Author: frankisemptiness

November 25th, 2023

Several years ago, my wife and I attended a talk by some addiction counselors regarding how to deal with a family member who is an addict. Although there are numerous types of addiction, the focus of the meeting was on the population addicted to drugs and/or alcohol. One of the counselors, Danielo, gave a short spiel about the neurological effects of drugs on the brains of young persons. He focused on what drugs do to the prefrontal cortex, which is the part of the brain that develops during the teen years and the early twenties. It is the portion of the brain that allows for decision making and predicting the consequences of future actions. He kind of dumbed it down for us, but the gist of his lecture was that drugs/alcohol physically change the structure of the prefrontal cortex. Heavy use of drugs changes the wiring, and the cortex operates in a very different way.

Now, let’s take a hypothetical situation. Let’s say that a young woman who is an addict has a traffic accident. She is sober at the time and is in no way at fault. Somebody else ran a stop sign and t-boned her car. The young woman’s car is totaled. This is a problem. She needs transportation, and a car is the best choice for that. Unfortunately, she has no money to buy one.

Now, the woman’s father, realizing that she needs to go places, and not wanting to be her chauffeur, decides to purchase a used car for her. He takes her to a dealer, and several thousand dollars later, the young woman is the proud owner of a vehicle with 130, 000 miles on it. Legally, she is supposed to only drive a car with a breathalyzer installed in it. The newly purchased vehicle obviously does not have one. She tells her dad that it will be okay for her to drive it straight home, since that is only a few miles away. This is in the father’s interest since he has to drive his own car there. It seems like a simple solution for getting two cars to where they need to go.

The young woman does not drive straight home.

The father waits impatiently for over an hour for the young woman to arrive at their home. During that time, he both calls and texts her. Her response consistently is, “I’m on my way!” When she tells her dad that she is stopping at a grocery store to buy some chips, he is a bit uneasy. That isn’t all she is buying.

Upon her arrival, she is friendly and helpful, and obviously a little tipsy. She decided to have some drinks on the way home from the dealership. The father has been scared while waiting for her to come. Now, he’s more than a little pissed off.

Let’s take a brief look at the young woman’s history. She has four, count ’em, four drunk driving convictions. Now, even in Wisconsin, the drunkest state in the Union, that’s a serious matter. In this state, the first three convictions are misdemeanors. The fourth drunk driving bust is a felony with prison time.

By slamming a few shots on the way home from the car dealer, the woman is risking being busted for a fifth time. A fifth drunk driving conviction really gets the attention of a judge. At that point, the idea of rehabilitation is moot, and the judge’s main concern is getting the person off the road for a long time. Time in prison ensures the public safety.

I haven’t even mentioned the fact that the young woman is endangering the lives of other drivers. The decision to drink is bad on a number of levels.

Why would a person do this? Why take enormous risks for a quick buzz?

To most people that behavior makes no sense. To an addict it is completely logical. The desire for the drug trumps any and all other possible considerations. Go back to my first paragraph about the prefrontal cortex. The wiring is all messed up.

The young woman makes it home safe. She avoids the most severe consequences of her act. However, there are still consequences, some subtle and hidden. Some are quite obvious, even to the young woman.

November 20th, 2023

We got a phone call on Saturday evening. I looked at the caller ID and immediately cringed. It was her. When she calls at that time of the night, it often means that there is a crisis. My heart raced as I picked up the receiver expecting to hear a panicked voice. I wasn’t disappointed.

She had just been in a car accident. She sounded extremely upset, but she was thinking clearly. She told me that somebody had come out of nowhere and hit her on the left side just ahead of the front wheel. She didn’t think that her car was drivable, and she was waiting for the cops to arrive. Before I could ask anything else, the police showed up and she hung up.

Timing is everything. When the young woman called us, I had been just getting ready to turn in for the night. Our toddler grandson, Asher, was also tired. He had been yawning. Well, nobody was going to bed for a while. Everybody was too wired. We had to wait to find out how the story was going to end. We were now part of a cliff hanger.

She called again. She asked if the car could be towed to our house. The young woman is staying in a halfway house, and there is no place for the auto there. The cops want the car to be towed somewhere, and it might as well rest comfortably in our yard for a while. I asked her if the towing service could make sure not to block the entrance to the garage when they brought her disabled vehicle here.

She answered, “I don’t know! I haven’t even called the tow truck yet!”

I mumbled something, and she hung up again.

Okaaaay. We’ll just wait and see.

There was a pause in the action. Asher was restless. My wife, Karin, and I were waiting to hear the phone ring again. My mind raced. I had lots of questions, and no good answers.

Honestly, it was a wonder that her beater had lasted this long. Her 2008 Ford Focus had originally belonged to our youngest son, Stefan, who had been working in a body shop and rebuilt it from salvage wreck. After a few years, he sold it to me, and I finally gave it to the young woman. We all knew that eventually it would die, and she would need a different ride. Well, that day had come, rather suddenly.

