Deep Resentment

Rocco hefted the bag of cement and poured its contents into the mixture of sand and water in the trough. As he stirred the slurry, he groused at silent figure on the bench. “This is why I brought you down here, to see how I’m forced to work for a living. All my dreams of going to college–maybe becoming a writer or somethin’–are dead. And all because a certain wise-ass teacher said, ‘Your writing must be more concrete; if you can’t be more concrete, I’m going to flunk you.”

When the mixture offered sufficient resistance to his trowel, he moved toward the bench. Rocco said, “Well, I flunked, dammit. Mama, she never stopped cryin’ cause her only son never made it to college.” He picked up a bundle almost as big as he was. “I think it killed her. What’s more, this work is killin’ me!” he went on. He carried his load over to a deep hole near the trough and dropped it in. “See how hard I work?” he grumbled. Then he dumped a wheelbarrow full of crushed rock into the hole, and finally, as he upended the trough, dumping its contents into the same hole, he screamed into it, “Okay, Mr. Smart-ass teacher. Izzat concrete enough for ya?”

Leo Toribio

Crime Course Ends with a Bark, Not a Whimper

Officer Pagane and Angel
The talents of the Baldwin Borough Police Department’s K-9 team, Officer Bob Pagane and Angel, were on display at the final “Close Look at Crime” class, co-taught by ex-Police Officers Dave Shifren and Ron Freeman.
Shifren and Freeman
Pagane, a friend of Shifren’s, described and demonstrated for the class the well-honed skills of his K-9 police dog, Angel*. Angel is a Belgian Malinois (Mal-in-wha), bred in Holland specifically for police work. The Mal is basically a smaller version of the German Shepherd, though with advantages over the breed which has been synonymous with the term, “police dog.” Because of its compact size, the Mal performs better in tight spaces, such as automobile trunks (where they may sniff for hidden drugs); its reduced size translates into longer service life because it is less prone to Hip Displasia, a disease common in larger dogs. And, importantly, a Mal’s “through the roof” energy level makes it virtually tireless. “I often work a twelve hour shift,” Officer Pagane says. “Angel will sit in the squad car, continuously scanning the scene outside the car windows–no lying down, no distractions–during the entire shift. She’s on duty until I tell her otherwise.”

“There are several reasons why I chose this dog,” Pagane states. “First and foremost are her social skills. Anybody can pet this dog. She’s not going to bite you…unless I tell her to.” Angel proved her handler’s claim by sitting patiently as students rubbed her head. “Another reason is, her tremendous drive–her desire to fetch her toy, a tennis ball. We call it ‘ball drive’. She will track human scent for 60 yards–or a mile and a half–hoping that, at the end, as a reward, she’ll get to chase her tennis ball (thrown by her handler). Third is a personal reason. She gets along fine with my other dog, a male Shepherd, and with my two cats.”

The questions came fast and furious, from the thoughtful to the playful. Question: “How can I get my dog to stop barking at the mailman?” Answer: “When dogs bark they are in effect saying, ‘Stay away–this is my master’s house.’ So when the dog barks at the mailman and the mailman leaves, the dog thinks, ‘Wow, this works.’ But if you get him to stop barking at the mailman, he won’t bark at the burglar.”

When Pagane mentioned that he has to take Angel with him when he goes on vacation, my wife offered to board her at our house. Great idea, I thought. Angel probably needs a change of pace, too. Our three pound dog, Cookie, could put her wise on how to have fun, relax, and let the humans know who the leader of the pack really is, without having to chase after a silly tennis ball.

Cookie

Len Z

See Officer Pagane and Angel article in Tribune-Review: http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/southwest/s_514526.html

Getting “High” on Wine

Mike Gonze

Do you enjoy a glass of wine with dinner? But what makes that glass of wine “good”? In a nutshell, it’s just what tastes “good” to you. That’s the mantra of our instructor, wine expert and purveyor Mike Gonze.

