January 17, 2017 is an appropriate date to announce the engagement of Amelia Altalena Solkoff to Javier Blanco. The date marks the 1925 birthday of Amelia’s late paternal grandmother Miriam Pell Schmerler zt”l who was close to Amelia and her sister Joanna. Amelia teaches English in Pontevedra, Spain (on the Portuguese border) where she is also an enthusiastic […]
PA
December motto plus optional isolation
Dr. Jeniffer Simon, a caring and experienced urologist, Geissinger Medical Center, State College PA showed me on her computer this image–a cancerous tumor surrounding my right kidney, referring me to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. “Unless you have surgery quickly, you will be dead in 10 years.” The date: April 5, 2013, […]
Getting to my kidney operation on August 8th—Part 1
Getting out of bed (and eventually into an automobile) To travel the 257 miles from State College, PA to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (known to New Yorkers as Memorial) less than two blocks from the East River in New York City, I have to get out of bed. What follows is a photographic recreation […]
Who I used to be
The provinces of his body revolted,/ The squares of his mind were empty, / Silence invaded the suburbs, / The current of his feeling failed: he became his admirers. -W.H. Auden April, 2013 “Who did you used to be?” a technician asked me while drawing my blood at the Mount Nittany Medical Center, State College, PA. […]
Apricot Poetry
At the CVS Pharmacy on Beaver Avenue in downtown State College, PA, I purchased a container of apricots on which the following is written: “Found in the beautiful lands between the Mediterranean and Black Seas, we handpick Apricots that are bursting with amazing fruit flavor. Each of our select Amrita Apricots comes from these ideal […]
A classic is a book no one reads, Mark Twain said
I had pneumonia until three days ago when I was discharged from the hospital. These days, my health has been doing well: In May, I attended my younger daughter Amelia Altalena’s graduation from college. In June, I spent two weeks in McKeesport, PA seeing how low-cost high-tech housing for elderly and disabled individuals can be […]
Hegira Succeeded: Report on the 989-mile-away-Engagement-Party-for-my-daughter Joanna
Mazel tov: Welcome to My Hegira. Webster’s defines hegira as: “A journey esp. when undertaken to escape from a dangerous or undesirable situation.” Cosmic Invitation How else to feel other than I am, often thinking Flash Gordon soap– O how terrible it must be for a young man seated before a family and the family thinking We never saw […]
How a 10 cent increase in the minimum wage put me on page one of the Centre Daily Times
Note: Sunday, September 9, 2012, State College, PA 5:57 PM, EDT. My friend Philip Moery is fond of quoting William Faulkner’s observation, “The past is never dead. It’s not even the past.” This observation became trenchant yesterday when I received a post from Scott W., who, like me, is a member of a lively discussion group […]