I was already trying to figure out how to get her transportation. Did she really need a car? Yeah. Could she afford a car? No. Public transportation in the Milwaukee metro area is wretched. There are many locations that cannot be reached without a car, and this young woman needed to go to a number of them on a regular basis. To visit Asher, she probably had to have a car of her own. If she did not have her own vehicle, then she would have to Uber, or she would depend on my wife and me for frequent rides. There are no simple solutions to this problem, nor are there any inexpensive ones.

She finally called to inform us that she and the tow truck were on their way to our address. A few minutes later, with lights flashing, the truck arrived. Asher demanded to go outside on the front porch to watch the show. I showed the driver where I wanted him to plant the car. With an ease earned from years of practice, he slid the car off the truck into exactly the place I had indicated. I was impressed.

The young woman held Asher in her arms as her mangled machine found its new home. She seemed calm and alert. She hugged the little boy tightly. He hugged her back. It was cold and windy in the night air, and she kept him warm.

Karin got ready to take the young woman to her home. The woman gave the boy to me. She looked at Asher and said,

“I love you.”

He smiled up at her and said, “I wuv you.”

Her face broke into a smile, and her face glowed with joy. Asher almost never tells anyone that he loves them. When he does, it’s something to savor.

Karin and the young woman left. Asher and I were in the living room. Asher looked at me and said,

“Sit in the rocking chair.”

I did.

Then he said, “Hold me.”

I did.

He climbed up into my lap and settled down. Asher rested his head on my right bicep. He clutched my left forearm with his chubby right hand. We were both silent. I was wound up and worried. He wasn’t. He slowly relaxed. I could feel his body conform to the shape of my arms. Almost imperceptibly, he fell asleep.

I thought for a moment about how much he trusted me, how safe he felt in my arms. That was a blessing for both of us, because I calmed down too.

Who holds an adult in their arms? Who can I trust like Asher trusts me?

November 16th, 2023

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” – William Faulkner

Last week, I took an old man to a gun shop. He is my friend. I know the guy from the synagogue. He’s an immigrant from Ukraine. He came to the United States from the ruins of the old Soviet Union in the 1990’s as a political refugee. Back in the old country, he experienced antisemitism, the old school variety. Now, with the fighting in Gaza and the pro-Palestinian demonstrations in our country, he is afraid.

My friend wants to buy a gun.

I am not convinced that buying a pistol is a good idea, at least not for my friend. For a man his age, he is in remarkably good shape. He is mind is sharp as a razor, and his body is intact. My friend is a stubborn old man. So am I, so understand him. Once he latches onto to an idea, he hangs on to it like a bulldog. He has convinced himself that he needs a pistol (specifically, a SIG Sauer P365), and he wants to get a concealed carry license. I’m not going to change his mind, but he might change it on his own.

I drive my friend to Shooters, a gun store north of Racine, Wisconsin. the old guy doesn’t have a driver’s license anymore. It seems odd to me that the State of Wisconsin won’t let him operate a motor vehicle, but it will gladly issue him a concealed carry permit. Go figure.

Shooters is a basically a bunker. there is a sign outside the place that proudly proclaims the business to be veteran-owned. Inside, there is a small gun shop and an indoor shooting range. There are no windows in the building. To enter, a person has to go through a set of heavy steel doors. The interior is well lit but claustrophobic. There is a smell in the place that can only be found around freshly cleaned firearms. I could also detect a whiff of gunpowder smoke from the firing range. That scent is impossible to mistake.

We walked up to a young man working behind the counter. He tall and thin with a tattoo above his right eyebrow. He was friendly. I let my friend do the talking. He’s the one who wants the gun. The old man asked the young one about getting a compact pistol for concealed carry. The vendor pulled up his shirt to show my friend the SIG Sauer in the holster on his belt. The young guy walked over to the show case to bring out a couple different models for my friend to handle. My friend asked the gun dealer about how many rounds the magazine held. The smaller model had an eight-round magazine, but the young man assured my friend that they could order him a magazine with a larger capacity.

At this point, it might be worthwhile to note that the old guy has in fact fired a weapon. His father was an officer in the Soviet Army during World War II. My friend’s dad showed him how to shoot the standard issue Soviet Army pistol. That was over seventy years ago. The man hasn’t shot a round since then. He’s out of practice.

My friend held the gun in his hand. He struggled to move the slide. The young guy told him that the slide was probably a bit stiff because it was a brand-new pistol. He gave my friend one of the weapons they rent and told him that the slide should be easier to move. It wasn’t. My friend had a tremor in his left hand as he worked to move the slide.

The conversation shifted to the subject of getting a concealed carry license. The old man somehow had the idea that he needed 36 hours of practice with the weapon before he could qualify for the permit. The dealer explained to him that was not the case, and that the gun shop held regular classes for concealed carry. Each class lasted three hours and cost $75. After the class, my friend would get a form to fill out and send to the state. That was the whole deal.

My friend kept asking the young guy questions in his thick Slavic accent. The old man couldn’t quite accept the idea that getting the license was that simple. My friend also asked the young man how much everything would cost: the pistol, the hostler, the ammo, cleaning equipment, targets for the range, etc. The old guy tallied up the numbers in his head and sighed. He said,

“I think for everything, it is maybe $1000.”

The dealer nodded.

I told my friend, “That’s about right. Owning and shooting a gun is expensive.”

