Life on the Tracks (redux)

 

 by Steven B. Orkin

 

 

This is a story about my father, Jerome Orkin.

I still remember hearing him tell it himself when I was much younger. In fact, I still vividly hear his voice at certain points in this retelling. I have endeavored to keep certain aspects of the story fairly sparse to prevent my ‘writerly’ sensibility from ‘filling in the holes’ and thereby compromising the purity of the details and events. This is not my story. It’s his. I consider it an honor and a privilege to present you with this brief glimpse of a life well-lived.

I first posted “Life on the Tracks” to “Orkin’s Law” back in 2012 but I decided to revise, expand, and repost it in honor of Dad’s 80th birthday, which was on December 26, 2016. He left us on October 30, 1992 and not a single day passes where I and the rest of my family doesn’t miss him.

Throughout my daughter Julianna’s life, I have spoken of him to her. I like to think that through my memories, as well as those of my mother Carol and my brothers, that despite never having met him, she has some sense of him, who he was, who he endeavored to be. Sometimes, I like to imagine what a blessed, beautiful thing it would have been for them to know, appreciate, and help each other in this life.

Though my dad was certainly not meek, this did not preclude him from being gentle. This gentleness, this inherent compassion and warmth of spirit, as well as his playful sense of humor, would undoubtedly have formed half of a bridge that would have fit quite harmoniously against the one Julianna has created herself thus far in her young life. Hers contains a complementary gentleness, a huge, loving heart, and a gracious sense of humor (albeit one with sparks of subversive mischief scattered in the mix).

Elements of my story, ‘The Lost 95’ (available on Amazon and Smashwords-link below) touch on related feelings, thoughts, and some fairly high-end metaphysical suppositions regarding such a relationship (among other matters), but suffice to say, the very thought of my dad and my daughter sitting in a diner having breakfast together, just the two of them, never fails to bring tears to my eyes.

And now, the tale...

A good portion of my dad's adult working life was spent as a trackman for the Long Island Railroad. The guys he worked with frequently (and unwittingly) provided him with verdant source material for entertaining vignettes he would share with us around the dinner table, the heart of our home. Though generally soft-spoken, even reserved in public, Dad had a wonderful sense of humor and was a fine storyteller.

As funny as many of those stories were, they didn’t change the fact that life on the tracks entailed a lot of difficult, physical work, some of it life-threatening. Despite his caution, Dad was injured more than once on the job, on one occasion breaking his arm and leg after being hit by a railroad tie, the long, square, wooden beams that anchor the metal train rails in place.

During bad winter storms, he would be called in the middle of the night to help clear snow and ice from multiple train platforms and miles of track. Refusing such “invitations” was not a viable option. Even outside of the tacitly mandatory nature of these calls, Dad’s deep sense of responsibility with regard to taking care of his family prevented him from turning down most any opportunity to make overtime pay. Though our family wasn’t destitute, we still really benefited from any extra money he could make. Further, having grown up very poor himself, I think he was more driven to provide for us than he otherwise would have been.

Sometimes, after receiving one of those late night / early morning calls, Dad would be gone for two or three days, grabbing a few hours of sleep as he could on the school bus-style vehicle he and his crew used to get from site to site. If we got hit with a particularly brutal stretch of winter storm weather, he might return home for a day off (most of which he, by necessity, spent sleeping) followed by few days of “normal” work hours. Then, he’d be gone for another two days.

On one occasion, he brought home a strange pair of black gloves, stiff and shriveled like the hands of an old corpse, far too small for him or even for me, as a kid, to wear. I remember examining them in wonder as he told us they had indeed been his gloves. At some point during his shift, he had gotten some sort of industrial strength de-icing solution on them. As a result, they started shrinking so fast, he’d just barely had time to strip them off before they would have constricted around his hands to excruciating effect.

Summer had its share of difficulties as well. He and his crew tangled with bees and hornets, poison ivy and nettles. They had to remove the bodies of animals hit by trains. They spent every working day completely exposed to the sizzling sun, the heat absorbed, amplified, and mercilessly radiated back out through the metal rails.

On the lighter side, we would often tease Dad about his annual workman’s tan: chestnut brown from the waist up, bone-white from the waist down. At one point during his time working with the LIRR, his work zone enabled him to frequent a deli where my then teenage cousin, Donna Reese worked. She always gave him a free cup of coffee and of course, all efforts on his part to explain why she did that were met with sarcastic responses of, “Riiiight. She’s your ‘niece.’” with implied air quotes. 

On a side note, I remember him finding it amusing that the LIRR's central office would periodically receive irate phone calls from daily train commuters complaining that the trackmen were "standing around doing nothing!" whenever they saw them. Such well-meaning Good Samaritans clearly didn't take the time to think it through and realize that it's pretty hard to work on train tracks when there are tens of thousands of pounds worth of train cars rolling over them.

On another side-note (last one, I promise), I remember coming home from school one day to find Dad standing by the kitchen table skeptically regarding the cover of a record album my brother Milton had purchased that day. This seemed a little odd to me since he had fairly eclectic musical tastes but glancing over, I quickly identified the source of his consternation. The artist was Bob Dylan, which wasn't an issue. The name of the record: “Blood on the Tracks.” 

Because of the intensely physical nature of the work, turnover among LIRR trackmen was pretty high. Further, Dad, along with many of his coworkers, was periodically moved to other crews due to redistribution of work or other factors. As a result, he encountered a lot of different guys on various crews over time and many of them knew of him even if they’d never met him personally or worked directly with him. By the venerable age of 35, Dad was sometimes referred to as “The Old Man” or “Pop” (a term he disliked so much he didn’t even let his kids use it) by a great many LIRR trackmen.

Dad wasn’t a “life of the party” type of guy but he was nevertheless liked, respected, and trusted. His “titles” were generally used with good-humored respect but there were a few trackmen who didn’t exhibit the good will toward him that he deserved. Sometimes, they were condescending. Sometimes, they viewed his experience and “old age” with arrogance and treated him accordingly.

On one such occasion, one of the bigger, younger guys he didn’t know well challenged him, saying, “You wanna lay track with me, Pop? Think you can keep up?”

Dad wasn’t a proponent of this kind of testosterone-driven, beers-with-lunch braggadocio and he wasn’t easily provoked to rash action, but he had a lot of pride and a refined moral compass, a desire to see things set right.

He considered the request and responded, “Sure...”

The younger guy smiled, eager to put The Old Man in his place.

“But we work at my pace, not yours,” Dad informed him.

The trackman confidently agreed, assuming the pace didn’t matter, and they got to it. But by the end of that long, hot summer day, Dad’s cocky coworker got schooled with a rather forthright lesson in humility and common sense.

You see, the thing was, The Old Man wasn’t the strongest guy on the tracks and he wasn’t the fastest. But he didn’t have to be.  He could swing a hammer All – Day – Long.

In this story, we find a timeless message about the value of consistency and durability over flash & bang theatrics. There will always be someone stronger, faster, smarter, funnier, richer, more attractive, more charismatic. But at the end of the day, I’d much rather be the tortoise than the hare.

Thanks for the lesson, Dad.

