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Something To Be Thankful For
Marcy is a wonderful cook. She subscribes to cooking magazines, makes notes while she watches The Food Channel and relentlessly researches recipes. I’m skittish in the kitchen. I try to stay out of her way and reap the bounty of her efforts. But with Thanksgiving approaching I began to feel the building of my usual late November trepidation.
You see, we usually “do” Thanksgiving in our home. In terms of numbers, it’s a modest affair - usually 10-15 people, but typically as the holiday approaches Marcy shifts into battle mode.
She approaches Thanksgiving with the zeal of Patton preparing his North African campaign against Rommel. Assignments are given. Menus are crafted. Menus are modified. Markets are scoured. Enormous quantities of food are unloaded and stored. While I missed out on military service, I’ve often felt that our kitchen was transformed into a command post.
This year, blessedly, has been different. Several days before the holiday we saw a documentary called “How to Cook Your Life.” It features Edward Espe Brown, (author of The Tassajara Bread Book), an expert chef and a Buddhist. Brown brings a devilish sense of humor to the kitchen and promotes the concept of “the joyful chef.” Work on one task at a time, focus on the moment and have fun.
Well, it worked! Marcy took Brown’s words to heart. She was more relaxed, less frantic and seemed, well, “joyful.” I, in turn, had something else to be thankful for. In addition to family, friends and good health, our kitchen no longer resembled a battle zone. My stint in the military had ended. My discharge papers had arrived. Our kitchen has been full of warmth and good cheer and has truly become joyful.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Grandpa Jack
Watching the World Series I thought of my grandpa Jack, who sat me at his side when I was young and taught me the intricacies of baseball.
Jack Fellers was born in 1896 and lived to be 101. I always enjoyed talking to him about growing up in New York City. He told me about a winter so cold that he was able to walk across the Hudson River to New Jersey. When I asked him about his first baseball game he talked about seeing the New York Giants play a game at Coogan’s Bluff around 1910. Incredibly, he was able to recite the entire line-up.
About 10 years after his death my father gave me a large envelope. It contained 63 pages of family history. Written by Jack at the age of 93, it was done in meticulous Palmer penmanship. He talked about getting gas lamps in his apartment and how it changed his family’s life. He recounted going to Madison Square Garden and watching six day bicycle races. And he talked about Johnny Hayes, an American who won the Marathon in the 1908 Olympics. Hayes managed the sporting goods department at Bloomingdale’s and improbably trained on the roof of the store. His win kicked off a running craze with Jack and his buddies emulating Hayes, running through the streets of New York.
His long term recall was phenomenal and his attention to detail allowed him to paint vivid pictures of the early 1900’s. Jack saw the demise of the horse and buggy, fought in one World War and lived through another, and watched a man walk on the moon. Reading his history allowed me to understand how the 20th century both informed and shaped my family.
Wherever you are Jack, thanks for the memories.
The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later
It takes a lot to get me out on a Monday night. Especially a cold and rainy one. Nevertheless, this night was not to be missed. On October 12, The Hartford Stage was one of more than 150 theaters and universities nationwide and internationally to present a reading of “The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later”.
The first “Laramie Project” looked at the circumstances surrounding the 1998 murder of 21-year old Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming in Laramie. The play was based on interviews that members of the Tectonic Theater Project conducted with residents of the area.
Ten years later, the new play explores how the community has changed since Shepard’s death. Again, excerpts from interviews formed the play’s dialog. I was mesmerized by this style of writing and by the powerful performances. Of course, the story of Matthew Shepard’s brutal murder and its aftermath is never done.
For me, aside from questions about whether and how the community changed, one of the most compelling questions raised by the play is about the nature of storytelling itself.
In an interview with Elizabeth Blair on NPR on October 12, playwright Moises Kaufman, who founded the theater group that created “The Laramie Project” addresses some of the controversy over the Shepard story and the way that some people have chosen to tell it.
"Stories are malleable," he says. "History is malleable. And so we have to be doubly vigilant when we listen to history and we listen to stories."
Great advice for those of us in the business of personal history.
Inspiration
The inspiration for our personal history video business was the 85-year old father of my college roommate. Freddy was a teenager in Greece when he was shipped off to Auschwitz along with several members of his close-knit family. He was the only survivor. For years, he refused to talk about his experiences. Then, in 2007, at his daughter’s home for Passover, Freddy finally began to talk. We were lucky enough to be there that evening and to have our video camera. The result was a simple video that made Freddy and his family very happy. They feel good that future generations of their family will know about the history of this remarkable man.
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