new york society for ethical culture...

INSIDE…

Our ExperimentElaine Berman page 5

SummerDr. Anne Klaeysen page 6

My Real WorldMuriel Berger page 7

A Win-Win SituationCarole Chamlin page 8

Close To Far From Plain JanePat Debrovner page 9

Images from the Front HallMary Davidoff Houts page 11

The Prodigal PunHoward Jaffe page 12

The Bus OperatorTom Kennedy page 13

Moving ForwardEddye Pierce-Young page 14

Dear GreetjeSabine Rosenberg page 15

Meg and GlennPatricia Taylor page 16

A Place to BelongEva Yachnes page 17

N E W Y O R K S O C I E T Y F O R E T H I C A L C U L T U R EB L A C K • W H I T E • B R O W N • M A N • W O M A N • T R A N S G E N D E R • G A Y • S T R A I G H T • L E S B I A N • B I • C H R I S T I A N • J E W • M U S L I M • H I N D U BUDDHIST•S IKH•HUMANIST•DEMOCRAT•REPUBL ICAN•L IBERAL•CONSERVAT IVE•PROGRESS IVE• INDEPENDENT•R IGHT•LEFT•CENTR IST•CONFORMISTR E A L I S T • I D E A L I S T • A S I A N • E U R O P E A N • A F R I C A N • A M E R I C A N • N AT I V E • I M M I G R A N T • Y O U N G • O L D • TA L L • S H O R T • L A R G E • S M A L L • B L A C KW H I T E • B R O W N • M A N • W O M A N • T R A N S G E N D E R • G AY • S T R A I G H T • L E S B I A N • B I • C H R I S T I A N • J E W • M U S L I M • H I N D U • B U D D H I S T • H U M A N I S TD E M O C R A T • R E P U B L I C A N • L I B E R A L • C O N S E R V A T I V E • P R O G R E S S I V E • I N D E P E N D E N T • R I G H T • L E F T • C E N T R I S T • C O N F O R M I S TB L A C K • W H I T E • B R O W N • M A N • W O M A N • T R A N S G E N D E R • G A Y • S T R A I G H T • L E S B I A N • B I • C H R I S T I A N • J E W • M U S L I M • H I N D U BUDDHIST•S IKH•HUMANIST•DEMOCRAT•REPUBL ICAN•L IBERAL•CONSERVAT IVE•PROGRESS IVE• INDEPENDENT•R IGHT•LEFT•CENTR IST•CONFORMISTR E A L I S T • I D E A L I S T • A S I A N • E U R O P E A N • A F R I C A N • A M E R I C A N • N AT I V E • I M M I G R A N T • Y O U N G • O L D • TA L L • S H O R T • L A R G E • S M A L L • B L A C KW H I T E • B R O W N • M A N • W O M A N • T R A N S G E N D E R • G AY • S T R A I G H T • L E S B I A N • B I • C H R I S T I A N • J E W • M U S L I M • H I N D U • B U D D H I S T • H U M A N I S TD E M O C R A T • R E P U B L I C A N • L I B E R A L • C O N S E R V A T I V E • P R O G R E S S I V E • I N D E P E N D E N T • R I G H T • L E F T • C E N T R I S T • C O N F O R M I S TB L A C K • W H I T E • B R O W N • M A N • W O M A N • T R A N S G E N D E R • G A Y • S T R A I G H T • L E S B I A N • B I • C H R I S T I A N • J E W • M U S L I M • H I N D U A T H E I S T • S I K H • H U M A N I S T • A G N O S T I C • D E M O C R A T • R E P U B L I C A N • L I B E R A L • C O N S E R VA T I V E • H U M A N2 W 6 4 S T • N E W Y O R K , N Y 1 0 0 2 3 • 2 1 2 . 8 7 4 . 5 2 1 0 • O F F I C E @ N Y S E C . O R G • W W W . N Y S E C . O R G

ETHICAL OUTLOOKSPECIAL LITERATURE ISSUE 2013

2 ETHICAL OUTLOOK SPECIAL ISSUE

ETHICAL STAFFDr. Joseph Chuman, Leader, ext. 145Curt Collier, Leader, ext. 145Dr. Anne Klaeysen, Leader, ext. 119Dr. Khoren Arisian, Leader EmeritusRobert Liebeskind, Executive Director, ext. 116Gloria Chandler, Assistant to Exec. Director, ext. 117Deborah Foster, Administrative Assistant, ext. 115Yalitza Garcia-Krawczyk, Assistant to the Leaders, ext. 118Leonardo Gibson, Facilities Manager, ext. 107David Gracia Beltran,Music DirectorYolanta Kosmaczewska, Bookkeeper, ext. 104Jon Liechty, Associate Music DirectorMoe-Swe Myint, Membership Associate, ext. 113Antonio Pagliarulo,Director of Special Events, ext. 106Beth Zucker, Manager of Communications, ext. 144EDITORIAL STAFFSelma Friedman, EditorPatrick Whitaker Arenas, Art Direction and DesignDeborah Foster, Production, ext. 115Elaine Berman, Guest EditorEva YachnesGuest Editor

NEW YORK SOCIETY FOR ETHICAL CULTURE

2 West 64th Street, New York, NY 10023Phone: 212- 874-5210Fax: 212-595-7258Email: offi [email protected]: http://www.nysec.orgMember of the American Ethical Union©2013 New York Society for Ethical Culture

The past speaks to us in a thousand voices, warning and comforting, animating and stirring to action. What its great thinkers have thought and written on the deepest problems of life, shall we not hear and enjoy? The future calls upon us to prepare its way. Dare we fail to answer its solemn summons?

— F e l i x A d l e r

ETHICAL OUTLOOK SPECIAL ISSUE 3

Leader’s LetterI am a reader who is often forced to write. I read the essays in this collection with unmitigated joy - and then wrote one myself, one that Elaine deemed worthy to be included with the other writers’ work. What an honor to be in their company!

Once upon a time, I loved to write. Poems, plays and essays � lled ring-bound notebooks, and I poured my heart into journals with handmade paper. � en it became hard — “excruciating,” I began to tell people (a shameless ploy to push back deadlines). I would blame the change on raising a family if my children hadn’t given me one of those journals. No, it was my stubborn response to the demands of the task.

I needed help, and I found it in Elaine’s writing class. Like a skilled midwife she coaxes and soothes, encouraging the rebirth of creativity; something lost or formerly unrealized comes to life on the page.

