Day 96 Nat'l Emergency: Tip-toeing to Normalcy

Seventeen weeks, exactly 119 days, from my last residence in a barber’s chair I had my hair cut Thursday. A few days earlier I visited my dentist to complete a crown restoration begun after a root canal procedure in pre-coronavirus lockdown March.

Am I abandoning Dr. Fauci’s safety first guidelines in favor of Trumpian bravado? Hell no, not on your life. My life, actually.

I won’t be dining at restaurants anytime soon, even those with outdoor seating. I will not engage in any activity attracting large groups. Attendance at synagogue services will have to wait. I’m sure God will understand. He or She does not require adherents to unnecessarily place themselves, and subsequently others, at risk.

I wonder about people who act as if they are immune from not only contracting COVID-19 but also unwittingly spreading it. 

I also wonder why people wear masks while driving alone in their cars. 

Makes no sense to me. Then again, there are lots of people out there who lack common sense. Take, for example, those who apparently think swigging diluted bleach could kill the coronavirus, rather than perhaps killing them or scarring their insides. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found in an online study that 39% of 502 adults surveyed had misused a cleaning product (https://www.statnews.com/2020/06/05/cdc-misusing-bleach-try-kill-coronavirus/). 

Now, there is reason to question the conclusions of such a small study, but it does make one wonder why anyone would subject their bodies to such an out-of-the-box, er, bottle, treatment. 

Medical Update: My full face smile is back. The Bell’s palsy is almost all gone, a remarkably rapid recovery, my doctor exclaimed.

Bear Facts: Four times in the last week a black bear has been sighted within a few miles of our home. Over the years wild turkeys, lots of deer and a coyote or two have crossed our paths as we’ve walked in our neighborhood which is down the block from Saxon Woods Park. 

One of the walks Gilda and I take meanders for a mile up Saxon Wood Road. Several years ago during an early spring afternoon we stopped about halfway up the trek so Gilda could look through the windows of a house under renovation. As she walked around the home I looked out onto Saxon Wood Golf Course. Some 500 or more yards away I observed either a very large, I mean a very large, dog or what I immediately presumed was a bear sauntering across a fairway. 

I called 911. From local to county to state police I was dispatched from one constabulary to the next in a vain attempt to alert authorities. 

The recent rash of bear sightings has not elicited any signs of panic from officials. A spokesperson for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has advised, “Never run from a bear; stay calm, speak in a loud and calm voice, and slowly back away from a safe distance. Make loud noises by shouting or banging pots to scare the bear away.”

Aside from our water bottle, I guess Gilda and I will have to start toting pots along on our walks. 

NY, NY: I’ve lived in the New York City metropolitan area for 66 of my 71 years. I grew up in Brooklyn. Before COVID-19 I’d go to the theater more than a dozen times a year, usually preceded by dinner in a theater district restaurant. I went to museums. I walked Manhattan and Brooklyn streets. I took the subway. I drove with ease through every borough enjoying the architecture that flew by my windshield.

I consider myself a New Yorker.

But as I read the Thursday New York Times Styles article “Checkout Time Might be Early” (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/11/style/hotels.html), I lost confidence in that appellation. 

Never a hipster (if that is still a moniker used by trendsetters), I at least professed some knowledge of the city that never sleeps. To say I was confounded, astounded, overwhelmed by all that I did not know even existed would be an understatement. 

Well, I guess not too many people enjoying their eighth decade of life are attuned to the shifting “New York scene.” I’m quite content with my bite of the Big Apple and long for a post-pandemic time to enjoy it fully once more.

Day 94 of Nat'l Emergency: Uplifting Words, Some Not

I don’t normally read newspaper ads. I tape television shows for later viewing so I can fast forward through ads. It is a rather cavalier attitude considering my income for more than three decades was contingent on earnings my publication could squeeze from advertising revenue.

I’m not sure what drew me into reading a full page ad in Wednesday’s New York Times. No picture or illustration captured my attention. Perhaps it was the red ink lettering at the top and bottom of an otherwise black and white page of 38 quotes from famous Americans. Juxtaposed among uplifting statements from past presidents, government officials and luminaries were counterpoint messages from Donald Trump. 

