Winning Despite Obstacles

Most of the news today in the US is about th election of course. Donald Trump claiming that the whole system is rigged. There's a good chance he's right, but that's not the issue. The issue is how he expects to set it straight! The news in Israel seems to be about the UNESCO decision declaring that there's no connection between the Temple Mount and Jews? This is a real kick in the head for Israel and the Jewish people of course. Some UN personnel are apologizing for this, probably fearing that it smells a bit too much of anti-semitism, which it is of course. This makes the UN look very bad indeed. The sad part is that the UN was once a hope for this world. It's disappointing this development - and so was the failure of the German government to stop Hitler. That was probably very disappointing at the time as well. This world is  a great hope to young people - most young people. They grow older, marry, have children and slowly lose every real hope they ever had. They get sick and weak and the best of them continue to smile and hide their disappointments as best they can. After all, who's to blame? What did they really expect from life anyhow? Well, you'd have to have asked them when they were young because they forgot along the line - a little bit at at time. They compromise and settle for a comfortable chair and cup of tea in the shade. They hoped for eternal freindship. They hoped for love and understanding and freedom from fear and doubt. They hoped for new and better things they'd dreamed of - moving with the waves of the universe - exhilarating with the intensity of life and the endless joy of knowing more. What they got for all their hopes was a few photos of them with their grandchildren on the beach and chronic backache that nearly brought them to tears every time they stood up. This is the basis of disappointment. It is life's struggle. It is painful and difficult. If it wasn't as diffricult as it is, it wouldn't be enough of a challange for people to warrant their interest. That's the way people are! They'll keep going until they win. And they will win one day, and it will all have been worth it. This is why they bought the ticket in the first place, but most of them have forgotten all about that and are too bruised to remember even if they wanted to. So, UNESCO disappoints them and it cuts deep - right into that place that needs help so badly. See? - and don't think the Arab countires that voted this nonsense into being haven't been disappointed too. I'm sure they have been. They're below failure. They're blaming Israel! That's pretty low.
So there's a choice. Blame the system, like Donald Trump does - claim that this world is rigged - which it is by the way. Or try try again and win in spite of the difficulty - drink the sweet wine of victory till you're bored with your success and try something more difficult!

The Desert Speaks - Ali Baba visits Be'er Sheva

The Desert Speaks - Ali Baba visits Be'er Sheva

Aaaah - I learned this on the sands of the Negev - not so far south of the city of Be'er Sheva. This is all true - as it would have to be to actually reach you here.  By my life and honor and by the lives and honor of those who have gone before me - this is so!  There are many secrets buried in the sands of the Negev. 

Years ago, as you came in from the north to the city of Be'er Sheva you drove past  a gigantic rectangular building, called Beit Ramet (Ramet House)  about four stories high, and another two, if you count the stairways that scaled another two empty stories underneath the building. It was off to the left of the road, back about a hundred yards or so. You could see another building  with palm trees in front if you stood on one of the  balconies in back of Beit Ramet and looked across an expanse of sand and the road from the north.

Most tour buses pulled into the drive and parking lot of the Desert Inn (Naot HaMidbar) that sat off to the right side of the road, just before you arrived to the city. It was all inviting, modern, and tastefully laid out.

You could see this "fortress" of Beit Ramet from there, not much further south than the hotel and placed back from the road from there, a huge concrete building. It's still there but much has changed since I lived there. It was a dormitory then for students attending the Ben Gurion University of the Negev.

My son was born at the hospital in Be'er Sheva and he lived with my wife and myself in the dormitory when he was an infant.