And thank you for reading.

~~~

 

1. Here's the link to purchase 'The Lost 95'. 
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1475040
https://www.amazon.com/Lost-95-Steven-Orkin-ebook/dp/B0CMC3HMXK

The Harbinger of the Douchepocalypse

 by Steven B. Orkin

 

 

 

“One word. Made up. Douchepocalypse!”
          - Barney Stinson, ‘How I Met Your Mother’


So here’s the thing. I get how people have differing, even polarized political ideologies, how they have different priorities in terms of what we as a nation need to do and how we need to do it. However, zealotry in any form is dangerous. ‘Toeing the party line’ is not, in my opinion, a viable strategy for change. In fact, just the opposite is the case.

Though I’m registered as a Democrat and agree with many of that party’s tenets, some of my views are on the Republican spectrum. I’m okay with that. If someone asked me to identify my political affiliation, I’d probably respond that I’m in ‘The Common Sense Party’ whose core belief is simply this: “The person with the best idea wins.” Granted, determining what the best idea is can at times be immensely challenging but within that statement lies an undercurrent of objectivity, receptivity, and flexibility of thought, a willingness to consider alternative points of view regardless of their source.

That is a lesson our two-party political system needs to learn. As I’ve written about previously, they have completely lost their way, devolving into a perpetual game of one-up-man-ship. They not only stick to their own agendas with superglue-like adhesion; they actively attempt to derail anything the other party does, whether it’s good for the country or not. It’s not their job to fight for their own agendas. It’s their job to do what’s best for the country, regardless of which side of the aisle they sit on and who comes up with the idea. I think there’s a compelling case to be made for dismantling the current political party system and starting over.

Anyway, my slightly paradoxical point in establishing this atmosphere of flexibility and common sense is to unconditionally excoriate the Republican candidate for President, Donald Trump. My need to do so has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he’s a Republican and everything to do with the fact that his words and actions illustrate him to be a boorish, mean-spirited, narrow-minded, misogynistic, bigoted, narcissistic, manipulative, grandstanding blowhard who lacks the intelligence, integrity, morality, and compassion to earn him the right to have a cup of coffee with any decent American citizen, let alone run their country. The fact that perhaps one out of ten of his opinions may have some degree of validity does not preclude him from being comprehensively unsuitable for the job.

I’m not going to bore you with an overabundance of quotes or video clips depicting his abominable behavior. You can find hundreds of them on your own. This post is more about theme than specifics.

The power of Trump lies in his willingness to pour gasoline on lowest common denominator emotions and fears, mercilessly set them aflame, and use the ensuing chaos to his advantage. He is a human sound byte, spouting key words and phrases that sound impressive and meaningful but actually have no substance whatsoever. Think about the short, emphatic statements he uses to convey his intentions as President:

          “We’re going to build a wall.” (immigration)
          “I know more about ISIS than anybody.” (terrorism)
          “I’ll have great relationships with Russia and China.” (foreign policy)
          “Law and order.” (racial tensions between the black community 
               and the police).
          “We’re going to make America great again.” (his entire platform)

He has few if any actual plans to solve the nation’s problems. Whenever possible, he actively avoids answering questions. It’s far easier to cast aspersions at others than put the time and effort into truly understanding the issues and creating a cohesive strategy to contend with them. He has essentially seduced a large number of people in this country with his lowbrow, dumbed-down ideology, his inability to exhibit self-restraint, and his delusional but no less effective willingness to paint himself as someone who “tells it like it is,” someone who is “just like us.”

Please believe me when I say that Donald Trump has absolutely no connection to anything resembling an average citizen of America today. He is not only removed from reality; he’s devoid of it. He has no understanding of what it means to live little more than paycheck to paycheck as most Americans do today. He has no conception of the struggles we all face.

The most telling statement of the entire first presidential debate in my opinion was one he was justifiably condemned for. In response to Clinton suggesting that he has used the tax laws to avoid paying taxes, he couldn’t help interjecting, “That makes me smart.” This is typical corporate sociopath thinking. There is no moral foundation within this mentality. It is soullessly mercenary.

Side-Note: Though there is ample opportunity for corporations to make more money than they know what to do with in this country, it’s never enough for them. They’re constantly scrabbling for more, more, more; by any means necessary. The fact that big corporations have a moral obligation to give back to the country that birthed them and thereby contribute to the overall wellbeing of our nation isn’t on their agendas. “We can make more money by dumping our US factories and call centers and moving them overseas.” “We can dodge paying taxes if we center our operations overseas and/or use the loopholes in the (cripplingly arcane) US tax codes.” The biggest problem with the underlying conceit of the “Citizens United” Supreme Court case (easily among the most obscene legislative rulings in the history of our country as far as I’m concerned) is that if corporations were actually people, a large percentage of them would be diagnosed as clinical sociopaths. Think about some of the major components of enterprise in this country: banking and other aspects of financial services, real estate, insurance, pharmaceuticals, big oil (and don’t get me started on the gun lobby and the power they continue to wield over us). These and more have all amply demonstrated that they cannot be trusted. They will do whatever they can to perpetuate their own agendas. They act in unequivocal self-interest; nothing more. 

Anyway, back to my primary topic. I do not believe that Donald Trump actually wants to be President. He just wants to win. What greater ego stroke is there than scoring the biggest job on the planet? But actually doing the job? Seriously. He doesn’t know how to play nicely with the other children! He doesn’t have the patience to truly negotiate, compromise, or listen to anyone other than himself. He’d swagger across the world stage when he felt like it and let his VP and cabinet take care of the nuts & bolts stuff he doesn’t have the patience or knowledge to be bothered with.

And if he loses? Not a problem. He’s already establishing his Quintessential Narcissist Escape Route: “I didn’t lose. The system was rigged.” The notion that his contemptible character and ignorance of the nuances of the country’s problems and how to solve them may ultimately be refuted by a majority of Americans in November is not a possibility he is capable of accepting.

This is not the person we want representing our nation to the world. He typifies every negative American stereotype there is. He is an unmitigated embarrassment to what it truly means to be an American.

That said, despite his demented, Cro-Magnon, rodeo clown theatrics (and perhaps to some extent, because of them), I believe he has a pretty good chance of winning the election.

Here’s why:

Hillary Clinton has problems.

She has in my opinion, been conducting a largely terrible campaign. Running ads telling everyone that Donald Trump is a douchebag is a waste of time. The people who support her already know it. The people who support him don’t believe it or they don’t care.

Say what you want about Hillary Clinton. Love her or hate her, agree with her or disagree with her. The bottom line is she has the documented, verifiable experience, credentials, and knowledge to do the job. She has a broad-based, informed understanding of the issues and has the intelligence to contend with them. Donald Trump doesn’t. That’s her strong suit. That’s what she should be using to sway undecided voters. Perhaps more significantly, that’s what she should be using to sway the large numbers of still-disaffected Bernie Sanders supporters who are seriously considering either staying home on election day or making a protest vote for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein, neither of whom has what it takes to be President even if they had the momentum to win the election.

Side Note: Despite my “wipe the board and start over” note above, I do believe that the concept of a viable third party is very much worth talking about and cultivating but the fact is we’re not close to being there yet. At this rather ominous moment in history, where so much depends on the choices we make over the next several years, casting a vote for Stein or Johnson is the equivalent of pulling on a “Make America Great Again!” t-shirt. I am confident you will find it be very ill-fitting very quickly. Underestimate Donald Trump at your peril.

I wouldn’t classify myself as “disaffected” but I would vote for Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton any day of the week, despite her having (in certain respects) a more diverse curriculum vitae than he does. Further, I think Bernie would have mopped the floor with Trump because whether you agree with his ideologies or not, Bernie Sanders inspires a quality that Hillary Clinton is sorely lacking in: Trust. No one can question (certainly not to the degree they do with Clinton) where Bernie Sanders stands on things. He states his position, puts his words into action and remains consistent in both.

On the other hand, if we were to take a survey of what people don’t like about Hillary Clinton, I’m quite confident that the number one answer by a 75% or more margin would be “I just don’t trust her.”

I’m one of those people.