Here are some samples: 

From President Herbert Hoover—“It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech. Immediately on attaining power each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own.”

Followed by Trump’s “Fake news is the true enemy of the people.” 

Albert Einstein was cited as saying, “Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.”

Under that quote is one from Trump: “More people attended my inauguration than any other President’s. Anyone who wants a test can get one.”

From Founding Father Benjamin Franklin came this aphorism: “He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money.” 

Trump’s rejoinder: “I look forward to showing my financials because they are huge.”

In smaller letters at the bottom of the page is a note that the ad was “Paid for by the Author of the New York Times Bestselling Book, What Would Ben Say?”. 

Ben, as in Benjamin Franklin. 

That author happens to be Tom Blair, a successful businessman and author of several books, a person with some passionate interests. Blair, according to his Amazon books page, owns “the world’s largest personal collection of WWII British aircraft, many of which he flies.” His interest in World War II might well stem from the fact that “his father, an American serviceman married to a young British girl, was killed at Normandy in 1944.” He was born a few weeks later. 

Wednesday’s ad was not the first time Blair has purchased a full page in The Times. He did so back in 2016 in apparent disappointment at the choice of presidential candidates nominated by the Democratic and Republican parties. 

Running a full page ad does not come cheap. It can cost upwards of $150,000. Small change for Blair who, one of his biographical blurbs noted back in 2016, sold one of his companies for $4.6 billion. 

In case you’re not able to read the ad which I included with this post, here are more point/counterpoints followed by the quotes in red at the top and bottom of the page:

“People who boast about their I.Q. are losers.”—Stephen Hawking

“Sorry losers and haters, by my I.Q. is one of the highest. Please don’t feel stupid or insecure. It’s not your fault.”—President Donald J. Trump

“Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.”—Mark Twain

“The people are the rightful masters of both congresses, and courts—not to overthrow the constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert it.”—Abraham Lincoln

Day 93 Nat'l Emergency: Firestorm in Publishing, Plague in a World Without End

My professional world—the business of journalism—has been roiled for the last week (longer, to be sure, but let’s stick with the current firestorm) by publication of an Op-Ed in The New York Times by Senator Tim Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, and the subsequent ignominious departure of the newspaper’s editor in charge of the Opinion section, James Bennet (https://nyti.ms/3h3F6N9).

The most damning explanation for the publishing of Cotton’s submission was an admission by Bennet that he never read it before it was posted. 

I don’t expect the editor of any publication to read everything that appears in their trust. Trust. That exactly is what a newspaper, magazine, blog or any form of written or electronic communication is, at least for those that purport to be committed to the public good. It is a bond between audience and purveyor that stringent standards have been met pertaining to accuracy and truth. 

Note I did not include objectivity in that bond. Publications may choose to be advocates, to take sides. But not at the expense of accuracy and truth.

Note also that at the beginning of this post I said the “business of journalism.” No one enters this endeavor with the intention of losing money (perhaps with the exception of Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest human and the owner of The Washington Post since 2013, though I am sure he would prefer to make some shekels rather than have them depleted from his ever enlarging fortune). 

When I was editor and publisher of Chain Store Age the president and owner of our publishing house chided me for spending what he considered to be too much time reading copy and insufficient time marketing and selling the publication. I replied that while I did not read every little tidbit, I felt it was my obligation to read any story that could have an impact on how Chain Store Age would be perceived.

I was responsible for the trust our readers placed in our magazine. I wasn’t always the first person to read through an article. But nothing, nothing, would appear in print or bytes that I could not confirm as to its veracity. 

Bennet failed to properly monitor Cotton’s op-ed, either by his own editing or by that of a subordinate. The senator’s essay should not have been shelved. Rather, it should have been edited more diligently, as The Times itself acknowledged in a preface to Cotton’s submission on its Web site (https://nyti.ms/2XWCrMx).