We would walk across the sand and the road sometimes and go for breakfast at the Inn. There's a huge shopping center now right where the Desert Inn stood. The food was good and it was a break for me to sit among a crowd made up largely of tourists, hear English spoken, especially American accents, as well as show off, in a way, for my Israeli wife's benefit, how well I got along in places designed for westerners - where. usually, I was the hesitant newcomer in most Israeli settings. It's interesting to look at people away from their element. There's a rhythm and way about Americans, an innocence, a childish enthusiasm and awkwardness, that some people find silly, but that I grew up in and which simply seemed a lot like home to me. I didn't realize then, that I was mid-process in some  sort of reorientation that didn't appear on the road maps. The middle east has a way too. It has a deep tradition of understanding of life and people. Most of this world is aware of it - to me - it was "Old World" -  after all, we had just put men on the Moon - the middle east was primitive - like the Navajo in the American southwest - well - similar anyway - the customs and traditions - full of superstitions and - well - definitely not scientific. Yes, I had a lot to learn. There was more in life than the technology I had been steeped in back in Philadelphia.  And, by the way, having studied chemical engineering, both in the US and in Israel, let me tell you, Israel is hardly wanting much in science and technology, except for access to advanced instruments, materials, and equipment.  

In the lobby of the Desert Inn were floor to ceiling pictures of Bedouin children, smiling in front of tents with camels and goats tethered. I think they were black and white photos, but they were intense. They invited you right into the desert, appropriately enough, so real, so friendly. You felt like you were standing right there on the desert in front of them.

Not so long after our first visit to Naot Hamidbar, a friend studying biology, asked me if I would help her along with a project and drive down to the desert so she could pick some flowers.  Her name was Nomi and she was an immigrant from Latvia. Yes, blonde hair and blue eyes and she would smile whenever she spoke, like a child at a recital. She was in love with  nature, Particularly the carbon cycle. "Bill', she smiled her warm bright child's smile, "don't you think it is amazing how everything in life comes from the sun?"  She would go over the entire cycle from cosmic rays and chlorophyll to cells, building sugars and cellulose, breathing in carbon dioxide and drawing up water from the ground. It was spring and the sand was packed hard and easy to drive over. We had driven south on the road that exited Be'er Sheva, and ran by Abraham's well and over the bridge that spanned the wadi that flooded each winter.

A mile or so south, and we cut off onto the sand and drove till we found a field that seemed appropriate. She came back with her handful of flowers and was followed after a minute or two by a young Bedouin who appeared over a small rise.  He was smiling broadly with the bright white teeth that characterize young Bedouin, so much like the pictures of the children at the Desert Inn.

He was exceedingly polite and invited us to join him and his tribe in a wedding ceremony. We accepted and it was not long and we were seated in the middle of a tent, men on the left and women on the right, the women all covered, except for their eyes, in their tradition dress, and my friend Nomi in her short pants, which embarrassed the living heck out of me.

You had to be there - no other way! It was like being transported back a thousand years or more. The same desert, the same tents - camels kneeling on top of their folded legs, goats tethered, a man pounding on a cup full of coffee beans with a large thick stick and chanting with the same rhythm as the grinding process. Old, ancient songs. The car disappeared from my mind, the road was worlds away. We were back in time. This was how the Hebrews lived on the desert - possibly my own ancestors. I was comfortable here sitting on these carpets in the middle of the Negev, away from everything I had experienced growing up. I had heard that the Bedouin were very hospitable, but this was more than that. It was the Chapel where I said Kaddish (mourner's prayer) for my parents. It was the same place. It was the deep understanding of a people who lived on the desert for thousands of years  - so similar to the tribes of Israel described in the Bible. This understanding had spawned three of the most influential religions of this world. In a few moments of song and in a sip of very strong, dark, over sweet coffee, all this came across - the bride and groom kissed, and somehow all this became a memory.

I'm not sure of course, but it's written that Sarah, Abraham's wife, banished Hagar, the Egyptian mother who bore Abraham a son, Ishmael, fearing that her own son Isaac would somehow lose the blessing of the covenant - and they were sent out alone onto the desert.

