I am determined. No matter what, I am going to initiate conversation with Ann as soon as I see her. No matter what.
The next day, I enter the high school and go up the stairs to the third floor, nervously looking about for her. As I approach our home room, I see her outside the door talking to an unknown boy. No matter what.
As I go past, I say, "Hi, Ann."
As I enter the home room, I notice quizzical looks from them both with my peripheral vision. I walk ahead with my self-confidence booming. I sit down.
Soon, Ann enters and takes her seat next to me with a surprised look on her face, which is looking better.
"Now I know who you are, the boy on my left. What's your name?"
"Bennie. (pause) So, how's school so far?"
"I don't know. It's only been a day. What about you?"
"I think it's gonna be great. (bell rings). See ya tomorrow, Ann."
"Yeah, see ya, Bennie."
We both get up to leave home room, this time side by side, with smiles on our faces.
What a day this has been, what a grand mood I'm in, why it's almost like ...
Sunday, April 26, 2020
Sunday, April 19, 2020
A Tale of Lisboa
Last September, Cristina and I flew to Lisbon (or Lisboa to its inhabitants) as part of a twelve day trip to Portugal. We loved it. It's a beautiful city with historic architecture, modernity, security, a large choice of souvenirs, great food (especially pastel de nata) and comfortable hotels.
However, what we didn't see was a disturbing past. What happened in Lisbon (or Lisboa) 514 years ago today, on April 19, 1506?
By then, about 90,000 Spanish Jews, who had been expelled from their homeland in 1492, had settled in Lisbon (or Lisboa). One condition for living in their new country was that they convert to Catholicism. However, many of these New Christians, as they were called, still secretly practiced Judaism.
Early in 1506, a drought and an epidemic was claiming the lives of 100 Lisbon (or Lisboa) inhabitants per day (sound familiar?). Anxiety among the population grew. An ignorant reaction led some to point the finger for this crisis at the New Christians (or Jews) who must have angered God in some way. (Today with Covid-19, it's Asian-Americans.)
On Sunday, the 19th, one congregant at the convent of Sao Domingoes de Lisboa claimed to have seen the illuminated face of Jesus at the alter. Oh, contrar. One New Christian (or Jew) said it was only an optical illusion. For expressing his opinion, he was beaten to death. Better to keep your mouth shut.
After all the other New Christians (or Jews) in the church were likewise murdered, the violence spread to other areas of the city. It is alleged that more than 500 New Christians (or Jews) were killed that Sunday.
The violence continued for several more days during which up to four thousand New Christians (or Jews) were slaughtered before order was restored. In spite of their conversion to Catholicism as required, the New Christians were still regarded as Jews.
Why were the Jews singled out? Why were they scapegoated that day in Lisbon (or Lisboa) over 500 years ago?
I believe it started some 2,000 years ago with the rejection of Jesus as the Messiah by the Jewish people and later the failure of the Jews to adopt the new predominant European religion, Christianity.
As punishment for these rejections, the new Christian church blamed the Jews for killing Jesus even though the responsibility for the crucifixion rested solely with the governing Roman Empire.
Such alleged guilt by the Jews led to the rise of violent antisemitism which played out 514 years ago in Lisbon (or Lisboa), and continues to the present day in various locations throughout the world.
However, what we didn't see was a disturbing past. What happened in Lisbon (or Lisboa) 514 years ago today, on April 19, 1506?
By then, about 90,000 Spanish Jews, who had been expelled from their homeland in 1492, had settled in Lisbon (or Lisboa). One condition for living in their new country was that they convert to Catholicism. However, many of these New Christians, as they were called, still secretly practiced Judaism.
Early in 1506, a drought and an epidemic was claiming the lives of 100 Lisbon (or Lisboa) inhabitants per day (sound familiar?). Anxiety among the population grew. An ignorant reaction led some to point the finger for this crisis at the New Christians (or Jews) who must have angered God in some way. (Today with Covid-19, it's Asian-Americans.)
On Sunday, the 19th, one congregant at the convent of Sao Domingoes de Lisboa claimed to have seen the illuminated face of Jesus at the alter. Oh, contrar. One New Christian (or Jew) said it was only an optical illusion. For expressing his opinion, he was beaten to death. Better to keep your mouth shut.
