Come Fly with Me

 

What did I learn in 2020?  Quite a lot actually.  Many proverbs and sayings ran through my head, more than they normally do, this past year.  I like adages and wise sayings.  Their timeless wisdom, lyrically expressed, has helped me to grasp concepts that I resist for one reason or another.

Last week while driving on the Northern State Parkway, the recitation of one that dates back to the sixteenth century took hold of me and refused to go away.  “You can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear,” a voice in my head kept repeating.   Throughout the day, that voice became more of a chant and by the following day I was asking myself why it had taken me so long to grasp this indisputable truth.  Thankfully, my mother’s voice soothed me by reminding me “better late than never Darling.” 

if I were forced to make a New Year’s Resolution for the upcoming year, I would make mine along those same lines.   It would sound a lot like the Serenity Prayer;  you know, the one asking for courage (to make necessary alterations), acceptance (of the immutable),  and wisdom to discern the  one from the other.   It is a very helpful reminder for me to mind my own business and stay in my own lane.   A much-needed lesson finally learned.  Thank you very much.  Tonight, as I raise my glass, I won’t be weeping out the old year just winging in the new one.

 

Yvonne A.

December 31, 2020

Maxine's Toolbox

Contained within a toolbox, relative to the foresight of its creator are all the tools that will be necessary to complete a project. Whether it involves hanging a door, penning a letter to a loved one, writing a business report, or creating a poem or short story, a selection of proper tools will make it more efficient.

If upon the occasion of a needed car repair the customer wanders towards the work area of the shop to observe the proceedings, one will usually find the same thing in common in every shop. Regardless of how dirty and greasy the mechanics work area may be, or how colorful the language expressed therein, the worker’s tools will be properly cleaned and oiled in pristine condition and reverently placed in their assigned spot in the large red shining tool closet with its many drawers, where they are at the ready, to complete the required task and be wielded like a magician’s wand.

Their sharp, polished, clean, honed state is not motivated by the excessive cleanliness or organizational skills of the mechanic, but rather due to the fact that the quick retrieval of said tools, when needed, is essential to the completion of the task at hand, to quell the impatient customer who will pay handsomely for their vehicle to be back and running after the shortest time possible. Whether hitting the reader over the head with a strong metaphor or soothing the mind with assonance or alliteration, each tool serves a purpose to create the desired effect. Dr. Fisher has generously provided for each and every member of our group with this set of precision tools brand new and in good working order, as well as explaining in detail their proper use, to be used for our exercises. It is our responsibility to keep them well-honed to be ready to use in our writing. Let’s appreciate the excellent resources we have been provided with.

Have a Happy, Healthy and Industrious New Year!

 

Jim

Dec 2020

Glamoor

 When I woke up that morning, I could barely get out of bed.  By the end of the day, I knew the reason I was put on this Earth had nothing to do with dry martinis.  It all started in November of 2019 before the world turned upside down.

Growing up watching so many black and white films like “The Thin Man” and “The Women” prodded me into an exaggerated appreciation for stemware.  The allure of the nightclub with its smoky ambience and Jean-Louis gowns persuaded me that drinking and dancing with a handsome well-dressed man would be enchanting.  Such naivete!

When some friends suggested the Swan Club for a New Year’s Eve party, instead of thinking “but I don’t like going out on New Year’s Eve,” my first thought was “what will I wear?”  Then I had to convince my husband, also known as “the NO man,” that we should go out this one time since we were entering a new decade.  By some bizarre twist of fate, he replied “why not?”  

Well, as promised, the location, Roslyn Harbor, was lovely.  The country club look and feel of the place was very appealing as cars pulled up via a circular driveway so valets could park them and allow patrons to make a grand entrance.  Coats checked and champagne flutes in hand, we were ushered into the “Cocktail Room” where hors d'oeuvres came gliding by and spirits began soaring high.  If we’d made our swift retreat after this, the high point of the evening, it would have been ideal in the black-and-white-movie sense of the word.