 "Hagar entered in the wilderness of Beer-sheba where the two soon ran out of water and Hagar, not wanting to witness the death of her son, set the boy some distance away from herself, and wept. "And God heard the voice of the lad" and sent his angel to tell Hagar, "Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thine hand; for I will make him a great nation." And God "opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water", from which she drew to save Ishmael's life and her own. "And God was with the lad; and he grew, and dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer." (Genesis 21:14–21)"

In 1972, I had been making souvenirs which were doing very well in the stores of Be'er Sheva - I used my knowledge of chemistry to etch brass plates in acid baths and made little miniature coffee tables - people really liked them. I had extra strings of wooden beads I used to serve as parts of the table legs of the tables, and brought them down to the Bedouin Market, just south of the town of Be'er Sheva to sell.I went with my friend Arieh, who was a fellow student and an immigrant from Argentina - his English was very poor, as was my Spanish, and so we spoke Hebrew. .We had set up a little table in the middle of the "Shuk" (market) Strings of wooden beads and colorful fringes of cloth tied onto them were spread out on the table. Tourists were getting off the bus. One of the main tourist attractions at the Shuk, which was held once a week for centuries now, was having your picture taken sitting on a camel's back. The camel would be kneeling, see, and you' get on - this was half the fun - and the Bedouin camel driver would move something and grunt and the Camel would stand. There you were, to show all your friends and family, like the picture in Paris with the Eiffel Tower in the background. We were a few rows of tables behind the road and the Camel.  "Harry, look real Bedouins", this woman was speaking with a heavy American accent to her husband apparently. I told Arieh as they approached, "She thinks we're Bedouin". He smiled. We were wearing what everybody wore - T- shirts and short pants and sandals. Also we had been living in Israel for many years, and in Be'er Sheva, where the sun blazes most of the day, for a few years. We were very dark and had longish hair. We looked very Bedouin. She came over to us. "Do you speak English?" - I smiled, and came back with my best Israeli Bedouin accent - "Of course - you  very beautiful lady - with the broadest Bedouin smile I could muster - you like -  beautiful beads - you  - very good price?" i don't know what came over me - but that really happened - I never confessed to her that I probably grew up a few miles from her. I don't know why - it was a secret - till now.Sometimes I think it would have been better to laugh and tell her that I was an American too, just like her.But, I wasn't. I had changed in ways that she wouldn't quite understand.  I had become a desert wanderer and we are cloaked in mystery you know.

The Desert Speaks - Ali Baba visits Be'er Sheva

The Desert Speaks - Ali Baba visits Be'er Sheva

Aaaah - I learned this on the sands of the Negev - not so far south of the city of Be'er Sheva. This is all true - as it would have to be to actually reach you here.  By my life and honor and by the lives and honor of those who have gone before me - this is so!  There are many secrets buried in the sands of the Negev. 

Years ago, as you came in from the north to the city of Be'er Sheva you drove past  a gigantic rectangular building, called Beit Ramet (Ramet House)  about four stories high, and another two, if you count the stairways that scaled another two empty stories underneath the building. It was off to the left of the road, back about a hundred yards or so. You could see another building  with palm trees in front if you stood on one of the  balconies in back of Beit Ramet and looked across an expanse of sand and the road from the north.

Most tour buses pulled into the drive and parking lot of the Desert Inn (Naot HaMidbar) that sat off to the right side of the road, just before you arrived to the city. It was all inviting, modern, and tastefully laid out.

You could see this "fortress" of Beit Ramet from there, not much further south than the hotel and placed back from the road from there, a huge concrete building. It's still there but much has changed since I lived there. It was a dormitory then for students attending the Ben Gurion University of the Negev.

My son was born at the hospital in Be'er Sheva and he lived with my wife and myself in the dormitory when he was an infant.

