Letters, We've Got Letters

Letter writing is said to be a lost art. As is reading and writing cursive penmanship. 

While I was recovering from a softball game played in blazing hot and humid conditions Sunday morning, Gilda spent the early afternoon reading through a box of mostly handwritten letters from her high school and college years (late 1960s) as well as the first few years of our dating and marriage (early 1970s).

She’s always teased me I secured her hand by default—her other boyfriend, Steve, played amateur hockey and seemed to perpetually have an injury to report. Letter after letter from him detailed a dislocated right shoulder, an unspecified mishap from a “collision in a friendly neighborhood vicious hockey game. It’s imazing (sic) how a cloth sling magically changes to a wooden crutch,”  and “the usual car troubles.” When he wasn’t injured he was inflicting pain, proudly noting “the ribs of a Sutton Place doctor I broke in a hockey fight. I figure I cost him (in 1971 dollars) about $6,000 from his practice.”

I’m a lucky man, and no doubt a wise one as well to not having revealed my penchant for real and imagined ailments until after our “I do’s” were exchanged.

I’m not jealous of Gilda’s romances before me, but I did mention to her that one of the three letters she kept from Steve came but a few weeks before we got engaged; a second arrived just days later. Perhaps she had told him his cause was doomed, as he began the letter saying, “This is the price you pay for incurring my wrath. An eligible (sic) handwritten letter. Be thankful I’ve printed it.” 

It should also be noted that Steve sent his letters to Gilda’s mother’s address, a home Gilda had moved out of months earlier. 

Speaking of addresses, I think I’ve figured out why I have yet to win a big lottery prize. Often I play numbers based on addresses where I have lived, including 5 East Genesee St., Syracuse, during my year up north obtaining a master’s degree in newspaper journalism. 

Turns out I never lived at that address. The real number of my Salt City domicile was 1518. Ach, all those wasted dollars!!!

Gilda kept many of my letters from that year. Some observations:

*My handwriting was a lot neater back then. I’m lucky today to be able to decipher my scrawls a day after I jot them down, but I was able to read without difficulty what I penned 44 years ago.

*I repeatedly noted how many papers I had to write for my courses. Honestly, I remember just two, one on the effect of herd mentality in the press, illustrated by a visit to the White House and interviews with members of the press corps on the seemingly pack-journalism sameness of their reporting, and a second on Birthright, a Syracuse-based home for women with unplanned pregnancies who chose to deliver but not necessarily keep their babies. 

*Gilda and I always thought we became engaged over the 1971 Thanksgiving weekend. Reading my letters revealed our engagement occurred over the Christmas holiday. 

*People, especially our kids, make fun of my taste in music, but here’s a redeeming item from one of my 1971 letters: “I’m listening to a great record now—Carole King’s Tapestry. Buy it—you’ll never regret it. It’s GREAT!!!” (FYI, if you didn’t know, Tapestry was released in 1971.)

*I was not a sentimental or romantic letter writer. Hopefully, I’ve matured in those areas. Of course, it’s up to Gilda to deliver the verdict.

Finally, for those not familiar with the provenance of the headline to this blog post, click on this link to Perry Como, a 20th century baritone for more than 50 years whose television show my mother rarely missed:  https://youtu.be/IC7o7FbUipg

Blackout Memories, Mel Brooks Got It Right, and Judges of the Same Sounding Name

Hey, New Yorkers, how did you get home from work 10 years ago today? 

For those who don’t remember August 14, 2003, the city suffered a massive mid-afternoon blackout that extended well into the night, forcing many to walk home across bridges, camp out in offices, or crash at a relative’s, friend’s or co-worker’s pad. 

For many, it became an invitation for impromptu libations, as revelers “volunteered” to help restaurants and bars dispose of perishable stock before it spoiled. Gilda was one of those. She joined a co-worker and her husband for a delicious seafood meal at a restaurant abutting the Hudson in Battery Park in Lower Manhattan. 

My staff and I were in our sixth fIoor offices on Park Avenue between 55th and 56th streets when the power stopped. Sunlight streamed through the western-facing windows. As shadows started to darken the office, individual plans became more desperate and disparate. Risa decided to walk across the 59th Street Bridge on her way to Long Island. She fortuitously hitched a ride in mid-bridge with someone serendipitously going to her North Shore town. Ken opted to sleep in the office rather than attempt to get home to New Jersey. Marianne chose to gamble on getting a bus out of the Port Authority back to Jersey. She boarded a bus going to a town near her home. Mary Beth decided it would be better to go to her sister in Jersey rather than go home to Dutchess County, NY. She had to walk hours to reach her, a feat the rest of the staff marveled at the next day considering Mary Beth’s troubled feet. Farida was in no mood to walk to Brooklyn by herself. Kyung agreed to house her for the night at her Upper East Side apartment, but Farida was equally reluctant to walk there alone as dusk approached (Kyung had left earlier to be with her infant daughter). So I trudged up Park Avenue with her. Kyung lived near my aunt on East 81st Street. I figured I could stay with her if I didn’t link up with Gilda, whose whereabouts I still had not ascertained since our phones weren’t working. 

