My First Time

I'm a regular guy, originally from Hollis, Queens who moved out to Wayne NJ with my wife and two kids, living that suburban dream (the first time my son played in a little league game at night, when they turned on the lights, I swear I heard angels singing that operatic - ahhh! I'm 47 I try to stay in good shape, try to slow down the aging process, run 10-15 mi. a week, work out 2-3 times a week, but eventually, whether you believe in G-D, in a higher power, or if you subscribe to the theory that your body parts can only sustain so much wear and tear, you come to that inevitable intersection on the road of life - the prostate exam.

All I had to do was drop trow. i could leave my sneaks on for a quick getaway, plus there was a window at my feet (who cares if it's a two story drop). So I'm lying fetal, away from the action, 8" from the salmon speckled wall with a 1-ply paper towel separating my most vulnerable orifice from the rest of the world and I can't see anything! I can only hear drawers opening and closing, wheels squeaking as they carry apperatus and small sharp metal objects scrapping against each other. And I'm thinking, if any of these scraping sounds gets really loud and sounds like the Jaws of Death - I'm outta here!

The technician (Bella) was from Eastern Europe and she sounded like Natasha from Rocky and Bullwinkle so I had some Cold War suspicions and humor didn't translate to ease my fears. For instance when Bella told me she was taking pics of my prostate, I wondered if mine was good-looking, and what was the appropriate make-up? Clear gloss? With some foundation? Just like some people have good looking feet and ears...so she goes up periscope with the camera, and I'm wondering, how can anybody think this feels good?

After it's over and I'm able to get dressed, I gather my dignity and my pants (which is no easy feat as I now have the equivalent of a 2-ply paper towel corn cob in my butt to absorb any 'discharge', and as I walk out of the office I feel like I've been violated, a little ashamed, like one of those guys walking out of those old Times Square peep shows, and the staff feels the same way about me - they don't want to look me in the eye. That's why they take care of payment and your next visit as soon as you arrive - little did I know then why they were being proactive - but they knew - they knew.

Rita Breslau

My memories of Rita Breslau as “Mother-in-Law”.

Of course this denotes a few chuckles for 2 reasons;

potential for mother-in-law jokes (there’ll be a few)

those of you that know Rita – her “directness” (think Kate Hepburn) make this a heady mix

To wit…

Rita was like Jackie Mason in a slip. I asked Rita (and Marty) for Carol’s hand in marriage, and Rita’s reply was, what took you so long!”

In addition to setting her up for a classic one-liner, she used this as a sort of “hazing ritual” – Marilynn and Eric each have their own special welcome to the family moments with Rita, and also – this was her frame of reference – she was engaged after 3 dates/5 days!

Which leads us to another facet that made Rita so special, her relationship with Marty. I’m sitting with Marty, 2 days before Rita passed, looking at Rita, and I said, “ You know Dad, 55+ yrs., you and Mom have had a hell of a run.”. And Marty replied, “I want another day”. In fact her last physical act, 2 days before she passed, when she could do nothing else… Marty would bend over to give her a kiss, and she would still pucker up.

And just as special as their relationship was, so was their love of family. You might have had to earn your stripes to get in the club, but once you were, you were a charter member. After carol and I became legit, Rita called me up one day and asked me if there was any nosh I’d like to have when we came out to Woodbury to do laundry and watch football games on Sunday afternoons. She caught me a little off guard and I said the first thing that popped to mind – “Yodels”.

And from that day till she could shop no more, whenever we visited, in Woodbury or Delray, there was always a box of Yodels. Boo (Blake) would go to snack on them when she visited, but Rita would tell her hands off, those are Howe’s, and regardless of how often we visited, whether it be once a week, or once every six months – she always had fresh dates!!!

Rita also was a real contributor to her community. She was the first president of Temple Hillel in Valley Stream’s Sisterhood. When she went to Delray she was an active participant in her community’s plays. She also was a hospice volunteer – which served her well during the last part of her life.

Till the end, she was just as direct as she was in other aspects f her life, she was put on hospice 2 weeks ago, and here we are today. And she never complained, never lost her sense of humor. About a week and a half before she passed, she was lying in the hospital on a Sunday, hadn’t said a word all day, and a nurse comes up to her in late afternoon and whispers,

“Rita are you comfortable?”

“I make a living.”

Till the end, anyone could tee them up, and she knocked em down.

And what I’m most thankful for that she gave to me, was her daughter. Rita’s directness, her humor, the giving of herself - if you wanted to know what makes my wife tick, all you had to do was spend some time with Rita. She’ll live on thru Carol, and thru those of us, that knew her.

The 10 Greatest Songs You've Never Heard Of

(in no particular order*)

- Funny How Time Slips Away - Al Green / Lyle Lovett

- There Are Many Stops Along the Way - Joe Sample

- Dallas - Steely Dan

- Burning Down the House - Tom Jones

- Sidewinder - Lee Morgan

- Chase the Clouds Away - Chuck Mangone

- Two Trains - Lowell George

- Billy the Mountain - Frank Zappa

- Hatikvah - Eddie Cantor

- Linus & Lucy - Wynton Marsalis

* Inspiried by Scott Taylor & Michael Toben, the two greatest current audiophiles I know

Words to Live By

(at least in my Blog)

- G-d gave you 2 ears and 1 mouth, listen twice as much as you talk
- Leave a place cleaner than you found it
- Give more than you take
- Don't just come to someone with a problem, bring a potential solution
- "Why can't everyone just get along" Rodney King
- Don't offer an unsolicited opinion, people won't listen to it. Just because they heard it, doesn't mean they listened to it
- Yesterday's history, tomorrow's a mystery, today's a gidt - that's why we call it the Present

The GIft of Old Friends...

I'm blessed to count among my friends, five guys that I've been friends with since I'm 5-14 (I can remember picking Hesh up to kiss the Holliswood Jewish Center Mezuzah on the way into Hebrew School - he was a load back then!).

One of the joys of this is that when we're together, we often (whenever possible) revert back to behaving like we did when the FF would call up to our 5th floor apartment by ROARING.

Think about it. Assuming you have fond memories of your childhood, how often can you really feel like you felt when you were reveling in the innocence, the newness of;

- ranking on each others idiosyncratic foibles
- timing your walk through the halls between classes to pass by/say hello to a girl you had a crush on

Things don't look like/as big as they did then, either because they've changed or because you have - for example, the size of your elementary school cafeteria. I certainly don't feel (physically) like I did then, and there are few smells left around that I smelled then (save for the obligatory fresh cut grass and baseball mitt in the spring, chicken soup and brisket during the holidays, the smell of hot wax when Shabbat/Hannukah candles are burning, and I bet - Old Spice aftershave (my dad's).

That's why these moments spent together, this ablity to live in the "present" and live history at the same time, are a precious "gift".

For fans of the K.C. Chiefs & John Coltrane

or Ray Charles, the old AFL in general, Led Zeppelin, the Super Bowl, or the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, you should have been wearing black on 12/15/06 - and not as a fashion statement.

Two true cultural entrepreneurs that were responsible for the shaping of these aforementioned entities of our era passed away over the last 2 days.

Both born from successful families (Hunt was the son of an oil baron, Ertegun the son of the legal couselor to the founder of modern Turkey) they had the balls and vision to create successful entities that have provided millons of people with billions of hours of enjoyment over the last 40 years.

I wonder if they ever spent time together at a Zeppelin concert in Arrowhead stadium?

Coffee stirrers are a waste

Especially in coffee to go. You mean to tell me that pouring the milk and then walking/driving with it doesn't mix it? Or that even if it didn't - you could taste the difference anyway?