Every essay in this collection is a gem, mined from memories and polished with care. So vivid is the writing that, while I read, I felt myself settle into a plush chair next to Muriel in her palace. I cheered when Carole � nally rode her blue Schwinn bike and Pat’s granddaughter performed her “rock-a-show.” I longed to stand with Mary in the front hall of her parents’ home.

Take a bare-knuckled ride in Tom’s bus and learn to forgive Howard’s “prodigal pun.” Celebrate with Eddye the success of her vocal students and visit with Patricia her dear friends Meg and Glenn. � en grab a handkerchief before you read Sabine’s letter

to her girlhood friend. Finally, let Eva gently bring you home

— to the meeting house of the New York Society for Ethical Culture. She reminds us that home is not only the place where you were born or the place to which you escape; it’s also — and most importantly — the place where you belong.

� ank you to all the writers and to Elaine who nurtured their creativity. � ank you to Patrick, whose brainchild this issue is, for his vision. � ank you, dear readers, for whom we all write and hope to touch.

D R . A N N E K L A E Y S E N — L E A D E R


Editor’s LetterWho am I? Let me introduce myself and welcome you to this, our �rst “Ethical Voices” issue of ETHICAL OUTLOOK. It’s a new venture for us, and we hope you’ll enjoy hearing from our writers, and perhaps yourself contribute to future issues.

I’ve been a proud member of Ethical for about 25 years, and I’ve met many wonderful people over the years, but I’ve stayed mainly in the background. I’ve never wanted to head any group or lead any parade. But I’ve always wanted to contribute, and what I have to o�er are my editorial skills and experience. At �rst, for a number of years, I assisted on the newsletter with Sylvan and Judy Wallach, two wonderful people who were a joy to work with. After they stepped away from the newsletter, I was o�ered the editorship, and I’m happy and proud to be a part of it and to work with talented folks like Deborah Foster and Patrick Arenas to produce it.

�roughout my career, I’ve gone back and forth, employed as a sta� writer and editor in three main areas: health care, professional societies, and the trade press. I’ve worked for Beth Israel Medical Center, NYU Medical Center/School of Medicine, and the American Foundation for the Blind. I’ve worked for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the American Institute of CPAs. I’ve also worked for Fairchild Publications, CMP Publications, National Jeweler, Watson-Guptill Publications, and other publishers, and done freelance work. I love words, and if I can work with them in service to the greater good, I’m happy.

In the early sixties I left home, hitch-hiked with a friend through Europe and lived in Israel for seven years. I went home twice to visit my family in New York in the sixties, and participated in the 1963 March on Washington and the 1965 demonstration in Montgomery,

Alabama. Hearing Martin Luther King speak (I wasn’t close enough to see him well), and being there among the thousands of other participants are things I will never forget. When I returned to America at the end of 1970, I wanted to �nd people who, like me, hoped to make the world a better, more just place, and who were working toward those goals.

Back home, I signed petitions, and demonstrated, and read about the sorry state of the world, but I didn’t want to keep doing that alone. I wasn’t part of anything organized, and I wasn’t quite sure where I could �nd other people who wanted to make a di�erence. Not for me the comforts and sureties of my own ethnic and religious background, with a god who took a personal interest in me, my family, and my people. I’m Jewish and always will be; that’s my culture and my history – just look at me and listen to me and watch me get teary hearing the old folk songs and music I grew up with. But I couldn’t accept the religious part.

I wanted to see peace and justice and equality everywhere — but the people demonstrating in the streets — about the Vietnam War, women’s rights, and many other issues and inequities — showed me that those dreams were still far from being realized, and there was still much work to be done.

Somewhere — I don’t remember where — I heard or read about Ethical Culture. I read about the issues with which the Society was concerned, and some of the things it was doing, And I decided to see for myself. Much time has passed; I’m older, maybe wiser, more tired, and less optimistic. But I’m still here, and happy I can contribute. I hope you’ll �nd the essays in this issue rewarding, and perhaps you’ll contribute to our next special issue.

S E L M A F R I E D M A N — E D I T O R


Our ExperimentWe started the Ethical Culture writing classes nine years ago as an experiment that began with one ten-week class. It was a trip to the unknown, because I had never run a workshop before, but it went well and, before long, we had two separate workshops each week — a Monday evening class and one on � ursday evenings. We had the two evening classes for a long time, but this year the Monday class became a Tuesday afternoon class.

Most of these workshops have a core of experienced writers and some new ones; it is a good combination; the experienced writers provide stability and inspiration, while the new ones o� er great new energy.

All of the pieces in this issue were written as homework assignments, and most of the writers here have spent a while in the classes. � ere is no rhyme or reason for the choice of pieces except that I, with Eva Yachnes, a longtime student and co-editor with me of the Workshop Writers’ Space on the NYSEC Web site, and co-editor of the writing in this newsletter, wanted to include them. Some were written a while ago, and we remembered them as favorites, and some were written recently and were fresh in our minds. We were asked to pick ten pieces and did, but it is important to say that we could have picked twenty, thirty or more � ne pieces of writing by workshop writers; talented people join these classes.

� e writing classes illustrate a great strength

of Ethical Culture’s. I knew a lot about educating adults and about writing when people at Ethical got me started running the classes, but they knew I’d never taught before and they took a chance. I, along with the writers, show how Ethical Culture tells the truth when it says it is a place where people can thrive and develop their best selves in a supportive community.

I want to dedicate this special newsletter to Barbara Levenson and Sabine Rosenberg of our community; they both died recently. Barbara is the one who thought of getting the classes started. Sabine also helped me get started and was my beloved pal at Ethical through all these years. While she was in the class, her family published a book of pieces she wrote about how she escaped death at the hands of the Nazis. No one escapes entirely, of course; Sabine died in July at the age of 88, still not ready to go and wishing that she didn’t have to. One of her pieces is included here. I hope that you will enjoy reading that piece and the others.

E L A I N E B E R M A N — G U E S T E D I T O R

Photo Credit: Ken Gans


“Are we going up for peas or corn this summer?” my son wants to know, “up” referring to the direction — north — we will travel to my parents’ home in upstate New York. My father has a garden, and these are Andrew’s favorite vegetables. It’s not just eating them that he likes; he also enjoys picking them and preparing them to put in the freezer. It’s a rare treat for a boy from Brooklyn. I realize that this gives him an opportunity to interact with both of my parents: Dad in the garden and Mom in the kitchen, both of them outside or in the basement where we shuck the peas and husk the corn. He’s old enough now to have a conversation, which means he can �nally have a relationship with Mom. She never felt comfortable holding him or his sister Emily when they were infants. It broke Dad’s heart that she couldn’t embrace them. “I thought she would change with grandchildren. She was never comfortable holding you children either.” I would reassure him that having an a�ectionate grandfather was enough, especially once Emily could bake with Mom and they could both play Uno with her. “It’s not your fault, Dad. She is who she is.”