White and Black: Next time anyone suggests that Blacks and Whites are treated equally by law enforcement, ask them to imagine what the body count would have been if Black Americans had turned out for protests armed to the teeth with assault rifles and other weapons of destruction like the anti-quarantiners did in Michigan.

Ponder if this passage from “World Without End” strikes a familiar chord with you: 

“Caris could not remain silent. ‘The plague spreads from one person to another,’ she said angrily. ‘If you stay away from other people, you’ve got a better chance of escaping infection.’ 

“Prior Godwyn spoke up. ‘So the women are the physicians now, are they?’ 

“Caris ignored him. ‘We should cancel the market,’ she said. ‘It would save lives.’ 

“‘Cancel the market!’ he said scornfully. ‘And how would we do that? Send messengers to every village?’ 

“‘Shut the city gates,’ she replied. ‘Block the bridge. Keep all strangers out of the town.’ 

“‘But there are already sick people in town.’ 

“‘Close all taverns. Cancel meetings of all guilds. Prohibit guests at weddings.’ 

“Merthin said: ‘In Florence they even abandoned meetings of the city council.’ 

“Elfric spoke up. ‘Then how are people to do business?’ 

“‘If you do business, you’ll die,’ Caris said. ‘And you’ll kill your wife and children, too. So choose.’ 

“Betty Baxter said: ‘I don’t want to close my shop—I’d lose a lot of money. But I’ll do it to save my life.’ 

Caris’s hopes lifted at this, but then Betty dashed them again. ‘What do the doctors say? They know best.’ 

Caris groaned aloud. Prior Godwyn said: ‘The plague has been sent by God to punish us for our sins. The world has become wicked. Heresy, lasciviousness, and disrespect are rife. Men question authority, women flaunt their bodies, children disobey their parents. God is angry, and His rage is fearsome. Don’t try to run from His justice! It will find you, no matter where you hide.’ 

“‘What should we do?’ 

“‘If you want to live, you should go to church, confess your sins, pray, and lead a better life.’”

That’s how Ken Follett in his book “World Without End” depicted the official and communal response to an outbreak of plague in 1349 England after it had ravaged Europe. Follett published his novel in 2007. 

As I read that passage a few days ago I could not help but reflect on the similarities between reality and fiction. For sure, Follett wrote his story with 21st century sensibilities in mind. There’s no way of knowing if the sentiments expressed by Caris, mother superior of a nunnery, could have conceived them. 

No matter. It made for absorbing, timely reading. 

Day 86 Nat'l Emergency: Religion and Politics Don't Mix

I wonder, exactly what type of Bible did Ivanka Trump pull out of her $1,540 MaxMara handbag for her father to use in his photo-op appearance Monday before St. John’s Episcopal Church across the street from the White House?

Was it an Old Testament edition? Ivanka is, after all, Jewish. Presumably if she were bringing a Bible from her home or White House office it would be of the Old Testament variety, a volume where God is mostly demanding and judicious though often quick to exact punishment on transgressors. A real “law and order” deity full of fire and brimstone (God had not yet formulated tear gas, though there were plenty of times Israelites were awash in tears). 

An Old Testament god would kinda fit Donald Trump’s makeup. Well, maybe not so judicious. But surely demanding and quick to seek retribution for real or perceived offenses.

The cover and spine of the Bible he held offered no clues. The cover said “Holy Bible.” The spine read, “Revised Standard Version.”

If I had to guess, I’d say it contained the New Testament as well as the Old Testament. The New Testament is the one in which God is said to be merciful and compassionate. Calls for brotherly love (which also is in the Old Testament but doesn’t get as much play as when it is attributed to Jesus). 

For Trump to walk unmolested to St. John’s across Lafayette Park, protesters exercising their constitutional right of peaceful assembly were teargassed and driven away by law enforcement. Perhaps Trump’s brandishing of the Bible in front of the church partially damaged in rioting the night before was intended to convey reconciliation with those demonstrating against repeated police brutality, even murder, of unarmed Black Americans. 

