I Am Thankful for My Roots

 

 My father and mother and all my aunts and uncles were born in Eastern Europe and emigrated to the United States. I knew some first-generation children who were embarrassed when their parents continued to speak in Yiddish, their native language and then English with an accent. I was not a part of that group. That my parents and other relatives were able to leave their homes and family members and emigrate to the United States, caused me to have the greatest respect for them. I firmly approve of immigration which I believe is an important and successful advantage to the country in which the immigrants settle. It upsets me when I read in the daily papers the rejection of immigrants, not just in the United States, but also in many other worldwide countries causing many deaths not just to adults but to children as well. Referring to the United States, there is no doubt it was built into what it became by the labor of immigrant settlers. The claim immigrants take jobs away from native born, is nonsense. Equal nonsense is a claim they cause much criminal activity. Native born are far more engaged in criminal matters than immigrants. Settlers often take a job that others do not wish to. In addition to accepting immigrants, we should make every effort to assist the country they are leaving so as to make it livable. In short, my roots are firmly in those those who emigrated to this country.

     Most immigrants entering the United States, did so through Ellis Island which is located in the New York harbor. I visited Ellis Island which is known as Ellis Island National Park and was so impressed, I wrote the following letter to the Superintendent.

Dear Superintendent:

     Each of my parents emigrated to this country from Galicia, Poland and settled in New York.

They Married and raised five children of whom I am the youngest. I recently visited Ellis Island

for the first time and want to commend you for the fine restoration and interesting exhibits. 

     As I walked through the buildings, I as I am sure most people, hoped to find tangible evidence of our parent's brief contact with Ellis Island. Of course, I did not but I would like to share with you a personal note. As I sat for a few moments on a bench in the Great Hall on the second floor looking through a large window facing downtown Manhattan, I was overcome by the thought my father or my mother may well have sat in that very same spot 75 years ago,

frightened, penniless teenagers, looking through that very same window at the “Golden land”.

They did not find gold in the streets, but they did find a measure of peace and freedom and an opportunity to raise a family free from pogroms and forced lifetime military service. Had they remained in Poland, they would have met the same Holocaust fate as did many of their relatives.

     Belated and on behalf of my father and mother both now deceased, I say, “Thank you America.”

Ben Habe

A Taste of Fall

 

A Taste of Fall

The hug of freshly baked bread.

The nose tingling of pumpkin spice sprinkled in everything.

Auburn lined streets that cause a crunch between my feet.

Kisses from the wind lead to blindness from its speckled gifts.

Gathering dreams and harvesting conversations.

Longer nights to snuggle in, means shorter days to juggle with.

All the flavors of Autumn’s delight. A short season but mystical one.

 

Liza Lo

Nov 2021

Autumn

 

Tomorrow is turkey day. There will be lots of eating. The weather is quite chilly but what can we expect it is the end of November. There are falling leaves everywhere.  

It may be corny, it may be schmaltzy but I love autumn leaves. You can say I am too old to be collecting fall leaves but I do it anyway. I found oak and maple leaves of bright red, almost black red, dark green and so much gold. Found old dying rose bushes with crumpled leaves and dying yellow roses. Roses are a diehard species of flowers that still blooms in November. 

I collect these lovelies because I put them on paper, squish them between backer boards and boil them for a long time. The results are magnificent impressions of every color, vein and unusual designs of Mother Nature.  

I have captured the end of another fall that I am so lucky to have lived.

Georgia

Leaves

 

As a child I lived in a small two-family house in Middle Village, Queens. There was a tree at the curb in front of the house, but no trees in the rear yard. The one tree did have a few leaves in the fall, but not many. If one wanted to observe the fall foliage’s colors, there was such splendor to see in Forest Park. That nearby park unlike the other city main parks, was fully entitled to the name “Forest Park, because it was in fact a forest. My wife and I I lived in a small so called garden apartment. Except for a small grass area in front of the apartment, there were no trees and no Fall foliage, in fact, no garden at all.