I believe that a lot more has been made of her email scandal than is warranted. To be honest, I don’t particularly care what’s in the missing emails. I suspect they’re more embarrassing than dangerous to national security. What I very much care about is the fact that other than saying “It was a mistake for me to use a private server and I’m sorry,” we have no conclusive answers about why she did so. Nor do we have any conclusive answer as to what actually happened to all those emails. Given all her political experience and savvy, how can anyone believe that it simply never occurred to her that using a private server for government business was a bad idea? How can anyone possibly accept that she has no idea what happened to all those emails? The answer is: They can’t. Even her most diehard supporters have concerns regarding what this email thing and its underlying issues are really about and if they tell you they don’t, they’re either lying to you, or they’re lying to themselves.

There’s more.

Just to jump back to Sanders for a second, I remain very deeply troubled by Clinton’s (to put it generously) conscious unwillingness to act against the DNC’s plans to keelhaul him if he got too close to her by the convention. If they’d spent half as much time not underestimating Trump as they did freaking out about Bernie Sanders, this race wouldn’t be as close as it is. This is more about the stupidity of the DNC backing Clinton over Sanders in the first place than it is about Clinton herself but I can’t help but feel that it paints a picture of her as someone who is willing to do quite a lot of questionable things to get what she wants, regardless of who happens to be standing in the way.

Another serious concern of mine is that she appears to have a lot of ties to a lot of people with a lot of money. I question how steadfast and thorough she’s truly going to be with regard to shifting the catastrophic imbalance in wealth distribution in this country when those actions may threaten her funding for her second term.

Side-Note: the President should have one term of six years. The bottom line is, no matter who they are or what they think is best for the country, they always spend their first term not rocking the boat too much to ensure they have the same or greater level of support for reelection. If they only have one term to do the job, they can leave it all on the field with impunity. Giving the President only one term would make us a better, stronger country.

The point is, both candidates have less than desirable qualities but one is far less desirable than the other.

Trump and his supporters believe he’s going to stomp into the Oval Office and “fix” everything but his penchant for animosity, finger-pointing, and exclusionary thinking make him about as likely to pull the country together as a jellyfish is likely to win a tap-dancing contest. Further, he’s got so much resistance on both sides of the aisle, he’d be hard-pressed to get much if anything accomplished.

However, this does not preclude him from having a potentially devastating effect on the credibility of this country around the world and quite possibly further polarizing other nations against us. Domestically, his slightly modified “trickle-down” economics plan will have exactly the same effect (probably worse) than it did the first time we tried the concept: Multibillion dollar corporations (his own interests among them) will get their “more, more, more” and the rest of us will continue to slide toward economic obscurity.

Hillary Clinton isn’t doing herself any favors in terms of her campaign by continuing to devolve into the “Not Trump” candidate. Further, she will continue to be dogged by trust issues because her actions, as well as her unwillingness to explain them in a satisfactory manner, have illustrated her to be someone who bears watching.

That said, the fact remains that Clinton is not even close to being as potentially destructive to the wellbeing of our nation domestically and internationally as Donald Trump is. Indeed, he is a clear and present danger to everyone and everything around him. That has nothing to do with Democrat vs. Republican. It has to do with Trump as an individual lacking the intelligence (both emotional and analytical) and strength of character to even make the D-List of candidates for the job of President of the Unites States of America.

Does it seriously suck that we are often faced with a “lesser of two evils” situation in our current political climate? You bet.

Does that make the choice any less clear?

No. It does not.

Thank you for reading.

The Power of One

by Steven B. Orkin

On Monday morning, November 16, 2015, my daughter Julianna was dismayed by the fact that her high school did not observe a moment of silence for the people who lost their lives in Paris, France during the terrorist attacks there the previous Friday, 11/13.

That afternoon, she visited the school office to ask why not and was met with a perfunctory “There was something wrong with the PA system” though announcements were broadcast to the entire school that morning and “We’re not supposed to talk about ISIS” (a term I despise using in reference to terrorists. *Isis* is an Egyptian Goddess of nature and magic who has been around for thousands of years. But I digress…).

The point is, neither of these explanations had any substance. The conversation concluded with Julianna being told, “You can leave a note for the principal if you want.”

So, she did.

On Tuesday morning, November 17, 2015, West Islip High School observed a moment of silence for the people killed in Paris.

This simple sequence of events tells us quite a lot.

The first thing it tells us is that I have a remarkable daughter. She has a sensitivity, awareness, and compassion regarding certain things that is, to put it lightly, uncharacteristic for a girl of fourteen. I am both proud of and humbled by her integrity and character.

My wife Nancy and I take the job of being parents very, very seriously. We view the responsibility of raising a kind, loving, and decent human being not only as our moral obligation as citizens of this planet but as a truly holy endeavor. As part of that process, since toddler-hood, we have consistently encouraged and empowered Jules to respectfully ask questions and speak her mind. However, it’s ultimately up to her to pick up that torch and run with it.

Clearly, she has.

This leads us to the next thing this story tells us, which is that I may well have to bail my daughter out of jail one day for engaging in an act of civil disobedience.

Moving on…

Another thing it tells us is that the principal of West Islip High School, Dr. Anthony Bridgeman, possesses impressive leadership skills. This matter was the very definition of a teachable moment. He could have politely dismissed Julianna’s concern with a “Thank you for contacting me” platitude. Instead, he gave the matter the consideration it deserved and capitalized on his potential to positively impact the lives of his students.

On an individual level, Dr. Bridgeman provided Julianna with enormous validation. She raised her voice and that voice was heard. She may well carry this experience with her for the rest of her life.

On a broader level, he provided the students of West Islip High School with an opportunity to perceive the world from a global perspective and demonstrate compassion and empathy for others. Paris may be 3600 miles from Long Island but we’re all part of the same team: The Human Race Team. Senseless tragedies there are senseless tragedies here.

Lastly, the story of ‘Julianna & the Moment of Silence’ provides us with a cautionary lesson. In these troubled times, public discourse is often leeched of substance by the ideological parasite known as ‘Political Correctness’ which can be defined as the science of attempting to please everyone and thereby saying nothing. It has become so engrained in our society that we often instinctively employ the spirit of the concept to diffuse potential conflict (or even discussion) rather than address and resolve it. When Julianna voiced her concern, the initial reaction was to deflect it harmlessly off into the trees without any actual engagement or resolution.

But there’s more to life than smoothing the bed sheets.

Let us all work harder to defy this destructive inclination to diffuse rather than resolve. Let us face our ideological challenges head-on with a robust combination of courage, tenacity, emotional intelligence, and compassion. As human beings, we have been blessed with the gift of sentience, the capacity to reason, to see the big picture, to work together, to envision an ideal and construct a plan to achieve it. Ultimately, we all benefit from such efforts.

And that, my friends, is something to be thankful for.

Thanks for reading.

The King of Anything

 by Steven B. Orkin

 

 

 

As some of you are aware, my uncle, Leonard Hochman passed away on Wednesday, 11/4/15 after a long, hard fight against cancer (a fight that included overcoming pancreatic cancer, one of the most lethal types). As in many such circumstances, at the last, cancer ended up being almost incidental to other tangential medical issues creating a cascade effect that proved impossible to overcome, even for him.

I was given the privilege of saying a few words at his memorial service and I thought I’d share them here. I modified the original somewhat to reflect this written version.

Given that Lenny was an incredibly vivacious, larger-than-life character with a great sense of humor and an equally great capacity to see the humor in himself, I began by taking a show-of-hands poll of those in attendance to determine how many of them have personally voiced or thought the following sentiment during an interaction with him:

“Lenny! For God’s sake!”

Naturally, a large percentage of the attendees raised their hands.

That, my friends, is the mark of a life lived out loud.

Alternately hilarious, loving, generous, insightful, helpful, and at times, thoroughly exasperating, Lenny was absolutely impossible to ignore. He was formidably tough, physically and mentally, a perpetual and charismatic showman, and a one-man family history encyclopedia. In short, he lived life ferociously. He was the King of Anything with an opinion on everything.

