My Little Girl

“December 7, 1941, a day that will live in infamy.”  So said President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in response to the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor that began the United States participation in World War II.  The American people will never forget that day.

However, thirty-four years later, December 7, 1975, is a day I will never forget.  It was the day my first child, my daughter, was born.

“My little girl, pink and white as peaches and cream, is she.”

She was born at exactly 12:30 AM that Sunday morning long ago at Long Island Jewish Hospital in New York City.  I remember because I was there when she was born and I looked up at the clock on the wall to check the time.  I basically wanted to know the date of her birth because I wasn’t quite sure if it was still Saturday, the 6th. 

Her mother, Bonita, and I arrived at the hospital ninety minutes earlier at 11:00 PM after waiting at home all day Saturday for her cervix to dilate sufficiently.  Initially, her mother was taken up to Maternity and I was left alone in the lobby to wait.  At that late hour, there was almost nobody else on the floor.  It was like a museum after hours.  Nobody!  I hate waiting.  The minutes dragged by.  I paced.  What was happening?  I wanted to know.  Finally, I was invited to come up to Maternity and join her mother. 

When I arrived, I was given special clothing to wear for the labor room.  I put it on.  Then, someone said, that because things were going so fast, I should instead put on different clothing suitable for the delivery room.  I went to see Bonita, who was alone in a labor room.  It was an understatement to say she was not doing well.  She was in terrible agony.  She said she thought she was going to die.  We had been through weeks of natural childbirth classes together where we learned breathing techniques to cope with the pain of childbirth.  Unfortunately, the techniques weren’t working.

After some minutes, Bonita was taken into the delivery room, a large bright room filled with a lot of people.  I went, too.  Her OB-GYN had just arrived.  Before then, we thought a hospital resident was going to deliver our baby.  Everybody seemed to have something important to do, except me.  I was like a spectator, nothing to do except watch.  And watch I did.  It didn’t take long.  Out came our baby, head first, with a kind of a wild-eyed expression on its face.  Welcome to the world.

I was about to find the answer to a question that had been nagging us for months, ever since we found out about the pregnancy.  What will we have, a boy or a girl?  I discovered during our natural childbirth classes that most of the first-time dads wanted sons.  I was the exception.  I wanted a daughter.  Why?  I grew up in a house devoid of girls.  I didn’t have a sister.  I was curious.  What would it be like to watch a little girl grow up before my eyes? 

Back in the delivery room, I leaned in closer to get a better view.  I guess I was in a rush to judgement.  I remember calling out, “It’s a boy.”  Luckily, I don’t think anybody heard me.  A few seconds later, somebody who knew what they were talking about announced that it was a baby girl.  I was very happy.

So, who was she?  Bonita and I had put a lot of thought into the choice of a name.  My first choice was Rachel.  Why?  I thought it the most beautiful name.  I remembered the Bible story of Rachel at the well and how she eventually married Jacob.  I also remembered a Joanne Woodward, Paul Newman movie collaboration called Rachel, Rachel.  Her mother preferred a different name.  So, we compromised.  Both of our second choices were Jessica.  So, if it was a girl, she was going to be Jessica.  However, with only weeks before the due date, her mother changed her mind.  She no longer liked Jessica and agreed with my first choice for a name.

Rachel was a mess.  When she first arrived, she was covered with blood and mucus, but no hair.  I didn’t mind at all.  She looked beautiful to me.  Then something happened that scared me.  A woman picked up my daughter, wrapped her in a blanket and carried her out of the delivery room.  Who was she and what was she doing with my daughter?  I followed her.  I did not want to let Rachel out of my sight.  I had heard stories of babies being switched or worse, kidnapped, in the hospital.  I was going to protect my defenseless daughter.  The woman walked down the hall and turned left.  Finally, she entered a room on the right, with me in hot pursuit.  She unwrapped Rachel and put her under an upside-down U-shaped faucet and cleaned off all of the blood and mucus.  Then she re-wrapped Rachel and brought her back to her mother, all cleaned up.

 After another hour, it was suggested I go home and rest.  Rachel and Bonita were both doing fine.  I first went to a payphone on the floor (no cell phones available) and emptied my pockets of all the loose change I had collected for this purpose.  I called my parents and some others to let them know about the latest addition to the family.  When I arrived home, our downstairs neighbors, Mike and Lucy Salem, were having a late night party and invited me in to celebrate the birth of our baby.

After the sun came up, I was back at the hospital to see my daughter again.  She hadn’t changed much in the few hours I had been away.  Then I drove back home to get something to eat.  I remember as I approached home, I was thinking about my daughter and not much else.  When I pulled into the driveway, I realized that I had just gone through a red light, a half a block away.  I was scared and extremely thankful that nothing bad had happened.  I promised myself that I must be much more careful in the future because I had something very important ahead of me.  I had to be a father to my daughter.   

I would like to thank Oscar Hammerstein II for the words below.  When I first saw the film version of Carousel as an eleven year-old, I started thinking of one day having my own little girl.            

 Wait a minute!
Could it be?
What the hell!
What if he is a girl?