     After our son was born, we decided the time had come to look for a house. After much effort, we ended up buying a beautiful house in Kew Gardens Hills. The purchase was made in the month of June. At that time, there was a large tree on the front lawn and another tree at the curb. In the rear yard, there were many trees of different varieties. When Spring came, the trees in the front and rear exploded with many leaves. Comes the Fall the explosion delivered many different leaf colors.AT the end of Autumn leaves would begin to say so long” to its trees. One cannot count the number of fallen leaves, but I would estimate the number to be in the hundreds of thousands. Picking them up would fill dozens of bags and it was not an easy task. While I was still my own gardener for a long period of time, there came a time when I needed a surgery to replace my aorta valve. I engaged a gardener to take care of my lawns. After I recovered, since I liked the gardener, I kept him to take care of the lawns and shrubs, with care of the flowers left to me.

    When Autumn arrived, keeping the gardener was good because removal of the leaves became his task.  I could enjoy watching the leaves unfolding on tree branches, turning colors, starting to fall and not have to remove the leaves from the lawns. I have lived in New York City my entire life. I always enjoyed I living in a part of the world that has four different and beautiful enjoyable seasons.

Ben Haber

The "Windshield" Factor

 

For most of my life I grew up thinking the “wind chill factor” was “the windshield factor.” I did not drive and neither did my mother growing up.

When I would hear this expression from time to time on the news, I hardly ever listened carefully to it because it was something that didn’t have anything to do with me or interest me having grown up predominantly on subways and buses my whole life besides the fact that I was just a kid.

Well one day, while talking to others in my family as a young adult I mentioned the “windshield factor” for whatever reason.

After laughing at what I had just said thinking I was only joking, I then got looks like, is she serious, what the hell is she talking about? My sister found it most amusing as she often finds my little malapropisms and the like.

It made perfect sense to me when I thought it about and of course I thought I knew what I was talking about.

I thought the “windshield factor” was some sort of a measurement of how hard the wind hits the windshield while driving and that that somehow determined the strength of the wind and then was something having to do with weather forecasting.

Boy, was I dumb! LOL

By: Donna Van Blarcom

Pizza Hero

 

One of the times I was a hero to my surprise was when I was working in a pizzeria/ Restaurant at the age of 19 years old and into my early 20’s.

In the back was a sit-down formal restaurant and a separate dinette area. The waitresses in the back didn’t like me and were jealous of me because I was younger than them and they thought that I was taking tips away from them by working in the front end of the store and stopping customers from going into the back to them which was never true.

They had their customers and I had mine. And I didn’t make half the amount of tips that they did ever, although I did alright for myself.

Really, they were just mean and cliquey and I was too naïve and timid to stick up for myself to them. They didn’t like that the owner favored me as well, took me under his wing to help me.

I worked in the pizzeria part of the store where only men worked; because of this and the fact that I was young and attractive then, I was known as the “Pizza girl” (real name changed for the story).

Only family female workers had ever worked in the front area before I was told, so it was a bit of an honor for me to have been trusted with the position, a position gotten only due to me hanging around every day, all day long, pining after the owner's step son who, I loved and dreamed of marrying one day and living happily ever after with as any young woman would do at that age.

I would go in on the days he worked which was mostly on the weekends because he had a regular job during the week and did this for extra money, to help out and learn the family business which he later became a major part of a few years down the road.

I would either walk by the store a million times a day and look in the window hoping to see him and wave or go in and buy a slice or two, eat it, and sit at the counter for like 3 hours sometimes talking to my dreamboat while he worked then go home and order something hours later to be delivered just so that I could see him and talk to him again because he was the delivery guy too, keeping him in my hallway for an hour sometimes talking.

When they got wise to me they started making my delivery the last one for the night so that we could have more time to talk and others would not be waiting for their food.

Now a days they would call that stalking but back then we just called it “True Love” an innocent infatuation. Not anything like what happens in today’s world. We still had a grip on reality but with blissful hope.

Most of the time you got rejected for your unrequited love but we understood that disappointment was just part of life and then it goes on even when we didn’t like it and it hurt. It was the late 1980’s early 1990’s and so the tail end of innocence still existed. I am very thankful to have lived and come of age at that time.

I was there so much at the pizzeria that they joked with me all the time that they should give me a job and so they did which, worked out just fine for me because I needed one anyway, having just quit/lost my job at “Sterling Optical” or was it “The Wiz”. Whichever one it was, it was one of those young adult jobs that I had as I/we used to call them.

Time passed and I had been working there a for a while already when one day while waiting the tables an old foreign man came in with his little grandson. The grandfather didn’t speak a word of English but he was a very jovial old man.

