Day 116 of Nat'l Emergency: Reading, Shopping, Fixing and Trump's Bucket List

What 10 years of retirement couldn’t accomplish the coronavirus did in less than three months. I’m finally reading books. 

A disappointment of my retirement is that, with rare exceptions as for a course I might be taking, I never engaged in reading novels or non fiction books. Shameful. I know. 

In the four months since quarantine began, however, I am averaging a book a month, spurred on, I readily admit, by Gilda’s voracious reading appetite. 

I used to explain my lack of reading by saying reading put me to sleep. Part of my apnea condition.

Now, when I first lay down in bed, or when I wake up in the middle of the night and cannot readily fall back to sleep, I wind up reading 45 to 90 minutes. As there’s no rush to wake up early the next morning, I simply tack on extra hours before rising from bed. 

I’m still ashamed, but less so.

Gilda Is No Golda: As in “Fiddler on the Roof.” She doesn’t want to hear, much less interpret, my dreams.  

Must be because I’m no Tevye. 

Trader Joe’s has it in for me. I shop very selectively at Trader Joe’s. I’m only interested in dark chocolate mint candies and dark chocolate mint cookies, the key being dark chocolate is better for you than milk chocolate. 

Twice in the last few months, however, the specialty grocer has discontinued two dark chocolate mint cookies I found irresistible.

After a futile Internet search for comparably priced cookies I stumbled across a slightly higher priced alternative at our local Stop & Shop. 

For now the mint candies are still being sold, but I am wary Trader Joe’s does not realize a third strike would end my patronage.

Rain Man: It’s about to thunderstorm outside as I write this note Friday afternoon. Rumbles already have presaged the downpour. But as anyone who has recently driven past the Grassy Sprain reservoir can attest, the water level is the lowest in years, if not decades. Since we’ve had few drenching rain days this year I wondered if we were subject to drought conditions made all the more severe by our constant hand washing.

Mind you, I’m not complaining about sunshine filled days. Our solar panels are offsetting all or most of the cost of electricity to run the air conditioning. But upon returning home the other day after seeing the reservoir for the first time this year I googled an inquiry.

Apparently, regular maintenance on the spillway and gatehouse gates began in January that necessitated draining most of the reservoir to a level that would allow work but not kill any of the fish in the lake. It will take at least half a year for nature to refill the reservoir.

Just thought you’d like to know.

Home Improvement Tip of the Day: After doing two loads of wash and putting in towels for a third our 10-year-old Kenmore washing machine wouldn’t start. I called Sears Home Services and set up an appointment.

There was a glitch in the electronic ignition. I anticipated a costly repair bill or, more probable, purchase of a new washing machine.

The repairman said he’d try a trick to restart the machine. By simultaneously replugging the washer into a socket while pushing repeatedly on the power button the machine might start. It did! 

Thank you repairman. Thank you Sears. Coincidentally, a week later Reuters reported that Sears is considering selling its repair and home improvement business (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sears-homeservices-exclusive/exclusive-sears-exploring-sale-of-home-improvement-business-idUSKBN242780).

Stockpiling Over?: Here’s another news flash: At least in Westchester County, coronavirus-inspired hoarding seems to be a condition of the past. 

During recent trips to Costco and Stop & Shop there were no lines to get in, checkout was hassle free and products, even toilet paper, were plentiful. More importantly, everyone was wearing a mask.

A product that might be in short supply in apparel stores, depending on your neighborhood, are Hawaiian shirts. Seems the flowery, loose fitting tops are a must-have for creatures of the dark side of heavily armed right wing extremism (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/29/style/boogaloo-hawaiian-shirt.html?referringSource=articleShare).

Who knew a symbol of paradise could be turned into a symbol of hate?

Bucket List: There’s a simple explanation why Donald Trump is proceeding with an extravaganza at Mount Rushmore to commemorate Independence Day despite state and national officials warning it is unwise to have a fireworks display over parched land witnessed by thousands of unmasked, not socially distanced, attendees. 

The ego-boosting celebration is on his bucket list.

Unless he wins reelection, tonight’s big show under the stoney eyes of four presidents, none of whom Trump considers greater than himself, would be his last chance to display presidential upsmanship.

I wonder how many Hawaiian shirts will be worn by the 7,500 expected attendees?

