3Hotdogs
3Hotdogs's JournalSaturday night, time for one of my free associations.... so let me tell you about Bob Slater.
There used to be a section in the Reader's Digest about people you met. I was going to write about Bob but never got around to do it.
Bob was in his late 40's when I met him. He was a practicing psychological consultant. No degree in counseling but it didn't matter. He was good at counseling. He was white and most of his clients were Black. He identified with black people and Blacks were the majority of his friends. And this is where it gets more interesting.
You see, he was somewheres around 5'3 and probably didn't weigh more than 110 pounds. He also had a severe case of spina bifida so he was nearly crippled.
He frequented Black bars in Newark (NJ). Everyone knew Bob and everyone liked Bob. On rare occasion, arguments would get heated, or were looking like they were going to lead to fights. There were times I heard about that someone would stop the argument and get Bob out of the bar and onto the sidewalk until the dispute was resolved. Then Bob would be escorted back in.
Why the fuss about Bob? One of his most interesting contributions was night camp. White kids got to go to day camp or sleep away camp. Bob started Night Camp for disadvantaged kids in Orange and East Orange. It began with basketball and a couple of checker sets and so forth. After a couple of months, he recruited people to volunteer to tutor dropouts or close to being dropouts. The goal was to get G.E.D.'s for some and keep others in school.
At Bob's 50th birthday party, there were several people who stood up and credited Bob with their getting college degrees.
Then there was the time he was mugged and put in hospital. Cops took a statement and Bob said he couldn't idescribe the person who mugged him at the Orange train station. In hospital, Bob sent word that he wanted his assailant brought to his hospital bed. When the kid was brought into Bob's room, Bob said he could point him out to the cops but what good would come of that. He made the kid promise to finish high school or the cops would be notified.
The kid finished high school. He didn't attend the above mentioned birthday party but he sent a letter by way of another attendee to be read at the party. The letter described what he did and Bob's response and thanked Bob.
Then Bob came down with terminal cancer. He didn't have relatives to attend to him at bedside but he had friends.... many friends. We divided the days into shifts of 3 hours each. 24 hours a day, day and night someone was at the room with him until he died. He was never alone.
The funeral parlor was packed to the point that people were on the sidewalk outside to wait to go in to say farewell.
I only knew Bob for four or five years but his memory remains with me.
Thirty years gone and I still miss him.
Thinking about my grandmother... gone in '57. September was the time of year for canning tomatoes.
She was of Irish and Italian ancestry (Guess, me too.)
She had a couple of acres in her back yard..... tomatoes, corn, some beans. September would see her tomatoes and bushels of tomatoes she bought and they would be lined up in the kitchen. They would be washed, heated and put through a calendar and then boiled with added oregano and basil.
The finished product would be put into Ball jar and stored for winter.
Then there was my grandfather. Born in Italy. He had a spaghetti machine. They are common now.
Sunday mornings, he would take out a large board. He would start with flour and water and then add eggs. After mixing with his hands, the dough would go through the machine and then placed on a rack to dry for a couple of hours.
The closest to the spaghetti he made is Mullers egg noodles.
Then, out would come a jar of tomato sauce to be heated up. Meatballs to follow.
After making the spaghetti, he would drive to Natale's bakery to pick up fresh Italian style bread.
Sundays ---- spaghetti heaven.
"Lie flat." What would my life have been like?
---- another of my Sunday night musings.
I guess it was in the N.Y. Times, an article about some young adult, somewhere in China. He was advising his peers not to enter the workforce. Instead, lie flat. (Stay home in bed.). It is now illegal to tell people in China to lie flat.... Seems if it catches on, it will ruin the Chinese economy which depends on people willing to work long hours for low wages.
So I got to thinking about my job. I've been retired for 16 years. House is paid for, Hyundai also. And there's some money left over at the end of the month. But was it all worth it? Looking back, what did I accomplish?
I wasn't too good at it. But at first, I used to care about the job... until I didn't. Then I just did it because I thought I needed money to be a part of society and do what everybody else is doing.
I used to spend time at work thinking about how much better my life would be, spending summers in fields, watching butterflies. Or fall, winter and springs, just hiking trails in the New Jersey hills. That's what I do now.
Some of the lower paid kids today are lying flat. A post today on D.U. tells about employees in a chain, Hot Topic, walked off their jobs for low pay. Good on them.
My granddaughter is lying flat. She is 23 and never held a job. Never earned a penny. Her parents support her. I worry about her. But maybe she worries about me.
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