Why This Night Was Different From All Other Nights

Barb and I spent the week before Passover ensconced in our kitchen. There were sweets to bake for Barb’s Wednesday book club, spicy gluten-free air-fried chicken to prep for my Friday night poker game, and a multi-course dinner to prepare for a Sunday night Seder with our extended family of 24.

Two briskets were baked and sliced (thank you, Sunset Foods), and a fancy Silver Spoon chicken recipe was followed to the letter. Cakes were baked, and a big pot of homemade chicken soup simmered lovingly for hours. Two batches of matzah balls were prepared—one large batch of fifty for 23 of our guests, and a smaller pot of gluten-free pseudo matzah balls just for me.

On Sunday evening, the second night of this year’s celebration, I led the Seder—the ritual retelling of the Jewish people’s escape from slavery in Egypt. My Seders are condensed, but I make sure to include all the essentials: the children asking the Four Questions, everyone dripping wine while reciting the Ten Plagues, and all our voices singing Dayenu, a song in praise of God. With guests ranging in age from 4 months to 94 years, I aim to keep everyone engaged.

When the Seder concluded, all eyes turned eagerly to Barb for Shulchan Orech—the festive meal.

Soon, the house filled with the comforting aroma of piping hot soup. Each bowl was brought to the table, brimming with golden broth and perfectly formed matzah balls, plump and glistening. Once everyone had been served, I grabbed a bowl and sat down to enjoy.

The first sip was heavenly—rich with chicken and root vegetables. I broke off a tiny piece of matzah ball, and my taste buds lit up. It was, without a doubt, the most delectable bite I’d had in years. Which could only mean one thing: I’d taken the wrong bowl. These matzah balls were definitely not gluten-free.

I quickly swapped my bowl for a fresh one and filled it with more chicken soup and matzah balls from the gluten-free pot. Then I braced myself for the usual GI fallout as a result of the one taste of regular matzah balls. But then—a Passover miracle! The symptoms were minor, and the rest of my week has passed by plaguelessly.

Dayenu!

If Only Joe Had Listened To Me

Eighteen months ago, I wrote the following speech on behalf of then-President Joe Biden. When I published it in my blog, every word was true. It still is. If only Joe had taken my advice and given this speech in November of 2023, we might be living in a very different country, in a very different world. Sadly, we will never know.

November 15, 2023

My Fellow Americans:

Three years ago this month, in a hard-fought and fairly won election, you chose me to serve as your President. Thus far I have served you faithfully and to the best of my ability, and I will continue to do so for the remainder of my term of office. But tonight I am choosing to look beyond the next 12 months. I look to the Presidential election of 2024 and the consequential four years to follow.

After deep, thoughtful, discussions with my family, my friends and advisors, the leaders of both houses of Congress, and after examining my faith, I have decided that I will not accept my party’s nomination to be the Democratic nominee for President of the United States in 2024.

I feel a great sense of pride when I look back on my first three years in office. Our economy is booming, with unemployment virtually non-existent, inflation tamed, and interest rates ready to fall. We have launched our efforts toward a carbon-neutral environment and we have seen unions once more mark out a space for our working class.

Sure, we haven’t solved all our problems. This is good ole Joe, and I know that! We have worked for humanitarian solutions to the situations at our border, to poverty, and to crime. We are not there yet. And the world remains a dangerous place. But we have strived to remind the world that we Americans will defend countries seeking freedom, peace, and an absence of terror.

Why have I decided that January 20, 2025, will be my last day as your President? I have no fear of another election battle, one I am confident I would be triumphant in. I have no concern that my age would prevent me from fulfilling my duties in the manner the position requires. I have no doubt that with the aid of Congress, we would continue to make progress on the matters of most consequence and their impact on the lives of everyday Americans.

But each man is allotted a limited number of days and years on this earth. By the end of this term, I will have given 54 years to the service of my country. I have done so gladly and I have not regretted a single moment, from my days on the New Castle County Council to my years in the White House. Soon will be the time for me to be with my family, to provide them with support and comfort. I want to write my memoirs while all is still fresh, and of course, remain a strong voice for freedom and democracy.

My party is filled with brilliant, caring individuals who have already done much and deserve the opportunity to do more. I encourage these men and women to seek the Democratic nomination for the 2024 Presidential election. I hope Kamala Harris, who has been a strong advisor and a willing ear during her Vice-Presidency, will be one of those, but that is her decision to make.