We would walk across the sand and the road sometimes and go for breakfast at the Inn. There's a huge shopping center now right where the Desert Inn stood. The food was good and it was a break for me to sit among a crowd made up largely of tourists, hear English spoken, especially American accents, as well as show off, in a way, for my Israeli wife's benefit, how well I got along in places designed for westerners - where. usually, I was the hesitant newcomer in most Israeli settings. It's interesting to look at people away from their element. There's a rhythm and way about Americans, an innocence, a childish enthusiasm and awkwardness, that some people find silly, but that I grew up in and which simply seemed a lot like home to me. I didn't realize then, that I was mid-process in some  sort of reorientation that didn't appear on the road maps. The middle east has a way too. It has a deep tradition of understanding of life and people. Most of this world is aware of it - to me - it was "Old World" -  after all, we had just put men on the Moon - the middle east was primitive - like the Navajo in the American southwest - well - similar anyway - the customs and traditions - full of superstitions and - well - definitely not scientific. Yes, I had a lot to learn. There was more in life than the technology I had been steeped in back in Philadelphia.  And, by the way, having studied chemical engineering, both in the US and in Israel, let me tell you, Israel is hardly wanting much in science and technology, except for access to advanced instruments, materials, and equipment.  

In the lobby of the Desert Inn were floor to ceiling pictures of Bedouin children, smiling in front of tents with camels and goats tethered. I think they were black and white photos, but they were intense. They invited you right into the desert, appropriately enough, so real, so friendly. You felt like you were standing right there on the desert in front of them.

Not so long after our first visit to Naot Hamidbar, a friend studying biology, asked me if I would help her along with a project and drive down to the desert so she could pick some flowers.  Her name was Nomi and she was an immigrant from Latvia. Yes, blonde hair and blue eyes and she would smile whenever she spoke, like a child at a recital. She was in love with  nature, Particularly the carbon cycle. "Bill', she smiled her warm bright child's smile, "don't you think it is amazing how everything in life comes from the sun?"  She would go over the entire cycle from cosmic rays and chlorophyll to cells, building sugars and cellulose, breathing in carbon dioxide and drawing up water from the ground. It was spring and the sand was packed hard and easy to drive over. We had driven south on the road that exited Be'er Sheva, and ran by Abraham's well and over the bridge that spanned the wadi that flooded each winter.

A mile or so south, and we cut off onto the sand and drove till we found a field that seemed appropriate. She came back with her handful of flowers and was followed after a minute or two by a young Bedouin who appeared over a small rise.  He was smiling broadly with the bright white teeth that characterize young Bedouin, so much like the pictures of the children at the Desert Inn.

He was exceedingly polite and invited us to join him and his tribe in a wedding ceremony. We accepted and it was not long and we were seated in the middle of a tent, men on the left and women on the right, the women all covered, except for their eyes, in their tradition dress, and my friend Nomi in her short pants, which embarrassed the living heck out of me.

You had to be there - no other way! It was like being transported back a thousand years or more. The same desert, the same tents - camels kneeling on top of their folded legs, goats tethered, a man pounding on a cup full of coffee beans with a large thick stick and chanting with the same rhythm as the grinding process. Old, ancient songs. The car disappeared from my mind, the road was worlds away. We were back in time. This was how the Hebrews lived on the desert - possibly my own ancestors. I was comfortable here sitting on these carpets in the middle of the Negev, away from everything I had experienced growing up. I had heard that the Bedouin were very hospitable, but this was more than that. It was the Chapel where I said Kaddish (mourner's prayer) for my parents. It was the same place. It was the deep understanding of a people who lived on the desert for thousands of years  - so similar to the tribes of Israel described in the Bible. This understanding had spawned three of the most influential religions of this world. In a few moments of song and in a sip of very strong, dark, over sweet coffee, all this came across - the bride and groom kissed, and somehow all this became a memory.

I'm not sure of course, but it's written that Sarah, Abraham's wife, banished Hagar, the Egyptian mother who bore Abraham a son, Ishmael, fearing that her own son Isaac would somehow lose the blessing of the covenant - and they were sent out alone onto the desert.