My station was standing up against the corner wall outside of the counter, out of the way but alongside the row of tables to my right at the ready to serve.

As I was standing there usually just thinking my own thoughts, I noticed that the grandfather and his grandson were having a great time. They were laughing up a storm. Only God knows about what but whatever it was, it must have been good because they just kept laughing.

I can kind of see the old man’s smile and mustache in my mind when I think back to it. The boy was about 5-7 years old I think I remember but maybe a bit younger.

All of a sudden this never ending infectious, out of control laugh for the boy turned into a coughing laugh, then a cough and he kept coughing and he wouldn’t stop.

His cough then turned into a choke, now he was choking but oddly enough he didn’t seem in distress at all but seemed like he was still laughing even though he was choking.

His grandfather who was sitting there just kept laughing his head off so much so that you almost didn’t realize that the kid was even choking because no one seemed to be in apparent distress.

I was like that looks weird, is that kid, ok? I guess so because they are laughing. But is he choking or is he not choking? It was really hard to tell at first.

The more I looked at him the more I realized the kid was really choking and that this was getting serious.

I got the attention of my boss behind the counter and told him, “Hey I think this kid is choking and the grandfather is oblivious or something because he just keeps laughing out of control.” Maybe he was just nervous but he wasn’t doing anything about it either nor was he asking for any help. He just kept laughing.

Finally, the kids face was literally turning blue yet he still seemed like he was laughing but now something in his eyes looked different at the same time, fear I guess or not understanding what was happening to him but realizing that it wasn’t pleasant. The whole thing was crazy.

At that point I had a gut feeling by looking at the kid that something needed to done and I needed to act fast.

I told my boss we needed to do something like the Heimlich maneuver. At this time, it was not posted and mandatory in all of the restaurants as it is now fortunately. Now it is only with name and some of the procedure changed.

And in all honesty, it was relatively new to the general public at that time or at least that is how I remember it. There was no signage posted on that night but shortly after that I remember that it became mandatory in all restaurants.

I told my boss I was going to try it. He looked at me with warning eyes saying “you better know what you are doing because if you don’t, we’re going to be in a lot of trouble.”

Being a young person and thinking as young people do, I thought, “don’t worry I know what I am doing” when really, I didn’t, I only had an idea of what I had seen on TV, and being an extreme hypochondriac myself, I often listened intently to any kind of medical things in case I ever needed it one day but I never had any formal training or anything like that.

Looking back at them now and preparing my mind to help, for the life of me I could not understand why the grandfather just kept laughing? He was oblivious and joyful. Didn’t he see that the kid was turning blue? Didn’t he hear him or was he laughing too loud?

I especially loved kids and I am a good person so, I wasn’t about to let this kid die while the grandfather sat there cracking up out of his mind. Maybe he was hysterical or something?  I just thought he was crazy for not worrying about his grandson choking and for not trying to help him. I had to do something. I instinctually had to try.

I immediately went over and put my hands around the kid’s stomach and looked at my boss behind the counter, like are you ready for this? All along thinking, Oh God please let me do this right and save this kid.

My boss then looked back at me like you better make it good, this better work out right or we’re going to be in big trouble. I looked back at him like ok, with some unknown, ignorant self-confidence but not arrogance. Ignorant because I had never done it before and really I was just winging it. More like I could do this, it will be ok was what I was thinking when really I had no business thinking that at all but you’ve got to be confident to be successful I guess right?

The kid’s life was in my hands. I started thrusting his stomach in and out a few times with my fists all the while hoping that it was going to work and not hurt him at the same time paying attention to the fact that he was just a kid and that I needed to be firm but gentle at the same time. In my mind I must have had my fingers crossed for good luck.

The grandfather was still sitting in his chair laughing his head off while I was doing this completely unaffected it seemed. I was beginning to think this guy must be either really dumb or really crazy. Doesn’t he know what’s going on here?

Finally, the kid coughed up whatever he was choking on by the grace of God. I was successful, praise God, I was so relieved and so was my boss who was now impressed with me, glad the kid was ok and also glad to not have a pending lawsuit on his hands. He was relieved that it actually worked and so was I.

The grandfather was still laughing. It was like he was on some sort of a laughing machine that could not be turned off. There was no thank you to me or even an acknowledgement of what had just happened. He just smiled at me with his eyes while laughing, not really knowing whether it was meant towards me personally or if it was just in general and part of his wild laughter and state of oblivion that he was in.