I was one of about 20 Osher members who attended Mike’s recently completed three week course — Wine Appreciation: Focus on Cabernet and Chardonnay. The classes were held in the Cathedral of Learning’s lofty Babcock Room, a large conference room 40 stories up, with a stunning 360° panoramic view of the city. We had to take a special (and truly claustrophobic) elevator to the top. During one class we were even joined by a peregrine falcon as it chirped along the edge of the building.

This class began with an introduction to the various aspects of wine such as color, aroma, acid, tannin, body, and finish. Mike defined each of those ideas and then followed that with a tasting of five very distinctive wines. We were urged to use our five senses to experience each one. The wines represented flavors from grapes grown in Germany, New Zealand, France, and California. We then discussed what we liked or didn’t like about each of the wines. There were nearly as many explanations as students. Ciabatta bread and several delicious cheeses accompanied each tasting. By the end of the first session, I came away with a much more informed palate.

Week two featured white wines. Again, we used our senses to realize the differences even within the same grape variety. Mike explained that 60 % of the taste of wine comes from the soil in which the grape is grown. The climate and rootstock are also factors. We tasted two California Chardonnay and two French Chablis wines.

The final week red wine was the topic. An Australian Merlot, a French Bordeaux, and Cabernets from Spain and California were poured. To start class, Mike answered a few of our questions. One that interested me was about the controversy of screw cap vs. cork. Mike said he is still undecided on that one. He pointed out though, that increasingly vintners are switching to the screw cap. Why? Because buyers seem to appreciate not having to struggle to open the bottle, and because the screw cap has no adverse effect on the wine, whereas improperly cured cork stoppers can adulterate the wine. After a brief talk on wine magazines and internet offerings, we got into the wines. Mike discussed the features of each one as well as the food that would be well paired with it. The final thought of the class came back to the first – wine derives its value not from where it is grown, nor even from its cost, but from what tastes “good” to you.

You don’t have to wait until this class is offered again. Mike and his colleague, Tribune Review wine columnist Dave DeSimone, conduct tastings and classes at Mike’s wine shop in the Strip District. The website is palatepartners.com. Click on “tastings”.
The French have a saying — wine is food and it is on the tongue that it speaks. I expect to have long discussion with a bottle of Chardonnay this evening.

Sara Kobak

Academy Award Movie Night

 

 

 

RODEF SHALOM SISTERHOOD MOVIE NIGHT SERIES OPENS WITH AN ACADEMY AWARD WINNING FILM
“West Bank Story “ the 2006 Academy Award winner for best short live action film will be shown Sunday, October 21^st at 7:30 pm.

“Anti Semites-They’re Everywhere! “ is the theme of this year’s Rodef Shalom Sisterhood Movie Night series. The committee selected several interesting and heartwarming films for the series that portray antipathy for the Jews from the usual suspects . They will be shown on three Sunday nights: October 21^st, January 13, 2008, and April 13, 2008.
The first Movie Night on Sunday October 21st at 7:30 pm in Levy Hall, a large comfortable theater space ideal for showing films, will feature two films. The first movie,

“West Bank Story”,

 

is a 22-minute film that won an academy award in 2006 for the best short live action film. It also won 25 other prestigious awards and played in film festivals around the US, Israel and Europe. Made by American filmmaker Ari Sandel for a film seminar at the University of Southern California, it is a musical comedy that uses the West Side Story theme and music to spoof the rivalry between Arab and Israeli falafel stands on Israel’s West Bank. Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan praised the film and wrote that “West Bank Story …( was) expertly made and impressive down to the finger snapping of the rival gangs.”

The second film is a full length (106 minutes) film festival favorite,

” Monsieur Batignole”.

 

Filmed in France in 2002 with very high quality English subtitles, it is a true story of a Jewish child who becomes separated from his parents during a Nazi round up of French Jews. He returns to his apartment to find it occupied by the downstairs gentile neighbors. The story is a tension-filled drama told with charm and humor as Monsieur Batignole, a French butcher who has very little love for his Jewish neighbors, becomes heroic as he hides the Jewish child and then helps him to escape from France. Monsieur Batignole was the very popular festival opener at last spring’s Pittsburgh Jewish-Israeli Film Festival. Movie Night at Rodef Shalom is open to the community and there is no charge. Light refreshments will follow after both films have been shown. For more information contact Rodef Shalom Congregation at 412-621-6566.

