When We Were Kids

My big sister and I.

Many moons ago.

Television with rabbit ears in the background.

That’s when we all we had were 4 stations ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS.

We called it the “Zombie Box” because you could just stay glued to it for hours and tune the world out mesmerized at the moving pictures.

Everyone knew what was on every station, every hour of the day and still there was a TV Guide published weekly to check.

When the TV went fuzzy, you had to give it a clop on the side and magically the picture cleared up for a few minutes if you were lucky.

Those were the days. 😉

(Thank you to my sister, Roz, for refreshing a copy of this to me)

Visit Back Home

On the way to a family wedding in Monsey.

We stopped back home in Riverdale, NY after 20 years.

Wow, old building still here. 

And the KeyFood supermarket too. 

Had a nice lunch at Kai Fan kosher Chinese food (the Sesame Chicken was great!). 

Went up to my parents old apartment and saw the outlines of where the mezuzah had once stood. 

I wanted to hear their voices through the door and go in to see them again.

It was very emotional, but I felt like their presence was there with us. 

Enjoyed seeing how some (very few) things have changed and all that has otherwise stayed the same 

With seeing my wife’s family, some after many years, it was like I had never not seen them. 

I imagined that this is what dying must be like when you go to the afterlife and there is no time and you see everybody and it’s just like they have always been there. 

That was an amazing realization and feeling for me. 😉

(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal) 

What A Beautiful Song – To Forgive and to Forget

 

 

With gratitude to my beautiful daughter, Minna Blumenthal, for sharing this song by Idan Raichel with me. 

Shabbat Shalom!

Longing For The Slow and Happy Bungalow Days

So I used to hear from my wife about when she was young and went to the bungalow colony in the Catskill Mountains.

And today, I heard from a wonderful young Ukrainian woman whose family does the equivalent in the mountains there in the summer. 

When I listen to the stories, it sounds so good to get away with your family and friends for the summer to the countryside. 

Just live simply in a cabin, stay up late by the campfire singing songs, get up lazily in the morning, and during the day play sports, go fishing, and swim in the lake. 

I can’t imagine talking 3 months a year and actually being able to do this…so natural, so carefree, so back to living!

Yes as kids, we went to camp, but it’s not the same as living communally like this in such freedom and fun. 

Honestly, listening to the stories about this, left me amazingly jealous!

Perhaps, it’s a lesson about life these days…we’re adults, we’re responsible, we have to earn a living and take care of the bills and all of life’s responsibilities. 

But maybe, just maybe, there is something–a lot–to be said for letting loose a little, and just being with your loved ones, and living, really living again. 

Why do we have to wait until we’re old…too old to work anymore…and maybe too old to appreciate life as life was meant to be.  

We can’t run from our responsibilities but isn’t it worth looking for ways in life to enjoy more than a long weekend or a week vacation.

Life is too short to let it get away from us. 

Balancing the contributions of our hard labor with the enjoyment of family, friends, and fun…those are the memories that last a lifetime and beyond. 

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Those Were The Days

Wow, this was incredible.

Check out this photo of me (right) and my teacher and mentor Robert doing martial arts back in the day. 

This was at the Jewish street fair on Johnson Avenue in Riverdale, New York. 

Recently, in the last few weeks, I reconnected with Robert after almost 27 years.  

He made Aliyah to Israel and I got married, but I always remembered how much I learned from him and the fun times growing up. 

It was great to catch up on the phone with him for about 2 1/2 hours and I think we could’ve gone on schmoozing all evening. 

Then just this weekend, I received 3 large wall photos in the mail from a friend from Riverdale–out of the blue–just like my reconnecting with Robert. 

Both events came almost simultaneously after 3 decades!

Time and space are just fabrications, as G-d Almighty is eternal, and for me I am essentially the same person that I was back then. 

My body is getting (a little) older, but my inner self is still me. 

And the people who mean so much to me in my life, after G-d, that is everything to me. 😉

(Source Photo and with gratitude to Sura Jeselsohn)

Learning To Save For A Rainy Day

This was so funny coming across this big bright red piggy bank in a thrift store. 

What a blast from the past!

I remember having one of these as a child. 

My parents taught me to put my allowance in to save for the future. 

When it accumulated $10, the metal door on the bottom would open and we could put the money in the bank.

It was like a game to try to get to the magic amount and get the register to pop open.

In those days, the bank had little books for your checking and savings accounts, and when you deposited the money, you’d get a line printed with the deposit and new balance printed in the dot matrix print of yesteryear. 

Again, these were all good lessons about savings and seeing the benefits in the toy register or in your bank book.

Maybe these were things that initially inspired me to get my bachelors degree in accounting.  