Alas it came time for us to dine in the main ballroom where tables had been set with centerpieces the size of palm trees that made conversation with anyone but the person sitting right beside you impossible.  My hopes of romance on the dancefloor were horribly dashed as jungle drums beat incessantly as if signaling war.  Most of the well-dressed men were busy with their smartphones, presumably watching sports, while their female counterparts used their handy devices to snap the dreaded “selves accompanied by elves.”

Now I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the best way to celebrate New Year’s Eve is at home knowing you’ll never again wake up with a hangover on New Year’s Day.  This year isn’t over yet.  Let’s not rush it.  Let’s savor all the lessons learned because as Mama always used to tell me: “Yvonne Darling, we live and we learn.”      

 

This year I’m planning a wonderful meal at home on both New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.  Thanking God for more blessings than I can count is essential.  A glass of ruby red with the meal and a bubbly toast because it’s traditional will could be just the thing.  So bring it in and bring it on because The Best is Yet to Come!

 

Yvonne A.

Dec 2020

The Rebellious Resolutions of the New Year

 Let’s get this over with right now. I’m tired of making New Year’s resolutions that I can only carry out for a few days or the most, one month. Then, I’m filled with guilt and regret that I didn’t last longer as I go back to the lifestyle I was living before the big ball dropped in Times Square. Here you will find my most honest and realistic list of New Year’s Resolutions:

1.     No dieting.

2.     No exercising or joining a gym.

3.     No meditating.

4.     Stop monitoring how much sugar consumed daily.

5.     Quit saying, “It’s okay” when it’s not.

6.     Start using tit-for-tat and I got you back for wrong doers.

7.     Stop being sweet as sugar.

8.     Start being as sour as a lemon (when necessary).

Some might be shocked by this more truthful list of New Year’s Resolutions but before you shoot it down, try it and you’ll see how much happier January will be!

Ellen G.

Dec 2020

"Epiphany"

 “Epiphany”

   A realization.  A Dear God.  A holy crap.  An I'll be damned.  A revelation.  A sad truth.
A devastating insight.  A harsh truth.  A holy f--k. 
Dear God, help me.

   I think I see a man in the river.  He just jumped off the bridge and into the icy river.
I have to save him.  He must be saved!

   It was July 24, 1984.
   I do not remember the weather.  For me, it was hot.
   Jeanine, my girlfriend of three-plus years, was getting antsy. She realized that she was dating a big bag of stupid, pulling a wagon full of indecision.  Our relationship was going nowhere. While we laughed, made great love, drank, and smoked a little, she was on a solid career track. I was not.  I was working, not saving, partying, and stagnating, she was teaching first graders and special ed. kids already.  I was taking some college classes, not applying myself fully, and having a lot of immature, irresponsible fun. 
   While my "Fun Bunch" friends were schooling, working, planning, engaging, and planning to marry, I was the conductor of the party train, travelling with like-minded revelers.  Woo Wooooo!
   Jeanine was ready for the next steps.  Engagement. Marriage. Family.  To that, I said, "Yikes!"

   In our nice three years together we had travelled, gone to beaches and swam wherever we could, dined well, and had a beverage or ten. Sadly, I was enjoying the ride, surrounded by people who were actually working towards achieving career and personal goals. The nerve of them.  Yet, this party train is hauling ass...