What would I do with her?
What could I do for her?
A bum with no money!
You can have fun with a son
But you gotta be a father to a girl

She mightn't be so bad at that
A kid with ribbons in her hair!
A kind o' sweet and petite
Little tin-type of her mother!
What a pair!

My little girl
Pink and white
As peaches and cream is she
My little girl
Is half again as bright
As girls are meant to be!

Dozens of boys pursue her
Many a likely lad does what he can to woo her
From her faithful dad
She has a few
Pink and white young fellers of two or three
But my little girl
Gets hungry every night and she comes home to me!

I gotta get ready before she comes!
I gotta make certain that she
Won't be dragged up in slums
With a lot of bums like me
She's got to be sheltered
And fed and dressed
In the best that money can buy
I never knew how to get money,
But, I'll try, I'll try! I'll try!
I'll go out and make it or steal it
Or take it or die!    

Fourth Lake, Chapter 2

Chapter 1 was posted at the end of January.

Later, while eating a breakfast of bacon and eggs together at their kitchen table, Phil, sipping his black coffee, read Judy an excerpt from that morning's Sunday New York Times.

"By a vote of 27-11, the House Judiciary Committee approved an article of impeachment against President Richard M. Nixon yesterday, July 27, 1974, in an historic Saturday night session.  They accused him of the following high crimes and misdemeanors: 

Article 1-Personally, and through his agents, President Nixon attempted to delay, impede and obstruct the investigation into the illegal entry, by agents of the Committee to Re-elect the President (CREEP), of the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, located at the Watergate building in Washington, D.C.  He attempted to cover-up, conceal and protect those responsible."

While Phil's nose was deep into the pages of the newspaper, Judy was eyeballing her husband and thinking about their escapade in the shower only a couple hours ago.  She had a smirk on her face and didn't care if anybody noticed.  Judy would have preferred that they go back and make love again, this time on their king-size bed.  They were alone, for a change.  Their two daughters, Kiley and Megan, were both at gymnastics camp in upstate New York.  They dropped them off last weekend and planned to pick them up when they return in two weeks from their getaway to Fourth Lake.

Judy knew that Phil was saddened by the latest development in the ongoing Watergate saga.  Both he and Judy had been supporters of Nixon.  They had voted for him every time he had run for president, in 1960, 1968, and 1972.  They were registered Republicans.

When Watergate first appeared in the press, Phil and Judy thought that it was some kind of an attempt by the liberal media to unjustly tarnish the President's image during the 1972 re-election campaign where he was otherwise unbeatable.  However, as more and more revelations came to the surface, they assumed that Watergate had been the work of the President's ill-advised underlings.  They couldn't believe that Nixon was actually involved in any way, shape, or form.  Then, with the release of the "smoking gun" tape, Phil and Judy realized that the President had done something wrong.  However, did that mean Nixon should be removed from office?  He was a very good president.  The country needed him.  Would removing him from the presidency fit the crime?  Would it serve the national interest?

"Look," said Phil, "he covered up, sure, trying to save those on his staff.  That's what a loyal executive does.  Maybe he should be censured or something, but thrown out of office, I don't know."

"Darling, you're a CPA, not a lawyer.  We don't know all the legalities.  Apparently, he broke the law being loyal, as you say.  Would you knowingly protect one of your managers if you knew he had done something illegal?"

"Maybe I already have."

"Don't say that, Phil."

"I'm admitting nothing."

"Look, Nixon's got a problem.  Let him deal with it.  But, we've got to get going.  It's a five hour trip to the lake and I want to get there as soon as possible."

Judy wanted to get there as soon as possible because she wanted them to try out the bed in their rustic cabin overlooking Fourth Lake.

To be continued next month...

Baseball

It’s February 15th and very soon Major League Baseball teams will start regrouping in Florida and Arizona to prepare for a new season of competition.  It’s like an early start to spring, a renewal of life.  And it’s all about the game of baseball, the game I love the most.  And why do I love baseball so much?  Let’s go back to the beginning, which is a very good place to start.

When I was growing up in the 1950s, baseball was clearly the number one sport in America.  Hence, it received the designation as the “national pastime.”  Anybody who considered themselves a sports fan was also a baseball fan.  I was greatly influenced to be a fan by one of my older brothers.  I would go with him to play baseball in the park in pick-up games.  The two oldest boys (often my brother) would, on an alternating basis, choose their teamates.  We created an imaginary field in the park and played baseball.  Eventually, the Little League came to town and baseball became much more organized with uniforms, coaches, schedules, stadiums, and umpires.

I played three years of Little League baseball for a team sponsored by the local Police Department.  Among our rivals were teams sponsored by the Fire Department and local enterprises, such as Huron Cement and Kingsford Pumps.  I wasn’t a very good player (good field, no hit), but I enjoyed playing the game.  My problem was that I was physically weak and afraid of a high, inside fast ball.  My son, on the other hand, was strong and fearless when he played for a variety of Little League teams.    