We left the gun shop without buying the SIG. My friend needed more time think about it. I drove him to my house. We had coffee with my wife as our little grandson, Asher, ran wild. The old man started telling us stories from his life. That’s what old men do.

He was only a child when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union. He and his grandfather were evacuated to the east as the Nazis advanced. Both of my friend’s parents were Soviet officers, and the children of some military personnel sent out of harm’s way, or at least that was the plan.

My friend told us, “We were in the train heading to a town on the Volga. The German fighters, the Stukas, fired on the train. We all got out and ran for cover. My grandfather, he threw himself over me when the planes were shooting. I looked from under his arm, and I saw the bullets tearing up the ground. When the planes left, I saw dead bodies around us, and blood on the ground. I was just an eight-year-old boy, and those things I saw!”

My wife, Karin, listened silently. Her father had also fought in Russia during World War II, but her father had been on the German side. Karin’s dad had been an enlisted man in the Luftwaffe. My friend knows this.

My friend told me a story once about what happened when he was a teenager. A few says before Stalin died, he issued a decree that the Soviet Jews should be deported to the labor camps in Siberia. My friend’s father knew about the order. One day, my friend saw his father carefully cleaning his parabellum (Lugar). My friend asked his father,

“Daddy, what are you doing?’

His dad explained that men from military intelligence would be coming for him. He told his boy,

“I will kill them all before they take me.”

Stalin died, and the order was never carried out. Twenty years later, my friend’s father told his boy that he not only intended to kill the soldiers coming to take him away. He had also expected to shoot his wife and son before they were deported to the labor camps.

My friend told us other stories. He told us about how his son was not allowed to become an aviation engineer in the Soviet Union because he was a Jew. He told us how, after the USSR collapsed, ultranationalist Ukrainian militiamen came to his home to threaten the lives of him and his family because they were Jews.

After my friend was done talking, I drove him home. He talked about the Palestinians. He talked about threats. He told me,

“Nobody will protect us. We Jews have to protect ourselves.”

I parked on the street in front of his apartment building. He grasped my arm as we sat in the car. He asked me,

“You will be at the shul on Saturday?”

“Yes.”

He squeezed arm a bit tighter. He said,

“You are a good friend. I will see you on Saturday.” Then he got out of the car and left.

I don’t know if he will ever buy the gun.

November 8th, 2023

I was waiting for Hussein to arrive. It was sunny and windy outside the door to the mosque. The door was locked, which honestly wasn’t a shock to me. I would have been more surprised if it hadn’t been secured. A few people walked past me as I waited. They didn’t greet me, but then they did not know either. I used to come to this mosque quite often, just to sit in the quiet and clear my mind. I don’t come to the place much anymore. I am busy with other things.

When I had initially driven into the parking lot, I noticed some Muslim girls in their robes and hijabs doing some kind of outdoor activity. They were from the school that is attached to the mosque. There was a security car parked next to them with the lights flashing. The lights gave the unspoken but clear message to keep away from the young women.

After a while, the security guard got out of his car and sauntered over to me. This too was no surprise. He was a big guy. I assumed he was armed, but I didn’t check closely for a weapon. He looked at me and asked,

“Can I help you?”

That basically translates to, “Who are you and why the fuck are you here?”

I told him, “I’m waiting to meet a friend.”

“Who?”

“The guy’s name is Hussein, He’s a young man, a college student.”

The guard thought to himself and said, “Tall guy?”

“Yeah.”

I told the guard, “My name is Frank.”

He smiled a bit and said, “Mine is Iyad.”

Then the guard asked, “You want to go in?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

The guard unlocked the door and asked, “Is the guy Turkish?”

“No. He’s Syrian. He comes from a refugee family. I used to tutor his siblings.”

He let me into the foyer of the mosque. A couple Black guys came in after me. They might have been Somalis. They were there for the dhuhr prayer, the first prayer of the afternoon. Because it was the day right after the end of daylight savings time, the times for the five daily prayers were a little skewed, and these men were early. They walked back out again.

Hussein showed up shortly after. Hussein is a tall and very fit. He’s very busy with school and work. I asked him to meet me at the mosque. We could have met somewhere else, but I felt like I wanted to be in that space. The war in Gaza has been upsetting to me, and I wanted a sense of balance. I go regularly to a synagogue, and I needed be with different folks.

Hussein asked me if the door had been locked. I told him that it had been. That bothered Hussein. He said,

“The door should always be open, anytime. People should always be able to come in and pray.”

We sat on the floor in the mosque, and we talked about locked doors. Hussein asked me,

“Your church is open for people, isn’t it?”

I replied, “No, hardly ever. When I was a kid, most churches were open all the time. A person could just walk in to pray and meditate. Then some churches got vandalized, and they locked most of them down except for religious services. The only church I know that is always open is the Cathedral of St. John downtown. I used to go there a lot to just sit. There are usually homeless people in the back pews during the winter. It’s a place where they can keep warm.”

I went on, “The synagogue is almost never open. When it is, we always have an armed guard at the door.”

Hussein thought to himself, and then said, “We have security here too. With the school, we need it.”