The discipline of numbers was great, but it was never as exciting as the promise and hope of ever new technology, but that’s what added up at the time to me. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Like Removing A Nail

So you always hear about the techniques used when people are being tortured…one of them being have their nails ripped off.

Ouch!

So this week when I had a ingrown toenail removed, I said jokingly to the podiatrist:

“Do you do waterboarding also?”

Ok, funny, not-funny.  Still got a chuckle!

But in removing the nail, the technique is really so amazing.

They inject the toe with a local anesthetic, but hey even the injections into a sensitive toe could be pretty uncomfortable. 

So before the injection, they spray you toe with a freezing spray, so you don’t even feel the injections.

When he actually removed the nail and chemically destroyed the nailbed so it wouldn’t come back, I didn’t feel a thing.

I mean, I literally didn’t feel a thing!

It was a wonderful feeling–whatever he did, however much it would’ve hurt–it didn’t.

I thought to myself in a wave of anesthetic and freeze-numbed delight, this is absolutely wonderful.

No pain, not even a pinch. 

I could sense everything going on around me, take it in, think about it, even mull it over again and again, and just smile. 

In a way, I thought how wonderful life would be to have the ability to think in the head and feel from the heart, but have no pain or suffering in the body. 

Yes, there are plenty of damning and painful thoughts, memories, and heartaches, but for the body to be numb (even momentarily) to all the bad stuff that actually felt pretty good.

How would it feel if the mind and heart also felt no pain and only bliss–I smiled even more. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Enter With A HANDSHAKE & Leave With A HUG

So after almost 6 years at the U.S. Department of State, I am moving forward in my career to a very exciting role at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 

As I look back, I have fond memories of the wonderful high-performance division I was part of and the many amazing achievements we had together, and what our Deputy Assistant Secretary called, the “A Team.”

But one thing today is sticking out in my mind and it’s this image.

“Enter with a handshake and leave with a hug.”

On the first days, when I arrived it was all formality and firm welcome handshakes.

We don’t really know you and you don’t really know us, but we’re embarking on this journey together, and where it takes us no one really knows, BUT we wish you the best of luck–now go out and do great things!

Then on the last days, as I was preparing to leave, the formal handshakes were long gone and instead they were replaced with warm heartfelt hugs (and some special emotional words and cards). 

I was no longer a mystery of a person, with just my reputation, coming in to do G-d knows what. 

Now, I was a human being that had a genuine history with them, formed relationships with many, had faced challenges together, and had touched not only minds, but also it was apparent, hearts. 

I will not forget the special people, nor the many times shared, our accomplishments as an organization, and how we grew. 

I am moving forward not only with their tight hugs to more handshakes anew, but also to once again hopefully grow heart-to-heart with people, as further relationships are formed and we make, please G-d, amazing new progress together–for the mission and for the people. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

On The Train Of Life

My beautiful daughter, Michelle, forwarded this wonderful message to me about our journey through life, and I wanted to share it with everyone.

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Life is like a journey on a train…
with its stations…
with changes of routes…
and with accidents !

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We board this train when we are born and our parents are the ones who get our ticket.

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We believe they will always travel on this train with us.

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However, at some station our parents will get off the train, leaving us alone on this journey.

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As time goes by, other passengers will board the train, many of whom will be significant – our siblings, friends, children, and even the love of our life.

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Many will get off during the journey and leave a permanent vacuum in our lives.

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Many will go so unnoticed that we won’t even know when they vacated their seats and got off the train!

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This train ride will be full of joy, sorrow, fantasy, expectations, hellos, good-byes, and farewells.

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A good journey is helping, loving, having a good relationship with all co passengers…and making sure that we give our best to make their journey comfortable.

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The mystery of this fabulous journey is:
We do not know at which station we ourselves are going to get off.

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So, we must live in the best way – adjust, forget, forgive and offer the best of what we have.

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It is important to do this because when the time comes for us to leave our seat… we should leave behind beautiful memories for those who will continue to travel on the train of life.”

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Thank you for being one of the important passengers on my train… don’t know when my station will come… don’t want 2 miss saying: “Thank you.”

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We Watch The Years Go By

On a lighter note today, I took this photo of a couple watching their kids playing soccer.

They are sitting in Dick’s chairs. 

His (blue) and hers (pink).

Very cute!

The new generation grows up and supplants their elders–who still may feel “young at heart!”

As I get older, it definitely seems like time goes faster (and faster). 

It isn’t that some days aren’t long, but that overall the less time we have as we get into the latter portions of our life, the quicker it all seems to be passing.

So much so that it all becomes like one big dream (it should never be a nightmare, G-d forbid). 

If only we could rewind and redo the portions of our lives where we made mistakes, hurt others or ourselves, or could have just done better.

I’m not sitting in those chairs yet, but when I do, I hope it is with pleasure of heart, mind, and soul–with G-d’s mercy. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)