IT'S NOT THE TAJ MAHAL

As soon as I heard that there was a super-duper senior residence being built across the street, from where I now live, I was one of the first future residents to sign up for an apartment in June of 2017.  Everyday since, I have been watching this, one-hundred-and-ten-million-dollar, (glad this is a story and not a check) structure being built, with over 250 workers on site, finally, there seems to be a move-in date somewhere in the offing—depending on government inspections.

In the ensuing two years, rumors have been flying from prospective resident to prospective resident about the move-in date. First it was expected in January, then March, April (for sure!) May, June, July (really for sure). Now maybe September..(for maybe sure). I feel as if I’m back in high school, waiting to be asked to the prom, when people say, “Do you have a date yet?” Dejected, I hang my head and whisper,”Not yet, but I am hopeful.”

With five restaurants, some prospective residents are worried that, “So many people will come here to eat from the outside that there won’t be room for people who live here.” Not true!  It’s just another false rumor. The only outsiders  who can eat in the restaurants will be guests of the residents. Of course, that means that we have to be extremely careful of outsiders who suddenly want to be our best friends at dinner time.

I understand that the apartments are so well built that you can shout obscenities in your apartment, and the people in the adjoining apartment can’t hear you. I really like that, because I often yell  obscenities at my television set.

When my husband was a graduate student, we moved into married student housing. The first night, in our apartment, my husband said, “Come look at the beautiful moon.”  Then he said, “Oh, My God!  There are two of them.  Hit the floor!”  It was then that we discovered that the married student apartments were in the landing pattern of the airport.  Also, we were treated to the university marching band practicing under our window early every morning. I didn’t care.  It was our home—until we moved.  

During the first night in our next apartment, I gave my husband a poke and said, “You are snoring.”  He replied, “It isn’t me. I thought it was you.” Turns out it was the man next door. I never did find out if there was a wall under that wall paper.

Our next apartment had a clogger overhead.  Every night, after work, she’d move the  furniture across the floor, turn up the music and stomp to her heart’s content. Then we moved to an apartment owned by the mafia. No noise! No problems! No cutting of the grass.  One afternoon, our neighbor lost her toddler in the un-cut lawn and we all had to look for her.

Our dear friends, Janet and George moved to an apartment that had been a dental office.  Their kitchen looked a bit like a dental lab. One day, they came home from class and found a man sitting in their living room reading a portion of Janet’s thesis. He said, “Is the dentist in?”
Janet said, “This is no longer a dental office. Couldn’t you tell the difference?” As he left he said, “I think you could have provided better reading material.”

Then there was the bizarre: Gail and Joe moved into a place where all the doorknobs were covered with little crochet caps.  The first night in their bedroom, they discovered that the Chinese themed wallpaper glowed in the dark.  All night they had visions of little Chinese men dancing across the walls.

And finally,  Lawrence and Carolyn got a really good deal when they purchased a mansion. His law firm had handled the sensational  case of the owner’s bloody  murder while he had taken a vacation somewhere in the Caribbean. Turns out that he had been quite an oddball with very strange friends, and the publicity about his life killed any chance of selling that house. Eventually, Lawrence and Carolyn transformed that house into a beautiful home where they raised their children.

It’s been a long time since I have lived in an apartment. Right now, it’s just a place. A place does not make a home. People make a home.  I can do that—-if they ever let me move in.

Esther Blumenfeld

Apollo Mission

In honor of the moon landing, I am proud to share the following story sent to me by my friend, David Snell, a former correspondent on ABC  Televison News. David is now the author of several books and his most recent best seller is THE BARON AND THE BEAR.  Esther Blumenfeld

A friend emailed that he saw me on a TV special, The Lost Tapes of Apollo 13.  It reminded me of my Apollo experiences.  As follows.