A Broadway Experience A Child Would Remember

About a month ago Ellie took three-and-a-half-year-old CJ to her first live play, a local Omaha production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella. Like many young girls CJ is enraptured by stories of princesses. So Ellie was not too surprised that CJ sat intently absorbing the three hour production (her equally young friend bailed out at intermission). 

Experiencing live theater at any level is a treat best appreciated at the youngest age possible. Ellie, for example, tasted live theater when she was barely five years old. It was  a staging of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Coat at the Emelin Theatre in Mamaroneck. She and eight-year-old Dan squealed loudly when they recognized the actor playing an Elvis-inspired pharaoh was a counselor from their summer camp. (Eight years later Ellie’s first dramatic roles in “real” Broadway plays came in two productions of Joseph, the first as the vampy wife of Potiphar in her eighth grade play, and then as one of Joseph’s brothers in the first Play Group Theatre rendition in Westchester. 

For the next four years PGT and Ellie were almost inseparable. After Joseph, Ellie took on leading roles as Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors, the baker’s wife in Into the Woods, Wendy in Peter Pan and Ti-Moune in Once on This Island. (In non PGT productions she was Rizzo in Grease and split the role of the Leading Player in Pippin.)

Ask most adults who grew up in the 1950s and early 1960s about the shows they remember seeing and they invariably will call out names like Howdy Doody or Leave It to Beaver, Winky Dink, Captain Kangaroo or The Lone Ranger. 

I, too, watched those television shows. I have fond memories of them and enjoy the nostalgic times friends reminisce about them. But the shows that made the biggest impression on me, the ones I most recall from that golden time, were Broadway shows. 

In the short span of five years, from the time I was nine to 14 years old, I saw at least six Broadway shows and two operas (Tosca and La Traviata) at the Metropolitan Opera House. 

My earliest Broadway memory—seeing Sam Levene in the comedy Make a Million. For the record, I cannot recall any of the plot. But I do remember sitting with my siblings in the balcony while my parents sat in the orchestra. (An interesting footnote: Make a Million was co-written by Norman Barasch. For those not aware, Gilda’s maiden name is Barasch. She is unaware of any family connection to Norman.)

If you’re not familiar with Sam Levene, let me assure you he was a bonafide star of the theater and movies. Google his name if you don’t believe me. 

My Broadway experience was heightened by the renowned original casts I witnessed. In 1961, Phil Silvers and Nancy Walker in Do Re Mi. Later that year Camelot featured Richard Burton, Julie Andrews and Robert Goulet. 1961 was a stellar theater-going year for me. I also saw Robert Weede, Mimi Benzell and Molly Picon in Milk and Honey. The next year, Alfred Drake in Kean, followed in 1964 by Zero Mostel and Maria Karnilova in Fiddler on the Roof.   

The inspiration for this whole story is to tell you Ellie and Gilda took CJ to a Sunday matinee of a Broadway revival of Once on This Island. Yes, it could be argued that CJ is a tad young for the play’s message. But Ellie has been showing CJ a video of her performance 20 years ago as Ti-Moune. CJ is familiar with the plot and the songs. 

Ellie and Gilda reported she sat on the edge of her seat, enthralled, throughout the performance. She had a day to remember: a subway ride, a walk through Times Square after dark, dinner out in a restaurant, and her first Broadway play. It’s hard to imagine it could have been any better.

Yiddish "Fiddler": A Reality Check on Survival

One of the eternal laugh lines of any staging of Fiddler on the Roof, including the production in Yiddish currently playing at the National Yiddish Theater Folksbiene inside the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Lower Manhattan, comes in the opening song, “Tradition.” 

As Tevya the milkman introduces the audience to the varied characters that populate his shtetl hometown of Anatevke, a pious resident asks the rabbi if there is a proper blessing for the Tsar. 

Of course, responds the rabbi. He chants, “May God keep the Tsar … far away from us!” 

Like Jesse Green of The New York Times who reviewed the play (https://nyti.ms/2JtZnJW), Gilda and I shed more than a tear or two as we sat through a preview last Thursday. We know but a handful of Yiddish words, but as veterans of prior Fiddler productions (including, for me, the original Broadway cast starring Zero Mostel), the story line and songs required little translation, though the theater provided both English and Russian supertitles on both sides of the stage. 