Maybe he was even drunk for all I knew but I didn’t smell any alcohol on him so I don’t think that he was.

Even the kid started laughing again. Then they both just kept laughing.

Not to float my own boat but, I wonder what would have happened to this kid if I wasn’t there that day because the grandfather just didn’t seem to get it no matter what was happening. I am sure he loved his grandson very much and I am so happy for their happiness and wild laughter but the whole thing was kooky to say the least.

After that, for the rest of the night, and for a couple of weeks later. I was a legend in the restaurant with my fellow co-workers, my friends, the delivery guys, including my love, the step son, they all congratulated me on being a hero they said.

They said “you saved that kids life.” At the time I did not really think of it that way, I was really very humble and more like I did what I had to do. I was actually very modest and glad that I could be there and help the kid.

One guy, big John, Red as we called him said “I was a hero and that it was great what I had done. He said no really you were, we heard all about it” and kept praising me.

It was kind of cool to be a hero for a while because I had done something good and everyone was happy about it and appreciated me for it.

Really, I just got lucky and so did the little boy and his laughing grandfather because I was in the right place at the right time as they say and took a chance. For whatever reason my mind clicked into to place at the right moment and my observations were exact. Thank God I saw the Heimlich maneuver done on TV somewhere previously at that time. Divine Intervention!

I was glad I was able to help. The day ended well and the little boy was still alive and that was what was most important. Of course, I felt good about myself for having been successful and doing a good thing and helping people when I can like my mom had always taught me to be especially by her great example.

Over the next few years that preliminary practice came in quite handy when I had to do the Heimlich maneuver on my mom a couple of times. I was very thankful that it worked then too of course.

They say that when you save someone’s your life that they now owe you for the rest of theirs and that you are responsible for them now. At least that is what we used to say growing up, an old wives' tale but originally coming from a Chinese proverb I heard.

I never saw that kid or his grandfather again as far as I remember, but then again maybe they did come in again once or twice after that but who knows.

God forbid one day I may be in trouble and you never know that kid may just show up one day again through divine intervention and return the favor if it’s true. Stranger things have happened. Maybe he will save me with his infectious laughter one day! J

By: Donna Van Blarcom

Greta and the General Slocum

 

On June 15^th, 2021 unable to sleep I was walking late at night in Astoria Park trying to tire myself out. As I came down to the water’s edge, I noticed the plaque memorializing the General SLOCUM ferry disaster of June 15^th, 1904. At this point I realized that it was the 117^th anniversary of this tragedy. This disaster was the largest loss of life in N.Y.C. until September 11^th, 2001. Over one thousand people, mainly women and children from the St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in Little Germany, Manhattan lost their lives on the ferry General SLOCUM, a side wheel passenger steamboat built in Brooklyn, New York in 1891. They were on their way to a parish picnic on Long Island.

At this time in city history proper maritime inspections of ships and equipment were avoided by payoffs to inspectors .As a result the minimal number of lifeboats on the SLOCUM were welded to the ship due to many consecutive coats of paint administered in place and  therefore they could not be lowered into the water for escape when needed.The fire hoses exploded when pressurized; the life preservers had been filled with inferior caulk and lead weights to make the weight requirement.The old caulk had turned to powder absorbing water instead of repelling it.Mothers frantically hustled their children into the vests only to see them disappear into the abyss pulled down by the additional weight. The crews had not undergone fire training when employed. As a result, they panicked, leaving doors open and allowing the fire to spread more rapidly due to their ignorance.

The waters under the Hell’s Gate included the most dangerous currents, eddies and whirlpools in New York Harbor and hundreds of wooden ships had gone down in this vicinity over the centuries.

It was almost midnight when I sat down on one of the benches along the park’s edge, just south of the Hell’s Gate Bridge and thought about this tragedy of exactly 117 years ago. A full moon was illuminating the tidal estuary and the railroad bridge in a luminous glow when I suddenly heard the chugg-chugg of an old steam engine train coming up the track leading to the Hell’s Gate Bridge in the distance. A headlight appeared now cutting through the fog and at midnight the train pulled up and stopped on the railroad bridge, letting off a loud blast of steam and smoke. The passengers could be seen exiting the cars and walking to the south side of the bridge and staring down at the turbulent, treacherous waters churning below. Church bells broke the silence from the old church tower in St. Mark’s Place and could be heard clearly in spite of the considerable distance.