This latter quality often made for some entertaining… well, let’s call them “discussions” between him and his sister, my mom Carol. Both are fiercely intelligent and passionate about their beliefs, and though their routinely disparate opinions were usually well-considered and well-informed, Lenny was not entirely innocent of periodically employing information that can only be described as “factualish” when the actual facts did not fully suit his opinion. Regardless, these discussions often concluded as they went to their separate corners with my mom rolling her eyes and muttering (not unkindly) one of two things:

1) “Uh! He’s impossible!” (which brings to mind a snatch of dialogue from “The Big Bang Theory” in which Penny declares to Sheldon, “You’re impossible!” As she heads for the door in exasperation, Sheldon responds, “I can’t be impossible. I exist. I’m improbable.”).

2) After a particularly heated “discussion,” Mom would use a variant: “Uh! He’s such an idiot.”

I remember one occasion where they were haggling over some issue and after a few minutes, I heard Lenny say, “Wait, we actually agree?” and my mom replied, “Yes. We actually agree,” resulting in a momentary phenomena akin to the appearance of Hailey’s Comet, which comes around every 75 years or so: They were both speechless.

Perhaps Lenny’s greatest magic was that his impossibility never quite precluded him from being eminently endearing and lovable. If I had to pick two especially fond moments to remember him by, I would pick these:

At some point in recent years, Lenny was at my mom’s house. He seemed to have a special fondness for my daughter Julianna and would always take time to speak to her and make her laugh. On this particular occasion, Lenny somehow came upon the topic of egg creams. Jules had never had one, of course, and within moments, he was briskly preparing one for her. His grin of proud satisfaction as her eyes lit up and she exclaimed, “Wow! This is really good!” on tasting it was heartwarming. Though you can be sure that at some point in the near future, my family and I will be drinking egg creams in his honor, I’m quite confident they will not be anywhere near as good as his.

The second moment I’d like to share took place at Lenny & Tina’s apartment in Queens. We had gone over there for dinner to celebrate his birthday. We did not generally exchange actual gifts on such occasions but I happened to come across a quote that I thought he’d appreciate so I formatted it for presentation and printed it out for him. I can still hear that big, booming voice announce, “Oh, Stevie, this… this is perfect,” as he tacked it onto the wall.

The quote, by the writer Gore Vidal, could quite easily serve as Lenny’s epitaph (or at least a PS). It reads:

“There is no human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise.”
          -    Gore Vidal

The world was a far more interesting and entertaining place with him in it and it will certainly be less interesting and entertaining without him. If the phrase “one-of-a-kind” could be applied to anyone, I think we can all agree that someone would be Lenny Hochman.

He will be sorely missed. We will not see his like again.

Thanks for reading.

Building a Better Temple

 by Steven B. Orkin

 

 

Sinai Reform Temple of Bay Shore, NY died on June 26, 2015, the date of its final service, at which I officiated. Its gravestone arrived on Friday via Priority Mail in the form of a hundred page document dripping with legalese ratifying the temple’s dissolution into B’nai Israel Reform Temple (BIRT) of Oakdale. It provides an opportunity for dissenters to present what amounts to “just cause” to refute the merger at an imminently forthcoming court hearing. I won’t. I don’t have the money. And with my work commitments during the summer, I don’t have the physical time. Besides, the chief proponents of this debacle have been extremely industrious in ensuring that everything has gone their way. Everything is all tied up in nice, neat little bows. I’m not surprised. They had a lot to gain. I respectfully submit that had they devoted even half the time and effort they expended on destroying the place on saving it, we’d have a small but thriving congregation.

Sinai Reform Temple did not die peacefully or justifiably. Indeed, it was raped and murdered, its violated corpse looted of valuables without hesitation, mercy, or remorse. The perpetrators of this crime, Apathy and Avarice, are seasoned destroyers of life, hope, and possibility. They have ruthlessly mangled the perceptions of countless well-intentioned individuals throughout their ages-long campaign of unrepentant desolation, ensnaring them in inescapable nets of obfuscation. They have set many a moral compass spinning in confusion, allowing them to at last come to rest pointing in the wrong direction.

Apathy and Avarice have killed before. They will kill again.

As with so many other things so tragically lost before their time, though Sinai Reform Temple leaves behind a multitude of good deeds done in its decades-long history, it likewise leaves behind a vast ocean of potential that will now forever go untapped. Only the swirling mists of history and memory remain where once it stood, full of hope, beauty, and grace. We will never see its like again.

As some of you may be aware, I (along with some others) spent the last year or so swimming against a rather determined tide to save Sinai Reform Temple from its premature and wholly misguided end. It was not pleasant. I learned some deeply discouraging lessons about the power of apathy and the willingness of otherwise decent and intelligent people to narrow their vision in a way that allowed them to justify destroying a 68-year old institution and looting its coffers for their own benefit and self-aggrandizement. Though some of the chief engineers of this travesty will avow that they did it “for the good of Judaism on the South Shore” or some other nonsense, the cold, hard reality is they did it for themselves. They were too apathetic to try to save the place and too greedy to stand down or walk out the door as they should have and left SRT to those who wanted to save it. But of course, trying to save it would have left far less money in the bank in the event a reinvention plan ultimately failed and we had to merge at a later time.

How much less? I am so glad you asked. At the time this process started in earnest a year ago, Sinai Reform Temple had over 2 million dollars in the bank from the sale of our building a year or two before (we had been leasing space since then). If managed and utilized properly, that money could have provided us with a truly remarkable opportunity, one that none of us will ever see again: The chance to build a better temple.

With some assistance, I created a viable framework that would have allowed SRT to move forward in our originally intended goal of reinventing our congregation. It was a plan, incidentally, that included a contingency clause that would have allowed us to merge at a later time if the plan didn't work.

I would have been the person spearheading that effort and I have no doubt that there would have been times when I would have deeply resented the accompanying stress, aggravation, and commitment of time required to do the job right. But I would have done it anyway. I would have done it because it was the morally right thing to do. The plan would not have been easy to enact and there’s a pretty good chance it would have ultimately failed but it was well-considered and built on a foundation of faith and possibility as opposed to the apathy and avarice driving the dissolution.

Even if we had burned through a staggering 1.5 million dollars of that money over the past year to fund the plan and it ended up netting us nothing, we still would have had $500,000.00 in the bank. Given that our congregation had dwindled to about 45-50 people at the time of SRT’s death, that left about $10,000.00 per person to finance membership and other perks at another temple for five, maybe even ten years. It would have been more a more than sufficient final gift to our congregants.

As it stands, with Sinai Reform Temple’s death came a very big bus ticket; one that ensures lifetime membership and assorted perks for all concerned. That’s what most of the board wanted. That’s what they sold to the bulk of the congregation, and that’s what they got. There is no possibility the money will ever run out within the lifetimes of even the youngest SRT members. Clearly, a healthy dollop of spiritual materialism goes a long, long way.

Some may think me hypocritical in deciding with my family that we will begin the next phase of our Jewish journey at B’nai Israel Reform Temple but such an allegation is inaccurate. I and my family no longer have a temple to go to. Our temple has died. The one that’s geographically closest and therefore, the one we’re most likely to drive to on a Friday night, is the one in Oakdale. The struggle to save Sinai Reform Temple never had anything to do with B’nai Israel as an institution. It’s been around a long time and has what appears to be a fairly thriving congregation. Had we not initially visited Sinai Reform Temple and been so captivated by the warmth of the congregation and the charisma of the remarkable Rabbi Emily Losben, it’s entirely possible we would have ended up at BIRT to begin with. I have no reason to believe that it’s not a wonderful, albeit different place than the one I came from. Even if for some reason that turned out to not be the case, though the financial benefits of attending BIRT can’t be denied, the bottom line is, if it doesn’t fit my family, we’ll find somewhere else to go. Most any temple will work with most any family to come to a viable financial arrangement. If they don’t, find yourself a temple that does.

Whether they're willing to acknowledge it or not, those members of the SRT board of trustees who dedicated themselves to its destruction abjectly failed the very institution they were elected to protect. To brutalize Robert Frost’s classic line, they took ‘The Road Most Easily Traveled,’ ‘The Road Most Convenient & Self-Serving.’ They mortgaged their responsibility to the founders of SRT to carry it into the future against a really good deal. They should be ashamed of themselves. And if they’re not, they should be even more ashamed of themselves.

