Talking Families: The Wedding of Shara and Adi

My cousin Shara has a photo on her Facebook page of five family members representing branches of a family tree that has grown organically from old love and new love, marriage and remarriage. She calls it “Talking Families.” I love this photo, because it echoes my understanding of what’s possible in the phenomenon of family, given an open heart and a sense of humor: you can have a family tree that grows leaf by joined leaf into ever-widening and intersecting circles.

Last weekend there was a delightful convergence of brothers and sisters, parents, stepparents, godparents, cousins, aunts and uncles, nieces, nephews, and friends of the heart in Berkeley, California for Shara and Adi’s wedding. We came from New York and Chicago, Los Angeles and Palm Springs, Alabama and Wyoming, Oregon, Florida and Germany. We all stayed at the Rose Garden Inn, a compound of Victorian houses on Telegraph Avenue surrounded by graceful wrought iron fencing and filled with beautifully tended gardens. The place was basically ours for the weekend and we settled in like kids at summer camp, ready for fun.

Shara’s father Richard is my first cousin. Our mothers were sisters. Richard and his sisters Barbara and Geri and I are peas in a pod, as our mothers were, and we always have a good time together. But on Shara and Adi’s wedding weekend, the fun just started there. Between them, the bride and groom have families that are far-reaching and multi-configured. In conversation with the friendly, creative folks who make up the extended tribe, I had to map out little family trees in my mind to understand where each person connected and who was connected to whom.

Of course, it was Shara and Adi who connected us all – this couple who epitomize the Jewish concept of bashert: destined for one another, foreordained to be together. And we, the extended, evolving family, spent three days knitting our hearts together with laughter and interest and compassion before we gathered at Tilden Park, high in the Berkeley hills, to be witnesses and celebrants as Shara and Adi became echad: one in unity. We all felt it: the blessing of God is on this union of his design.

Marlene, Shara’s maid of honor, put a fine point on it in her toast to the couple. She said that when her son was about five years old, he said to her one day, “Love is the best thing.” She understood then and shared now, that this is the truth upon which to build one’s life. On that full moon, starry evening filled with joy and meaning and promise, we concurred unanimously.

An Adventure After Dark

Our old hippie ways almost got us into trouble the other night. It was Friday night on a holiday weekend. “I have an idea,” I said to my husband as we sat on the deck towards dusk sipping cocktails, “Let’s eat dinner at Bernie’s in Columbiana and then drive down to the lake and go skinny-dipping after dark.” It was a plan. We got ourselves together, packed a bag with towels, jumped in the Firebird and hit the road.

A few weeks ago, we had been driving around looking for a public place to swim on Lay Lake. We found one about half an hour from our house. We followed the ‘Public Boat Launch’ signs to a serene and beautiful part of the lake with the kind of verdant surroundings you see only in Alabama. There was a boat ramp, a nice, new t-shaped dock, and some grassy areas that served as a small beach. The list of rules posted in the parking lot said “No swimming within 50 feet of the launch.” There was plenty of room to swim on the other side of the launch. We swam and sunned that day and met some nice boat people. The cool lake water was still and deep. It was great place to swim, we decided, as long as you’re mindful of the boats coming in and going out. After dark, we thought, it would be perfect for skinny-dipping.

So, on this particular Friday night, we drove to Columbiana and had a nice dinner at Bernie’s, all the while keeping an eye on the last bits of daylight coming in through the front windows. When it was dark, we paid our bill and left, anticipating our private moonlight swim. We drove with the top down through the cool of the evening, breathing the deliciously fragrant air of summer in Shelby County.

When we got to the boat launch at about 9:00, there were quite a few trucks with trailers in the parking lot, which meant that there were still people on the lake who would be coming in at some point. It was quiet, so we decided we could get in a quick swim. We walked out to the dock, stripped and jumped in. The water was surprisingly warm – the long days of sunshine had warmed it up. It was perfect.

Soon my watchful husband saw a boat approaching on the water without lights or motor. We ducked under the dock. I squinted to see what he was seeing. Yes, there it was, a small fishing boat being paddled in. We wondered why they were coming in so stealthily.