Through the decades since its debut in 1964 Fiddler has conjured up a fantasy world of the hardscrabble peasant life—make no mistake about it, most Jews were peasants in the shtetls of the Pale of Settlement, the restricted zone to which Jews were confined by the tsars. Nevertheless, they no doubt loved Mother Russia and were truly saddened when uprooted from their homes. Even those who came to America shared fond memories with their descendants.

Jesse Green wrote the Yiddish version of Fiddler evoked the “sound of my own grandparents and all they lost in leaving their Anatevkes.

“Fiddler on the Roof always makes you cry for that loss.”

Yes, tears do flow, but a reality check is in order. Had they stayed in the Pale, Gilda likes to point out, they likely would have perished, if not during World War I, surely during the second world war. 

So, I’m going to give the tsar a pass. Not a blessing, and surely not the kiss of friendship, or is it fealty, proffered by Donald Trump to Russia’s current nominal tsar, Vladimir Putin. 

Jesse Green and millions of other Jews in America, Israel and numerous countries around the globe are alive today because the rabbi’s blessing to keep the tsar far away fell on deaf ears. Or, perhaps, God took the request literally and arranged the mass emigration of his chosen people to safer lands not ruled by a tsar. 

Far-fetched? Could be. But as The Times headline observed, “Fiddler in Yiddish? Sounds Crazy, Nu?”

Celebrating My Mother's Centennial Birthday

Were she still alive, my mother, Sylvia Margaret Gerson Forseter, would have turned 100 Saturday, November 11. You’ll notice I did not say she would have celebrated her centennial. It would not be incorrect nor disrespectful to say my mother never got much pleasure from turning the page on another year. As different infirmities invaded her body and mind she used to say, “Good health was wasted on the young.” 

That lack of birthday excitement, to my memory, transferred over to celebrations of her husband’s and children’s birthdays, as well, though she did enjoy the spotlight at the bar mitzvah affairs of my brother Bernie and me at the Aperion Manor on Kings Highway in Brooklyn. And she got a kick out of turning our home’s basement into a dance hall for our sister Lee’s Sweet 16 party.

Mom had a ribald sense of humor. If she saw you yawning she would say, “You wouldn’t be so tired if you slept at night instead of fooling around, but then sleep isn’t as much fun.”

On her night table at various times one could find a copy of Lady Chatterly’s Lover and Tropic of Cancer, risqué reading for the 1950s and 1960s.

Whenever a movie starring Tyrone Power was shown on television she would say, “He could park his shoes next my bed anytime” (as was the custom of the times, my parents slept in twin beds separated at first by a night table, though eventually the beds were pushed together to simulate a king size bed, albeit with a slight gap between the mattresses to accommodate their wooden frames).

Mom introduced her children to opera at the pre-Lincoln Center Metropolitan Opera House (she took me to see La Traviata and Tosca, the latter starring Renata Tebaldi and Franco Corelli—if you’re not into opera those names wouldn’t mean anything to you. But if you are an opera buff, you’d be envious).

She enjoyed musical theater. She instilled a love of that entertainment genre by taking each of her three children individually to a show each year so that each would feel special not just from the Broadway experience but also from having her solely to ourselves. 

She was, though, slightly snobbish in her reviews. One year Bernie wanted to see Flower Drum Song. But as it contained a modified strip tease scene and Bernie was just 14, she nixed his choice and took him instead to West Side Story. 

In successive years when I was 11 and 12, she took me to Camelot starring Richard Burton, Julie Andrews and Robert Goulet, followed by Kean, a musical about the early 19th century Shakespearian actor Edmund Kean, played by one of her stage heroes, Alfred Drake. Kean garnered so-so reviews. It ran for just 92 performances. Camelot became a semi-classic, with 873 performances on Broadway before being made into a feature film. As we were leaving Kean Mom asked me which play I liked more. I replied Camelot. She did not mask her disappointment in what she considered my plebeian taste. 

Some shows commanded viewing by the whole family. After our parents saw Fiddler on the Roof with Zero Mostel, they bought tickets for Bernie, Lee and me and her older sister, Pola. During intermission between acts, Aunt Pola, who had been sitting in a different section, came by to ask how we were enjoying the show and to say she had laughed so hard during one scene she wet her panties (earthy language not being one of the restraints practiced by our mother and her three sisters). 

