Showing posts with label Memories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Memories. Show all posts

June 20, 2020

When We Were Kids

My big sister and I.

Many moons ago.

Television with rabbit ears in the background.

That's when we all we had were 4 stations ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS.

We called it the "Zombie Box" because you could just stay glued to it for hours and tune the world out mesmerized at the moving pictures.

Everyone knew what was on every station, every hour of the day and still there was a TV Guide published weekly to check.

When the TV went fuzzy, you had to give it a clop on the side and magically the picture cleared up for a few minutes if you were lucky.

Those were the days. ;-)

(Thank you to my sister, Roz, for refreshing a copy of this to me)
Share/Save/Bookmark

January 21, 2020

Visit Back Home


On the way to a family wedding in Monsey.

We stopped back home in Riverdale, NY after 20 years.

Wow, old building still here. 

And the KeyFood supermarket too. 

Had a nice lunch at Kai Fan kosher Chinese food (the Sesame Chicken was great!). 

Went up to my parents old apartment and saw the outlines of where the mezuzah had once stood. 

I wanted to hear their voices through the door and go in to see them again.

It was very emotional, but I felt like their presence was there with us. 

Enjoyed seeing how some (very few) things have changed and all that has otherwise stayed the same 

With seeing my wife's family, some after many years, it was like I had never not seen them. 

I imagined that this is what dying must be like when you go to the afterlife and there is no time and you see everybody and it's just like they have always been there. 

That was an amazing realization and feeling for me. ;-)

(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal) 

Share/Save/Bookmark

June 29, 2018

What A Beautiful Song - To Forgive and to Forget



With gratitude to my beautiful daughter, Minna Blumenthal, for sharing this song by Idan Raichel with me. 

Shabbat Shalom!

Share/Save/Bookmark

June 24, 2018

Longing For The Slow and Happy Bungalow Days

So I used to hear from my wife about when she was young and went to the bungalow colony in the Catskill Mountains.

And today, I heard from a wonderful young Ukrainian woman whose family does the equivalent in the mountains there in the summer. 

When I listen to the stories, it sounds so good to get away with your family and friends for the summer to the countryside. 

Just live simply in a cabin, stay up late by the campfire singing songs, get up lazily in the morning, and during the day play sports, go fishing, and swim in the lake. 

I can't imagine talking 3 months a year and actually being able to do this...so natural, so carefree, so back to living!

Yes as kids, we went to camp, but it's not the same as living communally like this in such freedom and fun. 

Honestly, listening to the stories about this, left me amazingly jealous!

Perhaps, it's a lesson about life these days...we're adults, we're responsible, we have to earn a living and take care of the bills and all of life's responsibilities. 

But maybe, just maybe, there is something--a lot--to be said for letting loose a little, and just being with your loved ones, and living, really living again. 

Why do we have to wait until we're old...too old to work anymore...and maybe too old to appreciate life as life was meant to be.  

We can't run from our responsibilities but isn't it worth looking for ways in life to enjoy more than a long weekend or a week vacation.

Life is too short to let it get away from us. 

Balancing the contributions of our hard labor with the enjoyment of family, friends, and fun...those are the memories that last a lifetime and beyond. 

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Share/Save/Bookmark

September 24, 2017

Those Were The Days

Wow, this was incredible.

Check out this photo of me (right) and my teacher and mentor Robert doing martial arts back in the day. 

This was at the Jewish street fair on Johnson Avenue in Riverdale, New York. 

Recently, in the last few weeks, I reconnected with Robert after almost 27 years.  

He made Aliyah to Israel and I got married, but I always remembered how much I learned from him and the fun times growing up. 

It was great to catch up on the phone with him for about 2 1/2 hours and I think we could've gone on schmoozing all evening. 

Then just this weekend, I received 3 large wall photos in the mail from a friend from Riverdale--out of the blue--just like my reconnecting with Robert. 

Both events came almost simultaneously after 3 decades!

Time and space are just fabrications, as G-d Almighty is eternal, and for me I am essentially the same person that I was back then. 

My body is getting (a little) older, but my inner self is still me. 

And the people who mean so much to me in my life, after G-d, that is everything to me. ;-)

(Source Photo and with gratitude to Sura Jeselsohn)
Share/Save/Bookmark

September 6, 2017

Learning To Save For A Rainy Day

This was so funny coming across this big bright red piggy bank in a thrift store. 

What a blast from the past!

I remember having one of these as a child. 

My parents taught me to put my allowance in to save for the future. 

When it accumulated $10, the metal door on the bottom would open and we could put the money in the bank.

It was like a game to try to get to the magic amount and get the register to pop open.

In those days, the bank had little books for your checking and savings accounts, and when you deposited the money, you'd get a line printed with the deposit and new balance printed in the dot matrix print of yesteryear. 

