The Sweeter the Wine

Wine was not exactly an acquired taste of mine,  but rather a delayed one.   For years I was a teetotaler – not by choice mind you,   but on doctor’s orders.   I suffered from migraine headaches since I was a young girl,   and I had been told wine was a trigger.  (See Migraine)

Of course I’d risk a glass or two now and then,  especially when out to dinner and friends were ordering adult beverages and I felt childish asking for Coke.

And on sabbaths and holidays I’d drink a glass or two trusting that exceptions are made for ceremonial wine.  In fact I’ve grown to rather like the often maligned, very sweet taste of Manischewitz.

So if you’re one of those detractors who find Manischewitz concord grape too sweet for your palate,  I urge you to try their blackberry wine – it’s just sweet enough!   L’Chaim!

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– Dana Susan Lehrman

 

Hey there you fellow homo sapiens! Gather ’round, lemme tell ya a joke. It’s a real knee-slapper, been around for millennia. It goes a little somethin’ like this: a bunch of ya all get riled up, paint yer faces funny colors, grab some pointy sticks, and see who can spill the most blood and guts! Hilarious, right? War: A sick joke we keep on telling, and telling and telling.

War. Yeah, war. That big, bad gorilla in the room, the one shrunken down by our fancy dinners in front of TVs and our twenty-four-hour news cycles. We’re bombarded with it, folks. Explosions lookin’ like fireworks shows, soldiers lookin’ like action figures – all sanitized, all pretend. But let me tell ya, war ain’t no game.

Did ya play war as a kid? Probably. We all did? I did. Sticks for swords, dirt piles for trenches, imaginary enemies lurking ’round every corner. But then we grew up, right? Learned the difference between make-believe and messy reality. But some folks, they never learn. They hold onto that childish aggression, that tribal “us vs. them” mentality. It’s passed down like a family heirloom – grandpappy fought the Kaiser, daddy went to ‘Nam, so little Timmy’s gotta go blow somethin’ up in the Middle East.

Maybe you weren’t a soldier yourself. Maybe it was your brother, your sister, your spouse. Maybe they came back different – haunted eyes, shaky hands, nightmares that leave them screamin’ in the middle of the night. War steals, man. War steals lives, steals sanity, steals hope. It leaves scars on the battlefield and scars on the soul.

And the cost, folks! The mountains of money piled high, the wasted resources, the lives that coulda been woulda been shoulda been somethin’ great. All burnt up on the altar of some idiotic war for oil, for land, for some business man’s and politician’s ego trip. Have you ever seen a good war? Didn’t think so.

Now, some of you might be sayin’, “But Kevin, what about defendin’ our freedom? What about fightin’ evil?” Fine, fine. But who defines that evil? Who decides what freedoms are worth dyin’ for? War’s a blunt instrument, man. You swing it around and it takes out the innocent just as quick as the “bad guys.”

Maybe I’m a dreamer but I’m not the only one so I gotta believe there’s another way: Diplomacy; talkin’ things out like civilized folks instead of cavemen with clubs. It’s a tough sell, I know. But think about it. Wouldn’t you rather spend your tax dollars on schools and hospitals instead of bombs and bullets? Wouldn’t you rather see your kids playin’ tag than playin’ war?

War’s a joke, folks. A sick, twisted joke that’s been around for far too long. It’s time we stopped laughin’ and started demandin’ better. Let’s build a world where war’s a relic of the past, a bad memory from childhood games, not the horrifying reality on our TV screens. Now that, folks, would be a real laugh riot

–30–

World War II murders and casualties overshadowed my childhood.
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Do You Miss New York ?

Dave Frishberg wrote it and no one sings it better than Rosie!

See Clooney!

– Dana Susan Lehrman 

How to Raise a City Kid

Years ago when our son was a toddler many of our friends began fleeing to the suburbs.  They couldn’t imagine raising a child in Manhattan with all the dirt and crime.

“But think of  the culture!”,  I would say.