If so, the message from on high was not well received by those beyond Trump’s evangelical base. He brandished the Bible like a trophy to be hawked to his audience. He neither carried the Bible like a holy book nor did he read a comforting passage from it. The Bible was simply a prop for a photo op. 

Not all evangelicals found his actions appropriate. Televangelist Pat Robertson repudiated Trump’s actions. Leaders of other Christian denominations did, as well, including the bishop of the church where Trump made his stand. 

Jewish clergy criticized him, too. The editor of The Jewish Week/Times of Israel, Andrew Silow-Carroll, wrote, “And then that photo-op, a futile gesture that said nothing so much as: ‘Here I stand, in front of a building I seldom enter, holding a book I rarely read, playing a role I’ll never fully understand.’”  

Trump has placed the military in an uncomfortable, rarely assigned, mission—policing American citizens. Past and present leaders of the military said it was uncalled for and that Trump was a threat to the Constitution.

The Internet has exploded in mocking Trump. My nephew Ari reposted the following from Military Veterans Against Fascism: 

“Why did the chicken cross the road?

“To pose for a blasphemous photo op at St. John’s Episcopal Church.”

Father Edward Beck, a Roman Catholic priest, asked on Twitter, “Has the Bible ever been used in a more disingenuous and exploitative way?”

Make America Great Again has been Trump’s rallying cry for more than five years. At home and abroad, sadly, we have stepped back further from that ideal. 

For those who do not watch CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell, take two minutes to view the attached clip, a reading of Langston Hughes’ poem, “Let America Be America Again.” Written more than eight decades ago, its message is still current and relevant: https://www.cbs.com/shows/cbs_evening_news/video/ralH4AZFpevjFk_pN_PiHsx_hGKqSxA0/langston-hughes-let-america-be-america-again-shows-the-nation-s-continued-struggle-of-freedom-and-equality/.

Day 84 of Nat'l Emergency: Bell's Palsy, Eight Minutes 46 Seconds of Terror, a Quizzical Coincidence

I’m wearing a crooked smile these days. Not by choice, mind you. Seems I have a mild case of Bell’s palsy.

Almost three weeks ago, on Wednesday, May 13 to be precise, as I was walking in our neighborhood, I felt a slight muscle cramp under the left side of my jaw. It quickly disappeared. Over the years I’ve had similar passing sensations, so I thought nothing of the current cramp. The next day, coincidentally around the same location on my walk, another fleeting cramp in the same spot under my jaw. 

As I continued my promenade my mouth felt as it does when recovering from a shot of novocaine from a dentist. I lost the ability to fully protrude the bottom of my jaw. My left cheek lacked sensation. No pain. Just a feeling of not quite numbness.

When I returned home Thursday, I looked in a mirror. No visible drooping. I smiled. My right side lips rose up in a smile. My left side stayed put. A classic crooked smile. 

To see me, one would not know anything was amiss. Lots of people have uneven smiles. I normally do not. 

Because of weakness in the muscles on the left side of my face I cannot suck up liquid with a straw unless it is positioned totally on the right side of my mouth. I’m sloppy when rinsing out toothpaste after brushing. It is easier to drink from a small juice glass than a standard width tumbler. 

My neurologist confirmed a mild case of Bell’s palsy. An MRI revealed no underlying reasons why my seventh cranial nerve acted up. 

There’s no treatment for my Bell’s palsy. It will self-correct, usually within six months. I already have seen improvements in my smile. 

Eight Minutes, 46 Seconds: I have no silver bullet, no magic formula to solve the continuing bias black Americans experience. How hard, how exhausting it must be to live a life of constant fear not just outside one’s home but even inside it should police come a-knocking.

I’ve been driving a car more than 50 years. During that more than half a century of driving I have received three tickets for a moving violation. Yet, each time I spot a police car a nerve receptacle in my brain tingles. I immediately check the speedometer. At night I check that my headlights are on. If turning or changing lanes I check if my blinker lights are on. I look in the rear view mirror to check if the police car has begun following me.

