friends because Thursday was the day

Momma cleaned the house in preparation for the Sabbath. I knew Momma worked all day in a shop, hand sewing men’s ties, came home after a day’s work , made dinner and then proceeded to clean the house. So Thursday was not a time for friends for me, because I felt I owed Momma a little rest. After I finished dusting the three rooms, out came a pail with warm water, a terrible hand brush with an awful block of brown soap, down on my knees, scrubbing the linoleum floors in hallways that ran from the front door into our kitchen. When done, it was the custom, said to protect the floors until the weekend, to cover all the floors with newspaper. In spite of the fact, by Sunday the papers were in shreds. In passing I do want to include in this story the fact next door to the The Lobster was the Lyceum Theatre. The summer I worked at the restaurant, every evening at 9:15 P. M., there was loud laughter that flowed into the restaurant through the wall that joined it to the Lyceum Theatre. I did find out it was Judy Holliday in the play Born Yesterday. Another aspect I remember from that summer, was that down the street from The Lobster was a kosher restaurant called Polikoff’s, which also had a $2.95 dinner that included noodle soup, gefilte fish, roast chicken, with vegetables and dessert. At the end of that summer with a few dollars in my pocket, I decided to take Momma to Polikoff’s for dinner. She refused saying she had never eaten in a restaurant, but I insisted and practically had to drag her into the city. She did enjoy the meal, but when I gave the waiter a tip of several dollars, I think if she had food in her mouth she would have gagged. When all is said and done, notwithstanding negative aspects, the Black Summer did result in my having more than a penny in my pocket; making those summer Thursdays easier for Momma and having her join me in a restaurant for dinner. In retrospect keeping all that in mind, perhaps a better title would be:

A GRAY SUMMER.

Ben Haber

April 2020