I want to assure the nation that I will not be a “lame duck” President. In the 14 months remaining in my term, I will continue to fight for what I believe in, those ideals that make us the strongest, proudest, most equitable nation we can be.

In closing, as we approach the 160th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address I repeat his words that this “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

God Bless You All. Goodnight.

Eighteen months later, the speech remains unread by the man it was meant for, and the moment it was written for has passed. We’ll never know what might have changed had these words been spoken. But they still hold meaning. Not as a roadmap to a different past, but perhaps as a quiet reminder of what leadership can look like—and what it still might.

Let me know what you think.

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Last week, just three days apart, I experienced both a vision of my future in public service and a heartwarming reminder of my past contributions. These two moments—separate in time but united in spirit—revealed a common thread in my approach to community leadership.

Our village’s municipal election was held on Tuesday. I was on the ballot as a candidate for the Village of Riverwoods Board of Trustees. The outcome was a given (three positions, three candidates, no write-ins allowed), but the final tally was still gratifying.

I will be sworn in at the beginning of May and take my place on the Board. Like all small municipalities, we have limitations because of our size, but despite this, I hope to be a leader in maintaining and improving the quality of life for our residents while fostering a spirit of collegiality on the Board.

As I prepared to take on this new role, I was fortunate to be reminded of what effective public service looks like. Barb and I attended a retirement dinner for Terry Moons, a 40-year member of the Stevenson High School Board of Education, whom I served with from 1995 to 2011.

The dinner was a wonderful evening at a local restaurant. I had the opportunity to reconnect with former colleagues and meet several newer Board members who have served since my tenure ended. I enjoyed catching up with longtime administrators and meeting newer ones.

Old memories were rekindled as I heard words and phrases I hadn’t thought about in years: ED-RED, SEDOL, Site and Facilities Committee, Chump Change. These had once been part of my daily lexicon. Each one sparked memories of impassioned, often intense meetings with renowned educators who took pride in leading a world-class high school and were always seeking ways to improve. On Friday night, the district superintendent had that same passion as he did his best to explain the concepts of proficiency-based instruction and grading to Barb and me. In all my years on the Board, I never heard anyone say, “We’ll do it that way because that’s how we have always done it.”

Pride, friendship, collegiality, and shared purpose—these defined my time on the school board, and they are what I hope to encounter as a village trustee. I carry that vision with me into this new role, anticipating that my new colleagues share in that commitment.

Pins, Pickleball, and a Personal Revival

Was the Chicago Tribune’s Rick Kogan reading my mind?

I was contemplating a blog post about my resurgent interest in bowling—but Rick preempted me with his column in today’s Trib, “When billiards and bowling were all the rage.” At first, that short-circuited my writing plan since I didn’t want to look like a copycat. But after reading Rick’s column, I realized I won’t be copying him at all.

Rick wrote a nice piece detailing the growth and decline of bowling’s popularity, including a little poke at pickleball, today’s “fastest-growing sport in the country for the third year in a row!” Rick’s history of bowling begins with a 1939 photo of four stylish lady bowlers, but as I read, I never got the sense he had ever picked up a ball himself. That’s why my experience and post are different.

While I wasn’t born with a bowling ball in my hand (my parents never bowled), much of my tween years in Rogers Park were spent in bowling alleys. From Howard Bowl at the far northeast to Nortown Bowl at the southwest edge of my neighborhood, rarely a week went by without my rolling three games. I enjoyed kid’s leagues, winner-take-all pots, and even my 12th birthday bowling party, slip-sliding down the alley with friends, barely an adult in sight. I won that winner-take-all pot once, a 163 game the pinnacle of my youthful forays.

In time, bowling faded for me. Barb never enjoyed the smokey atmosphere in most bowling alleys, and I lost touch with my bowling buddies. But a few years ago, just before COVID-19, a family friend named Marty, an ardent bowler, asked if I would like to join him for a few games.

I excavated my bowling bag, ball, and shoes from a basement closet and met Marty at the neighborhood alley. In those first games, I felt clumsy and awkward. I had forgotten my bowling etiquette, and every other ball seemed headed for the gutter. But despite the setbacks I enjoyed myself.

We had to wait for COVID to pass before we could go at it again, but now I join Marty on the alleys almost every week. My scores have steadily improved as I follow Marty’s tips not to throw across my body and to follow through on my release. What I lack in consistency, I make up in determination. The sight and sound of pins tumbling to the deck after a perfectly thrown strike ball is electrifying. And those are getting more and more frequent.

