Seating Plan

Years ago when our son was busy studying his bar mitzvah Torah portion,  we were busy planning the celebratory luncheon that would follow the service.  (See Ghostwriting in the Family)

We picked the restaurant,  selected the menu,  made up the guest list,  and sent out the invitations.

We invited family of course,  our friends and our son’s friends, old college classmates, long-time neighbors,  and business colleagues of my husband and teaching colleagues of mine – all the communities that were so meaningful to the three of us.   And accordingly we drew up a seating plan for the luncheon.

And then on that joyous bar mitzvah day we went from table to table thanking all our guests for coming.  And altho I felt close to everyone gathered in the room that day,  it was the table where my teaching colleagues were sitting I felt I best belonged.

I spend all my working hours with my colleagues,  we mentor and support each other,  we share our passions and our goals,  and we appreciate what we do day-to-day far better than our spouses or our friends ever could.  (See Mr October,  Magazines for the Principal, The Diary of a Young Girl, The Parking Lot Seniority List, Educator of the Year  and Going Back to Work)

When we put our hearts and souls into our work,   it’s the community of our colleagues who knows us best!

Jane Addams HS Faculty Reunion – 2014

Jane Addams HS Faculty Reunion – 2023

– Dana Susan Lehrman

Exploring the unexpected.
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Tapestry

A few years ago my husband’s college roommate Ken invited us to join him on a trip to Normandy.   I had a bit of a hassle replacing my missing travel documents,  but eventually all was resolved.  (See The Purloined Passport)

We flew first to Paris where we visited with family and friends, then rented a car and drove to Caen  where we met Ken,  and for the next several days immersed ourselves in World War II and D-Day history.  And as we expected,  we found our time in Normandy both very educational and very emotional.

Towards the end of our stay the two men decided to go to another of the several Normandy museums in the area but I wanted  to spend some time in Bayeux to see the celebrated tapestry,  and so I went alone.

There I found the 230 foot long tapestry mounted behind protective glass and encircling the walls of the Bayeux Tapestry Museum.  An excellent auto-guide took me through the 58 scenes,  embroidered with colored yarn on the tapestry’s 9 linen panels.

Thought to date from the 11th century,  the tapestry depicts the events leading up to the 1066 Norman conquest of England and the British King Harold’s  defeat by Duke William of Normandy at the Battle of Hastings.

I was captivated by the tapestry –  the pain-staking work of the artisans who wove it centuries ago; the imperative at the time to record the historic battle in art;  and the story of how the tapestry survived and was preserved.

When we left France we took with us a clearer understanding of the events of WW II and what happened in Normandy,  and I left with a deeper appreciation of my father’s part in the war.  (See Captain)

And I also left with the story of another battle – one fought in Hastings ten centuries ago,  and immortalized in the extraordinary work of art I saw in that lovely museum in Bayeux.

– Dana Susan Lehrman

The Peacock

Both my husband and I bear the scars of early burns.  Mine is under my chin and dates from a very minor,  almost funny childhood accident;  his scar is on his arm, dates from the hour of his birth, and tells a more somber tale.

As I child I loved summer camp and went on to be a camper waitress,  and then a drama counselor. (See Frenched!,  The Camper-Waitress Goes to the Fair, and Piano Man – Remembering Herb)

One memorable summer when I was a young camper we were sitting around a campfire toasting marshmallows on sticks as a counselor told a ghost story.  Intent on the scary story,  I took my stick out of the fire to eat my toasty marshmallow  but as I raised it to my mouth it hit me under the chin instead.  Now decades later I have the scar of what I affectionately call my “marshmallow burn”.

How my husband was burned is quite a different story.

On the cusp of WWII and the Nazi horror,  my husband’s parents fled Europe.   (See Family Photo and  Tracing Our Roots)

They were able to get visas for Bolivia where they lived for the duration of the war and where my husband was born – prematurely.   The hospital conditions were relatively primitive and there were no incubators for premies.  Instead the 5 pound baby was placed on a shelf under the table where his mother had labored, and where she was then being treated for a serious post-partum complication.   Meanwhile a hot water bottle was placed beside the infant and altho it kept him warm,  it badly burned and scarred his arm.  But thankfully mother and baby survived their ordeals and after the war the family sailed for the States.

Of course my husband doesn’t remember the kindly Bolivian doctor who delivered him and treated his mother,  and has only heard the hot water bottle story that explains his badly burnt arm.  But he does have wonderful memories of his early years in Cochabamba, a city of beautiful fountains, squares, and parks.

And as a three-year old he remembers playing in a Bolivian park where a peacock frightened him by suddenly spreading its beautiful feathers.

– Dana Susan Lehrman 

My Day in the ER

Recently I spend practically a whole day in the ER.

I had a Zoom book club meeting the day before and was eating a tuna fish sandwich as I sat at my computer talking with my book club friends.