Marla Perlman

First Meeting

First Meeting

(as it might have been written by W.B.Yeats or James Joyce)

Long chestnut hair to the small of her back, her denims were blue and her blouse was black. That’s the image that first caught my eye, drew my attention and forced a sigh. Then, when she turned I was stunned to see, brown eyes flecked with gold, gleaming at me, on a sweet round face with an elegant nose, and two lips like petals of a deep red rose.

Two rows of pearls, dazzlingly white, parted those lips and brightened the night in a smile as broad as the Irish Sea as she floated across the floor to me; on legs well-formed and athletically trim, she seemed to be dancing across the gym, moving with grace like a sinewy cat, lively and springy, not clumsy and flat.

My heart started pounding irregularly as I studied this beauty approaching me. Trembling, my knees felt weak and unsteady; I had no more time to make myself ready. But the look in her eyes was inviting and warm, broadcasting confidence, sentience and charm, it quelled my anxiety and soon put to rest the undefined fear that had lodged in my breast. And I knew at that moment she did understand, when she reached out, caressing my cheek with her hand, and suddenly, somehow I was finally at ease in my first meeting with Mary Louise.

Leo Toribio

Surprise: A Lesson

In the 1970’s in Puerto Rico, when I programmed computers for a living, I came home tired from a day longer and tougher than usual. At the door my wife informed me, “Your children have been horrible all day. I’m dead tired. You take care of them. You can put them to bed. Read them something–that works pretty well.”
I looked for something to read to them and found only torn pages from a few books.
When I mentioned this to my wife, she replied, “Tell them a story of when you were a boy. I’m going to sleep now.” She disappeared down the hall.
My childhood would bore these children. Good, I thought: they’ll go to sleep that much sooner. After telling them to get their pajamas on and all that, I gathered them into the boys’ bedroom. “Your mother says you’d like to hear about when I was a boy.” Three faces looked back at me: Steven, Diana, and Eddie. Their expressions betrayed neither boredom nor interest. Mentally, I groped for some kind of inspiration–ANY kind. I looked around the room for a while before I noted a few Christmas toys that had so far survived.
Winter and Christmas.
“Our family put up a tree, too. Just like we do today. One Christmas your Aunts Marcia and Laura got bikes that came in big boxes. They had to put them together, though. That took them most of the morning. They wanted to ride them, but your grandfather and grandmother wouldn’t let them take them outside, since the roads hadn’t been cleared yet.” Three pairs of eyes had not closed nor even blinked.
“One year we all got sleds and took them outside and up a hill where we built a little ramp and slid down the hill, over the ramp through the air for a little jump and on down the rest of the hill. We had to dodge a stone wall our next-door neighbor put up. But that was easy. Other kids in the neighborhood joined us and some helped with the ramp and we all had a lot of fun.”
“One day after a snowstorm, your Aunt Marcia went outside, barefoot, and made angels in the snow.” Three faces looked blank, puzzled, uncomprehending. “She often did that, though your Aunt Laura and I didn’t do it beyond the first time. For us it wasn’t that much fun. You lie down in the snow and sweep your arms through the snow from your waist to up above your shoulders and you move your legs like a broom sweeping back and forth. When you get up you see a picture like an angel on the Christmas tree.” I paused for breath.
“Papi, ¿Qué cosa e’ la nieve?” Daddy, what’s snow? my youngest had asked. His brother and sister also looked to me for an answer.
That stopped me. I realized only Steven had seen snow when he was but a year old. He would not remember. And the other two had never had never seen a winter with snow. If the three of them saw anything on television or at the movies, they had forgotten. But how could I explain snow to them?
My brain had gone on strike, on vacation, shut down for the winter. I sat there looking at the young faces awaiting an answer. Just sat. Tried to think. And did not come up with a nice ready-made explanation. I ran my thoughts over the house and areas we had visited together. After a short eternity, I grasped at the only straw I could see.
“You remember the refrigerator and the part where Mami keeps the ice cream?” Three nods. I lucked out there: what child would NOT know where such goodies were kept?
“Okay. On the side of that box, there’s a white frost that your mother cleans off every so often.” More nods. “Think of having everything outside covered with that frosty stuff, as deep as your ankles. It covers everything outside. Everything is covered in this white blanket until people clean the roads and sidewalks, or it melts in the sun. That frost all over is snow. Understand?”
Three slow nods. Three doubting expressions. I continued my story, citing ice skating and skiing as particularly good fun until the youngest’s eyes started to droop and close.
“Okay. That’s it. Bedtime.” And without argument they went to bed and asleep.
Next day when I came home again, my wife asked me, “What did you tell them?”
“About our winters and Christmases in New England. Like you said. Why, what’s wrong?”
“I heard Diana asking Steven if he believed the things you told them. He said, ‘No way. He told us that stuff ’cause he doesn’t know any good stories.’”
Later I reflected upon these events. My children spoke only Spanish and I had become fairly fluent. But what gave me pause was the knowledge that had someone told me ten or twelve years before, that I would be explaining snow–in Spanish–to children who had no idea what it was like and that the children would be my own, I’d have put in a call to the white coats and the people in charge of the rubber rooms.