Am I paranoid? To some degree, for sure. But no doubt nowhere near the anxiety any black motorist must feel any time, anywhere, they are behind the wheel in their own cars or while delivering packages in a white neighborhood. 

Sadly, tragically, we have witnessed once again deadly, brutal, racist treatment black Americans receive from law enforcement. George Floyd did not commit a violent assault. Police were called because he was suspected of passing a counterfeit twenty dollar bill. He did not threaten anyone. 

Moreover, as a video recapitulation by The New York Times of the distressing incident shows, even though Floyd says he is willing to get up and get into a squad car, he is restrained from doing so by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin and possibly two other officers. Chauvin has his left knee on Floyd’s neck, pinning him to the ground (https://nyti.ms/2XMtUMa). 

Floyd’s death might not have been premeditated, but it clearly was murder.

Quizzical Coincidence: In its online page Sunday and in its print edition Monday, The Times ran an obituary of Herb Stempel whose death was not known when he expired April 7. The headline Monday was “Herb Stempel, 93, Contestant Who Admitted Quiz Show Was Fake, Dies” (https://nyti.ms/3doDc7C).

How ironic that his obituary coincided with the first installment Sunday of a three-part British series, aptly named “Quiz” on AMC, dramatizing a near 20-year-old cheating scandal surrounding British ITV’s hit show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?.”

Though they dispute their guilt, the perpetrators in “Quiz” are found to have passed information through strategic coughs from an audience member to a contestant. Stempel, on the other hand, was provided questions and answers for his appearances on “Twenty-One” in late 1956. He never denied his involvement in duping the public. Indeed, he asserted he was simply an “actor” following a script, for which he received $25,000. 

Day 77 of Nat'l Emergency: More Voices, Some Amusing, Mostly Reasonable

Not everyone sees the same Facebook and Twitter feeds I do, so here are some of my favorite postings from the last few days:

A former colleague, Barbara Hochberg, who just celebrated a birthday Sunday, posted on Facebook: 

Not Everything is Cancelled

sunshine is not cancelled

spring is not cancelled

love is not cancelled

relationships are not cancelled

reading is not cancelled

naps are not cancelled

devotion is not cancelled

music is not cancelled

dancing is not cancelled

imagination is not cancelled

kindness is not cancelled

conversations are not cancelled

hope is not cancelled

Speaking of birthdays, I share a birthdate down to the month, day and year with Maxine Clark, founder of Build-a-Bear Workshop. She cited Dr. Lisa Welch, Democrat running for Congress in Texas, addressing naysayers who believe the coronavirus pandemic is a hoax: “Who thinks it is a Hoax? Not Trump. He is tested every day, those around him are tested, the White House staff is required to wear masks, he is taking hydroxychloroquine to prevent him from getting it. All elaborate measures for someone that thinks it is all a hoax.”

Our son’s mother-in-law, Lolly Mixter, reacted to Trump’s push to re-open churches and other houses of worship: “Just to be clear, the Church has not been closed, so it doesn’t need to be re-opened. We have simply stopped worshipping in our buildings for a time to protect the health and well-being of our people & our communities. The Church does not require a building in order to be the Church. What is required is love, compassion & the presence of God.”

Marie Graham posted a sign from the Briarcliff Congregational Church: “In God we trust. Dr. Fauci runs a close second!”

My sister Lee liked a message board at Trinity Baptist Church: “Trump or God. Pick One. You can’t follow both.” 

Not all my contacts are liberal progressives. Here are two reposts from John H. O’Brien, another former colleague: “I got pulled over in the HOV lane for driving alone. I said that was due to social distancing, my passenger was in the car behind me!”

“So if the governor sees his shadow—will there be 6 more weeks of lockdown?”

My sister posts lots of interesting stuff. Here are several more I enjoyed:

Attributed to Linda Friedlander Imhof—“Would you love to see Anthony Fauci voted as Time’s Person of the Year? Trump would go insane!”

