This Weeks Very Short Story: Chapter 18

The story I didn't want to write.

A mentor of mine always answered everything is fantastic, couldn't be better when asked how he was. He learned it from a mentor of his. He also learned that his mentor would say this even when everything was not all right. Well this may work in an office but I just can't keep that attitude tonight.

This evening my mother, Helen Binder​, passed away. It was one short last illness that took her life in addition to her many medical problems. Her mind was sharp to the end.

In the last few days many people stopped by to see her, including my son from Baltimore and his fiancée who had a short layover in Los Angeles on his way to Hawaii for a wedding. Mom loved it.

The night before last as I was leaving I said see you tomorrow as she was giving me two thumbs up, she said maybe not. It was difficult to sleep that night thinking that would be her last words.

Today toward the end of the day she kept talking about getting dressed and finding her shoes and purse and taking a trip. At times she felt like she was on a plane. She kept talking about Israel. I asked her who is there and she replied my son Matthew. I asked who else and she said my daughter in law Shaina. I told her to have a nice trip. Her reply was, OH Robert! Again as I was leaving I said see you tomorrow; she just gave me a face.

I am told by the nursing staff that she went peacefully. I hope she has a nice trip.  

This Weeks Very Short Story: Chapter 17

In December of 1978, I was doing a rotation in a hospital in Winfield Kansas. I lived and ate in the hospital. On December 30 I was watching the Gator Bowl where Clemson beat Ohio State. The hospital was quiet, they tried to get as many people home for the holidays. At the end of the game, Woody Hayes punched a student player from Clemson. The TV channel immediately went to the news and did not mention the punch. I was screaming, but there was no one around. I got on the phone and called San Francisco where my wife was to see if anyone there had seen what happened. Finally part way through the news, they mentioned the punch because of all the calls that they got from the viewers. Woody Hayes lost his job because of this. 

One of the hospitals that I applied to do my residency was in Flint Michigan. It was my worst interview. First I had to drive there from Oak Park, Michigan through a big snow storm. It only went downhill from there. There was a whole group of us that was there to be interviewed. During the interview, they asked questions that were rude and crude. I now understand that these questions were to see how you handled stress. The one question that bothered me was… have you cheated on your wife? (The correct answer is, why is your wife available?) It got worse after that. After the interview, we all got to sit in one room and wait until all of the interviews were done to see who was going to be called back for a second interview. They then had a Steve Harvey moment and read a list of who was to be coming back for the second interview; they read the list of who was to go home instead of reading the ones that were going to stay. I can now look back at this as a blessing. Why? If I had got the residency there, I may have stayed and could being living in Flint. 

Is it just me? I still keep people’s phone numbers on my cell phone that have passed away. I know that I can’t call them. Removing them would be like I would be forgetting them. 

This Weeks Very Short Story: Chapter 16

This Week's Very Short Story: Special Edition 
I have a friend that went to the University of Michigan. I went to Michigan State University. He still lives in Michigan. I live in California. We don't talk much. Years ago, I started calling him when Michgan State beat the University of Michigan in football. For years, I did not have to call him very often. Today my wife said, I guess you don't have call him and then this happened. (On the last play of the game, Michigan fumbled, MSU ran it in for a touchdown to win the game.) I called, he didn't answer his phone. 

In high school, my son worked at a music store. One day my son said that Jose Feliciano came into the music store. I asked my son, what kind of a car was he driving? Felix Navidad!

On my birthday, I took care of a group of 3 Board & Care homes in the morning. At the second house , there is a woman whom I have seen for many years. Usually I ask her to sing Bei Mir Bist Du Schon in Yiddish to me. For my birthday, I asked her to sing happy birthday to me. She sang a complete version. I told her that she was the first one to sing happy birthday to me on my birthday. She then fell back to sleep. I doubt that she would remember that I was even there. Not bad for 101 years old. 

As I was listening to the Rabbi read the Ketubah in Hebrew very slowly at my son’s wedding, I started to miss my father in law Moniek Margulies. He was a speed Hebrew reader. 

I was very calm and collected at the beginning of my son’s wedding even with the troubles we had with traveling to Israel. We had never met his bride to be or her parents. Then we got to meet her as she sat to meet people with her wedding dress on prior to the wedding. I then started to cry like a baby.

My cousin has red hair, so did his mother. When I was a child they told me that he was adopted. I found it hard to believe. 

On my father’s side of the family we referred to my aunt as Aunt Ethel. On my father’s sister side of the family they called her Aunt Rusty. I always assumed it was because of her red hair. It was not until later that I found out it was because of her gravelly voice. 