I believe with unwavering conviction that the manner in which the dissolution process was conceived, constructed, and conducted was, to put it lightly, rife with profound ideological and logistical flaws. Though it had an outward appearance of perceived transparency, the truth is it was often underhanded, secretive, and at times overtly antagonistic toward anyone who tried to get in their way. Individuals on the board that I had had respect for or even considered friends stood by and watched as my erstwhile co-president censored an article I wrote for our temple newsletter expressing an alternative to dissolution, attempted to silence me during a congregational meeting, and engineered an attempt to remove me from the board over a typo. Before this process started, she is someone I would have described as a good friend. Now, despite my generally forgiving nature, she is someone I can visually identify.

I could spend another several thousand words recounting the details of the conflict, relaying my thoughts and feelings about it, the things I could and should have done to dismantle the whole, revoltingly greedy debacle of it. Those details mean little or nothing at this point so I will begin winding down my post with this:

My defiance of the dissolution freight train required me to think outside the box and make some choices that no doubt infuriated certain members of the board and possibly some congregants as well.

I. Don’t. Care.

Indeed, over the last several months, I’ve conducted several exploratory and investigative inquiries about this matter in my head and my findings are absolutely indisputable:

• My eyes are clear.
• My head is held high.
• My moral compass is resolutely pointing North.

The actions I took were driven by what I believed was right with every iota of my being. My only regret is that I wasn't able to do more to stop that train before it drove Sinai Reform Temple off a cliff.

So, where does this leave me?

Well, the first order of effect is pretty ground-level in scope: It leaves me thoroughly disheartened. It is an unfortunate truth that we are often at the mercy of the small-minded and narrow of vision. For purely self-preservational reasons, I will play no part whatsoever in the administrative affairs of any temple or similar organization for the foreseeable future.

The second order of effect is more esoteric in nature. Long before the atrocity of SRT’s death, I have struggled with matters of faith, with the nature of God, about how much S/He is truly capable of and how much s/he truly cares about what we mere mortals do from moment to moment. This experience has not been helpful in assuaging those concerns.

Despite the relative doom and gloom of much of the above, I feel it’s essential to note that it does NOT leave me without hope.

My theological / spiritual skepticism is not borne of doubt about whether there is a God. The inherent miracle of life, of existence is simply too remarkable, too spectacular, too exquisitely beautiful and joyful to be the result of momentarily congealing chaos. There simply must be more.

I believe there are forces out there, forces we do not and cannot fully understand that nonetheless wish us well; forces that will help us if they can.

I believe that there is ample opportunity to discover wonder, magic, and joy in our restless quest for goodness and meaning in this life.

Many years ago, I heard the following quote on the television series ‘Beauty & the Beast’ starring Ron Perlman and Linda Hamilton. The show significantly amplified my respect and admiration for poetry and introduced me to my favorite poet, Rainer Maria Rilke. This quote, from ‘Letters to a Young Poet’ typifies the thoughtful, meditative, and hopeful perspective I so love about his work.

“How should we be able to forget those ancient myths that are at the beginning of all peoples, the myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into princesses; perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once, beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.

So you must not be frightened if a sadness rises up before you larger than any you have ever seen; if a restiveness, like light and cloud-shadows, passes over your hands and over all you do. You must think that something is happening with you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand; it will not let you fall.”

-    Rainer Maria Rilke, ‘Letters to a Young Poet’

Lastly, I leave you with a far simpler and more contemporary quote from performance artist Henry Rollins. I came across it a couple of years ago, loved it, and added it to a special collection of quotes I keep on my PC. But as with many such things, it eventually slipped beneath the waves of active memory. However, in preparing materials for the final SRT service, I rediscovered it. And you know, I think it just may be my new mantra. The quote is this:

“My optimism wears heavy boots, and is loud.”

-    Henry Rollins

May God bless the spirit of Sinai Reform Temple.

Thank you for reading.

Orkin’s Law: Everlasting Rewards

by Jerome Orkin and Steven B. Orkin

Last night, I attended an orchestra concert in which my daughter performed. Though she didn’t have any solos and we could barely see her onstage tucked near the back with the rest of the violists, the concert was nevertheless enchanting. The orchestra instructor, Lynette O’Hanlon, is an excellent educator: motivated, enthusiastic, and committed. She has a unique capacity to bring out the best in her young musicians and is the kind of teacher that her students will remember with a fond smile twenty years from now.

Orchestra concerts featuring young students can often be an ungainly exercise in screeching strings, bad tempos, and worse pitch, but that was not the case here. They performed challenging selections with a wide variety of tempos and technical difficulty with impressive élan.

As I watched the performance, I couldn’t stop thinking about a short piece my father had written under similar circumstances many years ago. I’m not sure exactly when he wrote it but based on my older brother’s age, I’m guessing it was the early 70’s.

It is unfortunate that I only learned of my father’s passion for writing near the end of his life. Like me, though he had a general fondness for people, he was a fairly resolute introvert, disinclined or more likely, unable to convey his thoughts and feelings in the way he wanted on more occasions than not. Writing gave him an outlet to do that.

Let us therefore engage in a bit of time travel. Let us journey back through the years as I step aside and turn this blog over to my father, who has contributed enormously to its very existence.


CONCERT

The other night I went to my oldest son's school concert. The concert is comprised of fourth, fifth, and sixth graders, and the program includes choral groups, and orchestra and band arrangements. I was all set for an enjoyable, but not very exciting evening.

I couldn't have been more wrong. It was one of the most beautiful and rewarding experiences in my life. Most of the kids had been practicing for about two months for the choral arrangements, and about three months for the band and orchestra. All the arrangements and selections on the program were beautifully done, yet, there wasn't the usual tension and frustration. They were really enjoying doing it. It was refreshing to see such glee and contentment on the faces of the kids, because they knew they did their job well; and such appreciation and satisfaction on the faces of the staff who must have worked awfully hard to obtain a successful evening such as this was.

I couldn't help thinking as I sat there, how this conglomeration of kids, so different, with so many different problems could work in such a coordinated way, and so smoothly. What a lesson we intellectual and sophisticated grown-ups could learn from them.

It was only a school concert, but to me it was an example of what could be done with things like poverty problems and civic problems. It takes a little investment of time and energy and caring, but the rewards are everlasting.
 

Thanks for the lesson, Dad.

And thank you for reading.

Delilah, The Quintessential Cat

  by Steven B. Orkin

I don’t believe in pets. I believe in companions. Sharing your life with an animal is a unique and deeply meaningful experience that benefits everyone involved, particularly children. A cat or dog (or whatever) are not, in my eyes, akin to an elaborate household item. They are a member of the family. Though they cannot contribute in the way that other family members do in terms of sharing household chores or picking up the dry-cleaning, this does not preclude them from being an essential part of the family unit, of contributing to the spirit and harmony of a household.

In this same vein, when it comes time to say goodbye to them, I believe they merit the respect of a celebration of their lives. Domesticated animals don’t generally have extended families. They can’t pass down scrapbooks, heirlooms, and photographs. Thus, their history ceases when they pass on. Therefore, the onus is on us to keep their memory and history alive, to capture their lives as best we can with the often flimsy and inadequate power of words. I hope you will bear with me as I endeavor to paint a picture of my family’s beloved and sorely missed companion.

On the afternoon of January 27, 2014, a small but bright light went dark. After 19 years of a long and lovely life, Delilah Orkin has passed on to the next phase of her existence.

Delilah was born on the streets of East New York where she was ultimately rescued at about eight months old by my wife Nancy, who was teaching at an elementary school there at the time. There is no doubt in my mind that had Nancy not liberated her from that environment, she would have otherwise lived a short and desperate life, another sad and nameless victim of hunger, disease, violence (human or otherwise), or some brutal combination thereof.

Fortunately, this latter scenario did not occur. Nancy brought her rescued cat home, though she was timid, underweight, frail, feverish, and had fur like straw. Because Nancy already had a cat, we had to keep the two separated for several days, with Delilah spending the day in Nan’s room and Emi having run of the apartment. At first, whenever Nancy came home, Delilah, who would sleep on her bed, would jump off and hide beneath it, requiring much coaxing to come out.