After all the other New Christians (or Jews) in the church were likewise murdered, the violence spread to other areas of the city. It is alleged that more than 500 New Christians (or Jews) were killed that Sunday.
The violence continued for several more days during which up to four thousand New Christians (or Jews) were slaughtered before order was restored. In spite of their conversion to Catholicism as required, the New Christians were still regarded as Jews.
Why were the Jews singled out? Why were they scapegoated that day in Lisbon (or Lisboa) over 500 years ago?
I believe it started some 2,000 years ago with the rejection of Jesus as the Messiah by the Jewish people and later the failure of the Jews to adopt the new predominant European religion, Christianity.
As punishment for these rejections, the new Christian church blamed the Jews for killing Jesus even though the responsibility for the crucifixion rested solely with the governing Roman Empire.
Such alleged guilt by the Jews led to the rise of violent antisemitism which played out 514 years ago in Lisbon (or Lisboa), and continues to the present day in various locations throughout the world.
Sunday, April 12, 2020
Bad News, Good News
On the very same day, near the end of April 2008, I encountered an extraordinary duality of experiences. I had a moment very low (bad news), followed almost immediately by a moment very high (good news). Wow! What an unforgettable day!
I was living alone at the Pinegate Apartments in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I had come there the year before singing the old Frank Sinatra tune, "if I can make it there (New York), I can make it anywhere (including Chapel Hill)." How naive? I was getting nowhere with my dream of working either at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill or nearby Duke University.
Instead I had part-time jobs at Kohl's Department Store (Where You Can Expect Great Things) and with the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools. Regarding the latter, I was a substitute teacher. Or I should say, a substitute baby sitter.
I remember when I was a student growing up in Oswego, New York how my classmates and I reacted when a substitute teacher showed up. Not good!
Most of the time when I received an assignment to be a substitute, the regular teacher left instructions which amounted to "busy work." It was some meaningless thing for the students to do to keep them from making trouble. The children in the early grades were very obedient. The high schoolers ignored me and quietly did what ever. The real problems were with the students in between.
The week before the day I had a difficult experience. The middle school students in my care were given an assignment by their absent teacher (through me) to sit at their desks, read a text quietly and answer written questions based on the reading. I walked around the classroom trying to make sure they were all following the directions.
Suddenly, I turned around and saw, what appeared to me, one female student standing above another with her arms around the second child in a menacing grip. I previously observed the two arguing. In a protective mode, I shouted at the one standing to immediately return to her seat, which she did. A few minutes later, she ran from the classroom.
At the end of the period, when the rest of the students left, a school administrator came and asked me what happened. Of course, the girl told a different story. I was accused of manhandling the child, throwing her into her seat. She claimed she was only giving a friend a hug, which it didn't look like to me.
The next day, I was summoned to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools administrative offices to give an official statement. They told me that after a final decision was made I was welcome to return and discuss the matter further, which was a lie. When I returned, they wouldn't talk to me. They hid from me.
I should have expected I would be fired. The girl probably told her parents her version who would then have wanted me to be removed immediately, if not sooner. What would I have done if my daughter Rachel had told me she had been pushed by a substitute teacher?
But when I opened my mail box at Pinegate that day and received the official notice of my dismissal, I was forlorn (bad news). I returned to my apartment in a somber mood.
However, very soon I received a phone call from Nancy Edwards, Secretary for the Office of Sponsored Research (OSR) at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She asked if I was still interested in the position in OSR I had applied for six months previously. Sure I said. She then set up a time that afternoon for a phone interview (good news) with Kevin Maynor (Director, Cost Analysis and Compliance), who was looking at candidates.
My somberness was replaced by joy. I felt a sense of confidence that this was the break I had been looking for since I moved to North Carolina the previous year.
I was right. The phone interview led to an in person interview with my future boss/friend Kevin the very next day. That led to a job offer a couple of days later, which I gladly accepted. The substitute teaching job was forgotten. Almost!
I was living alone at the Pinegate Apartments in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I had come there the year before singing the old Frank Sinatra tune, "if I can make it there (New York), I can make it anywhere (including Chapel Hill)." How naive? I was getting nowhere with my dream of working either at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill or nearby Duke University.