Parallel to playing baseball, I followed, through newspapers, magazines, radio and television, professional baseball players and Major League Baseball teams.  Which team should I be a fan of?  Maybe the one closest to home?  Or maybe the one who our father or older brother rooted for?  In my case, my older brother was a fan of the New York Giants.  I have been a fan of theirs my entire life, for more than 60 years, even when they moved to San Francisco in 1958.  My favorite Giant player was Willie Mays, number 24.  In 1965, I saw him hit one of his 660 home runs, in person at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia.  In 1972, I made my one and only pilgramage to see the Giants play at their home field, which was then Candlestick Park.  They beat the Pirates, 8-0. 

The essence of baseball is a competition between a pitcher and a batter.  The other batters patiently wait their turn.  The fielders patiently wait for the batter to hit the ball and then spring into action to catch it or field it and try to eliminate the batter turned base runner before he reaches first, second, or third base and especially home plate to score a run.  Some of the most athletic performances I’ve ever seen have been those fielders running, diving, catching, and throwing a baseball. 

It has been said that hitting a round ball with a round bat is the hardest thing any athlete can do.  If he is consistently successful just 30% of the time, he will become a superstar, earn millions of dollars, and be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.  Thus, by common sense, the pitcher must have the advantage in this competition with the batter.  There is a baseball maxim that good pitching beats good hitting.

As I said, the baseball calendar begins in February.  March brings practice games.  From April to September, the thirty Major League teams compete during the regular season, aiming to qualify for the postseason, where only ten advance.  October is the postseason which ends with a champion crowned by winning the so-called “World Series.”  From November to January, teams try to improve their rosters by trading for players on other teams or by signing free-agents.  So year to year, the players on each team change.  So, what stays the same?  Maybe the uniform?  Maybe just the name on the uniform?  Maybe nothing?  Where are the St. Louis Browns or the Montreal Expos today?   

The regular season consists of 162 games.  This means about six games per week, or almost every day.  This is one of the beauties of the game.  There’s almost always a game tomorrow.  No reason to dwell on a defeat.  After a victory, no time to gloat.  There will be more to come the very next day. 

The season is not a sprint.  It’s more like a marathon.  It’s almost impossible to stay at an equilibrium.  Instead, the season becomes a series of highs and lows.  If, as the season is drawing to a close, your team remains in competition for the postseason or the championship, you can revel in the nervous tension this creates.  On the other hand, if your team has fallen out of contention, then you can start thinking about next year.  There is always next year.    

There is no clock in baseball.  No running out the clock.  Put your watch away.  Take your time.  According to pitcher Jon Lester of the Chicago Cubs, “If you use a clock, you take the beauty out of the game.” So, let’s build some suspense.  Each time a batter comes to the plate is a unique experience to be savored.  The last time, the pitcher struck him out.  Next time, he could hit one over the fence.    

So, if there is no clock, how do we know when the game is over?  It’s over when each side has had its nine innings or twenty-seven outs in their attempt to score runs.  Thus, at the end of the game, each side will have had the exact same number of chances to score runs.  How fair is that?  Therefore, no lead is enough and no deficit is too much.  If the game is tied after nine innings, the game goes to extra innings until one team has more runs at the end of an extra inning.  There are no ties in baseball.  (There is also no crying in baseball.)  A game is not over until it’s over.

Besides athletic ability, there is also strategy involved.  Who should play where and what will be the batting order?  Should you make a substitution, especially the pitcher?  Should a runner on base try to steal the next base or should the batter sacrifice himself to move the runner closer to home plate?  Should you play the infielders in to try and cut down the runner at home plate and risk giving up a base hit?  Or should they play back for the double play and possibly concede a run?

Some critics complain the game is too slow.  When I was a kid, games commonly took around two hours.  Today, they are more commonly three hours.  And since there is no clock, there is no telling how long a game will last.  My pet peeve is batters who, after every pitch, step out of the batter’s box and adjust both of their velcro batting gloves, even if they did not swing at the pitch.  This should be prohibited.  It slows the game.  Look at a vídeo of a baseball game from the 1950s or 1960s and you will see that the batters, who did not have batting gloves nor helmets, did not leave the batter’s box once they entered it. 

Those are some of the reasons why I love baseball.  Any questions?

Eagle Cove

Eagle Cove was a co-ed summer camp, primarily for Jewish children, nestled in an area on the south side of Fourth Lake in the Adirondack Mountains, in northern New York State.  I say was because, unfortunately, it no longer is.  For what ever reason, it closed after the summer of 1993.

“Green is the color of the Adirondack Mountains.  It’s the color God picked out to paint the scene.”

I was a camper at Eagle Cove for five years between 1953 and 1959.  The first time I ever googled my name, I saw myself from photos taken during that time that had been posted on the Internet.  I actually returned to Eagle Cove as an adult (everything seemed smaller) for a brief visit in August of 1974.  I remember because it was right around the time President Nixon resigned.  In 2004, I returned to the area to see the camp again, but it was gone.  However, I took a boat ride around Fourth Lake which passed right by the camp’s old water front.  I also chartered a seaplane for an above ground view of the camp.  All the buildings were gone, but you could see where they had been. 