Suddenly, the water lit up with the red, white, and blue flashing lights of the Water Patrol which had also spotted the dark boat. The cops herded the little boat to the dock. They were coming right towards us. It was an ‘uh oh’ moment. My husband moved to stand in chest-high water in the shadows, and I stood behind him. We were very still, hiding on the other side of the dock, naked.

Three standard-issue redneck kids, 18 or 19 years old, were in the boat. They pulled closer and closer to the dock. We could see them, but they couldn’t see us. The cop stood up and began questioning the boys. One boy said their front light was broken and they didn’t want to attract attention by running with just the back light, so they were hoping to sneak in. But the Water Patrol had good eyes. So good in fact, that the cop’s next question was, “Have you seen any people swimming nekkid out here? There’s their clothes up on the dock.” No, the boys hadn’t seen anyone swimming nekkid. Not yet, I thought.

What a pickle we were in. My husband whispered, “You can write about this in your blog.” I whispered back, “Let’s see if there’s a happy ending first.”

The cop started shining his flashlight over the water, looking for nekkid swimmers. My husband stepped out of the shadows and raised his hand, smiling calmly. I stayed behind him, mostly out of view. “There they are,” said the cop. He addressed my husband, “You know you’re not supposed to be swimming out here.” My husband responded, “I’m 50 feet from the launch.” The cop couldn’t argue with that.

He asked, “Are these your clothes up here?”

“Yes, our clothes are up there, but our bathing suits are down here.”

“Oh,” said the cop with relief in his voice, “So you’re wearing bathing suits.”

“Of course,” my husband replied.

I thought I might faint.

“Well,” said the cop after a pause in which he clearly pondered his next move, “that’s fine then. We’ll be out of your way in a minute.”

We stood where we were in the water and waited while he lectured the boys at length and wrote out a citation. I fought a fit of nervous giggles. We waited. We were glad the water was warm.

We waited while the Water Patrol pulled away and the three boys maneuvered their boat to the dock so one of them could climb out and get their truck, then we waited while they maneuvered the boat to the launch ramp. We waited while the truck backed down the launch and the boys hooked and tied and chained it all together and then pulled the boat out of the water. It’s a long, slow process. When you’re standing naked in the water, it seems very long and slow indeed.

We were hopeful that these kids would drive away quickly, but it was not to be. Another truck arrived with more kids in it – friends of the boys in the boat. Suddenly there was a party in the parking lot. Then another boat motored in from the lake and pulled up to the dock -- a family. I groaned. The mother and her teenage daughter got out on the dock with their freshly-caught fish, stepped around our clothes, and went to get their truck. We were surrounded. I hoped no one had a video camera.

We considered our options. A) We could wait for all of them to leave, but there would probably be more boats coming in for the next hour or two, and we had had enough of standing in the water. B) We could make a naked dash to the bank and down the dock to where we had left our clothes, but that clearly would have been an uncalled-for spectacle. We opted for plan C: My husband quickly hoisted himself up on the dock and grabbed our underwear. His could easily pass for swimming trunks and mine could be taken for a beige bikini if you didn’t know what a bra and panties look like. We slipped into the shadows and somehow got dressed underwater.

We walked out of the lake holding hands and avoiding eye contact with the crowd of people around us. I think we appeared nonchalant, but inside I was wavering between hysterical laughter and absolute mortification. We walked casually to the end of the dock. I slipped into my dress, we gathered our things, and headed for our car. Eyes were averted as we passed. I appreciated, once again, the innate politeness of the South.

A happy ending was had by some: the boys got a ticket, the family got a load of fish, everyone got an eyeful, and we had our swim.

As we pulled out of the parking lot, we finally burst out laughing. We could see the headlines in the Shelby County Reporter: Skinny-Dipping Seniors Busted at Lay Lake.

I, for one, have learned my lesson: wait until midnight next time.

Jacob Becomes Jakob -- Guest Blogger: Milton Rabinowitz

In honor of Father's Day, here's another selection from my late father's copious writings. This piece appeared in 1997 in a monthly homeowners publication in the south Florida community where my parents enjoyed their retirement.

Kindly raise your hands if you are the grandparents of a teenager. Thank you. I asked you to raise your hands -- not throw them up in despair.