Dad welded together a contraption, that I’m sure would have made him millions if he had patented it, making it easier to take the kids for walks in the �elds. (�ere was farmland all around us.) �e stroller’s wheels were too small for the weeds that sometimes towered over the kids when they walked, and they had outgrown the backpack. Dad’s invention, jerryrigged from equipment in the barn — lawn mowers, tillers, garden tractors — had a seat that lifted the passenger over the crops, wheels that provided traction, and handles at a comfortable level for pushing. It opened up a new horizon and was a worthy addition to the little red cart we used to pull them for walks along the road.

When his younger sister became mobile, Andrew would take Emily by the hand and lead her around the estate. He wanted to be her guide, but Emily was having none of it and bellowed “Self! Self!’ She could do everything by herself. My parents laughed and shook their heads. �ey could see how much Andrew longed to be the expert, the one who came before and blazed new trails. But Emily wanted to blaze her own trails.

�e darkness in the country was disconcerting to my children. In Brooklyn the lights are always on, cars are on the street and people on the sidewalks. But here there were �re�ies to chase and sunsets on the lake and rocking in the lawn swing. We

still lived in a one-bedroom apartment, so the sheer size of the house and barn, the lawn and �elds was liberating. One moment the kids were tearing around like lunatics, the next they sat quietly examining a wayward toad. Collections of bugs, leaves and stones were gathered and abandoned. And there were cousins, lots of

cousins, to visit. �ose were happy times when we could spend a

week or two with my parents during the summer. I wanted Andrew and Emily to know and love them, to experience their lives for themselves, not only from stories I told them. But they grew up and went to camp or took trips with their friends. �e farm wasn’t as attractive as it once was, and Mom did no better with teenagers than she did with infants. �e conversations were harder, but they still enjoyed playing Uno with her.

Mom died a couple of years ago, and we’ll celebrate Dad’s 97th birthday on August 31st. Andrew will be at a friend’s wedding in Minneapolis, but Emily will be there. I hope she and Dad enjoy some “quality” time together. I know they will.

Summer

D R . A N N E K L A E Y S E N — L E A D E R


My Real WorldI was not a princess, although I did grow up in a palace. It was my magni�cent, lavishly furnished home. At each entrance to the palace, guards were stationed and stopped everyone seeking admittance until they were cleared to enter. When in residence, at least once a day, and sometimes more, I walked down a grand, richly carpeted staircase that had a magni�cent carved mahogany banister. �e main receiving hall was enormous with royal red velvet predominating. On both sides there were large gilded, plush-upholstered armchairs set in pairs with elegant crystal sconces on the walls.

Upstairs, inside my private rooms, there were Louis XV tables and chairs, mirrors and statuary, wallpaper adorning the walls, with thick, luxurious carpeting everywhere. Beauty, comfort and tranquility were mine.

Downstairs, in my private screening room, stars twinkled and slowly moved in the midnight blue sky miles above my head. I permitted other people to come and share the delights of this room with me and I experienced great pleasure sitting there immersed in darkness while worlds unknown and undreamt of revealed themselves to me.

My palace was just a block away from the home I shared with my mother, Gram-ma and my brother John. Four of us lived in a one-bedroom apartment the whole of which could have totaled no more than 300 square feet. �e ornate tables placed alongside the textured fabric on the sofas in the upstairs receiving room — that was my furniture, not the tables whose legs could at any moment break free from their latest coat of glue and crash to the �oor. Not mine either was the daybed in their living room on which I slept and which occasionally hosted bedbugs, one of which I discovered deceased in my ear one dank, humid summer’s morning. �e beautiful high-backed chairs at my palace were the chairs of royalty, not the

armchair that resided with my family, the arm of which was tied together with rope and hidden under a cheap slipcover. Woe to anyone whose arm unwittingly rested too heavily on the chair’s arm causing it to abruptly plummet to the �oor. My palace is where I really lived; the other was a small, dark, crowded, cramped, cockroach-ridden hovel.

My private palace was the Loew’s Triboro �eater in Astoria. It was at the corner of Steinway Street and 28th Avenue, or as it was known then, Vanderventer Avenue. For 27 cents I could enter my grand home where the “guard” always smiled at me as she took my ticket. Entering and becoming immersed in that beauty and �nery transformed me. Inside that

building was my reality; the other, a place where no piece of furniture was intact, was my unreal world, the one I desperately needed to reject in order to make it through childhood. One helped me endure the other until the time when they could be merged into my special reality, until the time when I could pursue those dreams that had their beginning in a dark

theater with stars rolling by overhead.My palace world taught me many things. Why,

there actually were families that sat down to meals together and talked to each other. In Meet Me in St Louis there was always food in the pot in their kitchen. In my palace world, parents supported and directed their children down paths leading to growth and con�dence. Over and over again this reel world provided education, values, love and hope.

Today, two of the most ordinary three-family residences imaginable now occupy the space at Steinway Street and 28th Avenue. My palatial home is no more. I took what I needed from its having been, but I wonder, what is there now to inspire little girls — and boys — who live a block away? Television — iPads — the Internet? �ere will be something. �ere must be.

M U R I E L B E R G E R


A Win-Win SituationI heard my mother and grandmother speaking in low hushed tones, “She is developing early, too early, poor dear. Very soon we’ll have to get her a bra.”

“It won’t be very long before she gets her…”I couldn’t bear to hear any more. �e truth was

I didn’t need them to tell me anything. I could just look at myself and �gure it out; going on eleven, I was developing early. Ugh!

Well, no matter, I thought as I tried to put it out of my mind, spring is here.

Once again, my friends and I were outdoors, roller skating, jumping rope and playing stoopball. We played hopscotch and hit the penny for hours. I had become pro�cient at these games, but there was one thing I had not been able to master. For Christmas, my family had surprised me with a shiny, new Schwinn bicycle. As the snow melted and the weather warmed, Grandpa attempted to teach me how to ride. It was before the invention of training wheels, so you had to learn to balance, steer and brake on your own, usually with some patient, hearty soul running along beside you. Try as I might I couldn’t get the hang of it, and Grandpa was growing weary running up and down holding the rear of the seat. He couldn’t bear to see the scraped on scraped knees and elbows that were hurting his precious granddaughter. He was the �rst to give up. “Maybe I’ll try another time.”