Ro Khanna, a Democratic congressional candidate: “Donald Trump votes by mail. Melania, Ivanka, and Jared Kushner all vote by mail. But when regular Americans want to vote by mail to stay safe during a pandemic, Trump calls it ‘voter fraud’ and opposes it strongly? This is what hypocrisy looks like.”

Delving further into the debate on voting by mail, Lee reposted, “If it’s safe to mail Tax Refunds, Social Security checks, Stimulus Checks, Draft Registrations, Prescription Drugs, Passports, your Driver’s License or the actual ID you’d use to vote…then it’s safe to vote by mail.”

To those who argue unemployment relief reduces the incentive of staff to return to work, Lee favored this comment from The Other 98%: “If your employees make more on unemployment you’re not a job creator you’re a poverty exploiter.”

To mask or not to mask—Lee lands firmly on the side of masking. She reposted Victoria Thomas: “I’m not asking you to drop behind enemy lines & fight your way to Paris. I’m not asking you to ration food. Or hide Jews, gays or Catholics in your basement. I’m asking you to cover your mouth & not stand so close to others. It’s embarrassing so many can’t handle that.”

She also liked Mar Toby Hartson’s comment: “Remember ‘Click it or Ticket’? Morons hated seatbelts but it saved lives! Maybe we’ll start ‘Mask it or Casket’ for same reason?”

Lee also reposted Jay McDowell: “I don’t understand some people’s problem with wearing a mask.

“I grew up with no shoes, no shirt, no service. Nobody turned that into a civil rights issue as far as I know.

“When I go to a fancy restaurant and they require a sports coat I don’t spit in their face. I wear a sport coat.

When I go golfing and they require a collar, I don’t yell and scream and turn it into something political. I wear a shirt with a collar like I was asked to do.

“When I walk into a place of worship if they ask me to wear a head covering, I am polite and wear a head covering. I don’t rant about my god given right not to wear a head covering.

“Right now we are being asked to wear a mask to make everyone feel more comfortable about restarting society. I don’t understand all of the anger about that. I will wear a mask for the benefit of everyone. It’s what I am being asked to do. And just like in the other instances, I will do it because I don’t consider it an infringement of any of my basic human rights. It is simply the polite thing to do for the common good.”

Day 76 Nat'l Emergency: Remembering My Last Aunt

If this had turned out to be a normal Memorial Day weekend Gilda and I would be in Colorado at the Allenspark Lodge outside Denver attending a First Cousins weekend to celebrate the life of Lily Weinrich who passed away in April 2019. She was 93.

Lily was the youngest of four Gerson sisters and an elder brother. The only one born in the United States, she was, in my estimation, the prettiest of the Gerson sisters. 

Like my mother, Sylvia, she had three children. Like her, a boy followed by a girl followed by a boy. Vicki delivered two boys. Pola, the oldest sister, never married.

I don’t know where Lily’s family lived at first. My earliest recollection is a house at 8 East Drive, Garden City, Long Island, that they moved into in the early to mid 1950s. From the front yard you could see the newly erected Roosevelt Field shopping center built on the airstrip where Charles Lindbergh took off on his historic non-stop solo flight across the Atlantic to France on May 20, 1927. 

The house was a split level ranch with a large side and back yard on which Lily’s husband, Ben, built a patio with pastel colored cinder block tiles. The basement had two levels. In the lower level Ben erected an HO-gauge model train set for his children that I envied. 

My family always seemed to be spending part of most weekends with Aunt Lily and her family, at our house or theirs. The ride from Brooklyn to Garden City on the Belt Parkway and then the Southern State Parkway took about an hour. When we would arrive in the afternoon my father would invariably shuffle off to an unoccupied bedroom for an hour’s nap. 

Often my brother, sister and I would sleep over in Garden City. If the sleepover came after a visit by Lily’s family to Brooklyn, all six children would be packed into the back seat. Actually, five sat on the bench seat. The sixth and youngest, Steve, would lay across the shelf in front of the rear window. 

Lily reveled in relating the time a toll taker counted the children in the car and asked if they were all hers. She coquettishly smiled and said she loved her husband. 