Like all decisions in my family, the decision to send me to Eagle Cove was made by my mother.  She wanted a two-month summer vacation from caring for her four children and Eagle Cove provided it.  My three older brothers preceded me there, and since they survived, my mother figured it was also good enough for me, too.

Eagle Cove’s formula was structure.  Before each season even started, its directors had planned every moment of the eight week season for each camper.  There were fourteen boys cabins and about half that number of girls cabins.  Most had eight campers, a counselor and a counselor-in-training (CIT).  After reveille, we marched to the large mess hall building for breakfast.  After cleaning up ourselves and our cabin, each group engaged in two pre-planned activities.  Before lunch, there was a general swim at the most beautiful part of Eagle Cove, its waterfront.  After lunch and a rest period, each group would engage in another two pre-planned activities.  There was a second general swim before dinner.  After dinner, there was relaxation before lights out.  And no talking after!

What were these activities?  We had baseball, softball, basketball, volleyball, tennis, arts and crafts, swimming instruction, canoeing, hiking, Indian lore, etc.  The camp was well-maintained and periodically upgraded, especially the waterfront.  By my last year, they had built a complete Little League baseball stadium.

“We welcome you to Eagle Cove.  We’re mighty glad you’re here.  We’ll set the air reverberating with a mighty cheer.  We’ll sing you in, we’ll sing you out.  And we will raise a mighty shout.  Hail, hail, the gang’s all here.  We welcome you to Eagle Cove.”

By most accounts, the campers had a good time at Eagle Cove.  Unfortunately, I have mixed feelings about the place.  However, what ever negativity I have, I take 100% responsibility for.  If you read Lord of the Flies, you realize that boys, especially between the ages of eight and fourteen, can be cruel.  It’s just in their DNA.  Typically, in a cabin of eight boys, there will be one or two leaders, five or six followers, and one runt.  For most of my time at Eagle Cove, I was the runt.  I think my happiest year there was when someone else became the runt of my cabin.

And what made me the runt?  After all, back in my home town, I was a well-adjusted boy with plenty of friends.  Well, first of all, it was my attitude.  I had a bad one.  It had not been my choice to go to Eagle Cove.  I didn’t want to be there.  I had been perfectly happy the prior summers of my life at home.  I had begged my mother to let me stay, but to no avail.  All of my bunkmates quickly realized where I was coming from and let me know, in their own way, that they didn’t appreciate it.  I was probably ruining their own good times. 

Second was swimming.  When I first arrived at Eagle Cove, I couldn’t swim.  By eight years-of-age, I had developed a fear of the water.  Twice a day, I had to face a mandatory general swim.  The camp was divided into three groups, based upon your swimming level.  There was the area for the non-swimmers, the minnows.  The shark area was for intermediate swimmers and the whale area was for the real swimmers.  Most of the campers were in the whale area.  In my first year, I believe that I was the only non-swimmer in my group and I stayed there until my last year at camp.  This forced me into a twice-daily period of humiliation and teasing.  One of my proudest moments at Eagle Cove was when, with the help of a very kind swim instructor, I finally passed my shark test.  I was then no longer the only fourteen year-old hanging out with non-swimmers, half my age.  I still have the badge and certificate I earned fifty-five years ago.

So, I was the runt.  I became the victim of daily abuse, teasing, etc. from my bunkmates.  I was bullied, before I know what bullying was.  And I didn’t know how to deal with it.  I should have had a better attitude about camp.  After all, it was a wonderful place with plenty of enjoyable things to do.  And I should have put forward a better effort to learn how to swim. 

I also should have dealt better with the teasing.  I should have ignored it.  The more I complained, the more they teased.  Until one time!  When I was ten years-old, I came as close as I have ever come in my life to killing someone.  It scares me thinking back.  Inside the cabin after lunch one day, I couldn’t take the abuse one boy was giving me.  We got into a fight, more of a wrestling match.  I got him in a choke hold and squeezed as hard as I could.  When he said he couldn’t breath, I let him go when he promised not to tease me again.  I let him go, but he started doing it again almost immediately.  I grabbed him once more around the neck in the same choke hold.  I was furious.  I couldn’t trust his promises.  Thankfully, I finally let him go before anything bad happened and he never bothered me again. 

I must mention a couple more highlights of my time at Eagle Cove.  It wasn’t all bad.  In 1958, as a thirteen year-old, I won the Mohawk Unit Ping Pong championship.  (I was runner-up the following year.)  My name was entered onto a permanent list of honor that was on display on the second floor of the mess hall building.  I found it when I went back to Eagle Cove in ’74.  In 1959, my group travelled to another camp, Racquet Lake Camp for Boys, for a basketball game.  I couldn’t believe their team was coached by Gene Shue, a professional basketball player for the Detroit Pistons.  Incredibly, in those days, professional athletes needed off-season jobs.     

“I know a place that’s quiet and serene.  I know a place where beauty reigns supreme.”

I wish I had better memories of Eagle Cove than I do, but that is my reality.  I don’t want to forget anything about my life, neither the good, the bad, nor the ugly.  