John Sayre

The End of Something (with apologies to Ernest Hemingway)

The End of Something

From the moment she drifted into my room, I knew there was something very special about Elizabeth. A dream girl, with high-boned cheeks, long, flowing silken tresses and the eyes of a doe, she was also a confirmed vegan. “I do not touch dead meat!” she solemnly declared. But there was more to her than that – much more. She manifested an ethereal quality; she was like no one I had ever met. And in no time at all, we found ourselves swept up in a whirlwind affair.
I took her to my favorite haunts where we played with erotic abandon. I learned to eat salads, because she would not permit me to kiss her lips if I had just eaten meat. We laughed together, lightly and long, as we skipped through the streets of the city or raced up the grassy knoll in the park to our favorite romping place.
I never promised her the moon, but I would have if I could have. Instead, whenever I noticed that some trinket had caught her attention, I bought it for her. One day, we paused at a pet store window to delight in the antics of a beautiful puppy. Elizabeth was as enthralled by the puppy’s antics as I was, and so I bought the puppy, and a collar, a leash, a ball and a small package of meaty puppy treats. Elizabeth seemed ecstatic with the puppy, and the three of us scooted merrily up to our favorite spot in the park.
As we sat on the bench, we watched the puppy play. But we soon noticed that the puppy showed a marked preference for returning the ball to me. This was intolerable, but I hit upon an idea that I thought would correct the situation. I opened the package of doggy treats and offered one to the puppy who quickly devoured it and insistently probed for more of the same. “Here, Elizabeth, take this. “ I began, offering her the package. “If you feed the puppy some treats, I’m sure he’ll quickly bond with you.” “Oh, no,” she responded, “I can’t.”
“Please,” I said, “I know it will work.” But still she resisted. With no further thought, I grabbed several treats from the package and tried to place them in Elizabeth’s hand, but the slightest contact with her hand caused her to instantly recoil with a look of shock and betrayal on her face. “How could you?” she asked, incredulously. She turned, in an instant, and walked away from me. “Please, Elizabeth, I’m sorry, come back!” I pleaded. But I knew, from the instant I brushed her hand with that doggy treat that I had betrayed her trust, irrevocably, and I’d lost her, forever.
Abruptly, I found myself sitting up in bed, drenched in perspiration, eyes moist and tearing. I tumbled out of bed, limped to the vanity, and peering into the mirror, I scornfully groaned at the traitor in the mirror, “How could You?”

Leo Toribio

Love, Honor, Obey

Love, Honor, Obey

Silas’ blonde wife did a lot of stupid things, but whatever she did, no matter how dumb, the things she did always seemed to work out favorably. And she was as frugal as he was, and he really appreciated her loyalty and obedience, so he decided to show his appreciation and he phoned her and told her to meet him for dinner. “Meet me at the mall,” he said.