I know bowling doesn’t have the upscale popularity and cachet of pickleball. My pickleball friends laugh in astonishment when I tell them I bowl. They believe I am joshing with them. I am not. Rick Kogan implies that bowling is dead, but for me, the sport has been resurrected.

I want to keep those pins exploding. Marty, you will be seeing a whole lot more of me!

Lessons from a Gold Kippah

It is a Saturday morning in autumn, 1969. I am sitting in the 7th row of Congregation B’nai Zion, a Conservative synagogue in Chicago’s East Rogers Park. In addition to my suit and prayer shawl, I am wearing a shiny gold Kippah, the emblem of the temple’s Post Bar/Bat Mitzvah Club. My job this morning is to present the new Bar Mitzvah boy with an identical Kippah and invite him to join the club.

I watch and listen as the young man chants his Haftarah and blessings. The Rabbi gives a benediction and a short sermon. As a representative of the Women’s Club presents the Bar Mitzvah with a silver Kiddush cup, I await a signal from the Cantor that I should step up to the Bimah to make the next presentation.

No signal. I try to catch the Cantor’s eye. Still nothing. I subtly point to my gold Kippah. Not an inkling of recognition. I stay in my seat and the service moves to the concluding prayers. The young man/boy never receives his special gold invitation, and I am frustrated and embarrassed in my seat.

I learned a lesson that morning. That frustration stayed with me. Wait for a signal, and it might never come. When the time is right, get up and take the stage.

That takeaway has guided me throughout my career. I’ve applied for professional positions for which I wasn’t exactly qualified. Sometimes, I got them, and sometimes, I didn’t. If I did, I held my own, learning on the job.

I started writing a blog without knowing if anyone wanted to read it. It turns out, lots of people do. Without training, I’ve written a play and submitted it to a producer. That may have been a step too far, but it was a learning experience.

On countless occasions, I have stepped forward to take civic posts and volunteer positions, and I thrived when I did. And now, as the April 1 municipal election approaches, my name is once again on the ballot as I run for trustee of my home village of Riverwoods.

There will never be a Bat Signal lighting up the sky. There may never even be a Cantor discretely signaling you to the stage. Don’t wait for a sign. Go out and create your opportunity. As Nike says “Just do it.”

A Pathologist Remembers

One of the sweetest things about my long pathology career was the lifestyle. My duties at Holy Family Hospital and UroPartners Laboratory rarely impacted family life. There were few urgent calls and even fewer true emergencies. I endured only one “all-nighter” at Holy Family—the night of November 8, 1988. There was no medical crisis that night but it was the capstone of a very special project, the installation of the hospital’s first full-service laboratory computer system.

In the early 1980s Holy Family was a small but busy suburban Catholic hospital, overshadowed by its big-boy neighbors, Lutheran General and Northwest Community Hospitals. Despite its small stature, it was the first hospital where I encountered a computerized ordering system for lab tests. The system notified the phlebotomy team which patients needed blood drawn each morning. A special time code, 11:11, indicated a STAT draw. The network was rudimentary, but functional.

In the spring of 1988, our Director, Dr. Earl Suckow, was pressured by the hospital medical staff to install a more up-to-date laboratory system that could not only receive orders but also collate all a patient’s lab results in one easy-to-read report. This was the dawning of a new era in laboratory communications. Dr. Suckow had little interest in the details of installing a system and assigned me with our lab manager Bakul to begin the task.

Only a few, small commercial companies were providing the type of system we required. After several site visits, Bakul and I chose Terrano, an Ohio company, as our vendor. Three of our lab section managers, Marianne, Jeff, and Jana, became my team, while Terrano sent us Kay, an experienced installation expert, to guide us.

The team spent the next several months grinding through the details of designing our reporting system. Every unit of measurement had to be verified, every normal range reviewed, and every medical comment parsed. At what time of day reports would be printed, and what staff was responsible for delivering them and entering them into the patient’s charts, was negotiated with the hospital nursing staff. We even battled over the colors for the various types of reports: in-patient, out-patient, remote.

As the months passed, our team dwindled. Marianne had a complicated pregnancy, Jana resigned from the hospital, Jeff had too many other responsibilities. As Installation Day approached, Kay and I were the last survivors.

