Have You Said Goodbye to a Forever Home?

Five years ago this month the trucks rolled up our Long Grove driveway. First came the moving vans, separating our furniture into two collections, one group to be placed in storage while construction of our new home was being completed, the other batch to furnish our temporary rental. This was followed by the We’ll-Get-Your-Junk mobile, hauling off the leftovers; rejects that not even Goodwill wanted. We locked up and said goodbye to our “forever home.”

I don’t think the term “Forever Home” existed when we built the house in the early 1990s. We just knew we were set to put down roots and stay somewhere for a long, long, time. It’s not that we had been nomads previously, anything but, but this was where we wanted to raise our children, and where we would reside while life’s passages took hold.

Our kids were barely beyond the toddler stage when we moved in. Twenty-six years later, in our last family photograph at that house, our nuclear family was supplemented by a wife, a fiance, and our first two grandchildren. The photo was taken on a sunny August afternoon and I like to think all our dazzling smiles were thinking of the wonderful times in that house, as well as the future ahead.

That house saw so much. Celebrations–birthdays, anniversaries, proms, election victories. Tragedies–the deaths of my father and sister. An important victory–Barb’s success against melanoma. And more pets than I can count on one hand.

The house changed over time as well. A small addition for the sake of a big piano. A foosball table that migrated from our over-the-garage bonus room to a finally finished basement, where our offspring and their friends could hang out. A remodeled en-suite bathroom that we enjoyed; a remodeled kitchen that we never got the benefit of.

But I admit that I grew restless after twenty-five-plus years. I grew tired of running the same 5K routes. The long slog to and from the tollway became more than I was willing to endure on a daily commute. And our neighborhood friends were leaving for their own downsizers, or for a home in the permanent sun of Florida or Arizona.

If you are a long-time reader of this blog and its predecessor, you know the process of convincing Barb, finding/building a new home, and selling the old one, was complex and not always straightforward. But we persevered.

And now our “forever home” is five years in the rearview mirror. But like the sign says, “Memories in the mirror are closer than they seem“–and worth cherishing.”

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For Its Inventor, The Game of Life is over.

The Game of Life-the box top I remember.

Pink and blue pegs in a tiny plastic car. A pathway that took you to college and a job. A spinner that made a great, whirring, sound but needed it frequently oiling. Stock and insurance certificates. And $100,000 bills with Art Linkletter’s picture on it. It was all in The Game of Life.

I grew up in the mid-’60s playing Life with my family. It was faster-paced than Monopoly, less cerebral than Scrabble or Chess, and harder to cheat at than Go to the Head of the Class (yes, I memorized all the questions). And it was fun, twirling the spinner and hoping for the career with the highest salary. You could wind up a millionaire, or you could wind up in the poorhouse.

By the time we were raising our kids, Life had fallen well down the list of treats on family game night, far below our favorite, Sorry. Still, our first thought for the theme at Laury’s Bat Mitzvah was to base the celebration on Life. Only when the party designer couldn’t grasp the concept did we switch to an Animal Kingdom idea.

This morning I learned that Reuben Klamer, the man who invented The Game of Life, passed away on September 14th. He was 99 years old–almost making it to that ultimate life marker of a century.

It feels like another little bit of my childhood is seeping away. As the sole survivor of my first nuclear family, I have no one to share that time of my life with. There is no one who remembers the nightly dinner table (always starting with Campbell’s Soup, always including dreadful canned vegetables); who remembers the Sunday night’s watching What’s My Line (me peaking around my bedroom door into the living room); who remembers the weekly walk down Morse Avenue to Ashkenaz for kreplach soup, a toasted bagel, and a Coke.

So you see Mr. Klamer, the end of your days has made me nostalgic and a bit sad. I don’t know how you lived your life, but I know your Life was part of a wonderful time in mine. Wherever you are now, your spinning wheel will never stop whirring for me.

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Ring-a-Ding-Ding, I Do Hate This Thing!

The sound of glass breaking. Once, then twice. I roll over, squinting to view the digital clock on my bedside cabinet. 2:37 a.m. I know from experience that no one is breaking one of the glass panels in our paneled front door. I know it is only the Ring app on Barb’s phone–the latest in modern security–letting us know a fern from our potted plant is waving past the sensor at our entrance. It’s another dream disturbed, another good night sleep lost.

Remember when we built this house five years ago, the original raison d’être for this blog? We put some technology in: wi-fi and soundbars and an electronic door lock. We have added tech through the years: Alexa now allows Google to track our every move and utterance, and we have a nifty motorized window shade. But we had resisted Ring.

Our front and side doorbells were nothing fancy. If someone pushed the doorbell button, Westminster chimes played. The tones were slightly different for the two doors, though I admit the dogs learned which tone was for which door better than I did. We would then stand, walk to the appropriate door and open it. Just like it has been done for millions of years.

A few months ago, while having some Wi-Fi updating done, we succumbed to temptation and had the Ring doorbell/security cameras installed, and added the app to our iPhones and Apple watches. And gave away a little bit of our sanity.