As I sat on the park bench, I suddenly felt something cold inside my hand and realized that it was the small hand of a little girl dressed in her Sunday best of ghostly white, her hair braided in pigtails sitting next to me.

“It is about to start you know. This is where it happened,” she informed me.

"I was so looking forward to the picnic,” Greta said.

“I’m sorry that you never got there” I answered.

“Yes, it was so sad. Papa cried for the rest of his life when he found out. He moved up to Yorkville afterwards to be closer to the wreck. I tried to comfort him through the years, but that is over. He is with us now,” said my spectral companion.

Momentarily the ghostly figure of The General SLOCUM along with hundreds of wooden ships of all types, tonnage and periods arose from the deep, water dripping from the masts and sails draining over the sides while fish flapped around on the decks and crabs ran every which way annoyed by this disturbance. Skeleton crews were standing at attention in their ragged uniforms and a marine perfume of barnacles permeated the air. The estuary was thick with boats and one could almost walk across the water by stepping from the bow of one ship to the stern of another. Phantom seagulls flew in the air and swooped down scooping up crabs and fish. One phantom sailor began to play a dirge on his flute which was piercing and mournful although beautiful. The silhouettes on the railroad bridge threw spectral wreaths into the water. Wooden ships were visible now as far as the eye could see in both directions north and south. It was clear that this tragedy was impactful to the mourners as the deaths had been almost exclusively women and children. A funerary Coronach was sung next by a female apparition, it was beautiful although sad.

“Greta, Greta come Greta,” One of the female silhouettes called, waving to my companion from the Hell’s Gate Bridge.

“I have to go now, Mama is calling,” the child said.

“Goodbye Greta!” I waved as she retreated to the bridge. In seconds she had reunited with her mother as all the passengers began to board the train while the ships slowly sank into the abyss and the train disappeared into the night.

 

 

Jim

10/21

My #1 Pet Peeve

 

Product and Performance Reviews. It is incredibly annoying when twenty-four hours after a purchase or visiting an establishment I am asked for a review.  

I buy a lot of books and don’t read books within twenty-four hours. I buy a lot of products and don’t use them in twenty-four hours. I am asked, 'how was my visit was to CVS or Rite Aid or the train station or supermarket or clinic?' I click off immediately. 

Why, you may ask? In certain companies and institutions such as hospitals and factories and many stores, these reviews are used as a measure of performance of the workers there.  

For example, I have firsthand accounts of how reviews are used against nurses to berate them and emotionally whip our heroes into putting heads down and being ashamed of their performance. Not once does management ask the nurses what could be the possibility of a negative review. How realistic is it, especially in hospitals where the patients feel so sick that it is next to impossible to distinguish between good service and bad service. How unfair to nurses.  

That is just one example in one industry where reviews have become the new way of putting pressure on employees unrealistically.  

I have been in many stores and other places of service where you can see the stress on the employees to live up to these unrealistic expectations. So much so that these employees look like monkeys reciting prepared scripts, desperate to get it right and completely insincere. It’s pathetic.  

What happened to performance reviews based on attendance, innovation, leadership, communication skills, teamwork, time management, problem solving, and customer experience.  

I think it is completely unrealistic and unfair to base a performance or product review on a customer survey.  

I will not be part of any employer’s underhanded tactics of using reviews as a performance monitor.  

This practice of asking for reviews is not going anywhere and I see these types of reviews as biased, arbitrary, one sided, and unreasonable and not based on actual experience.   

I don’t know where this practice of asking for reviews will go but I do know that I want no part in hurting any hardworking person.   

Giving no review is a review. The more “no reviews” seen perhaps employers will stop using them as performance/product reviews and go back to actual customer interactions.  

Georgia

11.2021 

Malapropisms

Malapropism (noun). The mistaken use of one word which sounds similar to the word that is meant. (Eg Flamingo, flamenco).