November 8th was Election Day. While the rest of the nation followed the battle between George H. W. Bush and Michael Dukakis, Kay and I began our final preparation. We verified both the lab and nursing staff had been trained, all terminals were in place, and the printers were loaded with ink and paper.

At about 5 pm we hit “Go” on the new system. Kay and I spent the night watching the orders trickle in, comparing each one to the simultaneous order in the old ordering system. We generated the draw list and labels for our phlebotomists, and began nodding off as the first test results crossed the interface from the CBC analyzer into the new computer system.

By the afternoon of November 9, it was clear that George Bush would be our next president, and that our Terrano computer system was a success. Kay and I exchanged high fives before she headed off to O’Hare and her flight to Ohio*. I told the lab night manager to call me only if absolutely necessary, and I went home and get some much needed sleep.

It was good to be a pathologist!

*In researching this post I discovered that Kay passed away four years ago at the young age of 58. I am sorry I never spoke to her again after our successful all-night installation.

Dear Readers,

You all know me or have read my blog posts enough to feel like you do. I’m level-headed and quiet, and I rarely let my emotions get the best of me. I like to keep my posts light, with politics usually playing only a tangential role. While I don’t hide my liberal leanings, I won’t hit you over the head with them every time I post.

This morning, however, I feel like letting loose. I read something in The New York Times that made me pop my cork. An opinion piece by Brooke Harrington, a professor of economic sociology at Dartmouth, laid out a compelling case against Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and DOGE. It was a well-written column, and I found myself nodding in agreement as I read. So far, my cork was intact.

Then I turned to the online comments—something I’ve only recently started doing. The first half-dozen responses echoed my sentiments, with some minor quibbles over specific points.

But then came the comment that made my blood boil and my cork fly. A reader from Boston dismissed the entire column implying it was all liberal lunacy and overstatements. That kind of reaction isn’t new, and I was prepared to brush it off—until I reached their final argument.

In reference to federal employee layoffs, they wrote:

“Those who are crying a river for all federal employees should remember that things like that happen to millions of Americans every single day, and guess who is mourning them—no one.” (My emphasis.)

Where did that claim come from? A misleading tweet? A sensationalized headline? In reality, job losses fluctuate, but on average, about 3.25 million people lose their jobs each month—that’s roughly 150,000 per business day. A lot of people, yes, but nowhere near “millions every single day.”

And you know what? People do mourn for those who lose their jobs in the private sector. I’ve seen it firsthand, especially in health care, where private equity firms swoop in, pay those at the top, and gut the support staff. Incidentally, those same private equity firms stand to gain the most from the continuation of the Trump tax cuts.

So today, I’m venting—not just at one misinformed comment, but at the broader atmosphere of misinformation and distrust that allows such claims to flourish. I’ll try to put the cork back in before my next post—but no promises!

The last time I used my blog to contemplate bullies was last October. In that post, I told the story of Gary and his confederate Jean, the tyrants of my freshman year in high school. Their ruthlessness and aggressiveness were used against the weak and frightened just to gain a bit of pocket change and a sense of power. I concluded that post by comparing them to the Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump.

Since October, two events have led me to reexamine that post. The first was a surprise, and the other was totally to be expected.

The first. I was sitting on the sidelines of my usual pickleball court, waiting for my turn to play. I was chatting with Betty, my partner in the previous game. We went through the usual routine of exchanging names, occupations, and a bit of history. To our surprise, we both attended the same Rogers Park high school.

When she told me her maiden name, my jaw dropped. “You’re Gary’s sister!” I exclaimed.

It was true. She was the sister of the nightmare of my youth. Without prompting, she said, “I know he was a terror, but he was really such a nice guy. And he was a great brother. No one EVER hassled me. Jean was a sweetheart too.”

I replied that I was sure Gary looked out for her, but in my heart, I knew there was no way I would ever think of Gary and Jean as “nice guys.” You are what you do.

That motto is also borne out by the other, less surprising, event I referred to above. The election of Donald Trump has given new meaning to bullying. Along with his pal Jean Elon, he has set his sights on remaking our country as a monument to himself, King Donald I. Instead of pocket change he tries to shake mineral rights out of the pockets of those he terrorizes. He lacks any empathy for those he attacks. He defends his tyrant buddies, but I doubt he can find one of them who would consider him a “nice guy.”