I nodded. I thought about the Sikh temple not far from where I live. A decade ago, a white racist stormed the place and shot down six people. The Sikhs have had guards ever since then. I knew one of the Sikhs who was murdered. I didn’t know the man well, but I remember talking with him.

Hussein is an immigrant success story. He will graduate from the university next summer. He is the first person from his family to ever graduate from college. His parents were farmers in Syria until the civil war started there. Then they fled to Turkey. They got into the United States just before Trump slammed the brakes on allowing refugees into this country. Hussein goes to school and works a fulltime job. He has a lot going for him.

I talked with Hussein about my son, Hans, the one who fought in Iraq. I told Hussein that Hans still suffers from the effects of the war. Hussein told me about Syria, which was odd, because he almost never talks about what it was like there. He said,

“I was in the war in Syria, when I was a kid. I saw dead bodies, lots of them. I saw a guy with his head, you know…”, and he made a motion with his hand to indicate the man had part of his head shot off.

I had to think about that. How does a little boy in Syria deal with the sight of a man’s body on the ground with the top of his head blown away? How does a little kid I Gaza deal with that? Or a little kid in Israel? What does that do to a person? What did it do to Hussein?

It was time for the service. Hussein got up and joined a number of other men for the dhuhr prayer. I sat back and watched. I don’t know the words and I don’t know the movements. I observed.

There were probably thirty guys standing in a line. They prayed together and did the prostrations together. They seemed to be mostly working-class people. Somebody else might have looked at these men and saw Hamas or ISIS. I saw ordinary men, just taking a few minutes to get some solace from their faith tradition. I saw guys like me, men with hopes and fears and struggles. I saw men who are probably trying to raise families and make the lives of their children better. I saw myself.

The prayer ended. People slowly wandered out of the mosque. Hussein and I went to the parking lot. We said goodbye. We hugged.

I love the guy.

November 12th, 2023

I was at the synagogue yesterday. When the Shacharit service ended, everyone went to the dining room for kiddush, a time to snack and socialize. I asked Neil what he was doing. I hadn’t seen him for several weeks. He gave me a vague reply, and then he asked me,

“So, what are you doing?’

I had just spent four hours watching over my little grandson, Asher, so I said,

“I am caring for a toddler.”

Neil told me, “But you’re not doing that now.”

That was true. I was at a gathering with a few friends. However, my mind was still at home with a three-year-old who needs constant surveillance. Even when I am taking a break from the boy, I am not taking a break.

At this point in my life, I would like a certain degree of peace and quiet. Well, that’s not going to happen. Granted, at this particular moment in time, I have some serenity, but that can end any minute now. As soon as Asher rouses himself from slumber, I will be on duty, and it is likely that this essay will be completed hours from now, if at all.

I suppose it sounds like I am bitching. I am. On the other hand, my wife and I freely took on the responsibility of raising our grandson. We didn’t exactly volunteer for the job, but shortly after Asher was born, we made an open-ended commitment to care for him. If we had not agreed to do that, Asher would have fallen into the foster care system, and that would have been an unmitigated disaster with lifelong consequences for the boy, and for us. We did the right thing, and now every day we are dealing with it.

What bothers sometimes is the chaos. I never know what will happen at any given moment. Of course, nobody knows what will happen, but most people can kind of guess at the future and make plans. Karin and I don’t make plans, or if we do, they are always tentative. Every statement of intent is followed by “if God wills”, or “inshallah”, or a heartfelt “min ezrat Hashem”. With a small child in the house, nothing is for sure.

Was it like this when we were raising our own children? No doubt it was, but one forgets the craziness after a while. Now, the memories of caring for little people come flooding back. It is a bit strange to be taking Asher to story time at the library or spending hours with him at the playground. Karin and I discuss where to send him to kindergarten (we are leaning heavily toward putting him in the Waldorf school). When he is sick or upset, I hold the boy in my arms until he calms down. That can take an hour or more. Some of things we do with Asher are familiar to us, and we just slip back into who we were as parents thirty years ago. It’s like riding a bicycle. A person doesn’t really forget these things.

Chaos has its upside. It is impossible for me to be bored. I have to be alert and aware at all times. Raising a little boy has to be good for my mental acuity. Chasing after the lad keeps me physically active. As much as I would like to be sedentary, I can’t. If he is moving, I am moving.

This level of chaos is manageable. My wife and I can stumble through the day, and in the end, the two of us and Asher are alright. I can’t imagine what real chaos must be like. I can’t fathom how parents in Gaza or Ukraine can deal with their circumstances. Karin and I have resources available to us. We have food, water, shelter, and medical care. Other people in other places don’t. We don’t have to worry about bombs and bullets. Other caregivers have those concerns every day.

How do these people care for their children?

I think I know the answer.

They just do it.

November 1st, 2023

I went to the synagogue yesterday morning. It was my first time there in over a month. Between our family’s long trip to Texas and then all of us getting slammed with COVID, I hadn’t been able to go to a service on Shabbat. There was a tiny congregation gathered in the sanctuary. The shul community is small to begin with, and the attendance was remarkably lean yesterday. There was no possibility of rounding up a minyan, so there was no Torah reading, just the recitation of the prayers that could be said without ten male Jews.

