Update 2-4-14

 

Hi,

 

Because of the length of this week's notes, the New York Times excerpt about Lee and Morty Kaufman will finish up next week.

First, from Jay Kinder:  My parents moved to Lynbrook in 1950, and I remember the spray trucks.  We were told it was for mosquito control.  I do not remember any restrictions when the spraying was done.  Was there ever a study done in the Green Acres area to see if there is an abnormal rate of cancer?  I know that, in addition to the DDT, there was a watch factory nearby that closed.

    As for the Jewish last names:  there is no doubt about the derivation of my last name, Kinder (children).  I always wondered if my ancestors were teachers.  I taught for four years, and my brother was a career teacher, but neither my father nor any of his close relatives who I knew were teachers.

    When we married, my wife, Elaine, was so happy to get the name Kinder.  Her father was born in Russia, with the last name of Peckar -- baker in Russian.  It was not always pronounced correctly, with the accent on the "ar."

Second, from Eric Hilton:  I would be very excited to see Mary Sipp-Green’s work in person, but living in Florida -- and with you guys being a minus billion degrees and getting a ton of snow -- it's kind of a deterrent.  I hope she can have a video of the opening and her work on YouTube.  But I would also like to know if she has a web site where I can look at her beautiful work.

    Also, I’d like to pass some information to my classmates about a wonderful biography of my dear friend and film/photography mentor from Sperry Gyroscope, Walter De Hoog.  Walter was a film maker, who is Dutch, but he moved to Italy during the war, was captured by the Nazis, and escaped while on his way to a concentration camp.  His book Tulipano - a story of Wartime Italy - 1944-49 has gotten rave reviews and is written in a style that is easy reading, even for me.  The link: amazon . com/Walter-de-Hoog/e/B0094AJQIO(please remove the spaces)

    On a completely different note, but one I am hearing more and more about, this situation in schools I hope is not happening in South High:  Last night, I was watching National Geographic’s documentary of Robert D Ballard’s finding the Bismarck.  He is also the one who found the Titanic.  Being an industrial research and scientific photographer for Sperry, I found this very interesting, and when I Googled his son, Todd Ballard, who operated the underwater camera, for some reason, I also found Amanda Todd.

    This is very disturbing.  Amanda Todd was a 15-year-old girl living in British Columbia, who -- because of bullying in school and on the Internet -- committed suicide in 2012.  I am hearing so much about cyber bullying. and it's something I never knew about until a few years ago when it was mentioned in connection with some deaths of young people here in Sarasota.  Being a grandparent, I am concerned for parents who have children in school, especially since everyone seems to be using social media, and parents have no idea who their children are in touch with.  I was just devastated after reading about this beautiful young girl, Amanda Todd.