“But Grandpa, I want to learn now!”I was determined to succeed. I envied my friends

who were whizzing past me, up and down the streets in my neighborhood. Was my life going to be limited to my short block? When would I be able to explore the outer reaches?

Good luck was literally around the corner, in the form of a boy. We were sort of friends but didn’t “play” together, mainly because he was a boy and

one grade ahead of me. I was sitting on my stoop one afternoon when he ambled over.

“Having some trouble learning to ride your bike? I can teach you.”

“Okay.”“I’ll make a deal with you.” He pointed to my

chest. “You show me your…with your blouse o�, and I promise I will teach you.”

“No way.” I began to retreat up the stairs.“You want to ride your bike, don’t you?”My heart pounding, I ran into my house and

slammed the door. I don’t recall (perhaps I don’t wish to) what went on in that pre-adolescent mind of mine that night. �e next morning at school I made my way toward Richard.

“I’ll do it.”“When?”“�is afternoon, at my house.”�ere was no way I could do this thing in my

house, but there was a freestanding garage in the back yard. Just behind the garage was a narrow space, maybe three feet in width, that backed up to another garage. Up until then. it had been a great place to scurry during hide and seek.

We squeezed in and faced each other. I raised my blouse and then some sort of camisole. Fortunately the “bra-thing” had not yet taken e�ect. I

stared straight over his head; I guess he stared straight at me, but I couldn’t be sure. It was over in an instant — out from behind the garage and into the sunlight.

True to his word, Richard taught me how to balance and ride my bike. I knew I had gotten the better half of the bargain. For a moment of “sin” I won the freedom to whiz up and down streets all over the neighborhood. �e blue Schwinn and I became best friends. Strangest of all, those few seconds behind the garage were not so bad. Not so bad at all — in fact they were kind of exciting.

C A R O L E C H A M L I N


Close To Far From Plain JaneI was busy at work one snowy morning, formatting the address my husband and daughter were going to give that Sunday, when the phone rang. It was our other daughter, Diane. “Mom, is there any chance that you could come over? Jane’s been saying that she wants to play with you.”

“Oh, honey, I’d love to, but I’m in the middle of a big job on the computer, getting Daddy and Caroline’s talk formatted. � en I have a 1:30 physical therapy appointment. Maybe I could come over later, after her nap.”

“Okay.” � en I heard her tell Jane, “Grandma has some work she has to do now, but she’ll try to come over later.”

I could hear Jane in the background saying emph-atically, “I want her to come over now!”

� ere’s been a special bond between my granddaughter Jane and me for all of her three years. It pleases me so that she enjoys our time together as much as I do. Our relationship is closer than ever now, since I’ve become part of the team � lling in for her nanny, Juliana, who’s undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer. Since the two of them love each other so much, we’ve all been concerned about how Juliana’s absence would a� ect Jane. I’m relieved and grati� ed to see how she’s rolling with the punches these days, adjusting to her new caregivers. She told me how much she likes Laura, her Barnard babysitter who often cares for her in the afternoons.

Her face lights up in an adorable grin when I arrive to pick her up at her nursery school. “Jane, it’s Grandma Patsy!” her teacher, Ashley, exclaims.

“Grandma!” Jane cries as she runs to me for a big hug. After I bundle her up in her jacket and hat and secure her in her stroller, we set out for home.

“Let’s stop at Old MacDonald’s!” she suggests.“Okay! Here we go!”We usually bring her chicken McNuggets home

with us, but last week she wanted to eat them in the restaurant and, with no toys around to distract her, she � nished them to the last bite. Sometimes her busy morning at school leaves her exhausted and on the ride home she’ll interrupt my chatter with, “Don’t talk!” and will fall sound asleep in the stroller.

But, once home, we play happily together with any number of her toys and art supplies. Something as simple as two balloons can provide an opportunity

to gain athletic skills and have a lot of fun. “Balloon ball” involves each of us throwing a balloon to each other and trying to catch it. When I catch one of her “balls,” she’ll often shout, “Congratulations!” Soon her imagination endows them with personhood. “Oh, my baby!” she’ll coo as she hugs and kisses a balloon in between throws.

She’s not quite ready to say goodbye to some babyish

ways herself, like diapers. When I told her that we needed to change her poopy diaper, she said, “No. I’m not � nished.”

“Oh. How would you like to � nish it on the potty?” I asked her. She paused and gave that some thought.

“Okay!”So, I put her on the toilet with the potty ring and

she did, indeed, manage to � nish her business there, like us big people.

“Look! You did it!” I said with admiration. “Would you like to � ush it down yourself?”

“Sure!”Diane tells me that over this past weekend Jane

wore underpants instead of (continued on page 18)

P A T D E B R O V N E R


Images from the Front HallRecently, I have been thinking about the front hall in the house where I grew up. � is seems odd, because after all, a front hall is just a place to pass through on the way to get someplace else, not a space to think about one way or another.

However, as I have grown into old age, I have begun to while away the time when I can’t sleep at night by revisiting the house in my mind. Many times I never get farther than the front hall. � is is not because, as you might imagine, thinking about the front hall causes me to fall asleep more quickly. It is due to the � ashes of memory I get when I conjure up an image of that space.

� e front hall was a large, serene, airy room two stories high. It was located at the center of the house. All of the major rooms on the � rst � oor opened into it. During the sixty years that my family lived in the house the front hall changed very little. � e walls were painted grey-green, the trim was white. A many-colored Persian rug, which faded only a little over time, partly covered the hardwood � oor. A wooden table and ladder-backed chair remained in their places next to each other against the wall opposite the front door. A mirror in its ornate wooden frame continued to hang on the wall over the center of the table. Most of one wall was taken up by a staircase that was always covered with a dark-green carpet. White spindles held up the mahogany

banister that swept up the side of the staircase and continued along the side of the landing above. Sunlight came down to the front hall from a window on the landing.

I am four-years-old. We have just moved into the house. I am sitting on the rug in the front hall. Shafts of golden light are slanting down through the landing

window. I am mesmerized by the way that they make dust motes dance in the air, and cause dark colors to glow in the pool of light that falls on the rug.

My mother and father, my two sisters, my brother and I moved into the house in the summer of 1941. But when World War II started a few months later we became an extended family. Our favorite aunt and her ten-year-old daughter came to live with us, and a nine-year-old English evacuee billeted with us as well. I was the youngest of all the children and wished that I wasn’t.

I am standing in the front hall feeling very proud. Finally, my short, wispy hair has grown long enough so that I can wear

pigtails just like the older girls. � is day, for the � rst time, I join the morning ritual: taking my turn to stand at the front hall table and look into the mirror as our aunt braids my hair.