Before I was a teenager they took the three of us to see Milk and Honey about the early years of Israel, and Take Me Along with Jackie Gleason, Walter Pidgeon and Robert Morse, a musical adaptation of Eugene O’Neill’s Ah, Wilderness. 

Most every night, at 8, Mom would lie down on the living room couch to listen as WVNJ-AM aired a complete musical recording of a Broadway show. Often I would sit with her, enjoying and learning by heart the music and lyrics to scores of shows. Our stereo was stocked with dozens of original cast recordings of Broadway shows.

Those memories reflect one aspect of the vibrant mother I grew up and lived with until she was in her mid-50s and I left home for graduate school, work in Connecticut and marriage to Gilda. She was social and sociable, a gracious hostess and good cook, a theater-goer and poker player, a successful business- and clubwoman, an independent world traveler. About the only thing she could not master was driving a car. 

Much of that persona vanished in her last two decades. I won’t dwell on the reasons why or the effect on her husband, children and grandchildren. She passed away at 78 on February 16, 1996. She left a divided legacy, which is to say, she led a normal life, with ups and downs, triumphs and disappointments, passion—good and bad—toward her family. All in all, a life worth remembering.  

Entertainment Edition

To celebrate our 39th anniversary, Gilda and I last night went to see Relatively Speaking, three one-act plays by Ethan Coen, Elaine May and Woody Allen exploring relationships. Would we recommend it? Let’s just say it was a good thing we bought the tickets as part of Broadway’s two-for-one winter promotion.

One of the delightful aspects of the Woody Allen playlet, Honeymoon Motel, was the chance once again to see Richard Libertini perform on stage. Gilda and I first saw Libertini in Paul Sill’s Story Theater back in 1971, a series of vignettes based on fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm.

Seeing the same actor over a span of 40 years is part of the amazing arc of live theater. Libertini is easily recognized. A balding, gangly actor with a melancholy demeanor that belies his comic antics, he’s made a career of playing character parts, most notably General Garcia, the insane Latin-American dictator, in the original film of The In-Laws starring Peter Falk and Alan Arkin, and spiritual advisor Prahka Lasa in All of Me, with Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin.

Recognizing actors on stage or screen is easy. Identifying them in public is harder. If I say so myself, I’m good at it, at least for, shall we say, actors who are not young, pop culture phenoms. A year or so ago, as audience members milled about during intermission of a Playwrights Horizons play, I walked over to shake the hand of a slightly older gentleman not arousing interest from any other theatergoer. As Gilda and our friends Ken and Jane looked on, I told him I saw him perform more than 46 years ago as Motel the Tailor in the original Broadway production of Fiddler on the Roof. Austin Pendleton was grateful for the recognition so many years later, both for his acting and for being recognized and remembered.


The Fourth Troubador: Dick Kniss died last week. For those not familiar with the name, he was, in the words of a NY Times obituary, the stand-up bass player who became “a veritable fourth member of the folk-singing trio” Peter, Paul and Mary.

Always standing behind and usually to stage left (the audience’s right) of the featured folksingers, Kniss enjoyed a following of his own among Peter, Paul and Mary devotees, among whom I number myself. As I wrote back in September 2009 when Mary Travers passed away, my friends and I were responsible for Kniss missing a beat during one of their concerts at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center.

We were there on a day off from our summer-camp counselor jobs. Sitting in first row center seats, we caught Kniss’ eye and started a silent dialogue with him, distracting him enough to miss a beat in a song, the name of which escapes me.

As you can read from his obituary, it probably was one of the few times in his career Kniss made a musical mistake (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/28/arts/music/dick-kniss-bassist-for-peter-paul-and-mary-is-dead-at-74.html?_r=1&hpw).


Into the Woods: This summer, in Central Park’s Delacorte Theater, one of my favorite musicals will be revived. Like Paul Sill’s Story Theater, the Stephen Sondheim/James Lapine creation Into the Woods is based on Grimm fairy tales. But with a twist. The second act depicts the not-so-happily-ever-after lives of Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Jack of beanstalk fame and assorted prince charmings, courtiers and ordinary townsfolk, including a baker and his wife. Gilda and I saw Into the Woods shortly after it opened in 1987. When PBS broadcast a production of the play in 1991, I taped it for Ellie, who was 10 at the time.