When we stayed over at Aunt Lil’s we usually took a bath after a hard day of playing. My cousin Mike, a year younger than me, and his sister Linda, three years further down the line, bathed with me until their mother observed her daughter displaying an unsettling interest in Mike’s and my anatomies. 

Invariably we never packed toothbrushes before our sleepovers. Lily’s pragmatic solution was to squeeze toothpaste onto our forefingers and instruct us to brush.

The Gerson sisters were unique. Not in the way they stayed connected for more than eight decades. Not in the sibling rivalries and disagreements, some of them petty (e.g., who made the better Thanksgiving turkey), that pitted one or more against another. Nor in the conflict with their older brother, the foursome unified against Sol, for decades.  

What distinguished each of them was their dedication to work outside the home. They were no Rosie the Riveter filling in for assembly line workers drafted into the military during the Second World War who went back to the homemaking front at the war’s conclusion. They became accomplished members of the labor force, the married trio working as partners with their husbands in their respective family enterprises.

Lily’s husband operated a men’s clothing store, the Loyal Men’s Shop, a few doors down from the Apollo Theater on 125 Street in Harlem. Ben moved his family to Garden City in the 1950s, but the tiresome commute to Manhattan prompted him a decade later to jump on an opportunity to move his store to the suburbs—the far suburbs. He planted his renamed young men’s store, Ben’s, along the main drag of Bayshore, in Suffolk County, Long Island. The family moved into a white colonial home in nearby Brightwaters. 

A few years later, in early 1967, Ben didn’t wake up one morning. Widowed in her early 40s, Lily became the sole proprietor of Ben’s. My brother Bernie, by now licensed to drive, and I used to travel out to Bayshore several times a year to update our wardrobes with more modish clothing, apparel our father invariably found incompatible with his taste. Arguments would ensue, he’d swear he wouldn’t pay Lily, we would keep the clothing and the next time we saw her during a holiday or family get-together, she would admonish Dad for being a fashion Luddite. 

 At the store one day a stray black dog, perhaps a cross between a German shepherd and a hound, ambled in and promptly adopted Lily. She named him Zeke. He was her constant companion for about a decade. One day he went out and never returned. Lily accepted his departure as gracefully as his entrance into her life. 

She closed Ben’s in the early 1980s, relocated to Manhattan, to an apartment on East 80 Street between First and York Avenues, and worked as a bookkeeper, mostly for a jeweler. 

She became a family conciliator. When Gilda and I balked at my parents’ plan to swap one of our cars for a larger car my father no longer wanted, Lily smoothed over our differences. After decades of the four sisters excluding contact with not just their brother Sol but his three sons and their families as well, Lily bridged the divide after Sol passed away. Many a weekend she would ride a bus to Middletown, NY, to assist Paul, Sol’s youngest, in his jewelry business. The reconciliation became official with the sons’ attendance at Gilda’s and my wedding. 

Perhaps as a byproduct of running a store that catered to a young clientele, Lily retained an ability to relate to younger generations. When she heard of her great-aunt’s death a year ago, our daughter Ellie wrote, “I have the fondest of memories of spending time with Lily, especially with (cousin) Ari that one day we went to museums with her. I also remember having some lovely conversations with her when I first graduated from college and moved to NYC.”

On the day of the New York City blackout August 14, 2003, I walked from Park Avenue and 55th Street to Aunt Lily’s apartment. She was a cool and collected 78-year-old. I stayed a while until Gilda connected with me for the trip back to White Plains.  

Her son, Steve, eventually with his wife Grace, lived with Lily in Manhattan. They all moved to Kansas and then to New Mexico. 

The last years of her life, as the last of the Gerson siblings whose parents emigrated from Lodz, Poland, in 1920 and 1921, were spent in declining mental acuity. She passed away in her sleep April 1, 2019. 

Her children Michael, Linda and Steve had planned the cousins weekend as a celebration of her life. As a young adult Lily had hoped to become a nurse. She took courses at Mount Sinai Hospital. Her cancelled memorial weekend is another casualty of COVID-19.