   “My” sweet Jeanine asked me if we were going to plan a future together and to consider getting married. Wow. I was so not ready for this, although, in respect for her, I should have.  My mind was elsewhere.  Maybe I AM stagnating.   Around 7 PM, Jeanine picked me up from my no brain lumber yard job, which was nice of her, since she lived a good 15 miles from my workplace.
   Asking me if I loved her and of my intentions, I said, “Yes I love you. but I'm not sure right now. I'm trying to figure things out.”  She asked me how long that would take. I followed with another feeble answer, half scared, half non-committal, completely unready.
   After Jeanine's epiphany that I was, in fact, not planning ahead or considering a life with her, she told me that she had to break up with me.  After attempts at explanation and some tears, we were done. Three plus years, poof. Such is romance. Fleeting is love.
   The smart and sexy Jeanine will have me no more.  I was crushed.  Not despondent but ruined psychologically.  At least I knew what my plans were that night.  Beers with the guys. Yea. My only option. A lower case hoorah!
   Not thinking immediately of the ramifications of life without Jeanine, I grinded on, working, trying to distance run again, hoping beyond hope that she would call me to make up and get back together.  I needed a chance to correct my wrong of negligence. As in neglecting to consider the feelings of a young woman that I cared deeply for.
   She acted hastily, perhaps, in dumping poor little old me on my unmotivated ass.  Wake up call?  Yes?!?! 
   My not so young anymore (24) mind and thoughts were thrust into adulthood in the blink of an eye. You must answer these very adult and long-term questions about your future now.  Right now.  Got it?
   Failing to provide the response that “my” sweet Jeanine wanted to hear, it was no longer us.  It was just me.
Maybe I'll give that girl Veronica a call.  In my dreams I had other new girlfriend prospects.
   Managing to make it through the weekend to the next work week,  I foresaw more drudgery, more dawdling, more unintellectual pursuits, less assertiveness. 
   Dear God, please help me to find a path, a way, a better life to create a better me.

Here is “my” Epiphany.

   I had to get out of there. I had to get the f--k out. Any place, anywhere, any job.  Except for my Mom and Dad, and friends who were all growing up to become solid adults, my Carle Place, Long Island had nothing left for me.
There was no longer anything or anyone for me here.  No girl, crap job, living at home, and the ever-looming failures to seize certain opportunities.
   Might I add a burgeoning love of beer, all types of exotic foreign beers, Belhaven Scottish Ale, Doppelspaten Optimator, and the French LaBelle Strasbourgeoise, to name a few.  The continuance of the partying ways wrought a new found havoc on this once former runs-like-the-wind, svelte frame. Not too long ago, I was a high school All-Nassau County Cross Country, running XC at Nassau Community College, and a three-time Long Island Marathon runner.  Where was that guy?  Now I was drinking and “chubbifying”.  Some friends were not only drinking beers or liquor, some were smoking weed or snorting cocaine, all of which represented fun, or escapism, or to mask real personal problems.  I MUST leave this all behind.  There must be something better.  I am dying here.  There must be a better me.

   Six days after Jeanine “released” me, on the morning of July 30, 1984, after doing very little research on the subject, I walked into a local long term U.S. government job opportunity office, filled out some paperwork, took an aptitude test and a physical exam.  After interviews by these job recruiters and review of the exam results, it was decided. There was no turning back. The papers were signed. It was final.  It was done. Talk about getting out of this one-horse-town.
   I had just enlisted in the United States Army.

Richard M.

Dec 2020

Pulling All-Nighters

I am not wont to all-night binges—no all-night movie marathons, no erotic orgies or all-night eating food fests.   Even in college, I never pulled “all-nighters” to study or finish a paper. My only stay-up-all night events have been work-related. My job was to go press-side to make sure that the junk mail or brochure you as a consumer received in the mail was a beautiful, consistent, and persuasive piece of advertising. I am sure that many of the pieces I have worked on through the night have landed in your mailbox.

Sometimes, I worked the “lobster shift”: twelve hours on and twelve hours off from midnight to noon. I watched huge rolls of paper hunkered into place or large pallets of paper maneuvered up to hungry presses that waited to consume the dried muck from which paper is formed. I listened to the clamorous machines, with the clapping and cranking platens, the aluminum plates thrumming tiny dots of ink onto rubber rollers that gob-smacked the color onto the paper substrate. From one tower to the next and the next and the next, four times, five times, six times, even nine times, until an optical illusion of image and type was birthed on each successive sheet. Aerosols, ink vapors, powders wafted through the air, mixed with the sweat of men who manned the machines and pushed the controls and levers of the heavy machinery that marshalled the small little dots to their allocated places.