Instead I had part-time jobs at Kohl's Department Store (Where You Can Expect Great Things) and with the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools. Regarding the latter, I was a substitute teacher. Or I should say, a substitute baby sitter.
I remember when I was a student growing up in Oswego, New York how my classmates and I reacted when a substitute teacher showed up. Not good!
Most of the time when I received an assignment to be a substitute, the regular teacher left instructions which amounted to "busy work." It was some meaningless thing for the students to do to keep them from making trouble. The children in the early grades were very obedient. The high schoolers ignored me and quietly did what ever. The real problems were with the students in between.
The week before the day I had a difficult experience. The middle school students in my care were given an assignment by their absent teacher (through me) to sit at their desks, read a text quietly and answer written questions based on the reading. I walked around the classroom trying to make sure they were all following the directions.
Suddenly, I turned around and saw, what appeared to me, one female student standing above another with her arms around the second child in a menacing grip. I previously observed the two arguing. In a protective mode, I shouted at the one standing to immediately return to her seat, which she did. A few minutes later, she ran from the classroom.
At the end of the period, when the rest of the students left, a school administrator came and asked me what happened. Of course, the girl told a different story. I was accused of manhandling the child, throwing her into her seat. She claimed she was only giving a friend a hug, which it didn't look like to me.
The next day, I was summoned to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools administrative offices to give an official statement. They told me that after a final decision was made I was welcome to return and discuss the matter further, which was a lie. When I returned, they wouldn't talk to me. They hid from me.
I should have expected I would be fired. The girl probably told her parents her version who would then have wanted me to be removed immediately, if not sooner. What would I have done if my daughter Rachel had told me she had been pushed by a substitute teacher?
But when I opened my mail box at Pinegate that day and received the official notice of my dismissal, I was forlorn (bad news). I returned to my apartment in a somber mood.
However, very soon I received a phone call from Nancy Edwards, Secretary for the Office of Sponsored Research (OSR) at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She asked if I was still interested in the position in OSR I had applied for six months previously. Sure I said. She then set up a time that afternoon for a phone interview (good news) with Kevin Maynor (Director, Cost Analysis and Compliance), who was looking at candidates.
My somberness was replaced by joy. I felt a sense of confidence that this was the break I had been looking for since I moved to North Carolina the previous year.
I was right. The phone interview led to an in person interview with my future boss/friend Kevin the very next day. That led to a job offer a couple of days later, which I gladly accepted. The substitute teaching job was forgotten. Almost!
Sunday, April 5, 2020
When Harry Met Sally...
When Harry Met Sally... is a 1989 romantic comedy produced and directed by Rob Reiner, written by Nora Ephron and starred Billy Cristal (Harry) and Meg Ryan (Sally). Ephron was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay (won by Tom Schulman for Dead Poets Society).
Harry and Sally are recent graduates of the University of Chicago who are both going to New York to start the next phase of their lives. They don't know each other, but Harry's girlfriend is a friend of Sally's and she helps to arrange for the two to drive there together.
On the way, Harry and Sally, while not getting along, discuss among other things their different views of male and female relationships. Harry believes men and women can never be friends because "the sex part gets in the way." As with every thing else he says, Sally disagrees.
When I was a young man, I agreed with Harry. However, I think the culture of America has changed and it's now possible for men and women to be friends, sans sex. I enjoy my female friendships.
After parting from their drive to New York (at Washington Square Park) on unfriendly terms, Harry and Sally accidentally run into each other a couple of times in the next ten years. Eventually, they become good friends.
One day, while Harry and Sally are having lunch at Katz's Delicatessen in Manhattan (205 East Houston Street) they discuss Harry's bad behavior with women.
Sally: You are a human affront to all women and I am a woman.
Harry: I don't hear anyone complaining.
Sally: Of course not. You're out the door so fast.
Harry: I think they have an okay time.
Sally: How do you know?
Harry: What do you mean how do I know? I know.
Sally: Because they...
Harry: Yeah. Because they...
Sally: How do you know they really...
Harry: What are you saying...that they fake orgasm?
Sally: It's possible.