However, I share the bewilderment of you fellow grandparents as you contemplate the metamorphosis of your normal, beautiful grandchild into some strange, non-familial creature. The dire teenage landscape out there, we are given to understand, is punctuated with weird cultism, outrageous hairdos, bizarre tattoos and ring-pierced body parts -- not to mention attire unearthed from some nearby landfill.

Molly and I have been suddenly and disturbingly awakened. We have a model grandson: a prepubescent but wannabe teenager who will be twelve in May. We felt the first tremor of a tectonic shift in our grandson's geology when we received a letter from him.

Molly got to read the letter before I did. She told me, "You might be interested to know that Jacob now spells his name with a 'k'."

"I don't understand," I said, "You mean he now calls himself 'Kacob'?"

"No," she replied, "he changed the 'c' in his name to a 'k'. Jakob with a 'k'.

"Why?" I asked.

"Not 'y', she said impatiently, "'k'! I guess it's a trendy thing among pre-teens."

Fear clutched my heart. Were we witnessing the first Article in our innocent grandson's undeclared Declaration of Independence? How far down the road was that ring waiting to go through his belly button?

"Whatever possessed him to drop the 'c'?"

"I don't know," said Molly, "See for yourself."

"There's no 'c' in yourself," I mused.

Molly looked menacing. "Don't start with me."

So what else could I do but write my grandson a letter?

Dear Jakob,
Please note that the salutation is exaktly as you dekreed. But forgive us if we konfess to some konfusion. We are also kurious. We thought you were kontent with 'Jacob'. How kome the change? We kan't help but wonder if you are kontemplating some other unkommon changes. Please remember that at our advanced age we kould not kope with anything too radikal. But if you don't kare to komment on the matter, we will understand and konsider the kase closed bekause we love you unkonditionally.
Love,
Grandpa
P.S. I'm wise to you. You just wanted to see what I would do. Well, as you see, I did not reakt.

Crossing State Lines

1,700 miles from Denver to Montevallo on back roads in a Firebird convertible with the top down all the way and my guy in the driver’s seat. That’s what I did on my summer vacation, folks, and it was a blast.

The ground rules:

1. No cameras – just pure observation and enjoyment.
2. No eating at chain restaurants – local cuisine only.

We left Denver going south through the mountains into New Mexico, and my heart ached a bit to be leaving. I soaked in the now-familiar Colorado landscape. The brown slabs of mountains were just beginning to show the golden glaze that signals new spring growth in the Rockies. Isolated houses painted dark red and forest green were perched on lonely crags, built by the true pioneers who secured their little piece of mountain and still live on it. The ferrous oxide in the soil, I’m told, made red paint plentiful, and so the color scheme is ubiquitous, even in the city.

As we approached New Mexico, the landscape changed. It was dusk. Suddenly the vista opened up to a purple sky framed by a wash of gray mountain peaks, behind which was rising a fat, yellow full moon. “The Land of Enchantment,” said the sign at the state line. We concurred.

Now the houses morphed, too. Compounds of Airstreams and old school buses huddled together on the dry, sagebrush landscape. Pastel-colored adobe towns looked like organic outcroppings. It was a complete transformation of state identity – everything from terrain to color palette to plant life to habitats – all within miles of the state line. This piqued our interest. What kinds of changes would we find at other state lines?

We crossed next into Texas, which abruptly had none of the visual charm of magical New Mexico. The sign at the state line said brusquely, “DUI. You can’t afford it.” Rest areas featured spartan metal tables baking in the hot sun with no cover for shade. The vista was an endless flat landscape of oil drilling pumps. We imagined Texas saying to us, “We’re not big on enchantment, we’re just big. You want enchantment? Go to New Mexico.”

In Oklahoma, the prairie turned into rolling farmland, with huge expanses between farms and more cemeteries, by informal count, than houses. There was a florist in every little town. Lots of funerals, we figured.

In Arkansas, we were suddenly in pine woods. We started hearing songbirds and cicadas, and we began to be bothered by flies. In Mississippi, huge rice paddies filled the vista, explained by the Uncle Ben’s plant we passed near Greenville. As we crossed into Alabama, the landscape became even more verdantly lush and the mimosa trees were blooming.