Space and Me
       My first space assignment was Apollo 11, the Neal Armstrong-Buzz Aldrin attempt to land a man on the moon.  It was an exciting assignment and one that veteran correspondents weren’t seeking because of Jules Bergman.  Jules was ABC’s Science Editor and in the age of space exploration, as close as reporters ever came to true expertise.  But Jules was jealous of his turf which meant   prospects of getting on the air from the Manned Spacecraft Center in Nassau Bay, Texas (near Houston) were, shall we say, limited.
       Along with the correspondents from CBS and NBC, I spent endless hours outside the homes of the astronauts waiting for the moments (few and far between) when members of the family would venture forth.  The good news was that Mary Lou was with me and, while I was waiting, she was enjoying time by the pool and lunches in a not-too-bad motel restaurant. 
       “One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”
       Despite limited air time, it was a thrill just being there watching – on the giant NASA screen – when Armstrong first set foot on the moon.  The following morning I was stationed outside Mission Control when John Glenn, our first man to orbit the earth, came walking toward me.  I don’t remember much about that interview, but I earned ninety dollars for a question – “What are they doing now?” – that made it onto an audio recording ABC made to memorialize the historic flight. It was earlier that morning when I did a live stand-upper (just me in front of a mock-up of the lunar landing module) that could have been career ending.
       Frank Reynolds in New York switched to me to describe “The mood of Mission Control.”  “Well Frank,” I began, hearing my voice coming back to me on the gizmo in my left ear.  The audio man in New York hadn’t flipped the right switch so every word I said made the round trip from Houston to New York and back again.  It was discombobulating.  A more experienced reporter would have had enough sense to remove the ear piece, give his report, and put it back again when he was finished.  I didn’t.  And, since everything I had intended to say was blown out of my mind, I tried to describe what I was seeing.  It was word salad.
       How bad was it?  I called Mary Lou back in the motel for reassurance.  “How bad was it?” I asked, hoping against hope that, somehow, I had managed to make some kind of sense.  “I’m packing,” she said.  Was it really that bad?  “You sounded like you were drunk.”       My next phone call was to the producer in New York.  I hoped I could explain what happened and find a sympathetic ear.
       His secretary answered the phone and handed it to the producer.  “It’s Snell from Houston.”  I waited, listening to the muffled voices in the background, practicing my explanation.
       “Good job,” he said, obviously preoccupied by the ongoing program. “Just what we needed.” 
       Somewhere, out there in America, there are viewers who will be forever convinced they heard an ABC correspondent who was drunk out of his mind.  In New York, nobody noticed.  I was standing there talking with that space-flight looking object over my shoulder and they, with my sound turned down, were discussing what came next. 
       I was back for Apollo XII and XIII with limited expectations of on-air exposure, but by then we had made friends with Texas-based reporters and one NASA Engineer – Donald Arabian – and his wife Debbie, so at least we had a social life.  We were at dinner in Houston one evening while astronauts were moon-bound on Apollo XIII when I got a call.  “Houston, we have a problem” were the five words that singled a routine flight had become anything but.  We hurried back to the Manned Spacecraft Center and the ABC house trailer that was our make-shift studio.
       During nearly a half hour of waiting while AT&T scrambled to connect lines to New York, I listened as Jules Berman, our science editor, droned on and on, detailing, in technical language that raised more questions than it answered,  the problem the spacecraft had encountered.  I took notes, trying to make sense of what he was saying.  Once AT&T had us connected, I spent most of the next half-hour quizzing Jules on the meaning of his scientific explanations.  It turned out he really did know what he was talking about, just not how to say it in everyday English.
       As the evening went on into night, and night to morning, I reveled in the most on-air exposure I’d ever experienced.  After that first half-hour interviewing Jules, I was on every five to ten minutes interviewing a succession of ex-astronauts and NASA officials who weren’t involved in calculating how to solve the problem and engineering the safe return or the astronauts. Once, while Jules carried on from New York, Apollo XII Command Pilot Pet Conrad arrived in our “studio.” 
       “Nope,” he said, as we listening to Jules explaining some technical fix the astronauts might try.  “Ain’t no way.”  On and on he went as Jules continued his explanation.  By the time Jules switched to us, I had picked up enough about Pete and his relationship to Jules that I said:  “I have Apollo XII astronaut Pete Conrad with me, Jules, and he has a few bones to pick with you.  Sick-um, Pete.”
       What followed was a fun and funny back and forth between Pete, who had an infectious personality, and the usually stiff and staid Mr. Bergman.  It turned out they had a kidding relationship going back from Conrad’s earliest days as an astronaut.  Obviously delighting in their easy banter, Jules showed a personality he’d never before used on the air.  Along the way, he also showed an impressive understanding of technical aspects of space flight.  “You’re right about that,” Pete conceded on one arcane point.