She was elated. She could hardly believe her ears! The tightwad never took her out to eat. “But how will I find you?” she asked.

“Just look for Penney’s.” he answered.

Even though she did exactly as she heard him instruct her, she never found him. She did, however, return home with $1.87 more than when she left.

Leo Toribio

Nothing Gained

West Dormitory, Union College

The taxi driver wrestled Howie’s steamer trunk out of the van, dragged it to the sidewalk. Howie gave him the fare and a handsome tip, expecting some help getting the trunk to his room. Instead, the driver thanked him and climbed back into the van.
“Uh…sir, can you help me carry my trunk…”
“Curb delivery only—insurance doesn’t cover it.”
The van pulled away, its exhaust enveloping Howie in a gray-black cloud of diesel fumes. Behind him, someone called, “Whaddaya got in there, a dead body?” Turning, Howie looked up and saw a guy crouched on the top step of the landing. The guy uncoiled to a standing position. He said, “That cabbie’s a real bloodsucker,” then “need a hand? Ground floor—five bucks, second—ten, third’ll run you fifteen.”
 The badge plastered onto his raggedy black tee shirt said “PROCTOR.” His name was in smaller type, too small to make out from where Howie stood. He was lanky, but not gangling, like Howie. His face was narrow, his eyes an intense green, his long nose chiseled; shiny black hair pulled back into a ponytail, a wolfish twist to his mouth.
Reminded Howie of the guy in the old Dracula movies on cable.
“Is 301 on the third floor?” Howie asked. “What do you think?” the guy said. Howie turned back to the trunk. Behind him the guy said, “Twenty bucks.”
“You said fifteen!”
“I just remembered. I got no insurance coverage either. C’mon man, pay before you play.”
Howie fished a twenty from his wallet.
They tugged and pushed the trunk up the eight metal-edged concrete steps to the landing, then into the building. Howie was breathing hard, sweat pouring down his pallid face, stinging his eyes and steaming his wire rim glasses.
“Hold on a second. Let me take off my jacket.”
Howie doffed his jacket and tie and placed them atop the steamer trunk. Half way down the hall on the right, he spotted an elevator.
“Hey—you said…”
“If we take the stairs it’s twenty more.”
“But…”
“Relax, I was just messing with you,” the guy said, with a crooked grin.
“Wait—you mean…we’re roommates?”
The guy hiked a flip-flopped foot onto the steamer trunk, rested his crossed forearms on his knee and gazed at Howie.
“301—right? Printout says ‘Renfield III, Howard—Room 301’. Trust me. We got the best freakin room in the building. Call me Luke.”
The name on his badge said, “Lucius Deville.”
“What about that twenty I gave you?”
“Tell you what: you can have the bed with the million-dollar view. Right into some of the Women’s Dorm rooms when the shades are up. Sound good?”
 After they managed to shoehorn the trunk into the elevator, Howie asked, “What year you in?”
“Sophomore. Space is tight so I gotta have a roommate…but bein’ a Residence Proctor, my housing’s free.” he continued, unasked.
“What do you have to do?”
“It’s kinda like being a minimum security prison guard. Make sure there’s no booze, no weed, no co-habitating…”
“And what if students break the rules? You report them?”
The guy chuckled. “Not if they make it worth my while not to. It’s a freakin college dorm, not a prison, right?” Fox in the henhouse, Howie thought.
“I thought my roommate was supposed to be Billy Lugo.”
“Oh, he’s not coming. He was waitlisted at Tranny State—got accepted last week.
When they entered the tiny room, a faint odor of rotten eggs invaded Howie’s nose. “Whew, it’s warm in here. What’s that smell?” Howie said.
“Waddaya mean? Smells okay to me. Weather’s fine in here. Wait till it gets cold. You’ll be grateful you’re not freezin’ your ass off. Hell, I wanted to be put next to the furnace room in the basement. Oh, you got the upper bunk.”
The upper and lower bunk beds were pushed width-wise flush against the single window in the room; the upper bunk’s view of the outside was restricted to a narrow sliver of window pane. “I can’t see squat up there,” Howie groused.
“You wanna be disturbed when I have to get up in the middle of the night to let somebody in who forgot his key? Listen, later on, how ‘bout we check out some hottie waitress friends a’ mine at the Rathskeller?”
***
That night, Howie clambered down from his bunk and made his way to the steamer trunk. He opened the trunk and withdrew the implements from its secret compartment. He crept to where Luke lay supine…and drove a sharpened wooden stake through his left nipple. An unholy, skull-shattering howl that only Howie could hear issued from Luke’s deformed “O” of a mouth.
Howie dropped his mallet, clasping his hands to his ears to block out the knifing pain. Luke’s eyes bulged open, piercing Howie’s eyes, transfixing him.