The often-dingy pressrooms were such a contrast to the airy cathedrals to commerce where I spent most of my time.  That’s where ad agency creatives created, writers wrote, and ad men added up their conquests, both business and personal. Sometimes we worked through the night to make sure a campaign was completed for the next morning’s “dog and pony” presentation or when there was just so much to do that a late night was the only solution. On one such “all-nighter” for a presentation for our important tobacco client, I came into the office at 9 AM and left at 5 AM the next morning.  I didn’t report to work that day. “Where is she?” the disgruntled president of firm wanted to know. That’s agency-style appreciation.

There were often emergency press OK’s that would be caused by client crises or rescheduling at the plants. One morning, the head of the agency announced, “You have to be in Chicago tonight. The client wants you there for a press check.”

“I have to pack,” I declared.

“Fine. You live in Queens. Go home. Go to the airport. It’s in Queens too.”

 I landed at O’Hare around 11 PM and was driven to the plant on the outskirts of the city, about an hour away. After hours of press delays and various adjustments to the color and fit, I signed an OK’d sheet at 6 AM. At the hotel, I fell into bed and attempted to sleep. I had been up all night, but the sun was shining and I was fidgety.

I could have caught an early flight back home. Then again, I could take advantage of where I was and take a serendipitous train ride into Chicago, a city which I had never visited. There was a special Degas Exhibit at the Chicago Museum. This was going to be my reward for my surprise expedition from New York. At the train station I asked a fellow passenger if the exhibit was worth attending. “Worth seeing? Yes,” he chuckled, “but you won’t remember it, considering you’re on no sleep.”  Ha! The exhibit was great and I remember it.

It is important to grab the good from these inconvenient and invasive, sometimes boring and lonely business trips. Most the presses are in dingy areas of industrial parks, near railroads or trucking depots. A Philadelphia trip changed from one day into three due to a paper problem. I was able to visit the Rodin Museum, attend a concert and listen to   the grand piano at the famous Wannamaker’s (where, incidentally I bought a change of undergarments and a pair of walking shoes to replace my heels). I found myself on-press, repeatedly, in the beautiful, mostly French-speaking town of Magog-on-the-Lake, Quebec. Once, in a snow storm, it was just me and the non-English speaking pressmen. The foreman from Montreal who spoke English couldn’t get in because the roads were closed. It is a testament to Mrs. Oliver and my other French teachers, my sister who spoke to me in French so the children wouldn’t understand us, as well as ingenuity and cooperation, that we were able to communicate and move on with production. Even at press “OK’s” in the middle of winter, in a printing plant in the middle of large barren, frozen cornfields, I discovered a peace and quietude in being the only person beating a path around the corn rows.

Grab a snooze when you can. Grab an experience where you can. Now that I am retired, I am always ready for a good nap.  I suppose I could pull an “all-nighter” if I wanted to, but I have no desire to try. I’ve had enough of them.

 

Marsha H.

12.25.20

At A Loss

I put my memories on the clouds

Let them free-float along with my life

When I look for special moments in the past

The clouds suddenly disappear into the horizon

 

I ride on the stars to chase after them

Just to find that I am misled

To the moon where I meet the rabbit of legend

Grinding healing herbs in a mortar

For the longevity of memories

 

I ride in a small boat on the vast ocean

Just to find that the waves are pushing me to 

A mysterious island where I have lost 

My keys to the treasures of memories

 

I hike up the rocky trails in the forest

Where valleys leading to village after village

The familiar scenery unexpectedly makes a sharp turn

Into a complex of mountains where memories dilute on the way

I am at a loss as to where I am

S.P. Ma

Dec 2020

My Letter to 2020

 Dear 2020, 

Of all the years I have been alive you are certainly the strangest: dreaded diseases, riots, mental health in the forefront, cancel culture, humans being nasty, raw to each other, hoarding, social distancing, and explosion of dependence on technology.  

I was forced to change. I caught Covid, abruptly left a long-standing routine and never looked back, started to take my health seriously, joined a gym, my writing practice took off and improved in ways I never thought possible, focused on my watercolor painting practice, expanded my knowledge of technology, zoom meetings turned out to be a lot of fun, went within my own psyche to the extreme and trusted my intuition more readily.  