       Buoyed by the concession, Jules went on to a discussion of the importance of turning “the framous” exactly one quarter turn.  “You’re wrong on that one, Jules,” said Pete, obviously pleased with himself.  “The framous needs to be adjusted three-quarters of a turn.”  Back and forth they went, each explaining why they were right.  Finally I intervened.  “Gentlemen, gentlemen.  What’s a framous?”
       It wasn’t until after the Apollo XIII astronauts had been safely splashed down in the Pacific that I learned of the role our friend Don Arabian had played in the rescue.  When all the flight engineers arrived at Mission Control that night, flight director Gene Kranz asked him to join the others in a brainstorming session.  Don shook his head.  “Can’t do group-think,” he said, going into his office and closing the door. 
       A half hour later he joined the other engineers who seemed to be getting nowhere.  Arabian had figured out how, jerry-rigging a solution from various items on board, they could bypass dysfunctional systems and save the mission.  His framework opened the way to a joint effort that made the rescue possible.
       Back in New York I was prepared to go back to my persona non grata relationship with the Evening News, something that had been going on since Av Westin became the producer several months before.  I never learned why, but, sight unseen, he’d decided I wasn’t Evening News material.  I was sitting at my desk on the third floor in what we called the Correspondents Ghetto (four cubicles of two desks each down the hall from the Assignment Desk). 
       “They want you on the quintuplet story,” said John Sandifer, the assignment editor.
       “What? Really?”
       My months in purgatory had come to an end.  Later, Bill Lord, the Washington, DC evening producer who’d been in New York that week, said Westin looked up at the monitor during one of my Apollo XIII interviews and said, “He’s pretty good.”
       Marlene Sanders, another correspondent on Westin’s bad list, was happy for me, but disturbed enough about her situation that she finally sought a meeting.  Westin explained that my redemption was because I had spent a lot of time on the second floor (where the Evening News was produced) “learning how we do things.”  Marlene knew I had never done that, but knowing didn’t resolve her situation.  Her rescue came from ABC News Vice President Bill Sheehan who put her in charge of the documentary unit.
       My redemption lifted a weight from my shoulders, but the news back in New York was not all rosy.  While I had been on the air some thirty times during two heady days, my dream of a sizable bonus was not to be.  My friend John Reiser, knowing my on-air exposure would be limited (as it had been on Apollo XI and XII, had intervened on my behalf. John, a lawyer for ABC News, told his boss they’d save money if they switched me to a flat fee during the space coverage. I don’t remember how much it was, but it was a lot less than the bonus I would have earned.  Thanks, John.
       Meanwhile, the Special Events Unit (that handled space flights) submitted our XIII coverage for an Emmy.  It included excerpts from my initial debriefing of Jules translating tech-talk into English.  Mr. Bergman was not happy.  That translated into even less exposure for me in the next two Apollo Missions.  I managed to opt out of Apollo XVI and was planning to do the same on XVII until I got a call from Special Events.  “It’s our turn to provide the (three network) pool reporter,” said Wally Phister, unit producer.  “That would be you.”
       So there I was, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean for seventeen days in December of 1972, reporting on the splashdown on NBC, CBS, Armed Forces Television and, of course, ABC.  Well, not exactly “of course.”  You would think the network would capitalize on the fact that its correspondent was the only broadcaster reporting the story.  Ah, but that would assume Jules Bergman had no say.  He did, and ABC came in dead last in their use of this pool reporter.  I know because my dad, thrilled about my assignment, had rented two extra television sets so he wouldn’t miss a minute.  I was all over NBC, made a number of appearances on CBS, and appeared only three times on my own network.  Go figure.
       I, of course, knew nothing of this.  It was my job to narrate the splashdown from the first spotting of the landing module to the splashdown, to navy frogmen helping the astronauts into the life-rafts, to the ceremony onboard the recovery ship, the Ticonderoga.  That was a lot of talking, but, in seventeen days, I’d filled up a couple of notebooks with anecdotal information and was loaded for bear. 
       Jonathan Smart, the lead frogman, told me the dressing down he got from Daniel Sorkin who lead the recovery team.  Sorkin, Smart reported, was livid after one of the full-dress simulated recoveries because Smart had radioed back to the Tico, “We’ve got sharks in the water…Sharks!”  “Never say sharks,” said Sorkin.  “If there are sharks in the water during the actual recovery, say Marine Life.  We’ll know what you mean.  If you say sharks, the little old ladies down in Houston (at Mission Control) will go crazy.”
I also reported on the NASA-approved prayer the navy chaplain was to deliver.  It seems the chaplain’s prayer in the ceremony after astronauts Armstrong and Aldrin returned from the first lunar landing was judged to be entirely too long.  So, on subsequent aircraft carrier ceremonies, the prayers had to be approved in advance.  Chaplain XXXX XXX’s prayer today will be fifty-eight words.  Fifty-nine with amen.