I got to the shul late. My wife, Karin, had slept in, so I had been watching our grandson, Asher, all morning. He’s going to be three years old a month from now, and he’s a handful. Once Karin was awake and ready to take over with the little boy, I left home to go to Shacharit.

When I got there, a rabbi was trying to explain what to do when Jews are being held hostage. I only caught the last portion of his presentation. The rabbi was wrestling with passages from the Talmud and the Midrash to come up with ideas as to what can or should be done by the Israelis with the hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza. He wasn’t really giving a sermon. It was more of an interactive discussion with members of the community. The gist of the conversation was that the classic Jewish texts can’t serve as an exact template for the current situation in Gaza. The centuries-old opinions are sadly still relevant to the fate of the Israeli hostages, but they don’t provide clear guidance.

The events in the Gaza war overshadowed everything at the synagogue. Nothing else really mattered. Everybody’s minds were focused on the fighting in Gaza and the political spillover here in the United States. At every Shabbat prayer service in the synagogue there is a special prayer for wellbeing of the soldiers of the United States and for that of the soldiers in the IDF. Yesterday, another prayer was added for the safety of the hostages. It was rather poignant. Some prayers are simply recited out of habit. These prayers came from the heart.

I sat in the back row with a friend of mine. He’s an old man, old enough to be my father. The man grew up in Stalinist Russia and immigrated to America with his family after the fall of the Soviet Union. Both he and I have sons who went to war. His boy recently died from alcoholism. The man is in remarkably good shape for a guy who is pushing ninety. He asked me right away about our grandson.

He grasped my hand and asked in a heavy Slavic accent, “How is the beautiful little boy?”

“He’s feisty. Very willful.”

The old man smiled, “You must bring him to us, so we can see how he has grown.”

I sighed, “Yeah, I will. Not today.”

He nodded, “Not today, but soon? When you have time. You call us before you come.”

I agreed to do that.

The president of the synagogue gave a what she thought would be a short presentation on a security meeting she had attended with members of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation. She handed everyone a copy of the meeting’s minutes. That type of document is usually bloodless and boring. This one was not. After her initial comments, the room erupted with questions.

My friend grabbed my right arm and pulled me close to him. He asked me quietly, “You will help to buy a Gyock?”

“A Gyock?”

“Yes, yes, a Gyock. you know, a pistol.”

“Oh, a Glock?”

“Yes, you can help me to get one?”

I was initially stunned by that request. Here we were in a house of prayer and study, and I was talking with a close friend about buying a handgun.

The synagogue president fielding a number of questions concerning the security of the shul (we have had an armed guard at the door for months already). She also answered questions about potential threats from ne0-nazis and from Hamas supporters. There were questions about staging counter demonstrations in support of Israel. The president told us how to report an antisemitic incident. Oddly enough, I already know how to do that. Last December, some Jew-haters threw antisemitic propaganda in my driveway. I was upset about that.

My friend talked to me about his worries. He grew up surrounded by antisemitism. Its effects are in his history, and they are in his blood. He hears the alarms in his head.

My friend stood up and loudly asked, “And what are the FBI and the local police doing to protect us? Where are they? The people need protection! They have to protect themselves! Nobody else will protect them!”

Another congregant, an immigrant from Russian, asked my friend,

“How long have you been in this country? Thirty, forty years? And you still don’t own a gun?”

My friend told him that he planned to get one.

The Russian told my friend, “You can’t just buy a gun. You need to go to the shooting range and practice. You need to know the laws for guns in Wisconsin. Some of them are very interesting.”

The discussion went on for a while. I sat back and listened. I thought to myself,

“Holy fuck. This is nuts. But it is real. This is happening.”

When the service was done, I told my friend,

“I will drive you to the gun shop, but I can’t buy it for you.”

He nodded and said, “Yes, of course, I know. I will buy the Gyock. You just take me there.”

Then he said, “Maybe you buy one too. You have to protect your little boy.”

That’s true. I do need to protect Asher, but maybe not with a handgun in the house.

Later that day, I got a call from my son, Hans, the combat vet and gun enthusiast. I told Hans about my friend’s strong desire to buy a Glock. Hans suggested that he buy a Canik TP9SFx instead. A Canik is a Turkish firearm, similar to a Glock but less expensive. Hans also strongly suggested that my friend take a concealed carry class. Hans had been to one, and they taught him all about the pertinent state laws. They also made damn sure that Hans knew how to handle his weapon. That sounded like a great idea to me.

I will talk with my friend about the gun soon. He might change his mind about buying a firearm, although knowing his stubbornness, he will probably still want to get one. At least, I can guide him in a way to be safe about owning one. If we have to do this, we might as well do it right.

It just amazes me that we are doing this at all.

October 31st, 2023

We spent an entire day driving through Arkansas. From Texarkana in the west to Blytheville at the northeast tip of the state, it takes at least six hours of windshield time. That’s all freeway driving. The three of us took frequent breaks along the way. Karin and I needed to go to the bathroom often, and our little grandson, Asher, needed to burn off some of his limitless energy. He gets restless in the child seat.