Take Me to Havana

In December of 1952, when I was seven years old, my family, all six of us, traveled by car, two cars actually, from Oswego, New York, to Miami Beach, Florida for a vacation.  Some interesting things happened along the way, including my being unable to climb the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. and a trip to a hospital in St. Augustine, Florida, to receive a shot of penicillin from the biggest needle I have ever seen.  I went to my first college football game, the North-South All-Star game at Miami’s Orange Bowl, but the thing I remember the most was not going to Havana.

My impression is that it was a spur of the moment decision by my parents to take the short flight from Miami to Havana, Cuba for an overnight stay.  Unfortunately, only half of us were going: my parents and one of my older brothers.  My eldest brother would stay behind to supervise the two youngest, which included me.  I felt robbed, cheated, deprived of something; I wasn’t quite sure of what at the time.

On September 18, 1953, one of my boxing heroes, Carmen Basilio, from nearby Canastota, New York, got a chance to fight for the Welterweight Championship of the World against the champion, Kid Gavilan, at the War Memorial Auditorium in nearby Syracuse.  Gavilan was from Cuba, that place I hadn’t visited.  Basilio floored the champ in the second round, but lost a close split decision.  I read all about it in the newspaper the next day.  (Tragically, on April 3, 1962, another Cuban boxer, Benny “the Kid” Paret, a favorite of mine, died from injuries suffered in the ring defending his Welterweight Championship of the World.)  

On July 3, 1960, I was an usher at the wedding of my eldest brother at a hotel in Rochester, New York, also the home of the minor league baseball team, the Red Wings.  That day, the home team played a double header against the Havana Sugar Kings.  Some Sugar King players, including Leo Cardenas, a Cuban, who would move up to the Cincinnati Reds the following month, were hanging out in the hotel lobby.  A group from the wedding engaged the ballplayers in conversation.

The hot topic that day was the aftermath of the revolution that had recently transformed Cuba.  On January 1, 1959, Fidel Castro and his followers overthrew the dictator, Fulgencio Batista.  A year and a half later the Sugar Kings were talking about a very chaotic situation in Havana, that place I hadn’t visited.

On January 3, 1961, US President Eisenhower broke off diplomatic relations with Castro’s Cuban government over concerns about Cuba becoming communist and spreading that ideology to the rest of Latin America.  On May 1 of that same year, Antulio Ramirez Ortiz boarded National Airlines flight #337 from Miami to Key West, Florida.  Holding a steak knife to the pilot’s throat, he commandered the plane and demanded, “Take me to Havana.”  That was perhaps the first of a growing epidemic of airplane hijackings between the US and Cuba over the next couple of decades.

On October 22, 1962, I was home alone when President Kennedy came on television to address the nation.  He mentioned a crisis involving offensive missiles in Cuba, that place I hadn’t visited.  Besides being extremely worrisome for the nation as a whole, I was especially concerned because that older brother who had gone to Cuba ten years earlier was in the US Navy stationed at Key West, right in the thick of what could have been WWIII.  Thankfully, war was averted, but all flights between the US and Cuba were cancelled for decades.  In addition, US citizens were legally bared from travelling to Cuba.

When I was at college, I studied the unique economic system that Cuba’s government had formulated.  It was the only communist country that did not industrialize, relying instead on an exclusively agrarian economy.  Coincidentally, I now live in São Paulo, the latitudinal equivalent in the Southern Hemisphere of Havana in the Northern Hemisphere. 

For all of the above reasons, I have been curious about Cuba for a long time.  I object to the dictatorial policies of the Castro regime, but that is separate from the Island of Cuba itself and the Cuban people.  They and I share a love of baseball.  In 1949, Minnie Minoso became the first black Cuban to play in the Major Leagues, with the Cleveland Indians.  I have had a chance to experiment with Cuban food (including black beans), which I like very much.  One of my favorite music CDs is the Buena Vista Social Club, Cuban music performed by old-time Cuban singers and musicians.  As a father myself, I supported the return of Elian Gonzalez to his father in Cuba.  Besides, being in the Caribbean, the weather there has to be great. 

The whole world can go to Cuba, except Americans.  Americans can go anywhere in the world, except to Cuba.  Recently, the travel restrictions have been eased to a certain extent by President Obama, but Americans cannot simply call up their travel agent and book a trip to Cuba like any common tourist going to any common destination.  It’s a favorite winter place to visit for our Canadian friends to the north.  My Brazilian wife and her compatriots can visit Cuba anytime they wish.  Why can’t I?

In 1971, I legally visited communist Yugoslavia and communist Hungary.  In 1973, I legally visited communist East Germany.  (Wow!  Two of those countries no longer exist.  Was it something I said?)  Hundreds of thousands of Americans legally visit communist China every year.  So, why is Cuba treated differently?  There are reasons; there are always reasons.  But, they are hypocritical.  The bottom line is that my civil and human rights to freely travel are being infringed upon by my government for no valid purpose.  I demand that it stop.  I want to lie on the beach at Playas Del Este and walk the streets of Miramar.  Please, American Airlines, take me to Havana. 