Another milestone in the process of getting to be a big girl was when my brother taught me to slide down the banister. � is was my preferred method of getting downstairs for many years.

M A R Y D A V I D O F F H O U T S


Images from the Front Hall

M A R Y D A V I D O F F H O U T S

I have just slid down the banister to get to breakfast. My father has met me at the foot of the stairs. He is pointing out to me that, at thirteen, I should be thinking of behaving in a more lady-like fashion. I am downcast at the thought of being restricted, but excited by the idea of turning into a young lady.

Around the same time, my eldest sister was to be married in the living room.

I am standing on the front hall landing in a blue ta�eta dress waiting with my sisters for the wedding music to begin. �en my middle sister and I walk slowly and solemnly down the stairs and out into the living room where we wait for the bride to do the same.

We younger ones, in turn, each began the way to our wedding and our new life by standing on the front hall landing waiting for the music to begin.

After I was married I came often to visit my parents with my husband and later with our children as well.

It is early morning, the sun has not yet reached the front hall window and the room is dim. My new-born son has been crying for half an hour and nothing seems to soothe him. In desperation, I have put him into his carriage and am pushing it back and forth over the bump that the edge of the rug makes. It works, he has fallen asleep! I am ecstatic.

When the children were still young, my father died.

We have come to the house to be at the family gathering before the funeral. As we walk into the front hall I am stunned by the strong feeling that my father’s presence is everywhere, even though I know that he is gone for good.

For more than twenty years after that we continued to visit my mother in the house. Over time, her gait grew ever slower as she came from her study to greet us in the front hall. Eventually, a chair lift had to be installed on the staircase so that she could get upstairs to her bedroom.

It is the last year of my mother’s life. I am watching as she painfully gets o� the chair lift onto the front hall landing. She grits her teeth, grasps the banister and puts superhuman e�ort into getting up the two stairs that go from the landing into the upstairs hall. I am devastated by what the passing of time has done to her body, but �ooded with

admiration for how she �ghts back. �e front hall no longer exists as it was. �e

young couple who bought the house have changed it almost beyond recognition. But in my mind it hasn’t changed, and memories that come with it at night vividly illuminate the past for me before they vanish into the darkness.


The Prodigal PunWhen I was in college, I sent a letter home to my father in which the only written content was this question: “What did Kareem Abdul-Jabber get in his eye at a Hawaiian barbecue?”

If you know the history of one of basketball’s greatest players you should get the answer easily. Kareem, of course, was originally Lew Alcindor and I’m sure it took less than a nanosecond for my father to transpose that fact into the obvious reply, “A luau cinder!”

Dad, after all, was an inveterate punster who, as a lyricist, made a living playing with words. One song was actually full of riddles based on puns:

How does it feel ridin’ on a trolley, ridin’ ‘round to get some air? How does it feel ridin’ on a trolley? Fare, fare, fare!

In a little ditty called “I Never Harmed An Onion (So Why Should � ey Make Me Cry?”) the o� enses against various items of produce include making an “arti-choke” and a melon bawl.

� e side e� ect of these linguistic shenanigans is that my father became to his sons what the Pillsbury Doughboy is to aspiring bakers: a creative Roll Model. It is not surprising, therefore, that my collegiate correspondence included the aforementioned groaner. And when I say that punning is in my genes it doesn’t mean I carry a thesaurus in my Levi’s.

My sister remembers my father, brother and I salting our nightly dinner conversation with a competitive pun-o� . It seems that the unfortunate trait is more prevalent in males. While females have two X chromosomes, guys get our words from the Y’s.

� us a� icted, I have tried throughout my life to cope with adversity and make the most of it.

My high school classmates thought I was oh-so-clever when I wrote a story for the school newspaper about a boy on a quest, seeking wisdom from an oracle named � e Ventricle.

Early in my career, writing for children’s television shows, I got away with jokes that made kids giggle and adults gag. For example, a character known as Professor Fingleheimer would ask questions like, “How far is Little Rock, Arkansas, from Pebble Beach, California?” (A stone’s throw.) Or, “Where do mailmen go when they retire?”

(� eir old stamping grounds.)Not exactly Emmy-winning material, but what’s a boy to

do when he gets rewarded for trying to emulate his greatest literary in� uences. No movie quote is more memorable to me than Groucho Marx’s response to his secretary in Horse Feathers:

SECRETARY: � e Dean is furious. He’s waxing wroth.GROUCHO: Is Roth out there, too? Tell Roth to wax

the Dean for a while.Similarly, no line of poetry made more of an impression

in my formative years than the footnote that Ogden Nash appended to his classic work, “� e Lama.” To clarify the poem’s closing line, “…there isn’t any three-l lama,” Nash explains, “� e author’s attention has been called to a type of con� agration known as a three-alarmer.”

Memories like these are my curse and inspiration, a� icting me with a Tourette-like habit that I can neither control nor condone, so ingrained and instinctive that I keep a list of pun-infested questions which I foolishly imagine might someday be dropped into a conversation.

Who does Art Garfunkel see to have his vision checked? (Paul’s Eyeman)

What do they serve at the annual breakfast for Oscar losers? (Bruised Eggos)

What was the title of Oliver Twist’s autobiography? (“Gruel and Unusual Punishment”)

Somebody stop me! If this is humor, waterboarding is a spring shower. Yet I continue to torture my family and friends, ignoring grimaces and groans, not knowing when to stop or, worse, knowing but not stopping.

� e really sad part is, I fear this punitive gene has not done my son Mark the favor of skipping a generation. For better or worse, he’s got the calling, humoring me on family occasions while telepathically amusing a grandfather he knows only by reputation.

For enduring this confession, I share with you the words expressed by a tailor in New Delhi when approached by a tourist who had just ripped the beautiful new garment draping her body. “You � x?” she asked ungrammatically. “Yes, memsahib,” he replied mockingly, “I sew sari.”

And that’s what we call, in the � eld of semantic elastics, a stretch.

H O W A R D J A F F E


The Bus Operator�e bus depot is in the South Bronx. It is named “�e Walnut Depot.” I am �fty years old and therefore the oldest new bus operator. I am thinking that maybe I’m too old to be starting this kind of work. I have only three weeks of training, and I have never driven anything larger than a car. �is is the kind of work you start when you are about twenty and retire from in your �fties. I had it backwards. I am worried that I will not have the energy to do the job. I have to shape up at 5 AM to get my bus. My last job was as a banker with banker’s hours, from 9 AM to 3 PM, so I am not a happy camper.