I made the tuna salad myself and in fact my husband was eating it downstairs while I was upstairs Zooming,  and he later told me he thought it tasted fine.   But it tasted off to me,  and a few hours later I felt sick to my stomach and that night spent more hours in the bathroom than in bed.

The next morning I still felt awful and called my wonderful primary care physician Dr M.  His nurse told me it sounded like a case of food poisoning and rather than come to the office I should go to the ER as I’d need fluids after throwing up all night

And so I went to the local hospital in the Connecticut community where we spend half our time.   It’s a wonderful hospital,  and there’s usually no wait in the ER and there wasn’t that day.   I was immediately ushered into a private room,  quite unlike the narrow bays separated by curtains that I’ve seen in the crowded ERs in many New York hospitals.

Then a kindly staff treated me with state-of-the-art medical equipment.  But when I mentioned I had a slight pain in my abdomen,  a red flag went up that sent me for an MRI – not the usual  protocol for someone in the ER with food poisoning.

And the results were a bit alarming – it seems the MRI revealed a cyst on my pancreas as well as something suspicious on my breast.  The MRI results were shown to the surgical team who deliberated for awhile while I worried, and although they concluded that nothing was urgent, they strongly advised me to pursue those two incidental findings with my doctors.  And so of course I continued to worry.

After six hours in the ER I was discharged,  and the next day I called my New York gastroenterologist and my New York gynecologist with the Connecticut ER story.   Each asked that my medical records be sent from Connecticut to New York,  and I made appointments for further tests with the results to be sent back to Connecticut so my doctors in both places were kept – pardon the expression – abreast.

And so my inter-state medical saga continued as I worried for a few more weeks while awaiting those test results.  Then finally I got a clean bill of heath from both doctors.  The pain in my abdomen that had sent me for that MRI was now chalked up to gastritis caused by all my vomiting that fateful night.

Back in Connecticut I went to see Dr M.

“Isn’t it lucky that when I went to the ER for food poisoning they did that MRI and uncovered those incidental findings!”  I said.

One of the things I like about Dr M is that he’s not an alarmist.

“Actually my dear,  it might have been better had they not been so conscientious and not done the MRI,”  he said,  “It would’ve saved you all that unnecessary worry.”

You know,  he was right.

– Dana Susan Lehrman

My tried and true approach to all problems with technology: Turn it off and turn it back on. Nine times out of ten, the problem is mysteriously fixed.
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Scammed!

I thought I was pretty smart but the scammers out there are even smarter!

A few years ago I got a call telling me my Verizon bill was overdue and my cell phone service would soon be discontinued.

I thought I’d paid that bill and could easily have checked,  or  I could have hung up and called Verizon directly – but for some stupid reason  I did neither.  Apparently the thought of losing my cell phone service was so daunting I inexplicably did what the practiced voice on the phone told me to do –  I very stupidly Zelled $1400 (!!!) to a number I was given to supposedly cover what was due on my Verizon account PLUS several months of advanced payment to insure that I wouldn’t fall behind again and risk having my service interrupted.

But as soon as I hit the send button the horrible realization washed over me that I’d been horribly  scammed!  I called my bank,  I called Zelle,  and I even called the police all to no avail.

Then I remembered that at the suggestion of our computer tech we’d recently gotten a LifeLock insurance policy.  So I called our Lifelock agent.   who explained that I was covered for identity theft and other dire contingencies.  but not for stupidity.

And so I learned a very valuable although rather costly lesson,  and the next time someone tries to scam me,  or sell me a bridge,  I‘ll tell them to fuhgeddaboudit!

– Dana Susan Lehrman 

I used to love the evening cookouts or sleeping under the stars that we did lakeside throughout my summers as a camper at the National Music Camp (now Interlochen Arts Camp) in Interlochen, MI from 1964-1969. The girl’s side was by Lake Wabakanetta (Duck Lake) and we had a large expanse of sand with a building which housed fireplaces and equipment for fun in the sun. Here we were not competitors, vying for the best chairs in the orchestra, leads in the plays or operettas, or solos in the dance recitals; we were friends in the cabins, just kids enjoying ourselves. We built safe campfires for cookouts, then, as the sun set over the lake, sang songs, roasted marshmallows, ate s’mores. If we were sleeping out, we might tell scary stories, do “finger lifting” (“you are as light as a feather”), sing folk songs, but always end the evening with this favorite (which I just learned while writing this story is known as “Canadian Taps”; we learned slightly different lyrics):

Each campfire lights anew…
The flame of friendship true.
The joy we had in knowing you
Will last a whole life through.

And as the embers die away,
We wish that we might always stay.
But since we cannot have our way,
We’ll meet again, some other day.

This would be followed by a hushed version of Taps (Day is done, gone the sun…) as we snuggled in our sleeping bags and drifted to sleep while gazing at the stars.

The counselors ensured that the campfire was safely extinguished, trash disposed of, and all was right in our corner of the world. Camp was built (in 1928) on the edge of a pine forest, now a state park; the air was pure and delicious. Sacred memories.