David Snell
www.thebaronandthebear.com
770-656-2442

WHO'S YOUR BEST FRIEND?

The legend claims that, “Vespasian was sitting in his tent after battle, and his dog brought him a hand. He knew he’d be emperor in 69 AD.” I don’t know what he named his dog, but perhaps he said something such as, “Good dog, “Caligula”! Shake!”

I happen to like dogs very much, especially when I can play with them, and then their owners are the ones who have to pick up the poop. In American history, all of our Presidents (except one) enjoyed the companionship of their dogs.  

George Washington, “The Father Of Our Country,” gave less than distinguished names to his hounds; “Sweet Lips, Scentwell, Vulcan, Drunken Taster, Tipler and Tipsy.” Just think of it, Washington could have been King.

It was a common sight in Springfield to see Abe Lincoln walking to the local market with “Fido”, a floppy-eared, yellowish mutt, who trailed behind him carrying a parcel in his mouth. Sadly, “Fido” was assassinated, just like his Master, a year after Lincoln died. “Fido” made the mistake of jumping, with his dirty paws, on a drunk sitting on the curb, and the man killed him. So, “Fido” because a footnote in history—road rage at its worst.

Sometimes the dog of a President has become a part of his master’s political life. James Garfield named his dog, “Veto.” I’m sure it must have been irritating for Congress, when they presented a bill to Garfield, and he’d shout, “Here comes “Veto.”

The most famous dog, who became a celebrity in his own right was “Fala,” President Franklin Roosevelt’s little black Scottish Terrier, who never left the President’s  side.  He became so popular that thousands of people wrote to him, and he got his own secretary to respond to them. There was even a movie made about “Fala" in 1942.

With all of that publicity, the Republicans decided to use “Fala” to slander the President, by spreading a rumor that President Roosevelt had accidentally left “Fala” in the Aleutian Islands, and spent millions of taxpayers’ money to send a destroyer back to retrieve him.  F.D.R. answered these accusations with his famous,”Fala” Speech.’”  In the speech given to the Teamsters Union in 1944, F.D.R. said, “Both I, and my family, somewhat expect malicious statements to be made about us, but I have to object when such statements are made about my dog!”

President John Kennedy had 9 dogs, but “Pushinka” was probably the first mutt from Russia allowed into the Oval Office. “Pushinka” was a gift to Kennedy from the Russian Premier, and he was a litter puppy from the Soviet space dog, “Strelka.”

Lyndon Johnson had two beagles, “Him” and “Her.” His Great Society program got less publicity than when he lifted one dog by the ears claiming, “It’s good for him.”

In 1952, Richard Nixon, as Eisenhower’s running mate, was the first politician to use television to defend himself of accepting illegal gifts. He referred to his black and white cocker spaniel, “Checkers,” ( whom his family had been given as a gift) when he said, “And you know, the kids, like all kids, love the dog, and I just want to say this, right now, that regardless of what they are saying about it, we’re gonna keep it.”  The address became known as the “Checkers Speech.”

Too bad, that, years later,  “Checkers” didn’t have his own apartment at Watergate. That could have been a good excuse for the break-in—-“Just here to play checkers.”

I recently said to a friend, “All of the other Presidents had dogs. Why do you suppose that Donald Trump doesn’t have a dog?” He replied, “He’s got the Senate. They bark! They sit! They  roll over! Who needs a dog?”

Esther Blumenfeld















 

BON VOYAGE SEQUEL

As I am preparing for my sojourn from the neighborhood where I have lived for 25 years, so many of you requested that, if possible, I entertain you with more stories about some of the people who used to live here. Message received! So, here is the sequel to “Bon Voyage.”

First of all, please understand that through the years, there have been many nice, normal folks who lived here. However, their stories are not nearly as much fun to tell.

A couple with whom I was very friendly lived here for many years. He was a retired military pilot who fueled airplanes mid-air. His best friends were always former navigators, because he said that he always had a very bad sense of direction. His wife was a symphony violinist, and we enjoyed spending time together. We had much in common—-except our politics—but in the good old days that really didn’t matter.  