We planned to find a place to stay once we crossed the state line into southern edge of Missouri. There was a Drury hotel located at Exit 19 in Hayti. We thought we could spend the night there. It was late in the afternoon when we drove along I-55 past the cotton fields. The fields were flat and level as a billiard table, and many of them were covered with puffy white balls of cotton. Some people were harvesting the cotton. Massive machines rolled the white puffs into cylindrical bales that were almost the size of our garage at home. Some people were burning the stubble. We could see pale brown smoke blowing eastward toward the Mississippi River.

We arrived at the hotel at exactly the wrong time. They had just given away the very last room in the place. This was a great disappointment to us. We had taken Asher out of the car seat, and he was not interested in going back into it for any reason. Drury hotels are self-enclosed environments. The hotel provides customers with both a dinner and a breakfast. A person staying overnight at a Drury hotel need not venture forth for any reason. In a town like Hayti that is a great advantage.

Across the overpass, on the other side of the freeway, was a Quality Inn. We forced Asher into the car one last time, and we went there to get a room. There were very few cars parked at the Quality Inn. The lady at the front desk was a middle-aged Black woman. She was very friendly, and she had a pleasant smile, remarkable because of two gold teeth. There was a wide screen TV in the lobby showing reruns of “Family Matters”, a Black sitcom from the 1990’s. The woman got us a room, and we settled in.

The room was okay. It was inexpensive, and there was a reason for that. There was a closet that had a door that wouldn’t close. The curtains at the window wouldn’t close all the way either. They should have had a clasp to keep them shut, but that was broken off. There were just a few small flaws in the room that needed to be fixed but weren’t.

The hotel had a side entrance that was supposed to be locked and only opened with a pass key. The lock was broken, and the door could be opened by anybody at any time. I asked the lady at the desk about it.

She told me, “They were supposed to fix that this week. I guess they didn’t get to it.”

Asked her, “Do you have problems with stray people walking in here during the night?”

She shook her head, and said, “No Sir, we don’t.”

Considering that the hotel was surrounded on three sides by cotton fields, they probably didn’t have too many strangers wandering the halls. It still made me uneasy.

There was a stark contrast between the Drury hotel and the Quality Inn. The Drury was new and fancy. The Quality Inn needed some tender loving care. The population at the Drury was almost exclusively white. Our hotel’s staff and guests, except for us, was all Black, as far as I could tell. Coincidence, probably not.

Karin wanted to get something for supper. As far as we knew, there was only one real restaurant open nearby. There was a McDonalds and Burger King on the main road, but we wanted a sit-down dinner. We drove to the one and only Mexican restaurant about half a mile away from the hotel. I noticed as we drove down the street that at least half of the buildings were boarded up. A lot of small-time entrepreneurs had failed in this little town. One of the few survivors was this Mexican place. It was a Friday night and Los Portales was packed.

We got a booth in the restaurant. I wasn’t hungry, but I wanted a beer. Karin ordered something, but I forget what. We ordered mac and cheese for Asher. The food that was served to us was, well, interesting. Karin got a plate with something wrapped in a tortilla that was submerged in a red sauce. I couldn’t recognize it as any type of Mexican food that I had ever seen before. Asher got a plate with noodles swimming in milk. I never thought it possible that somebody could fuck up mac and cheese, but apparently, I was wrong. Asher refused to eat it. I couldn’t blame him.

As we sat in the booth, Karin did some research on Hayti. She read off her phone,

“Median family income is $24,000 dollars per year.”

I nodded.

“Median home value is about $40,000.”

I said, “Yeah, that sounds right.”

I am a stranger to rural poverty. I didn’t realize until that moment that we had landed right in the middle of it. I am very familiar with urban poverty. I have seen enough of it, and I experienced a taste of poverty as a kid. Urban poverty is blatant, in your face. Rural poverty seems to be more hidden. That doesn’t make rural poverty any less painful. It’s just that the folks speeding along on the freeway don’t notice it.

When I was a kid, I really didn’t realize that we were poor. I thought we were normal. We had enough food. We had enough clothes, although sometimes hand me downs. My six younger brothers and I had what we needed, but often nothing extra. For a while our family was without a car. There was no money for one. When we went shopping, we pulled a coaster wagon to the grocery store. The fact that we didn’t have much money didn’t completely register until I wanted to go to college, and my father made it clear that I was on my own regarding tuition. That was a major reason for me going to West Point. It was pure economics.

Poverty means a lack of everything. It means a lack of choice, a lack of opportunity, a lack transportation. Why was the Mexican restaurant so busy on a Friday night? It was because the locals had no other choice. Why do the locals make so little money? Probably because the only work is in the cotton fields. Why don’t they move to another city? Maybe because they don’t have the means to do so.

We left Hayti the next morning and drove the rest of the way home to Wisconsin. Karin, Asher, and I left poverty. The residents of Hayti didn’t.

October 26th, 2023

The following is an excerpt from the dialogue of Steven Spielberg’s movie “Munich”. The film is a story, based on actual events, of Israeli assassins who track down and kill the terrorists who murdered Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games.

Robert: We’re Jews, Avner. Jews don’t do wrong because our enemies do wrong.