 "Hagar entered in the wilderness of Beer-sheba where the two soon ran out of water and Hagar, not wanting to witness the death of her son, set the boy some distance away from herself, and wept. "And God heard the voice of the lad" and sent his angel to tell Hagar, "Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thine hand; for I will make him a great nation." And God "opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water", from which she drew to save Ishmael's life and her own. "And God was with the lad; and he grew, and dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer." (Genesis 21:14–21)"

In 1972 I began making souvenirs which were doing very well in the stores of Be'er Sheva - I used my knowledge of chemistry to etch brass plates in acid baths and made little miniature coftee tables - people really liked them. I had extra strings of wooden beads I used to serve as parts of the table legs of the tables, and brought them down to the Bedouin Market, just south of the town of Be'er Sheva to sell.

I went with my friend Arieh, who was a fellow student and an immigrant from Argentina - his English was very poor, as was my Spanish, and so we spoke Hebrew. .

We had set up a little table in the middle of the "Shuk" (market) Strings of wooden beads and colorful fringes of cloth tied onto them were spread out on the table. Tourists were getting off the bus. One of the main tourist attractions at the Shuk, which was held once a week for centuries now, was having your picture taken sitting on a camel's back. The camel would be kneeling, see, and you' get on - this was half the fun - and the Bedouin camel driver would move something and grunt and the Camel would stand. There you were, to show all your friends and family, like the picture in Paris with the Eiffel Tower in the background. We were a few rows of tables behind the road and the Camel.  

"Harry, look real Bedouins", this woman was speaking with a heavy American accent to her husband apparently. I told Arieh as they approached, "She thinks we're Bedouin". He smiled. We were wearing what everybody wore - T- shirts and short pants and sandals. Also we had been living in Israel for many years, and in Be'er Sheva, where the sun blazes most of the day, for a few years. We were very dark and had longish hair. We looked very Bedouin. She came over to us. "Do you speak English?" - I smiled, and came back with my best Israeli Bedouin accent - "Of course - you  very beautiful lady - with the broadest Bedouin smile I could muster - you like -  beautiful beads - you  - very good price?" 

i don't know what came over me - but that really happened - I never confessed to her that I probably grew up a few miles from her. I don't know why - it was a secret - till now.

Sometimes I think it would have been better to laugh and tell her that I was an American too, just like her.

But, I wasn't. I had changed in ways that she wouldn't quite understand.  I had become a desert wanderer and we are cloaked in mystery you know.

Bush washes up ashore

It was cold - wind blew - his shirt was wet. Bush heard and recognized the sound of the waves before he saw them. He knew he was on some kind of beach, but did nor feel like troubling himself to remember where - he was too sick. "...must have swallowed too much salt water", he thought and retched. The salt water burned his throat.; It was a bad feeling and it wasn't going to go away any too soon.

God Bless America - The Inverse Square Law

Happy Birthday America!!

There's no question about it - in fact this can be plotted on a sheet of graph paper using as sharp a pencil as you'd like. The better you get - the greater you are - the more real help you are to people - that's how hard you get hit! You all know this is true I'm sure by your own personal experiences. You've seen it - you've felt it - you've watched it happpen to others - "The Inverse Square Law"  - in other words if you do ten good deeds, you get back one hundred hits on the head - see - inverse (upside down or backwards) and square 2 times 2 equals 4 and 10 times 10 equals 100!! That's pretty severe and that's how it is - it's certainly a challenge.
Look at what our choices are after working as hard as we have: Clinton vs Trump - what is that?? - what is that I ask you?
The USA fought hard agaisnt the enemies of man in WWII - and look what we got back - LSD and girls with tattoos. Is that fair? I won't go any deeper - it hurts too much - not fair.
Well, if it's any help - you will be attacked as hard as you are effective in helping people - ask Israel!
So now that we've emerged as an authentic acknowleded real effective help to mankind, all I can say is -watch your back America - about half the people out there are infiltrators of one type or another - some types have no idea whatever what they are! The good news is that most of them respond to help and come around - but be careful - many of them don't!
Be careful with those fireworks - don't eat too much potato salad! Be good anyhow!!

God Bless America - The Inverse Square Law

Happy Birthday America!!