After a Presidential election, I was sitting at the community pool reading a book, when she, and two other women, entered the pool gate and sat at an adjoining table. They complained bitterly about the outcome of the election. Suddenly, my friend, the violinist, turned to me, and said, “Oh! I am so sorry. I hope that we haven’t offended you.” Looking up from my book, I said, “Not at all. My guy won.”  In today’s political climate,  they probably would have drowned me.

I was not at all friendly with the couple who bragged that they saved on their water bill by not flushing their toilets.  Her motto was, “If it’s yellow, let it mellow.  If it’s brown flush it down.” I thought it totally uncanny, and took a perverse pleasure seeing the Roto Rooter Man at their home several times.

Then there was the neighbor whose adult children decided to build a big boat in her front yard. The Association Manager told her that she couldn’t do that. When she said, “Why not?” He replied “Because we live in the desert, and you don’t have a dock.” He might not have been so flippant, had he known that she always carried a pistol in her purse. As a matter of fact, her second marriage wasn’t made in Heaven. It was made at a meeting of the NRA.

Another neighbor had a husband who was a talented artist. His paintings and sculptures were truly beautiful.  However, sometimes he was overly enthusiastic with his brush. One afternoon, when she returned from a get-together with friends, she discovered that her beautiful mahogany breakfront had been painted a peacock blue with colorful designs. With great forbearance she said, “ I guess the chairs are next.”

Many of the homes in my small neighborhood have matching house numbers such as, 10 Rd, 10 St., 10 Circle and 10 Place. When a substitute mailman takes over, the neighborhood marathon begins with people dashing about putting mail in the correct boxes. However, it doesn’t stop with the mail. One morning, I heard the sound of electric shears coming from my backyard. The gate was open and a little fellow was humming and trimming my bushes. I shouted, “Stop!” What are you doing?” He looked at me as if I were nuts, and replied, “Well, I am trimming your bushes.” I replied, “If you want to keep doing that, it’s okay with me, but you might want to do it at the right house.”

A sweet lady who lived a few houses from me suffered from dementia. One day, her caregiver stepped outside for a smoke, and the sweet lady slammed the door behind her and called the police saying, “There’s an intruder in my house.”  Three police cars, an ambulance and a fire truck arrived.  Her daughter was called to provide identity, and I think the caregiver gave up smoking.

Another feisty woman was in the hospital recuperating from surgery.  When the nurse didn’t answer the call bell, she called 911. After the hullabaloo and excitement calmed down, they took her phone away from her.

One of the most colorful characters in our neighborhood liked her whiskey. I think it stimulated her already bizarre behavior. She had a little buck-toothed dog named after a Chinese Emperor. She hired an artist for $5000 to paint his portrait. Then, she had an unveiling of the painting. As we raised our glasses of wine, the artist unveiled his work with great ceremony. It looked like a little buck-toothed mutt to me. A few days later, the woman told me that she had to go to an oral surgeon to have a tooth removed.  I told her that I would drive her there.

On the day of departure, she got into my car and said, “I am going to die!” She had convinced herself that she would not survive the tooth extraction. So, she handed me some paperwork. “What is this?” I asked.  She said, “It is my will, and tells you where to send my dog. The portrait goes to a doggy museum.”  I looked at her and said, “ I can promise you that you are not going to die.”  I figured that she would probably survive, and if not, there would be no recriminations. She lived long enough to write a novel, pay $25,000 to have it published, and drive around the Country trying to get bookstores to sell it.

The lovely couple who bought her home decided to paint the walls, because they had been painted in  many different colors. However, when the former owner removed her wall hangings, it was discovered that she had painted the walls around the wall hangings, so, with the wall treatments missing the walls looked like a bad  case of the chicken pox.

Then there was the guy who was a chef at a famous restaurant. He enjoyed swimming in the community pool, and also enjoyed showering in the outside shower in his altogether— removing his bathing suit. When he wanted to hang out with the neighbors, he meant it!

Those were the days.

Esther Blumenfeld

BON VOYAGE

I have lived in the same neighborhood, in Tucson, Arizona, for a quarter of a Century. In those 25 years, I have witnessed the moving-ins and the moving-outs of many homeowners. As a matter of fact, there are only two original homeowners—since the community was built—still living here.