Again, these were all good lessons about savings and seeing the benefits in the toy register or in your bank book.

Maybe these were things that initially inspired me to get my bachelors degree in accounting.  

The discipline of numbers was great, but it was never as exciting as the promise and hope of ever new technology, but that's what added up at the time to me. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Share/Save/Bookmark

August 11, 2017

Like Removing A Nail

So you always hear about the techniques used when people are being tortured...one of them being have their nails ripped off.

Ouch!

So this week when I had a ingrown toenail removed, I said jokingly to the podiatrist:

"Do you do waterboarding also?"

Ok, funny, not-funny.  Still got a chuckle!

But in removing the nail, the technique is really so amazing.

They inject the toe with a local anesthetic, but hey even the injections into a sensitive toe could be pretty uncomfortable. 

So before the injection, they spray you toe with a freezing spray, so you don't even feel the injections.

When he actually removed the nail and chemically destroyed the nailbed so it wouldn't come back, I didn't feel a thing.

I mean, I literally didn't feel a thing!

It was a wonderful feeling--whatever he did, however much it would've hurt--it didn't.

I thought to myself in a wave of anesthetic and freeze-numbed delight, this is absolutely wonderful.

No pain, not even a pinch. 

I could sense everything going on around me, take it in, think about it, even mull it over again and again, and just smile. 

In a way, I thought how wonderful life would be to have the ability to think in the head and feel from the heart, but have no pain or suffering in the body. 

Yes, there are plenty of damning and painful thoughts, memories, and heartaches, but for the body to be numb (even momentarily) to all the bad stuff that actually felt pretty good.

How would it feel if the mind and heart also felt no pain and only bliss--I smiled even more. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Share/Save/Bookmark

December 30, 2016

On The Train Of Life

My beautiful daughter, Michelle, forwarded this wonderful message to me about our journey through life, and I wanted to share it with everyone.

🚂🚋🚋🚋🚋
Life is like a journey on a train...
with its stations...
with changes of routes...
and with accidents !

🚂🚋🚋🚋🚋

We board this train when we are born and our parents are the ones who get our ticket.

🚂🚋🚋🚋🚋

We believe they will always travel on this train with us.

🚂🚋🚋🚋🚋

However, at some station our parents will get off the train, leaving us alone on this journey.

🚂🚋🚋🚋🚋

As time goes by, other passengers will board the train, many of whom will be significant - our siblings, friends, children, and even the love of our life.

🚂🚋🚋🚋🚋

Many will get off during the journey and leave a permanent vacuum in our lives.

🚂🚋🚋🚋🚋

Many will go so unnoticed that we won't even know when they vacated their seats and got off the train!

🚂🚋🚋🚋🚋

This train ride will be full of joy, sorrow, fantasy, expectations, hellos, good-byes, and farewells.

🚂🚋🚋🚋

A good journey is helping, loving, having a good relationship with all co passengers...and making sure that we give our best to make their journey comfortable.

🚂🚋🚋🚋🚋

The mystery of this fabulous journey is:
We do not know at which station we ourselves are going to get off.

🚂🚋🚋🚋🚋

So, we must live in the best way - adjust, forget, forgive and offer the best of what we have.

🚂🚋🚋🚋🚋

It is important to do this because when the time comes for us to leave our seat... we should leave behind beautiful memories for those who will continue to travel on the train of life."

🚂🚋🚋🚋🚋

Thank you for being one of the important passengers on my train... don't know when my station will come... don't want 2 miss saying: "Thank you."

🚂🚋🚋🚋

Share/Save/Bookmark

September 13, 2016

We Watch The Years Go By

On a lighter note today, I took this photo of a couple watching their kids playing soccer.

They are sitting in Dick's chairs. 

His (blue) and hers (pink).

Very cute!

The new generation grows up and supplants their elders--who still may feel "young at heart!"

As I get older, it definitely seems like time goes faster (and faster). 

It isn't that some days aren't long, but that overall the less time we have as we get into the latter portions of our life, the quicker it all seems to be passing.

So much so that it all becomes like one big dream (it should never be a nightmare, G-d forbid). 

If only we could rewind and redo the portions of our lives where we made mistakes, hurt others or ourselves, or could have just done better.

I'm not sitting in those chairs yet, but when I do, I hope it is with pleasure of heart, mind, and soul--with G-d's mercy. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Share/Save/Bookmark

April 2, 2016

If I Could Get Back Time

My good friend, Jacob Elbaz, taught me this awesome saying in synagogue today:
__________________

"Yesterday is history.

Tomorrow is mystery.