My route begins in the South Bronx at 138th Street and goes north to Riverdale. My �rst day is cold and snowy with gale force winds which shake and rattle the old bus I am about to drive. �ere is no power steering and no power brakes; the bus should have been taken o� the road years ago. Why did I get such a clunker to drive? Just my luck what with all the new buses with power brakes and steering all around me.

I get into a seat torn from years of use. �e steering wheel feels cold and loose. I turn on the motor and it sounds strong, which is a surprise to me. I check the brakes by rolling the bus a few feet and stopping. �e brakes are strong and so is the emergency hand brake, which is old fashioned and stands up from the �oor to the seat. Well, I can’t complain to the dispatcher; the bus will do the job. So I roll out of the depot and toward the beginning of my route a few miles away.

�is is the Bronx with many steep hills, and I am starting to sweat from fear that I can’t manage such a large piece of machinery. And what if I get lost somewhere in the Bronx? At my �rst stop I look at the faces of my passengers climbing aboard this old wreck of a bus. �ey trust me, so I can’t let them down. I manage to say hello and good morning to each of them. Many respond likewise, so I feel con�dence coming over me. I can do this; nothing to it. Just hang on to the wheel and don’t fall out of the seat.

I drive slowly because of the ice and snow on the road. If the bus slides on the ice – I don’t want to think of it. After a half hour the bus is full and passengers are even crowding me in the driver’s seat. I remember from riding the route in the training bus that a very steep and twisting hill is ahead of me. I see it now and the fear comes back. I want to be a passenger. “Hey, does somebody know how to drive a bus?” I feel like shouting to the passengers.

At the last stop before the “hill of death” no one can get on the bus; there is no more room. I move the bus away from the stop and pick up a little speed. �e hell with the icy road – without some speed the bus will not start up that hill. Here we go folks, say your prayers, I say to myself. �e wheels are starting to slide. I have to get more aggressive, so I push down on the gas for more speed and I hold onto the shaking wheel. �is is it! Here we go up and up with no slipping back down the hill. �e passengers all look calm, so I remain calm, too. But then they don’t know what is going on.

I have the bus under control and we are slowly but surely going to make it to the top. As the bus goes over the top I look down and see a very steep road and too much ice and snow. I don’t think the snow plows have been to this hill yet. I don’t want to be here – a nice sunny beach in Florida comes to mind.

Over the top and down we go, the bus sliding and picking up speed. I remember – don’t try to correct for the slide. Just turn into the slide until the bus corrects itself and pump the brake as fast as I can. Coming to the bottom and a sharp turn to the right I struggle with all my might to get the wheel to turn without toppling over the bus. We are going to make it, and the road is leveling out and �at. I haven’t lost control and, with great relief, I pull into the stop.

People get on and people get o�. One guy says, “Man, I didn’t think you would be able to hold onto the bus. �ank you for a great ride.”

“You’re welcome,” says I, “and top of the morning to you.” In just a little while I will stop shaking.

T O M K E N N E D Y


Moving ForwardEverything that has happened in my life has brought me to the professional level I now experience and enjoy. I would never have imagined this when I started. What we think, plan, anticipate, even work toward is not necessarily in God’s plan for our lives. Life takes many twists and turns, pauses and advances. So here, after years of singing, studying and being acknowledged as artist, master teacher/coach, singing-actress, it all comes into focus and into one experience where everything makes perfect sense and just �ts.

�is is where I �nd myself today in Washington, D.C., at Georgetown University, for the Presidential Scholars in the Arts rehearsal week and performance. Coaching these very �ne artists for the biggest concert presentation in their young lives, I pull from all my training, experience, history and imagination, from the girl in Fort Worth, Texas, during the �fties, singing the popular songs of radio, television and church, to a special coach training classical, jazz and pop singers of the 21st century. I have the opportunity to impact my life experience on eager, gifted, exceptionally receptive teenagers on the verge of adulthood and higher education and a future with challenges not unlike those I met in my own life. However, they are now living in a century of highly developed and advanced communication and technology, a continually reducing global experience, more advanced medical and scienti�c wisdom, and personal and family relationships not at all dictated by the mores of the post Second World War generational thoughts and concepts.

�ese young people already know more than I did at their age. It is knowledge on so many levels that I wonder whether it is a burden or an opportunity for growth. �eir world is so much larger than I experienced. �eir viewpoints infused by the Internet are at times insightful, clear, curious, thought provoking and often very compassionate, but also muddled, confused, popular, and not always well thought through. At times they lack the maturity that comes with life experience, which should not ever be undervalued. �ey should also have an appreciation for how much they have been given, not “earned” through hard-fought adversity, discrimination or challenge. I am con�dent all this will come with time.

Fortunately for me they listen to my instruction and attempt to incorporate it into their own vocal language and experience. I bring life to the vocal technique with humor, stories from my past, and old-fashioned sayings. I challenge them to step out and venture to sing without fear of non-acceptance but with the determination and courage to present themselves as who they really are and to just tell their stories, their artistic truth. For some this is easier said than done, even with all their ability and all their talent. �at insecurity, along with comparing and judging themselves personally with each other, shows me there is still room for growth and self-acceptance and realistic expectations.

�e concert is basically a little less than a week away and rehearsals are many and intense. Detail after detail is de�ned, re-de�ned, and energy levels physical and mental are stretched to the limit. �ese young artists can work extended hours and retain intricate directions in staging, dance movement, and lyrics to songs. �is is indeed the energy of youth!

My work each day is in the morning when my singers are fresh and their minds uncluttered. Some singers check my schedule for open times to work further on their solos or group repertoire. It is always a happy moment for me when there is a discovery, a breakthrough on a speci�c pitch or musical phrase, a resolved technical musical segment. Even more so, like this morning, when two very talented singers realized they had to “own” their distinctive voice qualities and in so doing come together singing a duet with power and beauty. It brought to my memory the duets of Sherrill Milnes and Placido Domingo, di�erent voice types and vocal quality indeed but ever so beautiful. For my singers the joy they received was from realizing they could be themselves vocally and bring their special beauty to the song. It was a “La Cage aux Folles” moment in a way: “I am what I am!” Singing is so very personal, physically, mentally and emotionally; it requires a lot of courage and determination to master the technique and to perform it well.

�ere are many more hours of rehearsals before the curtain call. We are moving forward, all of us, to the Kennedy Center stage and for these young talents... beyond!