I never once made a new year’s resolution but you dear 2020 has been such an adventure that I have grown both internally and externally. I thank you for the challenges 2020, it is my resolution that the improvements I started 2020 will continue into 2021, Happy New Year.

Georgia P.

 

I Remember that Day at the Movie Theater...

 

I remember that day at the movie theater when Peter O’Toole, a somewhat bookish leading man developed his character up on the silver screen, as I looked around the old theater. The Arion on Metropolitan Avenue was long and deep and wide. The showplace was old and run-down but still had the richness and grandeur of its earlier incarnation as a Vaudeville theater, with ample chairs and a stage for live performances which the picture screen hovered above it like a ghost. A good cleaning and some restoration were all that would be needed to resurrect the playhouse to its former self. Dusty old wood carvings, peeling gold leaf and faded frescoes looked down mournfully from above on the audience, for the running of this not so old classic Lawrence of Arabia.

As Mr. O’Toole struggled in a dust storm on his trusty camel under the hot, penetrating, searing heat of the desert sun, I grew parched.

Luckily the Arion had its own somewhat lush, green oasis of sorts. The matron had the double role of also running the snack counter. Far from considering this task to be a challenging role requiring the utmost respect and confidence of her employer, she approached it with the excitement and bravado of someone sorting out their sock drawer or digging their own grave. I purchased a bottle of Coca-Cola, a stale Baby Ruth, fully capable of hitting a Home-run with, and a pack of Camels. It seemed an appropriate choice given the performance. Cigarettes had made the meteoric rise from .90 cents to $1.10 a dizzying, exorbitant price and I made a mental note to rid myself of this nasty habit which was a drain on meager finances.

There was a long arduous task ahead for our leading man and I trudged back into the darkness Coca-Cola in hand, my iron candy bar in tow and the pack of smokes, to face the desert sands with Lawrence of Arabia.

 

Jim

Dec 2020

Contemplating the Apple

           There is nothing so joyous as that first bite into an apple: that crunch as my teeth crash through the tight, tart skin of the apple, followed by the sluice of sweet juice and aromatic burst of apple freshness. As I stand in the kitchen gobbling a flavorful, rosy red apple, an image of my father is conjured up.

There he is, sitting in his recliner, skinning an apple from pole to pole with a paring knife. His capable hand guides the knife round and round the fruit to produce a long ribbon of red apple skin, almost translucent because so little of the apple flesh was skimmed away. I have never been able to replicate his method. Instead, I quarter and core the apples before peeling, as I was taught in home economics class. Even so, my results are rough and wasteful by comparison. No child will ever sit at my knee, as I did with at my father’s, and watch in amazement as the ribbons of beauteous red unravel to the waiting newspaper below. I used to sit there expectantly, and when the ribbon would break, as it occasionally did, I would grab the snippets to munch on. He would cut chunks from the hand-held fruit. I would always get a few pieces of the apple he had prepared for himself, along with a smile that let me know he enjoyed my company.

When my mother made applesauce, it was my father who removed the apple skins. Neither my mother nor I possessed his knife skills. Peels would become a deep, winter pile of red to be raked up.  I would join my mother in the kitchen, where we cut and cored the apples, added a few teaspoons of water, and gently heated the generous pot. When the apples were soft and then cooled, we’d use a big spoon to vigorously mash the lumps, and mix in sweetener and a squeeze of lemon. It was fine warm, but even better cold.

Homemade applesauce is nothing like jarred applesauce (whose most exciting attribute is the “pop” when the vacuum seal on the container is broken). Home-made applesauce is a complex essence of the apples or apple varieties from which it is made. No Mott’s can approach the depth and fusion of flavors. No mass-produced product manages the marriage of thick and thin, fibrous and smooth. No bottled blandness beats the color of fresh.  Applesauce made with the skin on delivers a deep, rosy-complexioned dessert; with cinnamon, a tawny hued offering; with no additions, a pale pink product. My mother and I would taste the result of our efforts, and nod to each other with mutual approval of a pot of goodness done well.