Today is a present. "
__________________


Another way that my dad taught me is this:

______________________________________________________________

Today is the tomorrow that you worried about yesterday. 

__________________________________________

Hope you enjoy these!

(Source Photo: Andy and Dossy Blumenthal)

Share/Save/Bookmark

March 22, 2016

Stop To Think OR Stop Thinking

The Thinker.

It's very important to have time (and space) to sit down and think. 

Not just go through life in the motions--"doing"--because that's the way we always did it or that's the way your parents did it, or that's what your teachers or society told you to do. 

Thinking means we evaluate and assess what we are doing.  Are we going in the right direction?  Are we happy with ourselves?  Are we good people doing good things?  Are there things that we regret and need to learn from and/or course correct. Can we do better and what does better mean? 

I remember at a certain point in my life working very hard, but also feeling like I was in a fugue--and when I "awoke" I couldn't figure out where the time went to and why I had been sort of numb for a time. Were some things perhaps too raw or painful to deal with (better to shut them off somewhere in a little box) or was I just moving so fast and so hard that I just lost sight of my surroundings and the meaning or lack from it all. 

But then I started to feel and think again. And I knew it because it was like an monumental awakening from a long hibernation through eons of time and space. What precipitated it all, I don't really know. But when it started coming back--memories, feelings, some satisfactions, too many regrets--I knew that I had been gone a while and wasn't sure exactly where I'd been. 

So need to regularly stop and "smell the coffee"--think and feel--not just do like a real dummy or stubborn a*s. 

The dilemma with thinking is too much or too little is that it can be a dangerous thing. 

Too much time to ponder and you can become lost in thought or mired in analysis paralysis. Don't bother me, I'm still thinking about it. Or perhaps, your thinking can be "all wrong" and messed up--your misunderstanding, misconstruing, not thinking clearly or brainwashed by others--maybe those with good intentions who want you to be like them, who think they know better, who mean well but are misguided when it comes to YOU or are engulfed by their own zealousness, self-righteousness or are even jerks trying to f*ck with you. 

Also, while ample time to think can leave you revitalized, with new direction, commitment, and enthusiasm, the flip side is you can become demoralized or depressed by "it all," It's too much, it's too hard, it's too meaningless, or even it's too overwhelming important and meaningful. 

Then there is too little thinking going on in that head of yours, and you are a dumb, numb robot who washes, rinses, repeats...not knowing why they are doing it or maybe even that they are doing anything, just that they are in a state of being. It easy maybe to turn off to the world, to keep running on the treadmill of life, get up and do the same routine day-in and day-out.  Not questioning.  Not feeling.  Not getting hurt or dealing with issues better left for another day. But that's not living. That's a life of a sick roaming flesh-eating zombie. Someone just stick that iron rod through that useless skull already. 

Think and live...live and think...go forward as in a directed, meaningful way, and not as the walking dead in pain and sorrow or lost in the abyss of lifelessness. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Share/Save/Bookmark

January 23, 2016

Snowpocalypse 2016!

It's never too cold or snowy to wear shorts and water shoes. 

Even a good day for some air conditioning. 

When you got hot blood and a big smile, it's never really cold outside. ;-)

(Source Photo: Dannielle Blumenthal)
Share/Save/Bookmark

November 25, 2015

Speed Of Time

So a friend told me yesterday something interesting about the passing of time. 

We were looking back and saying how quickly it all goes...

I said, "Like the blink of an eye!"

He then told me this:

"Time is like the speed of a automobile. 

Your age is how fast the car is going. 

So for a child of 10-years old, the car is going 10 miles an hour...and it feels too slow. 

But for an adult of 60-years old, the car is going 60 miles per hour...too fast--in this case, 5 miles over the speed limit. 

The older you get the faster the whole thing goes by."

I told him how much I liked this explanation. 

And finished by saying, that in the end, we should just have good memories of it all. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Share/Save/Bookmark

November 18, 2015

I Couldn't Do It

No this isn't my car, but it's definitely old. 

So we were going to go sell one of our older cars tonight. 

One of the warning lights recently went on and when we took it to the dealer he told us it would be thousands to service it. 

After agonizing about it, we resigned ourselves to just getting rid of it and not investing anymore $$$ in an old car.

We went to the car to empty it and get it ready.

As I watched Dossy cleaning it out, all these memories started racing through my head--seeing Dossy behind the wheel as well the kids. 

Remembering all the good times we had driving here and there together. 

But this was Dossy's car and it was special to her and I knew it. 

I looked again at her and said, "I can't do it--let's just keep it."

She looked at me--and gave me the biggest smile. 

When we went back inside, she said to me, "You love me!"

And I said, "Of course, I do."

Now, we get the car fixed--some things you can't put a price on. 