E D D Y E P I E R C E - Y O U N G


Dear GreetjeDear Greetje,

� e last letter I wrote to you from Nice was returned to me, “ADDRESS UNKNOWN.” Address unknown! You were born in that house! I was writing you how we � nally made it to the unoccupied part of France, after many scares and hardships. How was I to know that you were already in Westerbork? I had just said goodbye to you, a few months ago. I was not allowed to tell anybody that we were leaving, taking a chance trying to get out, but of course I told you. We never had any secrets from each other, not in all the years we were best friends. We were inseparable, as adolescent girls can be. We always wondered how it would feel to kiss a boy and if we would ever get married.

Do you remember that last summer when we got on our bikes and went to Groningen, where we stayed for a week at your grandparent’s farm? It was so much fun and we felt so grown up.

You never knew that I got married and had children and lived a whole full life. When shall I ever stop feeling guilty that I was so lucky and you were not?

I heard later that all the Jews had to wear a yellow Star of David with “Jood” written on it, that all bicycles and cars were con� scated and that public transportation for Jews was forbidden. What about all those people who were elderly and had di� culty walking? I heard also that you could only buy food

and other things, such as medicines, during the one hour a day allotted to you. Every day new laws, new restrictions! How did you ever manage?

After the war I returned brie� y to Holland and I saw your brother at a lecture. He had survived, the only one of your family. He had been hidden by a Christian family. � e weird thing is we never even said hello to each other. He did not come over to

me; maybe he was resentful that I was here and his family wasn’t. Why I did not approach him and tell him how happy I was to see him I don’t know. All I could remember, that last time I came to say goodbye to you, was him sneering at me: “� ere is no need to run, running is for cowards, nothing is going to happen to us, not in Holland; the Dutch people would never allow it!”

When he went into hiding, did he try to save you also? Maybe he did and you were betrayed. Maybe the prevailing thought was that only the men were in danger and that the women and children would be allowed to stay at home. Even before I left, there were new and di� erent rumors every day. � ere are

so many maybes! I could have tried to talk to him and ask him, but this was right after the war and nobody asked questions. It was too painful.

Dear Greetje, as I am in the last quarter of my life, I felt the need to tell you what a good friend you were and how dear you were to me.

Sabine

S A B I N E R O S E N B E R G


Meg and GlennI wake up to the sound of Meg and Glenn in the bathroom. “Pick up your foot,” Meg is saying. “You have to take a shower. You have to be clean somehow. No, stop that, you have to wash. Do you want to go to the hospital? Or do you want to be here with me? You have to wash, honey. We have to shave you too.” I hear the struggle, then the sound of a door � ying open and Glenn escaping down the hallway (naked, I � nd out later).

I’m visiting my good friend Meg in Jamaica Plain in Boston, where she and her husband Glenn moved in October, about four months ago. With a lot of e� ort Meg found a newly renovated third � oor apartment in a triple decker – with a rent they could a� ord, a back deck, two bedrooms and a view. It’s freshly painted in Tuscan yellows – beautifully spare, stylish, colorful, and cozy – pale yellow tulips in the living room, bright red amaryllis on the kitchen table, paintings in every room. It’s fully Meg’s place, designed to provide moments of visual peace amidst the chaos of Glenn’s decline.

Meg chose Jamaica Plain because the veterans’ hospital there o� ered a day-care program Glenn could join. She takes him twice a week, which gives her a bit of a break from his constant care, something which was not possible on Cape Cod where they had lived for thirty years – where she painted and taught and he was the harbormaster and a shell-� sherman until a few years ago. Meg doesn’t have much time for work now, and she tells everyone she’s given up painting completely; she says she hates it. She has switched to graphic design – learning Illustrator and Photoshop – and is on the lookout for freelance jobs.

Glenn’s dementia has gotten worse, even in the few weeks since I last saw them. He’s barely there. He shu� es and wanders around the apartment, which Meg says is a feature of the disease. He just needs to move. Is he looking for something? He can respond in only one or two word sentences – and with no feeling or eye contact – but he does laugh at the right time, when we laugh, and he still feeds himself. One night Glenn notices a Tupperware full of cookies we

are taking to a dinner party and while we’re down the hall he steals two cookies to eat on the sly; actually he eats one and hides the other in his pants pocket, where Meg � nds it. He’s always swiping little things which attract him, another trait of the disease, she says, and she’s always checking his jacket and pants for pilfered items. He particularly likes to snatch up a little square decorative tile Meg’s sister brought back from California. He keeps it in his pocket and holds on to it like a good luck charm.

It’s a heartbreaking situation for Meg, but one which she’s risen to confront with aplomb and loving action. We don’t live in the same city so there’s not much I can do on a daily, or even weekly, basis, except listen, and Meg is nothing if not forthright and honest about her reality. She’s learning what Medicare will and will not cover and has managed to corral all of the medical resources available to Glenn as a Vietnam vet, doing everything necessary to make the move from Well� eet to Jamaica Plain, to make his future care possible. Now, she spends her days as his constant caretaker and companion. It’s no wonder I hear harsh words and anger when he runs out of the bathroom, away from her and any hope of a shower. � reats, we agree later on, are really said to help her feel better, since Glenn hasn’t a clue what she’s yapping about. Funny, how we can talk in front of Glenn like he isn’t there, like he is every bit the one-year-old he has been reduced to at this date in January 2012.

How did Meg seem? She’s one of my oldest friends, my dearest friend since college. I’ve always admired her eloquence and clear thinking, her combination of the practical and the artistic. She’s a gardener, a painter, an insatiable reader, a student of Italian – well-known for her caustic judgments, but funny, always cleverly funny. (We both see reading as a kind of opium drug for us, involving couches and cups of tea and time happily, delightfully spent being absorbed by words on the page.) � is weekend Meg seems surprisingly more relaxed than before the move. It’s as if she can see

(continued on page 18)

P A T R I C I A T A Y L O R


A Place to BelongI know many people who never think about their place in the world; they know exactly where they belong. � ey’ll say, without hesitation, “I’m a New Yorker,” or more broadly, “I’m an American.” If asked I too will say much the same, but my statement will carry no emotional resonance.

� e truth is that I don’t feel totally at home anywhere, and I really long for the feeling of belonging. Perhaps my emotional detachment is the result of having lived in three di� erent countries by the time that I was nine-years old. None of my moves were willingly undertaken. � e � rst one was when I was six and was put on a Kindertransport train to England; the second one was my voyage to the United States.

Even though I came here with my mother and knew that my father was waiting for us in New York, I would rather have stayed in my English boarding school. I barely remembered my father and was quite happy writing letters to him from school without having to live with him in strange new country.