Finding local places to eat on the back roads wasn’t as easy as we thought it would be. We passed through a lot of towns that didn’t even have a gas station, much less a restaurant – just clusters of broken down houses and the shell of a downtown.

We also discovered that local lunch places in small towns on the back roads of America close at 2:00. We were on the kind of relaxed schedule where getting an early start means being on the road by noon, so we seemed to miss lunch everywhere we went.

Our first day out, we pulled into the 4^th Street Café in Saguache, Colorado late in the afternoon. It turned out that they were closed, but a local political group was holding a meeting there, so they had coffee ready, some leftover homemade desserts, and a little half-built patio out back where we were graciously invited to sit and have a bite to eat. The light-as-air peanut butter pie was a milestone in homemade pies. I’ll be trying to replicate that one.

One day we rolled into the nice little town of Granite, Oklahoma around 3:00 looking for something to eat. The one café was closed, but we found a drug store in town with a soda fountain where the friendly soda jerk made us thick and creamy chocolate malteds. Homemade pie and ice cream, we found, were much more accessible on the road than real food. I started craving other food groups.

That night, as I drifted off to sleep at the Brandenburg Motor Court in Atoka, Oklahoma, I wished out loud for some fruit. When I awoke, there on the nightstand was a bag of orange slice candy. My husband had walked to the truck stop to find his gal some fruit.

In Foreman, Arkansas, we lucked out at the Wooden Spoon Café which featured home-cooking in a roomy old house. A big bowl of turnip greens and cornbread was a cure for what ailed me.

Driving the back roads of this little slice of America gave us a window into the surprisingly distinct personalities of the states along the way. We can’t help but wonder – what would we find crossing state lines on the myriad other back roads in our land? It would take a lifetime to find out, but I‘m game. Note to self: Bring fruit.

When It Hits Home

It was a one-two punch that hit Birmingham on April 27.

First, there were the 70-80 mph straight line winds that came fast and fierce in the early morning, uprooting many trees and snapping many more off at mid-trunk. Power lines were down; roads were blocked.

Then eight hours later, it began again. This time it was twisters, moving in packs across the state, defining their paths with wreckage. Then came the monster – a gargantuan, relentless mile-wide spinning mass of immense power and fury that traversed 185 miles of our state. Those of us who still had power saw it on TV – first as it approached Tuscaloosa and then as it approached Birmingham. We watched it bearing down on our city skyline, on the UAB complex. Even the weatherman said, “Wow.”

Downtown Birmingham was spared as the tornado plowed a path just north of the city center, utterly shattering Pratt City as it did the Rosedale community of Tuscaloosa. The loss is immeasurable.

Eighteen people died in the Birmingham area – over two hundred in the state. I wonder how many more lives might have been lost if not for the remarkable work of our local TV weathermen. I stayed tuned to Fox6 and tracked the imminent paths of the storms with meteorologist J.P. Dice and his team. Day to day, these guys report on the mundane warm fronts and cold fronts that pass through our area, but on April 27 they demonstrated their passion for what is surely the highest calling of a meteorologist: saving lives.

J.P. Dice was single-minded in his determination to identify the communities, the streets, even the local businesses that were in the paths of the multiple storms that raced across Alabama, and to alert us to the exact time we could expect to be affected. Alone in my house and uneasy about the trajectory of the storms that were moving through Shelby County, I was profoundly grateful to be told, “A tornado will cross I65 near the Shelby County Airport in 10 minutes. If you’re not in your safe place, go there now.” I went, and I continued to follow Dice’s reports on my portable radio. When that storm passed, it was followed by another within the hour. Again, I followed instructions. I think a lot of others did, too, and I believe J.P. Dice and his fellow meteorologists can be credited with saving lives in the Birmingham area.

As in other natural disasters we’ve seen, the worst devastation hit communities of limited resources. Why? Only God knows why He allows the things He allows. We don’t even dare to ask, because we know His thoughts are unfathomable. Still, I have to trust Him. I know there are many others in our community who trust Him and are asking for His mercy and blessings. I’ve read reports of people who lost their homes and all of their material possessions, yet are praising God for preserving their lives. I’m humbled by this evidence of faith. If I’m ever tested in such a way, I hope I’ll be able to respond with praise and thanksgiving to the One to whom my life belongs.