At the Met Museum five-year-old Noah,  wide-eyed at Arms & Armor,  or perched spellbound on the grand staircase watching a stonecutter etch a donor’s name on the marble wall.

And making Purim masks at the Jewish Museum,  and model dinosaurs at the Natural History,  and reading the night skies at a kids’ astronomy class at the Planetarium,  and delighting when Red Grooms took over the Whitney.

And at a Chagall exhibit at the Guggenheim when he was three or four,  Noah pointing up from his stroller to ask incredulously,  “Another cow who’s FLYING?”

And theater and concerts –  children’s shows at the Beacon,  and Dino Anagnost’s wonderful Little Orchestra,  and The Paper Bag Players and Mummenschanz at the 92nd St Y.

”But we can bring our kids into the city for all that!”,  our smug suburban friends would say.

“Ah yes,”  I would say,  “but if you needed a taxi in the rain,  and the wind was blowing your umbrella inside-out while you were trying to fold the stroller,  would your four-year-old raise his arm and yell Checker?”

Carl Schurz Park,  NYC ,  1978

– Dana Susan Lehrman

Joy and Addis 

I’ve written about the memorable time in the early 1970s  when my husband Danny was working in London for a year and we lived in a rented flat in Chelsea off the Kings Road.   (See Laundry Day in London,  Kinky Boots,  Valentine’s Day in Foggytown ,  and Intro to Cookery)

And I’ve written about the unforgettable British friends we knew there.  (See Inks and Derek: Art and the Cricket Scores and Munro)

Joy and Addis,  who were our upstairs neighbors at 20 Royal Avenue,  are two more who became unforgettable,  life-long friends.

New York born,  Addis was 20 or so years older than us,  and during WW II had supervised the construction of fighter aircrafts.   After the war he settled in Los Angeles and co-founded the Nervous Nine,  a progressive Democratic fundraising coalition,  and went on to be a Southern California manufacturing entrepreneur.

By the 1970s Addis was serving as a management consultant to major American and European companies,   and while working in England met Joy by serendipity at the Coventry railway station,  a sweet story they relished in telling.

Joy was British and about my age,  and when we became their London neighbors she and Addis,  like us,  were newly-weds.  Theirs was obviously a May – December marriage,  and a most loving and devoted one.

Joy was a marvelous cook and the first time they invited us to dinner,  I went up to their flat early to watch her make her specialty – roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.

Danny was a business newbie then and gradually came to consider Addis as a business mentor and they stayed in touch after we returned to New York.  And a few years after that  Addis’ London stint was up and he and Joy left Britain for Malibu,  California.

There over the years we visited them in their beautiful home on the Pacific Coast Highway,  stayed in their guest house,  and swam in their wonderful pool.   And we were intrigued to learn that the artist David Hockney was a personal friend of theirs,  who like Joy,  was a British transplant.  Known for his many iconic swimming pool paintings,   the artist,  they told us,  had painted their pool.   Hearing that,  our young son Noah opined that they first had to drain the water so the guy could get in to paint it!

Years later as Noah’s bar mitzvah approached,  we invited Joy and Addis,  and to our delight they flew to New York to celebrate with us.  Over the years Addis continued to be a trusted business mentor to Danny,  and we were heartbroken when in 2005 we got the sad news that our old friend had died.

We stayed in close touch with Joy,  and when Santa Monica friends invited us to their daughter’s bat mitzvah I called Joy to say we’d be in southern California for a long weekend.  In order to spend as much time together as we could,  Joy took a room at our hotel.  When my Santa Monica hostess learned that,  she thoughtfully invited Joy to the bat mitzvah and luncheon.

Since then Joy’s health has been failing and we hope to get to the west coast to see her again.  But I’m so grateful for that last lovely California weekend we spent together!

David Hockney,  Pool with Two Figures

– Dana Susan Lehrman

I’m not a second guesser. Once I decide to buy or do something, I don’t perseverate about my decision.
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