She viewed it often. During a play date with a friend one day she asked if they could watch the tape. I set it up and went outside to do some yard work, only to be surprised when they emerged from the house about an hour later. When I asked why they weren’t still watching, Ellie said the tape was over. It dawned on me that during all her previous viewings Ellie had never realized there was a second act.

Perhaps it was wrong to disabuse her of the fantasy that all stories end sweetly. Perhaps it could have waited until she was a few years older. I reacted before fully thinking through the consequences, ushering them both back into the house to watch the dark conclusion of Into the Woods.

I can’t rightly say Ellie or her friend were traumatized by the second act. Ellie’s passion for Into the Woods continued. About five years later Ellie played the baker’s wife in a Play Group Theater production of Into the Woods. It was one of many leading lady parts that defined her teenage acting years.

Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes

One year, or as the song “Seasons of Love,” from Rent put it, “Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes...”

A year ago, as publisher and group editorial director of Chain Store Age, I ran a mid-to-high-single-digit million-dollar enterprise encompassing a monthly magazine, a Web site, e-newsletters and several conferences. Today, I run errands. A year ago I supervised two dozen associates. Today, I plan activities for one.

My last commute to the office at 425 Park Avenue took place a year ago today, June 18, 2009. It was a trip I made for more than 32 years, driving to the White Plains Transcenter parking garage, riding Metro North into Grand Central Terminal, walking up Park Avenue to 55th Street, taking the elevator to the 6th floor.

Forced retirement, even if welcomed, as it was by me, has confronted many of my demographic cohorts. The number of unemployed age 55 and over increased 331% between January 2000 and December 2009, going from 490,000 to 2,114,000, according to AARP. To paraphrase a lyric from the song “If I Were a Rich Man” from Fiddler on the Roof, “It’s no great honor being a statistic.”

Yet, please don’t read this and wonder if I am depressed. I am not. I have no regrets about what happened. The economy tanked. Publishing tanked. Our area of coverage—retailing, specifically capital spending by retailers—tanked. We made cutbacks, within my group and within the whole company. They weren’t enough. The role of any manager is to prepare the next generation of management. I did my job well. Two associates were ready to take on my responsibilities. Sure, I would have liked to continue, but the prudent corporate move was to reduce overhead. I was treated fairly.

I’m often asked if I’d like to work full-time again. No, not really. I’ve paid my dues. Publishing is an especially brutal business these days. Not that it ever was a 9 to 5 job, but the Internet has made it even more of a round-the-clock profession. I do miss the recognition. Last week I participated in a retail industry panel discussion and was humbled to hear the other panelist describe how he followed my commentary over the years. For three decades I was the voice of Chain Store Age. Nothing, nothing was published without my seal of approval. But Chain Store Age was not mine to hand down to my family. It was my job, not my equity. In return for value received, I produced value. Call it rationalization, if you will, but I’ve come to the belief that at some point one has to say, “I have enough. Enough to do what I want to do. Enough to live the rest of my life in comfort. Enough to hopefully leave something to my children.” Each person will determine their level of “enough.” Hopefully, I’ve calculated correctly.

I enjoy most days. That’s no different than when I was working. Occasionally I do wish Gilda or some of my friends were already retired so we could have play dates. But even when I was employed my closest work-friends already had left the company. For most of my working life I ate lunch in restaurants with one or more of them. During the last few years I ate too many meals at my desk. Few things were as lonely as eating lunch by oneself. For some reason, it’s not as lonely in retirement.

In case you’re wondering, I keep fairly busy. I don’t sleep late. I usually get up within 30 minutes of Gilda’s departure for work sometime between 7 and 7:30. I rarely nap during the day. I don’t watch much television—usually a DVR’ed tape of the prior night’s Daily Show and maybe The Colbert Report during lunch, and perhaps an old movie. I write several hours most days (these blogs don’t show up mysteriously, you know). I do a little consulting work for a few companies. I exercise, mostly walking in the neighborhood. I run errands, do the shopping midweek to avoid weekend crowds. Once a week I deliver meals to homebound seniors. I don’t nosh—I weigh a few pounds less than a year ago. I play sous-chef for Gilda, prepping salad and other foods for her return from work—as I might have previously written, during our marriage we have divided the chores thusly: Gilda cooks (really well), we both eat (sumptuously), I clean. I am content.

I actually have one regret. I had hoped to read a book a week in retirement. Not even close. I won’t embarrass myself by detailing my paltry output, or should that be input? Whatever.