Walking to Kyung’s was not easy. It was hot and muggy. But New Yorkers were taking the blackout in stride. Few car horns ahonking. Pedestrians helped direct traffic at intersections. Cars were angled in front of bars and restaurants, their headlights illuminating the interiors. When Farida and I climbed the stairs to Kyung’s apartment, she wasn’t there. We suppressed panic and waited about 15 minutes till she arrived. Kyung offered to put me up overnight as well, but I declined since I wanted to check up on my aunt.

When I arrived at her apartment, her phone was working. I called Gilda’s brother on the Upper West Side. Luckily, Gilda had been able to reach him. Carl graciously picked me up and lent me his car so I could get Gilda and drive home to Westchester. It was among the more eerie rides of our lives in New York. Like a scene from a disaster movie. Hardly any other cars on the road. Skyscrapers dark, except for the occasional emergency light, or even eerier, a whole building lit up by generator. We got home around 11 pm. 

Mel Got It Right: Mel Brooks makes me and millions of others laugh out loud, but he may well be laughing harder than anyone today. 

Did you see Tuesday’s NY Times front-page article, “Much Ado About Who: Is It Really Shakespeare?” (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/13/arts/further-proof-of-shakespeares-hand-in-the-spanish-tragedy.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)? The thrust of the article is that Shakespeare had lousy handwriting and that some of his words may have been transcribed incorrectly because of poor penmanship.

You may recall in my second to last post on July 30 I sourced a 2,000-year-old-man routine Brooks did with Carl Reiner wherein he disputed that Shakespeare was a good writer. He wasn’t a good writer. He had lousy penmanship, Brooks argued. 

What’s that saying, “Many a truth was said in jest”? According to the Web site, The Phrase Finder, “The first author to express this thought in English was probably Geoffrey Chaucer. He included it in The Cook's Tale, 1390: 

‘But yet I pray thee be not wroth for game; [don't be angry with my jesting]

A man may say full sooth [the truth] in game and play.’

“Shakespeare later came closer to our contemporary version of the expression, in King Lear, 1605:

‘Jesters do oft prove prophets.’

Judge Not: A quick check of the Internet proved I wasn’t alone in thinking there might be a link between Judge Judy and the federal judge who ruled New York City’s stop-and-frisk police tactic violated the constitutional rights of minorities.

The names are pronounced the same, but that’s where the similarities end. Judge Judy Sheindlin works the TV circuit. Judge Shira Scheindlin serves on the federal bench. Judge Shira’s last name has a “c” in it.  

Statistically Speaking

I peaked in fourth grade. Don’t be so smug—you probably did, too.

Handwriting legibility peaks around fourth grade, according to professor Steven Graham of Vanderbilt University, speaking to CBS Sunday Morning last Sunday.

I have already testified to that reality in previous blogs. I received an A in penmanship in fourth grade, much to the consternation of my parents. They were so astonished, based on their daily review of my handwriting, that my father prodded my mother to complain to my teacher about the grade she gave me. Her defense—on the papers she graded I had painstakingly penned in proper cursive form, thus confirming that even at the tender age of nine I knew how to game the system.

Proper penmanship, said Graham, helps convey not just your ideas but your status. “People form judgment about the credibility of your ideas based upon your handwriting,” he said.

If that’s true, about one in five leave us clueless, as some 20% of those polled by CBS Sunday Morning said they don’t write by hand, compared to 45% who write “all the time” and 35% who write “sometimes.” Presumably, those 20% compose directly onto their computers, smart phones, iPads or devices. Count me among the 35%.

Also count me among the 16% who rated their penmanship as “poor.” Eighteen percent labeled their writing “excellent,” 37% as “good,” and 28% “acceptable.” Who knows what the remaining 1% think.


As long as we’re talking surveys, according to the Tax Policy Center, 47% of American households don’t pay any federal taxes. Of those “tax units,” 50% earn under $20,000 a year. Another 22% are senior citizens, 15% are low income families with children, and 13% fall into the “other” category.

Included as “other” are 444,000 tax units in the top 20% of all income earners.

Here’s where political debate gets interesting. President Obama wants to tax these high income earners as part of his budget balancing plan. Republicans say they want to “expand the tax base,” meaning they want to tax the near 41 million who pay nothing because they earn less than $20,000 a year. No, The Republicans are not trying to get blood from a stone. They want them to get jobs so they’ll earn enough money to be taxed.

But here’s the rub. Those with the money are not spending it to create jobs, or jobs that provide a living wage. At least they haven’t for the last decade when the elite earners of our society have benefited while the working class and middle class have seen their earning power erode. Speedily resolving this conflict will determine how long our economy remains in the doldrums, because it’s not only taxes that are not being collected. Without jobs, or jobs that pay enough to leave some discretionary spending, Americans will not ring up retail sales or pay for services such as dry cleaning which together account for two-thirds of our gross domestic product.


