September 2024
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The (website) "My Shtetl — Jewish Towns of Ukraine" gathers information about Starokonstantinov — "Old Constantine" — the town from which, in 1895, my courageous grandparents emigrated to America. The site is in Russian but it can be mechanical translated into awkward but intelligible English. Some of my friends of European extraction have been able…
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This post is written for my children, grandchildren, and any potential future descendants. Aunt Mollie was an important person to my in earlier years. She should be remembered. Mollie was my father's older sister. She was born in 1900, the third of the four children of Isaiah and Eta. She was an extremely private person…
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"Bottom" is another of the many words that came into my life through the medium of baseball. As soon as I was able to walk and talk, I learned that an inning has both a "top" and a "bottom." "Bottom of the ninth" was an optimistic phrase because there was always the Ebbets Field hope…
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Last night I woke from a dream with this peculiar phrase repeating itself in my half-conscious brain: "it fills my onion heart with fear and trembling." I have a couple of questions to ask of my capricious dreamatorium, which although capable of creating passable iambic pentameter is rarely self-explanatory. a) What is "it?" What is…