There's no question about it - in fact this can be plotted on a sheet of graph paper using as sharp a pencil as you'd like. The better you get - the greater you are - the more real help you are to people - that's how hard you get hit! You all know this is true I'm sure by your own personal experiences. You've seen it - you've felt it - you've watched it happpen to others - "The Inverse Square Law"  - in other words if you do ten good deeds, you get back one hundred hits on the head - see - inverse (upside down or backwards) and square 2 times 2 equals 4 and 10 times 10 equals 100!! That's pretty severe and that's how it is - it's certainly a challenge.
The USA fought hard agaisnt the enemies of man in WWII - and look what we got back - LSD and girls with tattoos. Is that fair? I won't go any deeper - it hurts too much - not fair.
Well, if it's any help - you will be attacked as hard as you are effective in helping people - ask Israel!
So now that we've emerged as an authentic acknowleded real effective help to mankind, all I can say is -watch your back America - about half the people out there are infiltrators of one type or another - some types have no idea whatever what they are! The good news is that most of them respond to help and come around - but be careful - many of them don't!
Be careful with those fireworks - don't eat too much potato salad! Be good anyhow!!

The Magic of the Fourth of July

It was a beautiful sunny day in Camden, NJ and "Darlin" was prettier than I'd ever seen her before - and she was pretty - all the time. She was a full year older than me and she and her brother who was even a year older than her - and that's old, especially when you're six - would explain everything to me - how to ride your bike and what each flower really was - and why bees buzzed - everything important -  you know?  I still look around for them when I don't understand something! That's what happens - see?
Well, there she was in short pants and a baton and all dressed up like a flag - white boots - life was just one great big parade of happy things - it just came at you like that every day - you hated when mom called you in for lunch 'cause you might miss something - you know?
Darlin (that was not really her name, but I don't want to give that out)  had this long stick with a knob at one end where you held it and some kind of metal thing where you hit it against the ground on the other. You loaded caps into it and tapped it on the street and snap, crackle, pop it went off - wow - not only the prettiest knees in town, but crackety-crack, blam on the street too.
What's this all? I asked and she held up her baton with red, white and blue crepe paper spiraling 'round - "it's because we beat the English in the war."  - "Oh", I answered. It was just amazing how much she knew. To this day, when I think of the English, all I see is Darlin's white boots and pretty knees hoppin' along the sidewalk tapping her fourth of July stick on the pavement - "crackety crack, blam"
"Live Free or Die"

Have a great Holiday!!

Shmingegge

"You have to laugh..." my Mom would say.

Her name was "Shmingegge" - that was what everyone in my mother's family callled her. My father also called her Shmingegge. Her name was also Pauline. There is no information about the name "Shmingegge". There is information about the word "shmegegge", but that is neither here nor there. Yiddish in our house, in our family, was something from the "old country" - from somewhere far away and forgotten, like the language of nursery rhymes and stories that people heard and repeated and changed and the changes repeated till they sort of caught on for a certain style or sound - like "five and dime" or "c'mon will ya" - something like that. No one really was an authority on this language - you had to ask what it meant and then take it or leave it - whatever you got for an answer, It had a sort of secret code password associated with it like "Joe sent me" - and you either got in the door or you didn't - it took a lot of street savvy to get around in those days - you just didn't question these things. Her name is not as important as that everybody called her that. What was more important about Pauline was who she was and how she made a living.
Pauline wore outlandish clothing - flowered robes. She wore hats indoors - in her apartment. She was a strange person. My father forbid my mother to go see her and especially not to bring me along, Pauline used a rectangular magnifying glass to read with - a large rectangular magnifying glass with a long handle. She would hold it up to objects and read the labels on them. Her entire kitchen table was covered with bottles and boxes of stuff - perfumes and band-aids, deodorants and fountain pens, toothpaste, soap, nail polish - all kinds of stuff all crowded together - things that made no sense being together - shoe polish, mercurochrome (they used to use that for disinfecting cuts), cotton swab packages, lipsticks - things that you would find, perhaps on the shelves of drugstores or other shops. In fact, that's probably exactly where Pauline found these things see? Are you getting the picture? - because I never did - I was about ten years old and all I knew was that Pauline would talk with my mom and look at things with her magnifying glass and after a while my mom would take home a zillion ball point pens and lipsticks and stuff like it was Christmas or something - she would even give a lot of this stuff to her friends and family!!
My dad would get really mad at my mom for this. "What if you get caught" - he said. "You're not allowed to do that, don't ever go there again!" It was years - years and years - before I really understood what Shmingegge did for a living. G-d bless her - she might be alive today - she would probably be one hundred and five years old! The whole family knew her - they all went to see her from time to time. There were always plenty of ball point pens and deodorants and toothpaste around, I'll tell you that. To this day, I feel that it's improper somehow that I have to pay for a ball point pen! Pauline never charged for these things! - well probably not that much I guess.