Perhaps adding to my feeling of not quite belonging here was my parents ambivalent feelings about this country. Not only did they not expect to � nd the streets paved with gold, they knew about lynchings and other forms of discrimination. � ey had protested against the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti in 1927. � ey had read books like Upton Sinclair’s � e Jungle about the lives of immigrants working in slaughter houses, and Sinclair Lewis’s Main Street about the narrowness of small town Americans. � ey came out of necessity, and although they spent the rest of their lives here and spoke English in preference to German, they talked wistfully about Austria.

I knew that the country they missed no longer existed—as did they. And yet, there it was, the not-

quite-belonging feeling that I absorbed from them. � e yearning to belong lessened when I became an adult with adult responsibilities. I was Jerry’s wife with a home to care for; I was Walter’s mother; I was Jerry’s widow with a living to earn for myself and my small son. � ere wasn’t time to worry about abstractions. In due time my parents aged and needed my care before they died. My son found a job, moved out and married. I retired.

Suddenly I felt that I was alone in the world. � e world around me had become more alien to me than ever. If I had never quite felt American, I certainly didn’t feel part of this newly religious

America, full of fundamentalist Christians throwing around their political weight. I had survived McCarthyism with my parents and their friends in constant fear of deportation. � ere had been the eventual backlash against that, but this seemed a great deal worse.

I often listened to the Sunday morning radio broadcasts of Ethical Culture platforms, and thought for a long time that these

are people I can agree with and would perhaps like to join. � e only thing about conventional religious groups that I envied was the feeling of belonging to a community that they give their members. I hoped that perhaps I could � nd that feeling of belonging at Ethical Culture. However, I was too comfortable with my leisurely Sunday routine of a drawn-out breakfast and the New York Times to browse through that it took several months until I actually took the long trip from the Bronx to the New York Society building.

� at was fourteen years ago, and I’ve hardly missed a Sunday at Ethical Culture since that � rst one. America may still feel just a little foreign to me, but I’ve found my community, “the place where (almost) everybody knows my name.”

E V A Y A C H N E S — G U E S T E D I T O R


a through-line now and understands her part in making things go smoothly. When this all started Meg made a choice to stay happy and to accept each moment and live, as much as possible, in the present. But Glenn (or anyone in this state) is a lot of constant work. �e downward changes are painful to watch and I’m sure to deal with daily. We talk about traveling to Italy (where we’d both like to visit). “But, when I go to Italy,” she says, “I’m not coming back.” �at idea is so Meg – strong-minded and somewhat shocking, all at once.

Last week Meg went and looked at the hospital in Belmont where Glenn will have to go when she can no longer care for him. �e doctor evaluated Glenn while Meg took the tour. She liked the place and the doctor predicted that they had about six months before Glenn would move in. But Meg says that he’s getting worse, even in the last few days. She’s worried it will be much sooner than six months. Maybe he’s just discombobulated by my being there, disrupting

their routine with trips into Boston and Cambridge, and meals out, taking Meg’s attention from him. Who knows? Maybe.

�is isn’t Alzheimer’s, where the person fades in and out of focus; this is a brain atrophy from a head injury on the job, where the decline is steady and all downhill. But Meg says there have been a few moments of the old Glenn blinking out for short twinkles – like on a recent Sunday when Glenn was watching football in the living room and Meg was reading at the kitchen table and suddenly Glenn was there, hugging her and saying. “I love you.” How could she not love him and care for him in turn?

We took a walk at the Arboretum, where they go often, and where the paths seemed like a maze to me. Glenn sometimes knew his way, but at other times he stopped and acted worried and couldn’t move. Meg would hug him then and calm him and point him down the path and say, “I’m here. You have to trust me. I know the way.”

diapers and was having a string of successes. But then she said, “I’m tired of being a big girl. I want to be a baby again and put on a diaper!” One day when I was with her, she didn’t feel the need for any clothing. She insisted on wearing nothing but a diaper.

But she does respond well to reasoning. When she doesn’t want to have me change a poopy diaper and I explain that I don’t want her to get a rash that would itch and bother her, she decides to cooperate.

One time this week, when we were playing with plastic alphabet letters, she suddenly threw them all on the �oor with a mischievous look on her face, knowing what she had done was a no-no. At �rst, she balked at my request to pick them up. But when I suggested a little while later that we organize them in piles of the same colors, she joined in. �en, when she was lying in bed, ready for a nap, and I started putting the piles away in their container, she jumped out of bed and said, “I’ll help you.”

When she wanted to ride her tricycle up and down the hall outside the apartment, she instructed me to wait for her at the end of the hall, quite a distance

away. “Jane, I’m going to wait for you in the middle �rst, where the stairs are. I want to be sure you’re safe and don’t fall down the stairs.”

She thought about it and agreed. “You wait by the stairs.” Once she safely passed the stairwell, she liked me to race her to the end. �e closer I came to overtaking her, the more exciting it was for her.

Jane loves to have me read to her, and she responds to how the actress in me dramatizes each story. I suspect the gene for performing has passed from me, through Diane, to Jane. I have fun joining in on her �ights of fantasy, being an old hand myself at make believe. Sometimes she likes to entertain the family with a show, like a recent one she called, “a rock-a-show!” “Sit there and watch!” she instructed us.

It always feels good when our time together seems to bring excitement and satisfaction to her life. �e other day, as I donned my coat, ready for a good nap when I got home, I was more than compensated for the energy I had put out caring for her when she �ashed a winning smile and said, “Grandma Patsy, you’re a beautiful baby sitter!”

Close To Far From Plain Jane (continued from page 9)

Meg and Glenn (continued from page 16)


HAVE YOU ENJOYED THIS ISSUE?ETHICAL OUTLOOK is always looking for submissions. Please help us to create a quarterly magazine that spreads the message of Ethical Culture. Submit your stories, opinions, articles, art, photos, etc. to [email protected]*

Want to get started writing? Speak with Elaine Berman at Ethical or tour our website (nysec.org). On the website click on Programs and then Arts and Culture for information about The Joy of Personal Writing class. For information on how to register for the next session feel free to contact Yalitza Garcia-Krawczyk at [email protected] or 212 874-5210, ext.116.

*Please include a photo of yourself and note that submissions do not guarantee insertion in a future issue.

ETHICALWE ARE ETHICAL CULTURE,

a community that believes all individuals have inherent worth and

dignity, and a responsibility to strive for ethical growth.

Ours is a nontheistic religion in which deeds and their results matter more than ideology.

We believe that leaving the world better than we found it is the highest good.

Learn more about us at our website — or, better still, visit with us.

You’re always welcome.

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