I survived my freshman year in high school by avoiding Gary whenever I could. The only way to survive now is to resist and fight back. I hope you can show me the way.

Last night, I attended a local Board of Trustees meeting in our village. The meeting discussed an issue that was raising some heat among the town’s residents. Many of the villagers stepped forward to address the Board. Some received thunderous ovations after they spoke, but others were not treated as kindly.

The issue at hand was tangentially related to tax rates, which led one resident to say (and I paraphrase) “I understand why I have to pay taxes for the schools, even though I don’t have school-age children. But why do I have to pay taxes for a library? It’s 2025, who needs a library?”

My heart sank.

I am sure I can remember every public library I have ever spent time in. I started visiting the Chicago Public Library Branch on Clark Street in Rogers Park as a toddler My mother firmly clenched my hand as she browsed the shelves, looking for a summer read. Soon I was allowed to explore the library on my own—followed by journeys downtown to hunt and peck at the children’s section of the Michigan Avenue Central Library.

I fondly recall my first library card, and the bright strips of paper inserted into each book at checkout. I also recall how my reading tastes changed from Dr. Suess stories to Encyclopedia Brown mysteries, to enjoying the Grand Dame of Mystery, Agatha Christie. It was in a library book that I found out who murdered Roger Ackroyd.

As I grew older, my love for libraries only deepened and as a suburbanite, I always took advantage of nearby libraries. I quickly learned where the new fiction was kept, how to find the best mysteries, and where I could find interesting magazines to kill a few minutes while waiting for someone. I even won a trivia/book treasure hunt contest at one municipal branch. That was years before my Jeopardy! debut.

I discovered so many authors at my library: John Le Carre and his British agents, Daniel Silva and his Israeli team, and Lee Child and his American loner. For a taste of something different, there was thought-provoking or historical non-fiction.

When Barb convinced me that my long daily commute was a perfect time to listen to audiobooks, I prowled until I found my library’s Books-on-CD section. John Steinbeck’s East of Eden was the first novel I listened to, and it remains one of my favorites. Ernest Hemingway, Philip Roth, and even Harlan Coben went from the library’s CD rack to the player in my car. And when cars no longer came equipped with a CD player, the library had provisions for downloading to my phone. From there via Bluetooth I could convey the latest Dana French novel to my SUV’s speakers.

Libraries are wonderful, magical, places. So to the woman who spoke at the Board meeting, I need to say that maybe, maybe, no one NEEDS a library. But what a world of pleasure they can provide!

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Promos announcing the airing of Season 2 of Severance have been airing on Apple TV+ for several weeks. The series, whose smash-hit first season aired in 2022, is set in an eerie company whose employees have voluntarily had their memories, personalities, and life experiences bifurcated into at-work “innies” and at-home “outies.” The show asks whether you can remember what you have never experienced.

Last week, I sat down to watch the opening episode of the new season. And I was stunned. No, not by the brilliant acting or evocative music. Not by plot twists or ready answers to Season 1 cliffhangers. I was shocked that it all felt new and foreign to me. What was the plot? What had those cliffhangers been? Why didn’t I remember any of it?

No, I haven’t been subjected to a severance-inducing intra-cranial capsule insertion. I am a victim of the malady of “streaming overseeing.”

Barb and I will choose a series recommended by friends, family, or critics and watch an episode a night until we have completed the show’s cycle. Then we repeat the process with a new series.

We enjoy each series as we binge-watch it. We have visited dystopian worlds, laughed and cried with families from every continent, and tracked down a rich bounty of spies, crooks, and dastardly traitors. We feel lost when one series ends and we are searching for a worthy successor.

Despite how entertaining these shows are, it is amazing how quickly my memory of them becomes muddled, mixed with remembrances of the ones that have come before. Which Australian show snuck in a wicked step-grandmother? Was it Offspring, Packed to the Rafters, or A Place to Call Home? Was the explosion on the moon part of For All Mankind, or did that happen at the beginning of Foundation? I know one of the multiple Yellowstone prequels featured Helen Mirren. But which one? Who played her husband?

The premise of Severance is so unique that it would be difficult to mix it up with another show. My memories of it have just been submerged by the weight of all those other worlds. I knew I couldn’t continue the second season without a refresher course, so I rewatched all of Season 1. Nothing in it was familiar to me. Every twist and turn was new and fresh. It was great.

And I will remember it all until something new comes along and severs my brain one more time!

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