I don't buy lottery tickets, so I can't win. I do have a rule that if they buy tickets at work, then I go in. Why, you don't want to be the one left at work the next day. This happened to a doctor I knew, she did not go in and the office won the lottery. She is probably still working. 

This Weeks Very Short Story: Chapter 15

My younger son could get out of many things with a smile and twinkle in his eyes. One time this did not work was when he was staying with my parents in Las Vegas. He must have done something wrong and quickly found my mother’s hand on his bottom. After that day he always behaved around her. 

I remember at Lincoln Jr. High School in Ferndale Michigan that I and some other students were pushed out of gym class early. The punishment was to bend over and a swift swat of the gym teacher’s shoe on my back side. I can’t remember if this was real or a nightmare. 

When they finally built a built in pool at Oak Park High School, I went out for the swim team. I found out that practice started at 6 a.m. That was the beginning and ending of my swimming career. 

Not being an early morning person, in college I tried to get my class to start at 9 a.m. and preferably at 10 a.m. I think I only had one 8 o’clock in undergrad school. In medical school, they did not give us choices. 

During college at Michigan State University, I hated classes on Tuesday and Thursday’s. Those were days you went from early in the day to late, sometimes into the evening. They usually included chemistry labs, physics labs and biology labs. My last term as a senior my schedule was Monday, Wednesday and Friday…. Heaven. 

I don’t eat fish. I used to say that I only eat Jewish fish… gefilte fish, lox, smoked fish and herring. The only two other types of fish I used to eat were tuna which isn’t really a fish because it comes in a can and McDonalds’s fish sandwich which can’t necessarily be identified as fish. Now it just doesn’t happen very often. 

One time I went to Santa Cruz, California for the day with a medical school class mate. Somehow for dinner I let him order some type of Chinese food with fish. Well, I go real sick. Not sure if it was from the food or from my first time in the ocean or from the terrible sunburn that I got before I ate the Chinese food with fish. 

In San Francisco, we lived in three places in two years. The first place we had to move very quickly from. No, it wasn’t because we didn’t pay the rent. We just wanted to not live there when the police released the crazy neighbor the police had taken away. 

In high school, I would sleep with a hat on to keep my hair straight. My senior picture was taken with my hair as straight as possible. In my first year at college that all ended. 

Now that I look back at a picture of myself in college, I can now see why I had trouble convincing people that I was drug free. 

This Weeks Very Short Story: Chapter 14

In the early 1980’s, one of my guilty pleasures was getting my car washed. It wasn’t just getting my car washed. At the car wash, they had a guy who shined shoes. I would sit up on his throne, watch the cars get washed and the people waiting. I was on top of the world. It is very hard to do this these days with athletic shoes though. 

Growing up I always liked the Lincoln Town Car, the one with the suicide doors. Why you ask? Because, I equated owning one with being rich. There was someone I knew whose parents had 2 of these cars. Flash forward to the Lincoln dealership in Beverly Hills, CA. I was looking at a Town Car and my wife knowing the story, said go ahead and get it. Then within a few moments later, she said, when am I going to get my van? Well, she got her van, I never got a Lincoln. For the two weeks that I spent in Michigan for my 40^th high school reunion, I did rent a Lincoln Town Car. Even cruised it down Woodward Avenue during the Dream Cruise. Heaven. 

Recently it was reported in the news that an 8^th grade boy was charged with assault when he kissed an 8^th grade girl. She said it was unwelcomed. Well, I was a 10^th grade boy who still loves kissing that 8^th grade girl some 45 years later. I guess you know what my sentence was. 

When my younger son finally started college in Ohio, I was yelled at by my wife. How could you let him go so far away she cried out? Funny, I do remember that my wife was with us as we toured colleges in Michigan and Ohio. 

From the stories that I was told, my father in law Moniek Margulies, was given a bicycle and told to leave when they knew the German’s were coming in Poland. My translation is that he was faster than a speeding German. Thank God for that. 

From stories that I was told, my mother in law Riva Lipenholtz Margulies, was in the part of Poland where the Russian’s came and invited them to vacation in Siberia. Baruch HaShem. 

It may be hard for some to believe that to get my younger son to go try out and play baseball, we had to tell him that his friend Timmy was going to play. One season and he was hooked. I don’t think that Timmy played that many years. 

After the first year of T-ball, I knew that my younger son (around 6 years old) had some innate abilities. When I took him to hit ground balls to him, he started backhanding the ball. He was also able toss up a ball, all by himself and then hit it with a bat. Two things I am not sure my older son could do today. 

In high school, I went to a party with a friend of mine. He drove as I was not old enough to drive. We went to pick up his girlfriend and her friend. When we got there, I moved to the back seat and next to me then sat his girlfriend’s friend who was also her next door neighbor. I still let that girl sit next to me, sometimes even drive. That is how it all began. 