I once had a co-worker who, almost comically, would try to impress people by using big words.  While he was no dummy, and ended up making a good life for himself, he would often start a sentence with, "Pacifically speaking..."    He did not speak in hushed, pacific tones.  Maybe he was a west-coaster.   In the 1978 classic film, "Animal House," John Belushi was trying to rally his fraternity brothers into exacting revenge on their college foes and naysayers.  His speech, calling into question the mettle of his frat brothers, began, "Remember when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?"  A malapropism extraordinaire, not for its  sound but for its purpose. His frat brother said, "The Germans?"  Another said, "Let it go, he's rolling." Others I've heard over the years, one from our writing class, Tom mis-typed, "Writhing from the Heart."  Sounds painful. At a minimum, it is uncomfortable. Stop wiggling and write something already.

Some personal malapropisms:

I thought an affidavit was "An act of David." Who was this David guy?  The Biblical David?  Did he act appropriately? I once saw a newspaper Peanuts comic state, "He was covered with aphorisms."

Some RM puns:

Q) Why do island dwellers have better bowel control?

A) They are not incontinent.RM, 2021.

Q) Why was the Queensboro Bridge engineer so faithful to his woman?

A) Because he cantilever.(can't leave her.)

RM, circa 2008.  

(I have others)This joke is incumbent upon one knowing the difference between suspension, cantilever, and truss bridges.

Richard Melnick.11-11-2021 

A Hero??

  It was 6  o'clock on Thursday evening  and I was about to leave my home for my 7 o’clock tennis game, when the telephone rang. It was our friend Ruth who lived in the neighborhood. She lived alone, having been divorced and her children were all married. She said she was having a heart attack and would I take her to the hospital? I said  I would call an ambulance, but she refused wanting me to take her to the hospital. I said I would be right over and when I came there I said I would take  her to the then Booth Memorial Hospital which was no more than 15 minutes away. She refused saying she wanted to be taken to a hospital in Manhattan which was near her doctor and where her parents resided. I said that was ridiculous and we must go to Booth Memorial. She refused and said If I would not take her to where she wanted to go, I should leave?

     The choice facing me was extremely troubling, but I was unaware of what else I could do. Ruth got into my car and off I went to Manhattan knowing it would take with traffic, at least an hour to get  there. So there I was driving with Ruth sitting next to me moaning she was having a heart attack. The thought I could  be driving with a deceased person sitting next to me, was very upsetting. Fortunately she was alive when  I arrived at the hospital Ruth wanted.

I ran in and told I had a person in my car who may be having a heart attack. They rushed out, and took Ruth into the hospital. She was indeed  having a heart attack,  but she recovered and decades later she is still alive. 

    I could nevertheless have taken Ruth to the local hospital, but I was concerned  she could become  even more agitated. If saving Ruth’s life makes  me a hero, I believe a better description would be a STUPID HERO.

Ben Haber 

Being an Ordinary Hero

 I can say I was a hero at least once. It may not seem important but this experience meant something to me.  

My dog and I drove to a wooded dog park and began our usual routine. My dog Chester suddenly started pulling me toward something I could not readily see; it was a mother cat and six babies. Mother cat was crying and couldn’t seem to move her back right leg.  

I got Chester to move behind me because mother cat was hissing to protect her kittens. I had to help. I tied up my dog to a nearby tree and he whimpered as I walked away. I found a box and retrieved the brood. Went back to my dog and untied him and we retreated to the car. 

Mother cat struggled getting comfortable, I knew she was hurting and her babies were frightened by the sounds and smells of a car ride. 

Chester sat in the back seat and I kept the box in the front seat securing the box with the seat belt.  

I called the vet on my cell and explained the situation and she said to come over. After a twenty or so minute ride to the vet we pulled into the parking lot. The receptionist saw us and came to help. She unwrapped the box and saw that mother cat probably broke her leg.  

Chester and I waited around to see what would happen next. The vet came out and said all kitties were in a cage secure and mother cat’s leg was broken but could be fixed with a cast.  

We left the kitties there over night for more routine exams and any treatment they may need.  I returned the next day without Chester, he was quite upset, and checked in to see how kitties were doing. Mother cat was on the mend and there was a long list of people waiting to adopt each kitten.  

I took everyone to my home and cared for this little family while mother cat was in a cast.  

About six weeks later mother cat’s cast was removed and each kitten was adopted. I kept mother cat and she was eventually neutered. Sally is her name; she and Chester are best friends.  

I was a hero that day to a hurt kitty and her tiny family. I felt I had saved their lives and that made me proud. I wouldn’t change the experience for anything.

Georgia

11.11.21