As the months progressed, she became stronger. Her fur softened, and she became more outgoing and inquisitive. Delilah was an exquisite calico cat with large, golden eyes and a pixie face that was half-grey, half orange. The rest of her body was a mix of grey, orange, and white, giving her the appearance of being in an especially comfortable set of sweats. One of her more notable physical characteristics was her long, skinny grey tail which ended in an orange tip that looked like it had been dipped in paint. Throughout her life, she was lean, athletic, and graceful.

When Nancy and I moved in together in a new apartment, Delilah became the dominant cat, controlling all the space except our bedroom, which Emi fiercely guarded, and the food, which Emi also fiercely guarded, often attempting to eat Delilah’s food before her own so she’d have more. In response, Delilah would frequently chase Emi, creating a cacophony similar in effect to a herd of horses tripping down a flight of stairs that often ended in a tumbleweed of furry bodies. Lilah would periodically trap Emi beneath a wicker chair we had in our living room, preventing her from leaving for as much as a half hour at a time.

Delilah had an odd, love-hate relationship with a plant I owned for several years, a fern named Horatio. Sometimes she could be found quietly sitting on the soil in the planter but on other occasions she would attack the plant, grabbing its trunk and knocking it over. I later found out that Nancy had on more than one occasion taken the plant to her mom, a skilled green thumb, to care for it when Delilah had tackled it particularly hard.

She demonstrated herself to be spectacularly graceful and agile, sometimes jumping from the floor to the top of our refrigerator in one immaculate leap. She also had a propensity for making such jumps from the floor to our shoulders, occasionally scaring the daylights out of Nancy or myself when she did it unexpectedly. We had a clear area above our kitchen cabinets and as the highest point in the apartment, Delilah could frequently be found pacing along this area like a jungle cat treading a giant tree limb, silently observing our activities. She also somehow figured out how to climb into the upper shelf of our closet where Nancy’s wedding veil and headpiece were kept, resulting in us finding our petite, feminine little cat sitting pretty in a sea of white tulle.

Delilah was easily the smartest cat I’ve ever met. On one occasion, I watched her attempting to open a door by pushing on it several times. The door edged forward but was halted by the door jam. Delilah stopped, cocked her head in that uniquely feline manner, and after evaluating the situation for a few seconds, realized her error and reached her paw beneath the door to pull it open. She would consciously place her toys in places that were difficult to extricate them from for the challenge of doing it. Her taste in toys would shift over the course of several weeks, from balls which she would leap 3-4 feet in the air for, to ribbon and the plastic ties from shipping boxes. She particularly liked playing with the colorful elastic scrunchies Julianna used for her hair. She would carry them off whenever she could get to them, forcing Nancy to replace them fairly frequently. We have no idea where she put them all and I can’t help but wonder if we’ll find her stash at some point in the future. As a kitten, she enjoyed unraveling toilet paper. We’d find a mound of it on the bathroom floor a few times a month. Fortunately, she rarely carried it off to other parts of our apartment/house. She also loved the bathtub. We had a minor leak for many years and Delilah loved climbing in to drink the cool water from the smooth porcelain surface. We’d know she was in there because the top of her head would be soaking wet from the drip as she lapped up the water from the tub. She would also often climb onto the edge of the tub between the shower liner and curtain and hang out there as we showered. On some occasions, in a rare show of solidarity, she would work in tandem with Emi to retrieve the tiny bags of cat cookies we’d buy for them or liberate Q-Tips from the bathroom, which they both loved playing with.

Delilah had a rather unusual appetite, enjoying such delicacies as bananas, cantaloupe, peanut butter, and matzah, leading us to inform her on various occasions that she was in fact a carnivore. On a more traditional note, she loved the leftover water from tuna and especially sardine cans.

When we moved to our house, despite her keen intelligence, Delilah somehow perceived our ceiling fans to be gigantic dragonflies and escaped them by fleeing into the basement for the first two weeks we were there. On the rare occasions we saw her during that time (before finally allowing herself to be bribed back up with food placed in ascending positions up the stairs and down the hall), she would slink pathetically across the living room floor, quickly eat and drink, then dash back to the “safety” of the basement. This enabled Emi to assume the alpha cat role. Though they generally coexisted peacefully, Emi would sometimes treat Lilah poorly (as an example, she would inexplicably swat Lilah when they came home from the vet as though Delilah had something to do with them going there). Delilah would patiently go her own way, never dignifying such behavior with a response.

Though she had a sweet, charming, and affectionate disposition around us, throughout virtually all of her life, perhaps as a leftover reaction to the abuse she suffered as a kitten in East New York, Delilah was a hell-raiser at the vet, requiring the use of thick leather gloves by the technicians to prevent scratches and a roll of paper towels by her mouth so she’d have something to bite other than them. All such visits were accompanied by fearsome, caterwauling growls, howls, and yowls that could easily be heard in the waiting room as she was “tortured” by the vet and techs trying to cut her nails. Nancy often joked that her chart probably had a skull & crossbones on it but the staff at our vet, particularly our favorite, Dr. Cindy Meyer, seemed to understand that she was simply communicating her stress and anxiety rather than actively trying to hurt anyone. Getting her into her cat carrier was an exercise in benign guerilla tactics.

As with most cats, Delilah was a master of relaxation and had a unique way of spilling herself onto the floor, instantly assuming a position of contented repose. She could always find a comfortable spot to curl up in. She loved sitting in sunspots, shifting across the floor as the day progressed. One of her favorite places was the bow window in our living room where she would look out and watch the world, often voicing a strange, chittering chirp when she saw birds or squirrels. She had a small, oval-shaped wicker basket with a blanket in it. Despite her petite frame, she only barely fit in it, and when she woke up from a nap and sat up, she looked more like a baby chick than a cat. She also loved sleeping on assorted blankets, and in her later years, with a brown, stuffed Gund bear named Benjamin that Nancy and I keep on our bed. She would often cuddle up next to it or even scrunch her body on top of it, resulting in a blend of real and artificial fur that could be difficult to tell apart given their similar coloration.

Delilah loved being around us, often jumping onto the couch and climbing across my leg to sit on my knee or across my shoulders. A creature of habit, she would always jump up on the right side of the couch and walk across to reach us. In her later years, she would sit with Nancy every morning, resting across her left shoulder and chest for an hour or more at a time so she could feel her heart beating.

By far, her most endearing quality was her relationship with my daughter. From as early on as possible, we taught Julianna to be gentle and kind to our cats and she learned this lesson well, never pulling swishing tails or squeezing soft, furry bodies. Though Emi was a little too self-involved to fully embrace this gentleness, Delilah took it as a great compliment and assumed a role of guardian angel over Julianna throughout her life. She frequently slept in Jules’s room and as she got older, on her bed, watching over her as she fell asleep. In her later years, she hilariously managed to position her 4.5 lb body into just the right position to take over Julianna’s pillow (we eventually bought an extra pillow for Jules) and often, half her bed, which was no small amount of real estate considering that Jules has about 50 stuffed animals taking up the lower half of it. Sometimes, Lilah would sleep in the middle of them, creating a “Where’s Waldo?” effect as she nestled in amongst her soft, furry compatriots. She was ceaselessly patient with Julianna, tolerating such things as being “taught tricks”, wheeled around in a tiny stroller, and being given a ‘check-up’ courtesy of Jules’s toy doctor kit. When she came to visit Jules at bedtime during our conversations with her stuffed animals, Lilah was always a very good sport when the various dolls and other friends would “trip” over her, “ride” her, or other such silly indignities. I playfully nicknamed her Fluffy T. Cat (T. standing for “The”) and Jules later elaborated on this by calling her Fluffy McCutiekins. In her final years, we often also referred to her as our beautiful old lady. Julianna would sometimes read to Delilah and she always stayed and listened. She also enjoyed hearing Jules play her viola. She was like a supportive big sister, always taking an interest.