“Hell…low! I’m a Satan Second Class, not a freak’n Vampire,” he messaged telepathically to Howie.
“Huh,” Howie muttered, “we’ve been tracking Billy Lugo for a while now. When he didn’t show up I was hoping you came as his replacement. That ‘Billy Lugo’ alias was–it was short for Bela Lugosi. Very funny. And you told me he transferred to Transylvania U. I put two and two together. Then there was you, of course, acting like a total jerk.” And came up with five, Howie thought.
“Damnation to hell, I just flunked my devilment 101 course, thanks to you,” Luke sighed. “I’m gonna have to re-take it. There goes next summer. Renfield…I shouldda picked up on your name. Your great-great grandpap musta been Carlyle F. Renfield, Dracula’s freakin flycatcher.”
“You got that right. Speaking of names, your name did give me second thoughts about whether you were a Vampire, though. Lucius Deville? I get it now. You’re named after Lucifer the Devil! But even if you weren’t a Vampire I figured I’d try to nail you anyway. You devils hang with them, don’t you? Oh well…like they say, nothing ventured. Looks like we’re both going back to the minors.”
Len Z

Meet the Burkes

The Burkes chat with a mystery guest at the Fall Fling*

New members Dave and Marilyn Burke are also lifetime members of the Pitt Alumni Association (PAA). Marilyn is especially engaged, as she is immediate past president of the Metro PAA, which includes Southwest Pennsylvania as well as Pittsburgh. Accordingly, it bears mentioning that they met while Pitt students. The Burkes first became aware of the program when they attended an Osher Presentation at PAA meeting where a talk was given and brochures handed out. Favorable word of mouth helped stoke their interest when a good friend, Will Hoel, and other friends as well, joined and told them how much they enjoyed their classes.

“The reality is, we enrolled because we wanted to—the subjects are of interest to us. Marilyn is 100% Italian, so we’re taking an Italian Immigration course at Monroeville ExpoMart,” Dave stated.
The Burkes like the idea of taking courses in Monroeville because it’s a relatively easy commute from their home in Shaler (just outside of Millvale), the parking is free, and there’s convenient shopping and dining at the Mall.

I first met Dave in Tai Chi class, when I stumbled backward into him and he helped me regain my balance. He’s trim and fit looking. “I’m taking the Tai Chi course,” he said, “because I was looking for something that would not only be a form of exercise, but also a form of relaxation. So far, it’s been extremely interesting. We both believe the more you keep the mind active as a continuous learner, the more alert you’ll be and the more active life you’ll have as a senior citizen—so here we are.”

Our conversation turned to demographics. Marilyn pointed out that the age range in Osher runs from 55 to well into the 80’s; hence the need for courses that meet the needs of people with quite different physical capabilities. She recalled her mother’s experience when she joined a senior citizen’s group. Her mother had observed that the more nimble members would participate, for example, in exercise or line dancing classes, while the “older” members preferred more sedate or quiet activities. “We’re those people now. We’re in the young group, though–we can still line dance,” she chuckled.

That gives me an idea. How about a course in Tai-Chi Line Dancing? Hey, I’d sign up for it in a heartbeat.

Len Z
*Positively identified as Vivian Lawsky