I want to help, as I know so many others do. Already the community is mobilizing and organizing, and the need for help will be ongoing. There are things we can do. We can donate money to community relief organizations. I chose to donate to the Tornado Recovery Fund established by the Birmingham Jewish Federation, which is coordinating efforts with local relief agencies and will give 100% of the money collected to community relief. https://ecommerce.isafe.net/isafe/bjf/onlinepay.asp (‘Tornado Recovery’ in the Comments box.)

Hands On Birmingham is a clearing house that is gathering volunteer information and will make contact when specific volunteer opportunities arise. I registered on their website. www.handsonbirmingham.org

The people of Birmingham are a generous people, a caring people. I believe we’ll come through for the ones who need us now.

Guest Blogger - Milton Rabinowitz

This story was written by my late father, Milton Rabinowitz, who taught me how to tell a story. It's the first piece in a 'text and picture' album he created about the life of his father, Hyman Rabinowitz, an entertainer and liturgical music arranger on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the first quarter of the 20th century. Because of his rich and impressive basso voice, my grandfather was known professionally as Chayim Bass.

CHAYIM BASS
by Milton Rabinowitz

The house lights were on. I could see that the show was a sellout. I was ten years old, sitting with my mother in the Clinton Theater (a half block north of Delancey Street) waiting for my father to come out on the stage and sing. I was holding an aisle seat for him.

The attraction that day was a special showing of the much talked about German silent fantasy movie "The Golem." Big deal. Over on East Third Street, the American Theater had a Douglas Fairbanks thriller, and, glumly, that's where I wanted to be.

Everybody in the movie house was talking and laughing and waving to one another. It was a big party. The manager walked out on the stage and motioned to the pit. There was a piano fanfare. Finally the noise flattened to a few coughs, whisperings, and shushes. In Yiddish, the manager announced that this motion picture was a special event on the East Side. "The Golem" was a folk legend. An ancient clay monster, dug up in Prague, is brought to life by a rabbi. He charges it with the mission of saving persecuted Jews.

Befitting this solemn occasion, the manager said, there was an extra treat. The well-known bass vocalist Chayim Rabinowitz was engaged to render an appropriate prelude in song: "Eili, Eili" (God of mine, why hast thou forsaken me?) Big deal. I had been hearing his songs every day of my whole life.

There was a brief spatter of applause as my father appeared from the wings and went center stage to stand in front of the big white screen. As usual, he wore a dark suit, a white shirt with a stiff, removable collar into which one of his pre-formed ties was inserted, and a black yarmulke. My father bowed, nodded to the piano in the pit and began the mournful song. His bass voice was soft and controlled as he sang of his love of Torah and the laws of God.

Then something spellbinding happened. It seemed, somehow, that he was no longer singing to this audience. Everyone sensed it. He was alone with God. His face was turned heavenward, his palms up and the quiver in his voice entreating. It was theatrical magic. Or was it? His deep voice and those tragic words were perfectly wedded. I saw that my mother was weeping, but there were handkerchiefs out all around us. Was this the same man who could make people laugh and shout with ribald songs at Opatowsky's Restaurant and at Warschauer Society parties? The anguish of each word was in my father's hands and body.

When the notes reached the upper register of the song's climax, he was the ultimate supplicant. It was "Sh'ma Yisroel, Adonoy Eloheynu, Adonoy Echad!" -- (Hear, O' Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One!) and it was over. There was a beat of absolute silence and then a roar rocked the theater. The spell was broken and my father's stagecraft took over. He bowed a few times to the right and left, backing gracefully off into the wings. The house lights were turned off abruptly and "The Golem" began.

After awhile my father came down the aisle, found us in the dark, and took his seat. He placed a small carrying bag in my lap as if it were meant to be mine. It had the nice, solid feel of lots of money in coins. For me? I was surprised, delighted, and naive. My father had been paid directly from the box office receipts. My hands groped around trying to locate the opening of the bag. My mother promptly took it away from me. She was quite content to keep its weight in her lap for the rest of the evening.

I believe I understand now the reason for the unusual intensity of my father's performance that day. I think he was harboring a dire secret that had touched his own mortality. And in the way he knew best, he implored God to witness that the tears flowing in the theater were for him. God was moved and granted my father one year more.