A Stranger

As Bruce Springsteen said, “I was born in the USA.”  As Lee Greenwood said, “I’m proud to be an American.”  But, in May of 2013 I moved to Brazil because I wanted to be with the woman I loved.  She would have preferred moving to the USA to be with me, but she couldn’t abandon her elderly mother, who did not want to move anywhere.  Therefore, as Moses said, I’m a “stranger in a strange land.” 

So, here I am in the sprawling city of São Paulo, living an adventure.  I came with the attitude that “when in Rome, do as the Romans do.”  I felt an obligation to learn Portuguese, not to expect Brazilians to speak to me in English.  That in itself takes courage, patience, and self-confidence.  The older you are, the more difficult it is to learn a second language.  But, for children, it’s easy.  Studying Portuguese has paid off.  Brazilians appreciate my trying to learn and use their language.

Brazilians love Americans, especially the ones that meet them half-way, as I do.  They also love American culture.  They love American TV programs, movies, music, books, sports, etc.  They love our language and slang.  If you observe the clothing Brazilians wear on the street, you would notice an abundance of references to our country such as NY, LA, USA, Harvard, Chicago Bulls, New England Patriots, and the American flag.  You also see a lot of English words and expressions, such “better luck next time” and “if you’re not fit, you feel like shit.”  Most Brazilians don’t know what these words mean, but it’s considered chic to wear clothing with English words, no matter what.  I remember the little girl whose mother had her wear a top with the words, “I’m a little bitch.”  Brazilians also love visiting the USA, especially Orlando, Florida because of the weather, Disney, and numerous outlet stores.  As a group, Brazilian tourists spend more money in the USA per capita than any other country.   

One of the most popular American singers in Brazil is the legendary Frank Sinatra.  I remember at a wedding I attended, one of the first songs played was his version of New York, New York.  I was teaching at a English immersion program at a hotel in the interior of the State of São Paulo when one of my students volunteered to sing his My Way during a karaokê session.  He did a great job, but had a question for me afterwards.  “What is this regrets?” Another time, I was waiting for a bus in the center of São Paulo when an old man was regaling the people at the bus stop with several Sinatra tunes.  He knew no English, but had learned to sing the words phonetically.  He showed me a paper with the words written on it.  I noticed a error and corrected it for him. 

However, what Brazilians don’t like is an American foreign policy that either ignores Brazil (When was the last time a presidential candidate discussed relations with Brazil?) or treats it arrogantly.  In 1964, the Brazilian military overthrew the democratically-elected president.  Why?  They thought he was too leftist, perhaps a Castro-like communist.  And who encouraged and assisted this overthrow and was ready to send in the Marines if necessary?  The United States of America.  Both Presidents Kennedy and Johnson believed in regime change to prevent the spread of Communism throughout the Western Hemisphere.  Thankfully, the military dictatorship went away peacefully in 1985.  Still, when President George W. Bush came to Brazil about ten years ago, there were signs comparing him to Hitler on the streets of São Paulo.

I love Brazilian food.  First of all, almost all lunches and dinners include rice and beans.  Their beef (especially picanha), chicken, and fish are excellent.  However, turkey, especially fresh turkey, can’t be found.  An exception is sliced turkey.  At Christmas, you can buy frozen turkey.  For breakfast, papaya is very popular and very cheap.  Brazilians love both sweet (doces) and salty (salgados) things and plenty of both can be found.  One thing I especially like is passion fruit mousse.  Gostoso!  Many stores sell a variety of chocolate truffles.  I recently discovered a domestically produced peanut butter, called peanut cream (no salt, no sugar).  Unfortunately, few Brazilians have discovered it because they don’t have the habit of eating peanut butter.  Steak houses and Italian restaurants are very good and plentiful.  Pizza (more cheese, less tomato sauce in Brazil) is something you eat only at dinner with a knife and fork and is not commonly sold by the slice.  Forget about Chinese food.  Also, waiters are professionals, not part-timers looking for a better job.  

For an American living in Brazil, you have to get used to a few things.  First, the sidewalks suck.  I’m not sure why.  Perhaps it’s because of bad materials.  They are constantly in disrepair and they are uneven.  Watch your step!  Second, there is security.  Statistically, Brazil has a bigger crime problem than the USA.  Therefore, your apartment building will have fences around it with a security barrier and a guard.  The banks have heavily armed men guarding it.  Third, Brazil is heavily bureaucratic.  It took me many months to get married in Brazil because I had to get a number of documents (birth certificate, divorce decree, etc.) certified at the Brazilian Consulate in New York and then translated into Portuguese.  Then it took another seventeen months to get my “Permanencia,” the equivalent of a Green Card in the USA.  An American friend married a Brazilian woman in Florida.  It took them a few days to get married and three months to get a Green Card.

Brazil likes to keep unemployment low.  So, there is no self-service at a Brazilian gas station.  An attendant will pump your gas for you.  And you do get good service when you pull in, just like the old days in the USA.  On buses, there’s a separate person, besides the driver, who collects the fare.  Only, almost everybody uses an electronic card that can be filled and refilled to pay for the bus ride.  Still, that guy is there on the bus with very little to do.  At least he has a job.  On the other hand, as a senior person (idoso), I don’t have to pay anything to ride the bus in Brazil.  Not a discount!  It’s free for me.