Avner: We can’t afford to be that decent anymore.

Robert: I don’t know if we ever were that decent. Suffering thousands of years of hatred doesn’t make you decent. But we’re supposed to be righteous. That’s a beautiful thing. That’s Jewish. That’s what I knew, that’s what I was taught and I’m losing it. I lose that and that’s everything. That’s my soul.

The following are two excerpts from a recent essay by Thane Rosenbaum.

“Vengeance and justice are really the same things. Too much of the former is unjust, but there is no justice if victims are not made to feel vindicated. That’s why the language of revenge is always framed in mathematical terms: ‘measure for measure’, ‘settling the score’, ‘evening the debt’, ‘demanding payback.’.”

“A mammoth debt was created on October 7, and satisfaction is owed. Settling this score won’t be easy. The wrongdoers committed unspeakable acts. Numbers can’t be assigned. In Gaza, the math of revenge will have no equal.”

Finally…

Deuteronomy 32:35 – “Vengeance is mine, and recompense, for the time when their foot shall slip; for the day of their calamity is at hand, and their doom comes swiftly.”

I find it difficult to write about the current war in Gaza, but I also feel that I need to do so. I have several friends from the synagogue who have resided in Israel. One of them has a son who has served in the IDF. Almost all of my Jewish acquaintances have friends and/or family living in Israel. Likewise, I know several Palestinians. They also have friends and family back in their homeland. For all of these people, Israeli or Palestinian, the war in Gaza is not something theoretical. It is something that they feel in a visceral and deeply personal way. I try to see things from both sides, and I fear that I will only antagonize everyone involved because I refuse to support one group unconditionally.

For me, the situation revolves around the concept of justice. The members of Hamas did in fact commit “unspeakable acts” during their attack on Israel on October 7th. There is no question about that, and these people should be held accountable for their crimes. Have the Israelis treated the residents of Gaza badly over the years? I think that they have, but whatever oppression the Palestinians have received at the hands of the Israelis does not and cannot excuse the crimes committed by Hamas.

Vengeance and justice are not the same things. Vengeance is about getting even with an enemy, and it is something that can never be accomplished. The thirst for vengeance can never be quenched. Revenge does not bring the dead back to life. It does not bring closure. It does not heal any wounds. Vengeance generates an ever more dynamic cycle of violence. It is entirely destructive.

Justice is not so much about retribution as it is about setting the stage for possible reconciliation. Restorative justice is about making things right again. There is a much-quoted statement from Pope Paul VI where he says, “If you want peace, work for justice.” I believe that this slogan, though simple, is absolutely true. The only way for peace in Gaza is through justice, for both the Israelis and the Palestinians.

The Israelis will invade Gaza any day now. They have already been bombing it. They are politically and militarily in a position to do whatever they want. The Israelis have a choice. They can seek vengeance, or they can act justly. Perhaps they are wrestling with this question right now. Maybe that is one reason that the Israelis have not yet started the invasion.

I have always admired the emphasis on justice in Judaism. It seems to me that this focus is not only on justice for the Jews, but for justice for all people. I am deeply impressed by that.

I don’t know what the Israelis will do next. I pray that they act with justice, for the sake of the Gazans, and for their own souls.

October 26th, 2023

Asher was sick. Our grandson started to get flushed and feverish early on a Sunday morning while we were staying at a hotel in Bryan, Texas. The little boy slept all day and then all through the night. Karin, my wife, was also sick. She had been lying in bed for two days already. I texted our daughter-in-law for the location of an urgent care in town. She suggested a hospital that was only a mile or two away.

Early on Monday morning, Asher woke up crying. The toddler was still flushed, but he didn’t feel feverish. We had no idea what was wrong with him. He was hurting and inconsolable. We got Asher dressed and I drove him to the hospital.

When I got there, I did not see a sign for an urgent care facility. I carried Asher inside and asked the receptionist at the counter about it.

She told me, “Oh, we don’t have an urgent care anymore, but we have the ER.”

Asher was crying so much that I could barely understand the young woman. I said, “Okay”, and I dug Asher’s insurance card out of my wallet. I handed it to the woman and said, “It’s Medicaid.”

She hardly looked at the card. She said dismissively, “We don’t take Medicaid. We aren’t federally funded here.” Then she slid the card back over to me.

She continued, “We do take cash payments.”

Asher was screaming in my ear as I held him on my right hip.

I sighed and asked her, “How much?”

She smiled coldly and said, “ER visits start at $385 and go up from there.”

I was stressed and scared about Asher. I shrugged and nodded. “Fine, let’s do it.”

She pulled out a form. “I will need you to sign this.”

While holding a squirming child, I scribbled my name on the sheet of paper. Apparently, I agreed to pay whatever it would cost to help the kid. It was an open-ended question.

We were led into a room and a tech tried to take Asher’s weight, pulse, and temperature. He was totally uncooperative. We guessed at the weight.

Asher continued to cry. He was miserable. I wasn’t much better. The nurse came in and checked on Asher. The ER nurse was friendly and compassionate. She asked if Asher was my grandson. I told her that I was also his fulltime caregiver and legal guardian. She looked at us and said,

“Well, bless your heart.”