When I contemplate apples, they are much more than a tasty fruit for me to enjoy. They are a conduit to the memories of generosity and affection from parents who shared the fruits of their labor and the fruits of their love with me.

Marsha H.

12/24/20

My Sister's Dandelion Wish

Almost six-year-old Roberta reached up for the diaphanous wishing fly. She closed her eyes, and with a dimpled smile, made her wish: “A baby sister. Please, I want a baby sister.” She blew on the well-seeded and well-wished-upon piece of fluff and watched it carry her hopes on high-- across the lake at Uncle Dave’s bungalow colony, above the trees that lined the lake, through the streaming clouds, and out of sight to where babies are created and assigned. That next August I was the result, pink and rosy and perfect in my sister’s eyes. From that magical wish, Roberta has been my sister, friend, and ally. She has always been there, a trusted companion and confidante. We had a wonderful mother, but I was endowed with an additional mini- mom. In one of my favorite photographs her 8-year-old self holds one-year-old me on her lap.  She looks delighted and quite proud; I look ready to jump out at the camera and world beyond.  I knew I was safe because I was secure on my sister’s lap.

Later I became her tag-along sister. One of my early summer memories is sitting side by side with my sister at Swan Lake, where we were part of a bungalow colony. Each of us held a branch with a string and safety pin attached at the end, which we dangled over the water in hopes of catching a fish. I truly believed we were fishing, and I think we both would have screamed frantically, if a fish actually hooked itself on the end of the line. Back in Brooklyn when I had temper tantrums, my arms and legs flailing on the apartment’s parquet floors, my sister straddled over me, not allowing anyone near to punish or reprimand me. 

After we moved to a house in Queens, we were only slightly more separated. In the apartment we shared a bedroom, but in the house we each had a bedroom of our own. (My parents had slept on a ”high rise” day bed in the living room, and once we were in a house, reclaimed their marriage bed and bedroom set.)  I was further separated from my sister because I was entering kindergarten in one school, while she was entering junior high school at a totally different location. Later, when I was attending junior high school, she was attending college. Yet, we were still close.

Summers were now spent at home.  My parents could not afford a mortgage and the cost of summer camp or a vacation. Almost all the other children in the neighborhood were in camp. Roberta would often take me to her friend’s house, where we would talk and play word games under the shade of a grape arbor. I was young and would often mess up the count or the words. I found out decades later that my sister did not always take me along willingly; she was under strict orders from my mother. It wasn’t until we got older that the scales began to rebalance.

When my mother became terminally ill with breast cancer, Roberta was married and working, but I was at home finishing my master’s work. Many responsibilities shifted to me. Still, with my father in the house and Roberta still involved, I functioned as the younger sister. After our mother’s death, it took a few years for our relationship to re-align. She was married, teaching, with children. I was working crazy hours in advertising.  I wasn’t there for her as much as she would have liked when she gave birth to my nephew and she wasn’t there for me in the way I wanted when I went through a patch of depression. We both wanted to help each other but couldn’t.

Life’s joys and disappointments molded us and we became stronger for ourselves and for each other.  Sometimes she played the role of mother for me; sometimes I played the role of mother for her.  I was with her during a terrible flu, when we thought she had had a stroke. I stayed with her children while she was taking a course upstate. Every time I came out of surgery, Roberta was there waiting at the foot of my bed, providing the same sense of sureness and security she had when she held me on her lap in that picture of the two of us. As older adults, we now check in with each other every day. It’s a pleasure when you don’t have to explain your history or references to the person on the other end of the phone.

Roberta has always wanted to be like our mother. Frances (Berman) Hoffer knew how to be there for everyone she cared about. Roberta, you are strong and quiet, capable and good. You provide love and sustenance.

Together, we two seedlings have grown from young saplings to older-growth trees, drawing from our maternal, paternal, and sisterly hopes and wishes. We stand independently on our own, or lean on each other in a storm, or lean toward each other in an arch of joy.  Thank you, sister, for wishing me into existence and standing side by side with me.

Marsha H.

Dec 2020