Brazilians, similar to Americans, love sports.  Americans love baseball, football (both professional and college), basketball (both professional and college), and to lesser extents ice hockey, soccer, tennis, golf, auto racing, horse racing, boxing, etc.  Brazilians love football (what we call soccer), football, and more football.  It has a season virtually without end.  Ninety percent of the sports section of the newspaper is about football, year round.  On the other hand, there is a growing interest in Brazil in American sports, especially the NBA and the NFL, which you can watch on cable TV.

About 90% of the films shown in Brazil are foreign.  A good deal of those are American movies which are very popular.  The Oscar ceremony is shown live on TV in Brazil.  However, foreign movies come in two forms: dubbed and with sub-titles.  Can you image John Wayne or Woody Allen speaking Portuguese?  I never watch dubbed movies.  When I watch for example, an Argentinian film with sub-titles, I am challenged for two hours to watch the action and to simultaneously read and understand the Portuguese. 

There is a television format, very popular in Brazil, that does not exist in the USA, the telenovela.  These are stories that are shown on a daily basis, except Sundays, for at least an hour each day.  The main channel, TV Globo, has three: at 6 PM, 7 PM, and 9 PM.  They have a beginning, a middle, and an end.  And they last for about six to nine months.  In other words, they don’t go on forever, like our soap operas.  The actors are good and the stories are interesting, some of the time.  They are usually about rich, powerful families in Rio de Janeiro.  By watching, you can get a sense about Brazilian culture, including that a bit more sex and nudity is permitted on free TV than in the US.  However, strange things can happen on telenovelas.  For example, in the current 9 PM novela, the protaganist, the owner of a high-end diamond company, is in trouble with the police.  So, he dies.  Only he’s not really dead.  He drinks a potion that gives him the appearance of death for several days until he is rescued from his burial tomb.  But it’s a telenovela.

If you watch news on television, it will be different than what we are used to in the USA.  In our country, we are concerned with terrorism, racism, and the ever-present rift between our two parties, especially in regard to President Obama.  In Brazil, the big issue is corruption.  It exists in the government, in the private sector, and in both combined.  It is pervasive in Brazilian society, almost a way of life.  About ten years ago, the main party in a multi-party system was guilty of making monthly payoffs to legislators, basically buying their votes.  Now, it is officials from the government owned petroleum company who were stealing millions of dollars from the company.    

Up until now, Brazil has avoided terrorism because, I believe, it tries to be friends with everybody and doesn’t meddle in anybody else’s affairs.  It doesn’t threaten anyone.  It doesn’t piss anybody off.  It doesn’t get involved with foreign wars and doesn’t have soldiers overseas except as representatives of the UN (Haiti).  I think that when terrorists look at the “West,” they don’t see Brazil.

Racism exists in Brazil, but differently than the US.  In the US, you are either black or white.  To be white, you must be 100% white.  In Brazil, they have different skin shades, such as mulatto or pardo.  Black means really black.  Obama would be mulatto.  Derek Jeter would not be considered a black person.  He would be considerd a white person because color, in Brazil, is based upon skin color, not genetic background.  Blacks and whites are not ghettoized into black and white neighborhoods.  Neighborhoods are based on economics, not race.  In the Congress, you don’t see black faces because of the way they elect their officials, even though non-whites make up at least 50% of the population.  Also, there are more Japanese in Brazil than anywhere else in the world outside of Japan.  However, it is very common for non-Japanese Brazilians to make fun of the “slanted eyes” of the Japanese-Brazilians.    

Most Brazilian middle class and upper class families have maids or nannies.  Why?  Because they are cheap compared to the USA.  I believe that 90% of the families in my building have one.  However, as the Brazilian economy has improved in the last ten to twelve years, it has become more difficult for these families to find and keep their maids.  These women now have more and better options.

Most Brazilian middle class and upper class families send their children to private schools which provide a good education.  Thus, the public schools are filled with the children from poor families.  The quality of public education is very suspect.  The future of Brazil depends on improving the quality of public education so these children can have a better future and Brazil will have the manpower to compete with the rest of the World.

My children got jobs as teenagers at such places as Cindy’s Cinnamon Buns and Burger King.  It was a good experience for them to learn the work ethic from the bottom up in exchange for their own hard-earned money.  Most middle class and upper class families in Brazil don’t encourage their children to do this.  When you enter a McDonalds in Brazil, you know the employees are from poor or lower middle-class families. 

When I was eighteen, my parents encouraged me to leave home and attend college in some far off city.  This is a traditional right of passage in the USA which leads toward greater independence and self-suffiency.  In turn, I encouraged my children to do the same, to leave home at seventeen or eighteen and attend college in some far off city.  Brazilian families do not do this.  They encourage their children to continue their education locally so they can continue living at home.  In most cases, children remain at home until they marry and in some cases bring their spouses home, too.  Most Brazilian families want to keep their adult children close, very close: more dependent, less independent.