Harry: Get out of here.
Sally: All men are sure that it never happens to them and most women at one time or another have done it. So you do the math.
Harry: You don't think that I can tell the difference?
Sally: No.
Harry: Get out of here.
Sally fakes an orgasm at their table while fully clothed.
female customer (Estelle Reiner, director's mother) nearby: I'll have what she's having.
Eventually, Harry and Sally start a romantic/sexual relationship, but one that has its ups and downs. One New Year's Eve, they're on the outs. But, they meet at a party.
Harry: I've been doing a lot of thinking. The thing is I love you.
Sally: What?
Harry: I love you.
Sally: How do you expect me to respond to this?
Harry: How about you love me, too?
Sally: How about I'm leaving?
Harry: Doesn't what I said mean anything to you?
Sally: I'm sorry, Harry. I know it's New Year's Eve. I know you're feeling lonely, but you just can't show up here, tell me you love me and expect that to make everything all right. It doesn't work that way.
Harry: Well, how does it work?
Sally: I don't know, but not this way.
Harry: How about this way. I love when you get cold when it's 71 degrees out (22 Celsius). I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich (like Ephron). I love when get this wrinkle above your nose when you think I'm nuts. I love that when I spend a day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes and I love that you are the last person I want to speak to when I go to bed at night. And it's not because I'm lonely and it's not because it's New Year's Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.
They kiss and marry soon after. Great writing by the late Nora Ephron (1941-2012). Thanks.
Harry and Sally are recent graduates of the University of Chicago who are both going to New York to start the next phase of their lives. They don't know each other, but Harry's girlfriend is a friend of Sally's and she helps to arrange for the two to drive there together.
On the way, Harry and Sally, while not getting along, discuss among other things their different views of male and female relationships. Harry believes men and women can never be friends because "the sex part gets in the way." As with every thing else he says, Sally disagrees.
When I was a young man, I agreed with Harry. However, I think the culture of America has changed and it's now possible for men and women to be friends, sans sex. I enjoy my female friendships.
After parting from their drive to New York (at Washington Square Park) on unfriendly terms, Harry and Sally accidentally run into each other a couple of times in the next ten years. Eventually, they become good friends.
One day, while Harry and Sally are having lunch at Katz's Delicatessen in Manhattan (205 East Houston Street) they discuss Harry's bad behavior with women.
Sally: You are a human affront to all women and I am a woman.
Harry: I don't hear anyone complaining.
Sally: Of course not. You're out the door so fast.
Harry: I think they have an okay time.
Sally: How do you know?
Harry: What do you mean how do I know? I know.
Sally: Because they...
Harry: Yeah. Because they...
Sally: How do you know they really...
Harry: What are you saying...that they fake orgasm?
Sally: It's possible.
Harry: Get out of here.
Sally: All men are sure that it never happens to them and most women at one time or another have done it. So you do the math.
Harry: You don't think that I can tell the difference?
Sally: No.
Harry: Get out of here.
Sally fakes an orgasm at their table while fully clothed.
female customer (Estelle Reiner, director's mother) nearby: I'll have what she's having.
Eventually, Harry and Sally start a romantic/sexual relationship, but one that has its ups and downs. One New Year's Eve, they're on the outs. But, they meet at a party.
Harry: I've been doing a lot of thinking. The thing is I love you.
Sally: What?
Harry: I love you.
Sally: How do you expect me to respond to this?
Harry: How about you love me, too?
Sally: How about I'm leaving?
Harry: Doesn't what I said mean anything to you?
Sally: I'm sorry, Harry. I know it's New Year's Eve. I know you're feeling lonely, but you just can't show up here, tell me you love me and expect that to make everything all right. It doesn't work that way.
Harry: Well, how does it work?
Sally: I don't know, but not this way.
Harry: How about this way. I love when you get cold when it's 71 degrees out (22 Celsius). I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich (like Ephron). I love when get this wrinkle above your nose when you think I'm nuts. I love that when I spend a day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes and I love that you are the last person I want to speak to when I go to bed at night. And it's not because I'm lonely and it's not because it's New Year's Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.
They kiss and marry soon after. Great writing by the late Nora Ephron (1941-2012). Thanks.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)