Third, forwarded by Barbara Blitfield Pech, but originally from Art Mangan, '66:  Twenty years ago, a voice mail message from Alison said that Joe Lieberman wanted me to know that he was in the throes of a suicidal depression.  I knew Joe from South High as the winner of the Best Abdominal Muscles in the Mr. Green Acres contest and the guy who sat in front me in Senorita Weinstein’s Spanish class (Hola, Mozel Tov!)  Not much more than that.
    In the 1970s, he moved to Santa Cruz, but I only saw Joe a handful of times when Andy and Paul happened to be in town at the same time.  My most vivid memory of him in those days was that he broke the glass of my back door when he left something inside and I wasn’t home.  So his cry for help was out of left field, but nevertheless hard to ignore.  That began a long-term friendship that ended, at least in the physical form, when Joe died yesterday.
    The clouds slowly, but ultimately passed on his first depression, but some years later, after breaking up with his Korean girlfriend, the skies darkened even more ferociously, and he became obsessed with killing himself.  Day after day over the phone, I would have to talk him down from the ledge, only to find that a deep darkness had lured him back to the emotional abyss that taunted and seduced him to get some relief by ending it all.  After weeks of that, I was ready to join Joe on the ledge where life stands precariously a mere millimeter from death -- an overstatement, but trying to help someone who is depressed can be depressing. Compassion for Joe’s suffering was awakening in me compassion for my own limits.
    The cause of Joe’s suffering was familial.  Loving our children seems to most of us a fundamental human instinct and really one of the great joys of life.  Anyone who has grandkids, as I do, is reminded of that in its purest, most unconditional form.  But Joe’s parents, acting out some unknown karmic entanglement, were incapable of that.  Who can say what the cause of their suffering was?  Alcoholism and abuse were much more prevalent than family picnics and playing catch.  Joe was reminded regularly of his utter worthlessness from the ones whose biological instincts should have been nurturing.
    The wounds were deep and never really healed.  After a couple of failed attempts at suicide, Joe emerged to embrace and enjoy life.  His sense of humor and enjoyment of people were once again in the foreground, but his resilience was put to the test when he came down with colon cancer.  To my surprise, he sailed through that with great courage and spirit.  He was absolutely inspirational.
    But for Joe, at every turn there seemed to be new hazards and challenges.  He was stricken by a stroke at about age 55 that left him with a severe limp and without the use of one hand.  He was no longer able to work at his life-long profession as a respiratory therapist and had to go on disability.  Isolated and handicapped, he struggled with day-to-day life and was deeply haunted by his loneliness.  All I could say to assuage his pain was that with all his suffering burning up karma, his next lifetime would be a combination of Michael Jordan and the Dali Lama.
    However, that wasn’t enough to keep his emotions from sinking once more.  As dark clouds again began to gather, he talked about meeting a friend of Paul’s wife in India.  Her name was Kuzang, and she was a 35- year-old Tibetan woman.  I could not make any sense of that, and I thought it was a complete fantasy until one day he said, “If I continue to just sit on the couch I going to kill myself.”  My reply:  “Go to India.  It’s a great idea.”  So I lent him a small duffle bag, small enough to carry with his one good hand, and he limped aboard a 24-hour flight accompanied by Paul’s wife.  There he met Kuzang, born in India, whose parents are refugees from the Chinese invasion of Tibet.
    A couple of years of immigration hoops and about $10,000 in fees and expenses, ameliorated by gushy love letters back and forth, and Joe finally had a wife.  My bet was that as soon as she learned how to read the bus schedule, she would be gone in a matter of months, if not weeks.  But Kuzang is a very honorable person who took her responsibility seriously and cared for Joe for 7 years.  Finally, considering the age difference, the cultural difference, and the burden of caring for an older man, she left.
    A few months later, Joe was diagnosed with an advanced stage of bladder cancer that had spread.  The gravity of the situation became apparent while Joe and I watched TV -- the San Francisco 49ers beat the Packers in sub freezing weather caused by the wobble of the Arctic vortex.  Joe was in a great deal of pain.
Kuzang, admirably, returned to care for Joe in his last days.  A Tibetan Lama, a close ally of Joe’s, performed post mortem ceremonies to facilitate a peaceful passing of his spirit.  He now dwells in some unknown place.

    Joe endured much.  He did his best.  May he be at peace.  I will miss him.

Fourth, from Robert Fiveson -- remembering Pete Seeger:  The summer camp alluded to as "left leaning" in the link that follows was full-on Communist.  As I've mentioned here before, my grandma -- direct from Russia -- was the cook at this camp for several seasons.  Seeger used to play for us, as both part of The Weavers and solo.  I interviewed him many years later while head of a film directorate at the Library of Congress.  You should have seen his surprise when I told him the last time I saw him play was at Camp Naivelt (New World).  He looked at me and asked, "You were there!??"

    Oddly enough, Seeger died in the same hospital my mother did.  He was a very brave loving and talented human being.  Also, Zal Yanofsky, of The Lovin Spoonful, was our camp counselor!

One of Robert's friends appended:  Ah, so that's where you learned to day dream...groovy, man.

 

The link to the Seeger article:

thestar . com/news/gta/2014/01/28/pete_seegers_specials_ties_with_a_brampton_summer_camp.html(again, remove the spaces)

Finally, Andy Dolich writes:  I do a bunch of interviews for Bloomberg News.  Go to bloomberg . com and then search on Dolich.

The class of '65  50th Reunion dates:  April 24 through April 26, 2015

 

The South '65 e-mail addresses: reunionclass65 . blogspot . com  (remove the spaces)

 

The South '65 photo site: picasaweb . google . com/SouthHS65    (ditto)

 

 

Rich