In a nation as rich as ours—and we still are a rich nation—it is shameful that, according to the federal government, hunger affects one out of every five households with children.

When I dropped off my monthly food donation at the Ecumenical Emergency Food Pantry of White Plains this morning, I was told contributions are down but the need is up. That reality was underscored by a report on tonight’s CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley. Households unable to meet their food needs at some time during the year have increased by one-third from 2006, before the recession, to 2010. The 2010 figure today hit 14.5%, compared to 10.9%.

“Hunger is at an all-time high...There’s nothing worse than a hungry child,” said Hannah Hawkins, founder of Washington, D.C.’s, Children of Mine Youth Center.

Handwriting on the Wall

I’ve got a handwriting problem. I can’t always read notes I’ve written down for blog entries.

I walk around with a pad and pen in my back pocket to jot down notes, even to longhand full stories, whenever the muse hits me. Trouble is, my scribble is so hasty that unless I sit down to transcribe it right away I often have a hard time discerning what I wrote.

It was always this way. My illegible handwriting drove my parents crazy, so much so that when I received an “A” in penmanship in fourth grade my father made my mother go up to the teacher to complain her standards were too low. She explained she based the grade on the penmanship of homework reports she assigned. Knowing that, I painstakingly toiled to make these reports works of cursive art. Even at the tender age of eight I knew how to game the system.


I think I might qualify to be a banking executive. Today’s New York Times showcased troubles with the mortgage foreclosure process. One problem involved the signature of an assistant vice president of American Home Mortgage Servicing assigning a mortgage to another bank. As shown in a photo of three documents, the AVP’s signature differs widely in each instance. The clear inference is that three different people signed the paperwork, meaning at least two were forgeries.

That’s the logical conclusion, but if American Home Mortgage Servicing needs an expert witness on its behalf, I’m available. You see, I, too, have multiple signatures, and I’ll be darned if I can remember which one I’ve used for, say, the safety deposit box form, my regular checking account or any other official paper that requires a John Hancock.

It’s always a crap shoot wondering which way to sign and if the people scrutinizing my chicken scratchings will ask for further proof of who I am. When they don’t I silently say, “Fooled them again,” but then I begin to wonder how safe my money and identity are if I am not questioned when my signature clearly does not match the official record.


Does God need a better GPS? It might appear so after last Friday’s weather.

On Thursday, Jews all over the world prayed for rain, part of the annual fall holiday of Shemini Azeret. They were praying for rain in Israel, which, by the way, is enduring a years long drought. Instead, God sent torrential rain up and down the East Coast, with more rain expected this week. In Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, meanwhile, it’s been nice and sunny.

Perhaps God was confused because there might be as many Jews living on the East Coast as there are in Israel, especially when you consider the number of Israelis who have moved here.


Driving home from Queens the other day, two things occurred to me. First, too often there’s no music I like playing on any of my 12 preset FM radio stations. I don’t do enough driving to invest in satellite radio so I’m stuck with FM fare. Oh well...

Second, why is it during a traffic jam whenever I switch lanes my new lane almost always comes to a standstill and my old lane starts moving faster?


At his town hall meeting at Washington, D.C.’s, Newseum two weeks ago President Obama got an earful about the stalled economy and shattered dreams. One poignant moment came when a woman, a supporter of his, asked, "My husband and I thought we were beyond the hot dog and beans (stage) of our lives. ... Is this my new reality?"

Funny thing, Gilda and I like the occasional franks and beans dinner. But it’s easy to understand why a constant diet of franks and beans would be disheartening. If Obama and the Democrats hope to keep their majority influence in Washington they have just four weeks to convince voters that a Republican/Tea Party victory would guarantee many more franks and beans meals.

Compassionate Conservative is never mentioned these days. Instead, the candidates on the right hammer home a message of lower government spending which can only mean less assistance for the needy. And more tax breaks for the wealthy.

Incidentally, on your next visit to Washington, take time to visit the Newseum. Set aside several hours. There’s lots to see and absorb there.


The regular baseball season ended with Boston denied a post-season slot but gaining some measure of satisfaction by denying the Yankees a first-place finish in their division, though the New Yorkers still qualified for the playoffs as a wild-card entry. It's too early to say if the Red Sox did the Yanks a favor by making them play the Minnesota Twins, and not the Texas Rangers, in the first round.

Over the weekend the Yankee announcers were reminiscing about the 1978 playoff game between Boston and New York, won by Bucky Dent's dramatic three-run home run off Boston's Mike Torrez. They wondered why they had been home to watch the one-game playoff to determine the winner of the American League East crown (this was before the wild card option). They speculated they played hookey from school that Monday, Oct. 2, 1978.

I, on the other hand, easily remember why I wasn't at work. It was the first day of Rosh Hashanah. After we returned from my parents' synagogue and ate lunch, we retired to the TV room to watch the Yankees begin a wonderful year for our extended family, capped by the birth of my son Dan, my sister's son Ari and my brother's daughter Karen. And, oh yes, the Yanks won the World Series that year.