In Texas somebody’s heart is always being blessed, but I appreciated her concern.

The doctor came in and examined Asher. He was a good guy. He cared about our grandson. He suspected that Asher had COVID. He wanted to know if I wanted a test taken. I agreed to that. If Asher had COVID, then Karin almost certainly had. I was probably infected too.

Asher’s test was positive. Basically, there was nothing to be done for his condition except to give the kid some baby Ibuprofen and ride it out. I asked the doctor about traveling back to Wisconsin. He said that we needed to quarantine for a few days. We needed to stay in the hotel anyway. We couldn’t drive 1400 miles if everyone was sick.

The woman from the front desk came into the room. She had more papers more papers to sign.

She said smoothly, “The cost of the visit today is $495. We can set up a payment plan if you want…”

I cut her off and flipped her my credit card. “Here. Take care of it.”

She replied crisply, “Right away.”

I signed Asher’s discharge papers. The receptionist gave me my card back. She said smiling, “Here’s your receipt. Thank you.”

I did not respond to her.

I thanked the nurse for her help. Then I took Asher back to the car.

I was upset on the way back to the hotel. When my wife and I became Asher’s guardians, we made absolutely sure that he had health care. Up until this ER visit, we had never had any problem getting treatment for the boy. Now, I had a hospital employee basically tell me that his insurance was worthless to her. That was a shock. It was actually more of a nuisance than anything else because I had money, but finding out that Asher suddenly had no coverage just added an extra layer of anxiety to my already stressed emotions.

I wondered what it would be like for a parent or caregiver to show up at that ER with no insurance at all, and no cash on hand. The ER would have to serve the child, but how would the adult pay for the visit? How would that moneyless parent be treated by this young woman whose sole concern seemed to be the bottom line? I am not a snappy dresser. I tend toward that trendy homeless person look, and I think I was treated accordingly by the receptionist. She didn’t lighten up until she knew I was good for the payment.

I may be too harsh about the young woman. I understand that hospitals have bills to pay, and they aren’t charities. She was just doing her job. She was polite, efficient, and professional. She was also apparently indifferent to our distress. That’s what bothered me.

I got Asher back to the hotel. I stopped at Walgreens and bought him some Ibuprofen. He took it. Eventually, Asher calmed down and relaxed. Karin held him and he fell asleep in bed. Things got better.

October 23rd, 2023

We were just getting over COVID when we had to start the long drive home. It was obvious that we weren’t going to be able to make the trip from Texas to Wisconsin in one 20-hour-long haul. We needed to split up the ride into shorter, more manageable chunks. The plan was to go from Bryan, Texas, to Texarkana on the first leg of the journey. Especially with a toddler on board, that amount of driving would be more than enough for one day. There is no fast way to go between Bryan and Texarkana. It’s all back roads and little towns along the way. That’s a more interesting route than staying on a freeway, but it is rather slow.

Driving when you are feeling ill is difficult. There is a tendency to slip into the drone mode until you are shocked into hyper-awareness by the sight of brake lights flashing right in front of you. Suddenly, you are very alert. That lasts for a while, and then the road lulls you back into the zone.

I did notice some things while we wandered through eastern Texas. One thing that caught my eye was the condition of the guard rails. It wasn’t that they were a little banged up. That’s typical anywhere in the country. What impressed me was how many of these guard rails were peeled several feet back, like somebody had opened the top of a can of sardines. That made me pause and wonder. Whoever struck one of those guard rails hit it hard, really hard. That means they were driving fast and/or drunk. It hurt just to look at that damage. Nobody walked away from those accidents.

We went through a number of little towns: Atlanta, Gladewater, Buffalo, North Zulch, etc. They are all proud Texan communities, and most of them look like they have seen better days. Some of them have downtowns that are half deserted. They didn’t look as bad as Bakhmut in Ukraine, but they are kind of desolate. Windows are boarded up. There are numerous for rent signs. It’s more than a little depressing.

The establishments that seem to be thriving in these burgs are for the most part churches. They are usually Methodist, Baptist, or Apostolic. Occasionally, I saw a born-again startup church, some kind of independent group. I saw one Jehovah Witness Hall that had a curious boxlike shape with dark opaque windows. At first, I thought it was an adult video store. It looked like one.

The other operations that apparently do quite well are the liquor stores. That helps to explain the guard rail situation. There are many of those liquor shops in these towns. Oddly enough, the number of local churches was often equal to the number of alcohol vendors in the area.

As I drove through the countryside, I noticed a stark contrast between those who had money and those who didn’t. We went by large ranches with palatial homes. These places had cattle, horses, and working oil rigs. These huge estates screamed wealth. Close by were shacks and old trailers surrounded by yards overgrown with weeds that half-hid abandoned vehicles. People obviously lived in these dwellings, although I don’t know how. Most of these dilapidated houses could best be renovated with a can of gasoline and a match.

The curious thing about all these communities was the fact that no matter what condition they were in, they all had the Lone Star flag waving from up on a pole. It didn’t matter if they were rich or poor, white, Black, or Latino, everybody had a Texas flag flapping in the breeze.

Regardless of what else they might lack, they have their pride.