In the final months of her life, Delilah became ill. I’ll spare you the details but essentially she had a neurological problem that created flare-ups affecting her ability to move. It was heartbreaking to see her struggle but she had a quiet tenacity and toughness that was likewise inspiring. The flare-ups passed after a few days and she would be fine. Just before Thanksgiving, however, despite the medication we’d been giving her, this condition so debilitated her that Delilah was unable to walk at all. We had to carry her to her litter box and hold her up to enable her to use it. We had to keep absorbent pads over the cushion of the glider chair she enjoyed sleeping on for those occasions when we couldn’t get to her in time. We moved the chair into our room so she could be close to us, placing a set of small pet-steps beneath it in case she wanted to try to get down. Though she was unable to care for herself, she did not appear to be in any pain and her general disposition was quite good. She was eager to eat and drink and responded well to attention. She had not given up. Regardless, we took her to the vet with dread in our hearts, knowing that the likelihood was high she would not come home. Dr. Meyer indicated that it would not be an unrealistic decision but given Lilah’s positive disposition and that she was eating and drinking, to say nothing of the fact that she had gotten over other bouts of the disorder (albeit less severe), there was no harm in taking her home for another few days to see how she did. Remarkably, in the early morning hours of the day after Thanksgiving, my brother and sister-in-law, who were staying in our basement for the holiday, awoke to find a wobbly but standing Delilah visiting them. “Ten lives,” my sister-in-law Magda observed. From that point on until only a few days before her passing from another, insurmountable issue, Delilah was back to her graceful and affectionate self. She loved life and was courageous in contending with adversity.

Delilah truly was a quintessential cat. She was feminine, loving, graceful, inquisitive, charming, entertaining, funny, smart, and beautiful. As a 48-year old human, I feel I can only aspire to the wonder of her great, loving heart and gentle spirit. She was the very essence of beauty, love, and grace; in a word, a treasure. Words cannot express how much we loved and adored her. We have been truly blessed to share our lives with her. We are lesser for her passing.

Delilah

April, 1994 – January 27, 2014

Postscript

Delilah was named after a delightful song of the same name by Queen. Written by Freddie Mercury, a devout cat lover, for one of his beloved felines, the song is silly, sentimental, and very funny both lyrically and musically (listen for Brian May’s yowling guitar near the end). Although the Delilah in the song is more mischievous than our Delilah, the love and affection Freddie clearly had for his cat brings to mind our feelings for our own. Here’s a link to the song. An official video was never made for it but this fan-made version with lots of stills from Freddie’s personal and professional life is quite good.

http://youtu.be/tvIya2U8_PI


Thanks for reading.


Posted: 1/29/14

Coming of Age

 by Steven B. Orkin

 

 

Several weeks ago, I had dinner with some friends, two of whom, who I’ll call John and Linda for the purposes of this essay, are a married couple. During the course of the evening’s conversation, we somehow wandered into an issue they were contending with regarding their son. The details aren’t important but essentially, he had experienced a bullying incident at school; not in the physical sense but in the frequently as brutal psychological sense. Though the school had made some effort to address the matter, it didn’t seem like it had been truly resolved. As we listened, John and Linda went back and forth about how to address it with their son and were getting fairly heated about it. They were both clearly very passionate about the matter

To digress for a moment, every once in while, I’ll catch an episode of the sitcom ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ on late night TV. Though the show is sometimes problematic for me because the character of Ray’s mother is often distractingly irritating, I love the show because when you look past the annoying mom and even past the inspired craziness of what’s happening in any given episode, you’ll see that there’s a lot of profound commentary and insight regarding relationships, about how men and women think and communicate in fundamentally different ways, how two people can have completely different perspectives on the same set of circumstances and both be right.

John’s message to his son was essentially this: “If anyone tries to push you around, if anyone says anything about you, your mom, or anyone else in our family, you need to make an example of them. You hit them and keep on hitting them until someone pulls you off.”

I realize that sounds pretty extreme but the concept has some merit and here’s why. There are people out there who don’t understand or respond to anything other than brute force. They cannot be reasoned with and are not subject to negotiation, be they terrorist extremists or schoolyard bullies. When you couple that with the fact that children can sometimes be absolutely merciless in the way they torment each other, I can totally understand where John is coming from.

But…

Linda’s position was essentially this: “That’s what you would do, not what our son would do. That’s not the way he’s wired and it’s not the message we want to impart to him. We need to give him other, more appropriate tools to diffuse and contend with this kind of stuff.”

This immediately clicked on a memory for me with regard to my own kid. Last spring, my daughter Julianna had a brief encounter in school with a girl from our neighborhood who has bullied her in the past. She was about to head into the gym when this other girl ordered her, “Open that door and hold it. My hands are full.” Though Jules later told me the other girl wasn’t so burdened that she couldn’t have opened it herself, in that moment, she was kind of shocked and didn’t know what else to do, so she complied. This was an innocuous confrontation in and of itself; it did not merit a visit to the principal or anything like that. My daughter does not bear psychological scars from it and probably barely remembers it. What’s significant about the event is that it typifies the bully mentality: “I will do what I want and make you do what I want because I can.”

When Julianna told me about this, I carefully considered how to respond. In part because of the previous history between the two girls, I can’t deny I considered telling her, “The next time something like that happens, trip her as she walks past. She’ll think twice before she does it again.” And you know what? That solution probably would have done the job just fine. But I know my kid and I know she’d never do that; she has too gentle a nature. Further, although it feels good in the moment, it’s not the methodology I want to instill in her to resolve such conflicts.

So, I thought about what she might have in her personal toolbox to contend with such people in such situations. Finally, I said to her, “Julianna, you are a very kind and polite person and you speak beautifully, but it’s important to remember that sometimes, words can be your weapon even if you’re not using them to say mean things. What would have happened if you just looked at her and said, ‘What’s the magic word?’”

Julianna’s whole face lit up because she immediately understood that those four simple words would have put her in complete command of that situation. The other girl would have had to respond to Jules instead of the other way around, even if only by stomping past her and opening the door herself without answering the question.

It’s a solution similar in philosophy to Linda’s perspective on her son. It works for Jules. It fits her personality. She can apply the concept to other situations. It seems like a total win-win. And in most cases, it will be. But this does not preclude the probability that someday, Julianna is going to encounter someone who will not be deflected by such techniques. In response to her use of verbal wizardry, they will simply try another more aggressive means of controlling or manipulating her because they can. And on such rare occasions, I may well have to consider other, more assertive techniques to impart to my daughter; something more in line with the spirit of John’s take no prisoners perspective.

To be honest, I don’t know how John and Linda ended up resolving their conflict but it really doesn’t matter. Their struggle is the struggle of all parents trying to raise and protect their kids in the best way they know how. There is no manual to consult on how to do that. Often, there is no clear path to a solution to a given problem. Further, even when you think you have one, you have to carefully assess whether that solution is based on what you want to do or what’s actually best for the situation. Yet further, you have to resign yourself to the reality that sometimes, you’re going to blow it and your kid may well suffer for it. All you can do when that happens is help everyone back on their feet, dust yourselves off, move on, and hope you get it right the next time.

Kids are the not the only ones who undergo the process of coming of age. As parents, we’re doing the same thing every single day.

Thanks for reading.

Movie Magic

 by Steven B. Orkin

 

 

I love kids’ movies! I really do. Maybe that tarnishes my artistic sophistication level (such as it is) and maybe even my intelligence (ditto) in the eyes of some, but I don’t care. Kids’ movies are special and important. By and large, they focus on the positive. They’re empowering. When they’re done right, you walk out of the theater or turn off the TV feeling good about your life and good about the world. They’re oases of hope in an increasingly cynical and grim-minded landscape.

As parents and as individuals, we have not only a responsibility, but a moral obligation to make the world a better place for our kids. More importantly, we need to teach them how to make it better themselves. That doesn’t mean hiding the bad stuff, it’s about teaching them to reconcile it and still live in a life-affirming manner.

We as a culture and society need to do a better job at letting kids be kids for as long as they can be. The pressure on children to grow up as quickly as possible and be good little consumers is damn near close to terrifying. Shockingly, children do not need Facebook accounts. They do not need to have their faces buried in a Ninendo DS or smart phone because they may have to sit at a table in a restaurant or on line at the bank for twenty minutes. They need to be given opportunities to think, reflect, and interact.