Many years ago I went to a Junior Detroit Red Wing’s game at the same place where the Red Wings played. A women a few rows in front of me, caught the puck with her head, blood everywhere. I have never been to a hockey game since. It is much safer to watch on TV anyway.   

This Weeks Very Short Story: Chapter 13

THIS WEEK’S VERY SHORT STORY: SLIGHTLY LONGER VERSION, SPECIAL EDITION

Back in 1982, friends of ours, David & Bonnie Pollack, saw a notice of a meeting for a group in formation of young Jewish couples, so we attended. This was the start of what would become a significant part of our lives for a number of years. The group would later become known as Kadimah B’nai B’rith Young Couples Group # 5224. 

Well, many years have passed since we last met. Some of us now have children that are older than when we first formed the group. Some of us are still in contact with a number of Kadimah members and consider them to be amongst our closest friends today.

Life has happened to all of us.

We have had the blessings of life that include having children, watching them grow up and move on; some of them have gotten married, some have given us grandchildren. Some of us are still working while others have retired.

There have also been changes in our so called Kadimah family. There have been divorces and there have been remarriages, even one marriage from previous divorced members.

There have also been the challenges of life. We have lost a number of members including one past president. Many of us have lost one or both of our parents. We have had children that have had difficulties with life. We have children that have gone through life changing events and there was one that’s life was ended tragically. There are also members themselves that are going through life changing events even now.

Through it all, I consider being a member of Kadimah one of the best things that we did. I am grateful for the time that we spent together. We met new people. We worked toward a common goal. We raised money for a good cause. Most important, we had fun doing it.

We had an above ground pool when we lived on Ithaca and Greenbriar. I was part fish, spending quite a bit of time under the water. 

I am driving with my mother and she points out a sign for the Neptune Society, so I ask her if she would like me to sign her up. I told her that my older son would not like it. She said that that doesn’t matter to her because she won’t be here anyway and I would have to deal with it. 

Around Bar Mitzvah time, I noticed that some guys got a manicure with clear polish in addition to getting a new suit. For years, I wanted to get one. Finally in the early 1980’s I was working in a building where there was a manicurist that I had become friendly with. I told her the story and she said come by and she would take of it. So I had the manicure, passed on the polish. I won’t necessarily be doing that again. I guess I can check that off the bucket list. 

This Week's Very Short Story: Chapter 12

This Week's Very Short Story: Chapter 12

I got married in 1977 and it wasn’t until 2 years later that we went on a honeymoon, unless you call driving across the country and moving to San Francisco as one.   

The night before we got married, we sneaked out and saw the Star Wars, on our 3^rd anniversary we went to The Empire Strikes Back and on our 6^th anniversary we went to Return of the Jedi.  By my calculations there should be 12 Star Wars’ movies and they are working on the thirteenth.  

I was talking to my wife awhile back and she said that she talked to our eldest son and that he had a job interview that day and one the next day.  I said I guess that he has a black suit for that. 

On a trip to Chicago for an interview to podiatry school, I came by a backgammon store.  On the way back after the interview, I went back to the store and bought my girlfriend a backgammon set.  Little did she know that I was planning on getting it back.  After an accepted proposal, today I still have the backgammon set and the same girlfriend.  

For the most part, I do not gamble.  I used to say that the only money that I would lose in Las Vegas were the coins that I would put in the pay phone to call home when I was away at a seminar. Now there are cell phones.    

We once went to Las Vegas with friends and my in-laws.  The only thing that we lost was my mother in-law in Caesars’ Palace.  We searched for a long time and we did not find her.  She had gone back to the hotel where we were staying without telling anyone.  Not to say that my father in-law was upset, but we did not see him until the next day as we were going down for breakfast and he was leaving the casino after a night of card play and heading to his room to sleep.  

I have told you that I am ambidextrous.   What I did not tell you is whether I could do anything well with either hand.

When I was a kid in Oak Park Michigan, I loved to fly kites.  I would start with a paper kite, add a tail and off I would go.  We would run and run, just trying to catch a little wind to get it up in the air.  When I had children, we would take them out to Santa Barbara California to fly kites.  All I had to do was put the kite together, sit down and let the kite go straight up.   

People ask me if any of my children went into medicine.  The simple answer is no.  The long answer is that I did not want to do what my father did either.  He was an engineer.  When I was young, I remember my father being laid off every so many years.  I did not understand this.  He worked for Ford, Chrysler, Ling-Temco-Vought (LTV) and at the U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command (TACOM) in Warren Michigan to end his career.  It turns out that engineers would lose their jobs when government contracts changed.  I just did not like that idea.  As for my children and their reason why they choose something else, you would have to ask them.