Ashes and Stashes

When I retired after my long career as a librarian,  I embarked on a new venture – helping people declutter and organize their stuff!   (See Second Career – Home Organizer!)

I advertised my organizing services and I started getting calls from folks who said they needed help getting a handle on their paperwork;  or their closets and drawers were a mess;  or they were drowning in clutter;  or were simply overwhelmed by too much stuff.

Those who I suspected were hoarders I referred  to colleagues who had specialized training.  Hoarding is a serious problem and in fact has been identified as a mental health condition.

But I was eager to help the garden variety clutterers,  and I soon learned when folks let you into their homes and you earn their trust,   they often share their secrets and their guilty pleasures.   One client showed me where she kept her mother’s ashes,  and an elderly woman I was helping pack for her move to an assisted living residence showed me her trove of love letters.  They were from an old beau she had known 60 years ago,  and she invited me to sit and listen as she lovingly read them aloud.

And then there was the guy whose studio apartment I was helping declutter who showed me where he kept a secret stash of his own.

That story I had to share with the press!

New York Times,  Sept 18, 2023

– Dana Susan Lehrman

TM and the Honeymoon Album

Once years ago I heard  that a lecture on transcendental meditation was to be given at a local community center.

Intrigued and eager to learn about the benefits of meditation I went,  and when the lecture ended I struck up a conversation with the young woman sitting next to me.   Her name was Joan, we were about the same age, and like me she was recently married.

Happily we exchanged phone numbers and a few days later Joan called and invited me and Danny to dinner.

On the appointed evening we arrived armed with the requisite bottle of wine,  met her charming husband Arnie,  and we were soon gayly chatting away when Joan popped out of the kitchen to say dinner would be ready in 15 or 20 minutes.

While we were waiting,  she suggested that Arnie show us the pictures they’d taken on their honeymoon.   And so he brought out a large photo album,  and began proudly turning the pages.

I don’t remember where they had honeymooned,  or what Joan served us for dinner that night,  or if we ever saw them again.  But I’ll never forget that photo album with dozens and dozens of pictures of Joan and Arnie in various poses –  all smiles,  and both of them completely in the nude.

(BTW I never could get into transcendental meditation either.)

– Dana Susan Lehrman

...never, never, never step on laughter.
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We felt a bit deceived—after all, we only agreed to take him because she had begged—but he had clearly had a traumatic adolescence and changed since his owner had died.  We still took him in, the damaged goods, and named him “Jack”.
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Comedy, for me, is reified in the Animal Crackers scene when madcap Captain Spaulding (Groucho Marx) steps away from staid Mrs. Rittenhouse (Margaret Dumont) and  Mrs. Whitehead (Margaret Irving) saying: “Pardon me while I have a strange interlude.”  You know, recently I’ve favored cremation over burial, but burial’s preferable if I can have Groucho’s line carved on my tombstone.

And speaking of death, which is de rigueur at the beginning of any contemporary media, how about these lines from James Tate’s fabulous poem, “On the Subject of Doctors.”

“Sorry, Mr. Rodriquez, that’s it,

no hope.  You might as well

hand over your wallet.”

Sure, I’m a Marxist, and a disciple of P G Wodehouse, and until I discovered Thelonius Monk (I don’t mean on a street, I mean his recordings), Bugs Bunny was my deity. Now, Monk’s God, Bugs’ the Son, and Eugene the Magical Jeep is The Holy Spirit.)  I love comedy because its oblique and non sequitur is its nature (even if that doesn’t make sense, it ‘s fun to say, and that’s enough for comedy).

I’m increasingly convinced that language is a joke, especially as I listen to evangelists, politicians, scientists, and athletes bloviate. (cf. philosopher, Harry Frankfurter’s essential book, On Bullshit, Princeton, 2005).  If humans would admit most language is jabber we could choir like birds, to similar effect and greater delight.  Think about it, do birds sing because they can fly, or fly because they sing?

And what about Western Grebes?

I have only one tenant, which I discovered, if I remember correctly, on the New Year 1972 cover of Parade Magazine: “Avoid zealots.  They are generally humorless.”

Humans suffer from Stockholm Syndrome vis-à-vis zealots, because they’ve been taught and brainwashed in school and through media to slavishly capitulate to “ideals,” which are too often manias.

Combine that with the pernicious truism “life sucks” (yeah, I gotta bone to pick with Buddha over “all life is suffering,” although I highly recommend Billy Collins’ poem, “Shoveling Snow with the Buddha”) and you can understand comedy’s essential because it stands up to Fuddian pessimism and cracks “Whatta maroon.” 

Comedy is not only part of our history, it’s part of our spiritual heritage. Imagine the patriarchs’ roars of laughter when the author of Genesis started his routine with Lot’s wife turning into a pillar of salt (Brilliant!  Worthy of Alan King.), continued with Lot’s older daughter liquoring him into the sack.  And then, ba-da-boom! the second daughter does it, too!  Samson and the temple?  Bonk! Bawdy and slapstick material like that brought down the caravanserai.  St. Matthew’s quip about a camel getting through the eye of a needle easier than a rich man into heaven still slays ‘e at glitzy synods.

To paraphrase Prospero, “We are such stuff as jokes are made of.”

That’s it…Gotta go…Be sure to tip your server…

Oh, wait!…I just realized cottage cheese is not a cheese.  That’s just occurred to me.

Turning Left in London

I’ve written about our magical year in the early 1970s when my husband Danny worked in his company’s London office.  (See Laundry Day in London, Valentine’s Day in Foggytown, Kinky Boots and Intro to Cookery)

Here’s another story.

Before we left for our London sojourn we went to the DMV,  presented our New York drivers licenses,  paid a fee,  and were issued international licenses.

Once settled in London Danny enjoyed his work,  and I kept busy taking courses and learning my way around that wonderful city.  (See Inks and Derek: Art and the Cricket Scores and Munro)

Then after a few months we planned our first holiday – a road trip around Scotland.  (See Taking the High Road)

We went to a car rental agency where Danny showed  his international  license and we were given a car along with reminders about the difference between driving in the States and in Britain.

Danny,  always an excellent driver,  would be doing all the driving, and after practicing for a few blocks,  he proudly declared he’d mastered the right-side steering wheel.   And,  he assured me,  driving in the left lane on a two way road was also a piece of cake.

And then feeling fully confident  he took that first disastrous left  turn —  into the wrong lane and the oncoming traffic!

He swerved in time and we survived unscathed,  and that year we rented a few more cars,  and took a few more lovely road trips around Britain.

But apparently having an international drivers license doesn’t guarantee you’re a skilled international driver.   Altho turning right came easy,  Danny never did quite nail that bloody British left hand turn!

And we learned that even crossing the street in London can be risky unless you remember to “Look right,  then left.”  

(And it’s best to watch out for any Yankees with international drivers licenses who might be coming down the road!)

– Dana Susan Lehrman

Peanuts came in two varieties as a kid: one to munch on at the circus, and the other to devour in the comic strip by Charles Schulz. I liked the latter better.
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