This is a topic for an entire post in and of itself, but I believe our communication technology is not, in fact, bringing us closer together as all the multi-billion dollar corporations who design it contend, but pushing us farther apart. Indeed, I believe there is an argument to be made that it is deteriorating the very fabric of our society, stunting our ability to genuinely communicate with each other both verbally and in written form. I can already see a deterioration in the interpersonal skills of kids today.

My wife told me she recently had a conversation with one of the librarians in the children’s section (how many of my daughter’s classmates spend time at their local library or even have a library card, I wonder?). They were talking about the fact that many of the kids that do come in have difficulty articulating questions in a sophisticated manner. The librarian specifically noted that my daughter is not like that. Though she is rather shy in certain respects, she speaks with poise and complexity. She does not have a Facebook account. Though she has a phone that texts, she uses it sparingly, conversing with a few select people. When she writes an email, she does so in full sentences and expresses sincere and complete thoughts and ideas. Our public library is one of her favorite places. She actively asks to go there so she can do her homework or just hang out. It is a grim and unsettling truth that my daughter is an outlier in an increasingly nonverbal and electronic world. Even talking on the phone is becoming a pastime for losers. Text me, baby. And don’t bother spelling out the word ‘you’; it takes too long.

We live in the Twitter Generation; everything in 140 characters or less, please. And make sure we’ve got plenty of pretty pictures to look at with those 140 characters or less, because really, nobody has the time or patience to read boring text all by itself. I heard a line from a sitcom recently: “Twitter is stupid and Instagram is Twitter for people who can’t read.” I think there’s a good degree of acidic truth in that statement (though I do want to mention that my intent in conveying it is not intended to specifically insult anyone who does use those services). My personal feeling is that Twitter devalues language and complex thought. I do not use it. I do not intend to ever use it. I would need extremely compelling evidence to convince me to do so. I do like using Facebook. It can be a fun tool for keeping in touch. But unless I’m having an depth-conversation with someone, I’ll spend an average of 15-30 minutes a day on it reading posts if not posting myself. I’m not in the cult. I feel no compulsion whatsoever to regularly report my activities, make multiple posts a day or even one a day. Sometimes (gasp!) a few days may pass without me checking it. Though I use it in a manner that serves my purposes, I find Facebook to a good degree to be insidious and believe that it represents a big part of some of the problems we have in the world today.

Anyway, to start bringing this back around toward where I began, for the record, if you don’t have kids, and even if you never intend to have any, you’re not absolved of responsibility in helping them be better people. I think people who don’t want kids tend to get a bad rap as being selfish and immature. Some of them are (so are plenty of parents), but if you look at it from another angle, they’ve done the world a favor by not reproducing and raising selfish, immature, maladjusted children. For those who have made a more conscious decision not to have kids because it’s not right for them (whatever the underlying reasons), I commend them for having the courage to not bow to societal pressure and do so because they think they’re supposed to or that there’s something wrong with them if they don’t. It’s a well-considered, mature decision. Furthermore, individuals or couples that don’t have children still have plenty to offer. Their perspectives, influence, and meaning can be of enormous value and significance to the children around them. The fact that they don’t have kids themselves does not preclude them from being role models of the highest order. I hate when parents express disdain for singles or couples without kids and how ‘simple’ their lives are. I think it’s rude, disrespectful, and demeaning.

But I digress. Back to the real world of movies. :-)

To some extent, kid’s movies help set the tone for how our children view the world and their own place in it. They can be a great complement to the lessons that we instill in them and an excellent conduit for meaningful discussion and teachable moments.

The impetus for this post, which I’m a little embarrassed to admit given my diatribe above began as a Facebook status update, is that I recently watched a dynamite movie with my family called 'Ramona & Beezus' (2010), based on the classic kids' books by Beverly Cleary. So many kids' movies today are effects-driven show pieces (actually, let’s be honest; upwards of 90% of them are). 'Ramona & Beezus' on the other hand, is a small, honest, loving, fun little movie about finding your groove in the world and embracing your individuality; no multimillion dollar budget and state of the art digital animation required.

It has a terrific cast led by Joey King, currently appearing as the China Girl in 'Oz, the Great & Powerful'. She's adorable; not sickly-sweet, sitcomesque, manufactured, precocious, cutesy adorable, but authentically sweet, charming, and sassy! She carries the movie with confidence and style.

The film also has a great supporting cast including the ever-reliable John Corbett, Bridget Moynahan, Selena Gomez (who is surprisingly good, though I don't know why her character's name is in the title other than to sell the fact that she's in the movie to the Disney Channel crowd), Josh Duhamel, and Ginnifer Goodwin (currently playing Snow White in the excellent TV show 'Once Upon a Time').

‘Ramona & Beezus’ does a great job of balancing the silly and the sublime. It maintains a lively pace and a sense of fun and possibility. It deals with real-world issues with sincerity but doesn’t get maudlin about it. The Quimby family contends with sometimes prickly relationships and situations but comes through them with spirit, love, and unity. This movie provides an inspiring example of what a family could and should be and for that lesson alone it’s a film worth watching.

Is it groundbreaking, award-winning, cutting-edge cinema? Nope. But this fact does not preclude it from being warm, funny, and endearing. ‘Ramona & Beezus’ is unpretentious and accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do, which is something quite a lot of films never come close to achieving. 

Whether you have kids or not, do yourselves a favor and rent it or borrow it from the library. You'll be glad you did...
 

Thanks for reading.

Life on the Tracks

 

by Steven B. Orkin

 

 

Today, December 26th, 2012 would have been my father Jerome Orkin's 76th birthday. Further, 2012 marks twenty years since his passing. In acknowledgment of these two dates, I wanted to share a story about him as an honor to his memory.

A good portion of my dad's adult working life was spent as a trackman for the Long Island Railroad. Though the guys he worked with provided him with many an entertaining tale that he would often share with us around the dinner table, the job entailed a lot of difficult, physical work, potentially life-threatening at times. Despite his caution, he was injured more than once, on one occasion breaking his leg and arm after being hit by a railroad tie, the long wooden blocks that help anchor the actual metal train tracks in place.

During bad winter storms, he would be called in the middle of the night to clear snow and ice from tracks and platforms. On some of those occasions he would be gone for 2-3 days at a time, sleeping on the work crew’s bus to get the overtime pay. I remember him one time bringing home a strange pair of gloves. They were stiff and shriveled like the hands of an old corpse, far too small for his hands. However, he told us they had indeed been his gloves. After getting some sort of powerful de-icing solution on them, he had felt them shrinking and just barely had time to pull them off before they would have encased his hands to excruciating effect.

Summer had its share of difficulties as well. He and his crew tangled with bees and hornets, removed the bodies of animals that had been hit by trains. They spent every working day completely exposed to the sizzling sun. The heat was amplified by the track itself, which absorbed and continuously radiated it back out through the metal tracks. On the lighter side, we would often tease Dad about the workman’s tan he got every year: chestnut brown from the waist up, bone-white from the waist down.

Because of the intensely physical nature of the work, turnover was relatively high. Further, he was periodically moved to other crews due to redistribution of work or other factors. As a result, he encountered a lot of different guys on various crews over time and many of them knew of him if they didn’t actually know him personally. At 35, Dad was known as ‘The Old Man’ to a great many LIRR trackmen.

Though he was well-liked and the phrase was mostly intended with a kind of good natured respect, there were some that didn’t view him in that way. On one occasion, one of the bigger, younger guys he didn’t know well challenged him, saying, “You wanna lay track with me, old man? Think you can keep up?” My dad wasn’t a proponent of this kind of testosterone-driven braggadocio and wasn’t easily provoked to rash action, but he had a lot of pride and he had a fairly refined moral compass, a desire to see justice done.

Dad considered it and responded, “Sure. But we work at my pace, not yours.”

The younger guy confidently agreed, assuming the actual pace didn’t matter, and they got to it. But by the end of that long summer day, the lesson Dad’s cocky coworker learned was that though the old man was not the strongest guy on the crew and he wasn’t the fastest, he could swing a hammer all day long.

In this story, we find a timeless message of consistency and durability over flash & bang. There will always be someone stronger, faster, smarter, funnier, wealthier, more attractive, more charismatic. But at the end of the day, I’d much rather be the tortoise than the hare.

Thanks for the lesson, Dad. Happy Birthday. I love you and miss you every day.

Thanks for reading.