Money

Plotnik's Furniture store was located on East 117th street and had the same location for over 80 years, but it had changed it's name quite a few times to suit the styles of the different Plotnik's as they became the new owners. The current owner called it "Snooks". He felt it fit the neighborhood and the times and sounded like a comfortable sofa. It was also the nickname of his girlfriend.
"Look Mitch", Bob Plotnik was grooving in a new salesman, "what are these people doing here? Do they just come in from the street to walk around and look at the chairs, are they tired, do they need to sit down?" - and without time to even think about this - "No - of course not - they're here because they need a piece of furniture - maybe a sofa - maybe a mattress - maybe a kitchen table. We don't care what they think they need - We know better than they do what they need. A "one" or a "two" or a "three" - that's what they need."

Valentymbs

                                                               Valentymbs

There was a candy store on the way to school when I lived in Camden, New Jersey, you stop in there with your pennies and look up through  glass at the candies on display in trays and make your selections. Gosh that was good. I'm sure most of you have similar memories. Kids like candy.

But, there was no "Valentymbs" in Camden - at least not in second grade - I don't know why, but the candy was really good anyway. "Valentymbs" (rhymes with Valentines) didn't really start until  the third grade when we moved to West Philadelphia.  Now, you have to understand the association of Valentines Day with candy to an eight year old. This is obviously the importance of that holiday - like Halloween - that's what it's about - see? Nothing complicated here. This little story is a true story - absolutely true - about little eight year old people.

I had a little girl friend - I won't mention her name - but she "liked" me. Liking someone was something that happened sometimes. Some girls liked boys - it was hardly ever true that some boys liked girls - boys just didn't do that - well not then -  not in West Philly for sure . That all changed later!     

Anyway - "liking" was a formal thing  - it was an accepted fact - like - "he's a good second baseman."  Now you also had friends that you liked , but that was different. That's as far as "liking" people  really went. Now, I was new in West Philly and I had to be shown around . I had to pick up on a lot of stuff that I'd missed not growing  up there - like playing second base.  There's a lot to learn when you're a kid.                

Our teacher explained that tomorrow was Valentines day and that we each would have to buy Valentines cards and give them to the person we liked.  Well, no one understood this. There was a lot of talk about this, among other things was the fact that you could buy about a hundred little cards for a nickel or something at the candy store (certainly West Philly had a candy store too) and "you should  give cards to all your friends".  

Well, it was Valentymbs Day and I had to make a lot of important choices. I started writing the names of my closest friends on the envelopes and signing my name on all the "Be My Valentine" cards. I doubt that they have those little cards around any more. Things were more special and "magical" in those days. Things just happened somehow. 

I didn't want to slight anyone. Kids are very sensitive - they bounce back from just about anything, stay friends no matter what - but still, they're sensitive

So there it was, all the kids in the class got a card from me. Black, white, boys and girls - they were all my Valentymbs. Boy, you should have seen the pile of cards on my desk that I received when I got back from delivering my own Valentymbs. I was president of my class for every sememster except one all through sixth grade. This is true. I was the male lead of our graduation show and my little girl friend was the girl - boy could she sing - my own voice was cracking - every one laughed including me. Boy was she pretty - gosh - as pretty as a chocolate bar!