P.S. Last week, she threatened to move out if I didn't agree to fix it. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Share/Save/Bookmark

March 14, 2015

Moving And Emotional

So we are supposed to be moving in a few weeks, G-d willing. 

Not going far, but after 15 years in the same home, it's time. 

We found a place that we like and could agree on...following primarily the rule of thumb on location, location, location.

Lot's of places to shop, eat, workout, play, and pray. 

And close to public transportation...and of course, good 'ol work--his and hers.

As we're preparing for the move, there seems like a million things to do to get ready, but the hardest is figuring out what to take and what to leave. 

My friend told me to throw out half, and then come back and throw out the other half. 

You know what, a little extreme, but not a bad idea. 

So as I am going through things I bought or saved over the years, I am left scratching my head at what was I thinking for many of them, and for many of the memorable items that I can't believe any of this really happened. 

It's emotional looking back, and it's emotional looking forward--just different emotions.

Back--yes, where did the years go and with that regret for mistakes made, but also joy at things accomplished, lives touched, and beautiful memories made with people I really love. 

Forward--Oy, am I getting older (well, still middle age but...), there is excitement for what comes next, also some anxiety there--I hope all goes well, please G-d--and then there is the acknowledgement that it's not forever, and I better make the most of every moment of every day. 

My father used to tell me, when you are with those you love, you can live in a tee-pee and be happy...and I believe he was absolutely right. 

Moving to my next tee-pee with those precious to me...I don't care so much where, but just that we are together and happy. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Share/Save/Bookmark

June 15, 2013

Catching A Shark


So it's sort of become a tradition that when we go away, I try and take my daughter on a special activity of her choosing. 

This time we went fishing in the beautiful Caribbean.  

What I didn't expect is that I would end up reeling in a 66-inch Spinner Shark.

This thing was massive and powerful.

The guide keeps telling me to pull up slowly and then drop forward while quickly reeling it in then stop and repeat. 

But this shark wasn't exactly cooperating and it kept pulling this way and that and hard.

In fact, about 15 minutes earlier another shark had jumped out of the water and actually broken the end of the line and got away. 

This one was another real fighter, but we were determined.

We get to the point, where we had it on the side of the boat coming up and all the people are standing back and I am thinking to myself what am I crazy sitting up front here with this monster fish about to come over the side.

The guide says "Don't worry, I am an expert."

Expert my foot, I think to myself...what the heck am I doing? 

Fortunately, since no one wanted to measure it to make into some sort of mantle piece trophy, we end up letting it go (apparently, it's against the law to actually kill these in Florida). 

My daughter was so brave with all the fish, and doing her job keeping the baitfish swimming around and alive with her bare hands in the water--she was awesome. 

I don't frequently let so loose, but I find that when I do, these really are special moments in time for me with my daughter that I end up remembering and cherishing the most. 

Thank you G-d for this amazing experience; now to treating the sunburn. ;-)

(Source Video: Rebecca Blumenthal)
Share/Save/Bookmark

August 5, 2012

Goodbye Mr. Yaffe

Last night, my dear friend lost his father--Mr. John Sommer.

He was known to many as just Mr. Yaffe--a twist on an electrical business, Yaffe Electric, that he owned for many years. 

John Sommer was a good man--he was a holocaust survivor who came to America, married his dear wife Yona, had two boys--Danny and Harry--and worked hard in his business for his family and his community. 

Yona, was a saintly woman, who died about 11 years ago from cancer and John carried on into his upper 80's with many an illness--finally succumbing on Friday night into a coma, and last night, he passed.

John and Yona were wonderful to me--as I was friends with their sons--and their home was like a 2nd home for me. 

I always felt like I had a place at their table and they made me feel like one of the family.

I remember saying the table prayers before and after meals there, talking about religion and politics, playing board and video games, watching movies, doing homework, and more. 

On the Jewish holidays, the Sommers invited my family to join them, and they joined us on the Sabbath at times, and on Thanksgiving, we meet at the restaurant together. 

The Sommers sat just two rows behind us in Synagogue, but that didn't stop some friendly banter between us all--G-d forgive us. 

Regularly after synagogue on weekdays, John Sommer would say let me give you a lift home--he was always willing to help others.

For the community, he frequently gave his electrician services to the synagogue for free and sponsored the kiddish (meal) after the services. 

The Sommers were at my Bar Mitzvah and my wedding, and I always remember their friendship and generosity. 

Losing good people is very painful--there are not enough of them in this world.

I pray that John is now with his wife, Yona, in heaven--and that they are at peace and that their legacy of good deeds continues long after. 

Good people should not suffer, but these people did as so many do--it is not easy to live or to die, but I have fond memories of what they gave to me and I am grateful to them. 

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Share/Save/Bookmark