Now, it’s my turn to leave, and I am looking forward to moving, across the street, into Hacienda at the Canyon, a senior residence that has been under construction for two years now, and will soon be ready for occupancy—MAYBE! However, I don’t have a firm move-in date yet.

Since it is getting very hot, and several neighbors are leaving for cooler climes, a lovely neighbor invited the entire neighborhood to her home to ostensibly “wish me well” before my (whenever they are finished building) move. I suspect that the large, enthusiastic crowd will really be celebrating that I am finally leaving.

So, with wine, margaritas and snacks, I can’t help but remember the neighbors who are no longer with us, those who have moved on, one way or another, and now I can tell their stories.
What the Hell! Time to let it all hang out before I get  out of Dodge! (Old cowboys know what that means.)

I am not like one neighbor’s son, who converted to Buddhism, got married, and he and his wife moved to  separate monasteries. They then took a two-year vow of silence. Some honeymoon! However, on a positive note, I guess that the marriage lasted for at least two years.

Nor, am I like the neighbor who moved away in the middle of the night, and illegally absconded with a twenty-foot tall, $2000.00 Saguaro Cactus. He also married a young woman who lived here. She had told everyone that she couldn’t stand to be near him, but getting close to his money was no problem. That marriage didn’t survive. Don’t know about the cactus.

Then there was the parsimonious man who lived across the street from the pool and clubhouse. How cheap was he?  Well, he took showers everyday in the clubhouse to save on his water bill. He’d mosey over there wearing a fluffy, terrycloth robe, and wander home with a roll of toilet paper in one of his pockets. He once bragged to me that he had lent his daughter $10,000.00 for a down payment on her home, and he was only charging her 10% interest. This fellow had a wheelbarrow, and occasionally a few decorative rocks from our Community Front Entrance would show up in his front yard.

When my husband, Warren and I first moved here, we invited a couple to our home for afternoon coffee and cake. As they were leaving, she said to me, “It was so much fun spending time with you both. I wish we could reciprocate, but we don’t have any place in our home for you to sit.” I thought that rather strange, until years later, when she gave me a tour of their huge house. She wasn’t kidding! There was no place to sit in that art gallery. They were both artists who dealt in Pre-Columbian art.  As I entered the home, scary masks leered at me from the walls. What should have been a living room was filled with sculptures, and there was a large, wooden canoe in the fireplace. Pottery covered a table. They had added a room for gigantic, soldier statues that reached the ceilings, and there was a room big enough for two moving vans. It was filled with paintings. I insulted the artist husband when I asked, “Do you sell your paintings.” He replied, “I don’t do that!” After looking at them, I understood completely.

A new neighbor moved in a few houses away from me. I had not met her until one day when I went out to get the mail. Suddenly, I saw her striding my way, shouting, at the top of her voice, “Communists! Communists!” I looked around. Nope, I saw no Communists. So, I said, “You seem upset. Where are the Communists?” Turns out that she received a note from our Community Association President reminding her to put her car into her garage, so she concluded since we were infringing on her property rights we were all Communists. I told her to take it up with him, and I was just there to get my mail out of my box. I later found out that she had retired from working for  the CIA after she had jumped out of an airplane,  and I surmised that she was obviously, probably justifiably, a bit paranoid. Turns out that she was also a hoarder, and a few years later, when she died penniless, her house went into foreclosure, and crews of men came, with commercial dumpsters, to empty her once beautiful home.

Then there were the neighbors who had 17 exotic birds flying around inside their house and pooping off the rafters. Another couple’s hobby was to back out of their garage and knock down their neighbor’s mailbox on a regular basis, until their insurance company refused to pay for one more time.

My handyman was shocked when he was called by one neighbor to fix something and she greeted him at the door twirling, and saying, “I just bought this new skirt. Don’t you just love it,” but she wore nothing on top. She and her husband were nudists. Nice but naked.

One of my favorite neighbors, a lovely lady named Nawana, decided to move into a senior residence.  Her kids came to help her downsize. They thinned out her possessions, and sold some of the furniture. When I next saw her I said, “Nawana, I thought you were moving.” “So did I,” she replied, “But when the kids cleaned everything out, my house looked so much better that  I decided to stay.” And, she did for several more years.

That won’t be my story, but all of these people, over the years, have made this a neighborhood to remember. However, unfortunately, there are still many stories I can’t tell you.  Why? Because the blackmail is so extremely lucrative.

Esther Blumenfeld