Americans are more formal than Brazilians.  We Americans prefer to shake hands and give each other space.  Brazilians like to kiss twice, once on each cheek (women) and hug, at least with one arm (men).  Americans like to “get down to business.”  After all, “time is money.”  Brazilians prefer to get to know you better, on a personal level, before discussing business. 

As far as clothing is concerned, Brazilian women dress more provocatively than American woman.  On the beach, they commonly wear bikini thongs so more skin is showing.  Men wear Speedos as opposed to bermudas, but I think that is slowly changing because of the American influence.

One thing even the ignorant know about Brazil is Carnaval.  It’s an annual six-day celebration that ends forty days before Easter.  In other words, celebrate now, then give it up for Lent.  The most notable event is the parade of samba schools, especially in Rio de Janeiro.  Samba is a dance native to Brazil and beautiful to watch.  Clubs or samba schools prepare almost a year in advance for the parade with floats, music, lyrics, choreography, and costumes, all based on a central theme that holds everything together.  Many Americans especially notice the almost naked woman at the head of some of the samba schools.  The most surprising thing to me is that this parade of samba schools is a contest that is taken very seriously by its participants.    

One final note, to Brazilians, the name of my country is the United States or Estados Unidos, not America.  Never America, as we Americans like to refer to it.  To Brazilians, the word, America, refers to the entire Western Hemisphere.  They call us Americans, or North Americans, but the name of our country is always Estados Unidos.

Any questions?

Sixteen Again

I celebrated my sixteenth birthday the summer of 1961.  Kennedy was in his first year in the White House.  Nobody ever heard of Lee Harvey Oswald or Vietnam.  The moon was a place only Buck Rogers could visit in our imagination.  The Twenty-First Century and its fantastic technology was way off in the far-distant future.  It was a peaceful time to be young in a small town where nothing really bad ever happened. 

Sixteen was an age of change.  You could start driving a car.  That gave you freedom of movement, especially from your parents.  You could quit school, get a job, and have your own money.  You were near to being an adult.  While you waited, you started feeling more and more mature; at least you thought you did.

It was about that time I started thinking more seriously about girls.  It was natural for me to feel attracted to them.  I wanted to do something about it, but was filled with fear.  Girls were a great mystery to me.  Why?  There were no girls in my house.  I didn’t understand them.  What to do?

One day, for some reason I can’t fathom now, I was in the principal’s office at my high school.  I was not in trouble.  Perhaps I was there picking up something for one of my teachers.  In walked a pretty, blonde girl.  When she sat down across from me, I noticed her curvaceous legs.  Our eyes met briefly.  There was a spark.  I had to act. 

She was fifteen and new to the school.  Later, I found reasons to talk to her a couple of times.  I got her phone number and called for a date on a Friday night.  She accepted.  The world was wonderful.  I picked her up in my father’s car and we went to the dance at the high school.  Later we walked to a nearby restaurant to get something to eat.  Everything was going so well. 

Then, the deadly conclusion!  I started driving her home.  On the way, I spotted some friends who were hitching a ride in the same direction we were going.  I stopped and picked them up.  They sat in the back seat quietly until I dropped them off.  Then I drove to her house.  When I opened the car door, she jumped out and raced up some steps to her front door.  She entered her house almost before I got there.  Obviously, I had done something wrong.  It had to have been picking up my friends.  Before, she seemed to be enjoying herself.  After, I was persona non grata.  She refused to answer my phone calls or speak to me ever again.  I was crushed; my self-confidence shattered.  I was an utter failure.  My courage was gone.  As Marty Piletti said, “Whatever it is that women like, I aint got it.”

Boy, I wish I could go back and talk to that sixteen-year-old me.  So, she didn’t like what I did. Too bad!  So she didn’t want to talk to me anymore.  Her loss!  Who’s next for me?  There are plenty of fish in the sea.  I can look in my high school yearbook, now more than fifty years old, and I can see plenty of cute, adorable  females who would have been willing and interested in dating me.  Why not?  I was cute and adorable, too.  I wasn’t any jock.  But, I was smart and funny and a good talker.  And I had self-confidence.  No, I have self-confidence now and should have had back then in ’61.

And why didn’t I that fateful night when she slammed her front door in my face without any explanation?  What do I know now that I didn’t know then?  I guess I would call it wisdom.  Why couldn’t a sixteen-year-old have it?  Because, for most of us, it takes time to acquire.  A lot of time!

That one night’s experience shattered me for years.  I became a shy introvert.  I shuttered myself in my room, avoiding life.  My motto was, “nothing ventured, nothing lost.”  Another quote from Marty, “I don’t want to get hurt no more.”

I eventually figured that I couldn’t keep doing this forever.  I had to fight to free myself from myself.  I had to take a chance.  I was avoiding pain, but I wasn’t happy.  I instinctively knew I needed to take a chance for happiness.  It worked.  Success breeds success.  And that brings with it self-confidence.  I have never looked back.  My new motto is, “face life with courage.” 

However, I regret all the time I wasted hiding away in my room.  “I coulda been a contender.”