My wrist now vibrates every time Barb takes Cooper out for a walk. I get a tingle every time Barb goes out to water the flowers. I am alerted every time a goose waddles by and whenever debris gets blown by one of the doors.

Yes, I also now know important things such as every time FEDEX or Amazon makes a delivery to our home. But unlike many of our neighbors, we don’t do all that much online ordering. So far, deliveries have accounted for less than 1% of all the alerts–and the most frequent of those deliveries has been Lou Malnati’s Pizzas. And believe me, I don’t need an app to be watching for those particular deliveries (donations of thick-crust cheese and pepperoni, well done, gladly accepted!)

Yes, the installer gave us tips for minimizing all the nuisance notifications, but spoiler alert, the tips haven’t helped. Yes, I could totally turn the alerts off. Then what was the point of getting the contraptions in the first place? Good question!

So if I seem a little blurry-eyed on many a morning, if I keep checking my watch as another alert blazes through, you now know what’s going on. It’s just my head Ringing.

(Added note: I have received approximately 14 alerts while writing this blog. Ouch!)

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I Know What’s In The Vaccine. It Is Hundreds Of Years of Progress.

Dr. Edward Jenner performing his first vaccination against smallpox on James Phipps, May 14, 1796, oil on canvas by Ernest Board.Credit…DEA Picture Library/Getty Images

There is a lengthy meme circulating on Facebook that begins “I’m vaccinated and, no, I don’t know what’s in it.” I’m vaccinated as well, and I want to tell you that I do know what is in the COVID-19 vaccines, be it Moderna, or Pfizer, or even poor old Johnson & Johnson.

Have I read the list of ingredients? Have I checked for additives, preservatives, or carcinogens? No, because the vaccine contents that I know about won’t be listed on any label. The ingredients I speak of are the men and women, the giants of science, on whose shoulders the current tier of scientists and researchers stand.

Let’s start with the microbe hunters, who first identified and clarified the concept that there was a world of tiny organisms and that these might cause disease. Names like Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, Louis Pasteur, Robert Koch, and Ignaz Semmelweis. There is an essence of all of them in the vaccine.

Rosalind Franklin, James Watson, Francis Crick–the best known, but not the only, scientists whose work led to the understanding of the structure of DNA. Francisco Mojica, who added CRISPR to our lexicon as a way of manipulating DNA. There is plenty of them in today’s mRNA vaccines.

You must have heard of Edward Jenner, Jonas Salk, and Albert Sabin. Shall we call them the great-grandfather, the grandfather, and the father of vaccines? And what about all the scientists who have been striving for 30 years to create a vaccine against the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, the author of AIDS? Surely the blood, the sweat, and the brain cells of all these investigators are part of every “jab.”

That is how science grows. We take the knowledge of our ancestors and add on to it. We test new ideas, accept the ones that seem to work, discard the ones that don’t.

Accepted science changes! New data forces us to challenge each other, to consider new answers to old questions. And on top of that, nature is not constant. So while Newton’s Laws of Motion have stood the test of almost 350 years, the SARS-CoV-2 virus, with us for less than two years, mutates. It is not because the science is “bad” that recommendations about the vaccine and other matters related to COVID-19 need to be updated on a regular basis. It is because life, science, and the virus evolve.

So I will continue to put my faith in science–in the men and women who have made tremendous advances in our knowledge of the world around us. The vaccines aren’t perfect, but we have them because, as Isaac Newton himself said, we have been standing on the shoulders of all those giants.

Please forward or share on Facebook. If we can each convince one person to vaccinate…

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Prostate Cancer Doesn’t Stop

Microscopic image of invasive prostate cancer.

Another telephone call. Another new diagnosis of prostate cancer. I see so many cases of prostate cancer each day, but some are more personal to me than others.

This time the worried young man on the phone is a friend, and he is indeed young. Carefully followed because his father is a prostate cancer warrior (survivor) his diagnosis has been made before his 40th birthday. He will benefit from all the advances in diagnostic techniques, prognostic methods, and therapeutics that have been developed in the last decade or so. Testing of the abnormal genetic material in his tumor, as well as his “germline” genetics (the genes he was born with) may assist in some decisions, as well as serve as a guide to family members about their own potential risk for prostate and other cancers.

Something else that will be available to him as he begins his prostate cancer journey is the presence of information seminars and support groups sponsored by UsToo, an international organization based in Rosemont. (Full Disclosure: I am on the Board of Directors of UsToo.) These resources bring prostate cancer patients updates on the latest in medical, surgical, and radiologic advances, as well as the ability to discuss with peers what to expect and how to deal with the life changes that the diagnosis and treatment may bring.

One month from today, on September 26th, UsToo along with UroPartners (More Full Disclosure: I provide pathology services to UroPartners) will be sponsoring the SEABlue Race/Walk in Lincoln Park, to raise funds for Support, Education, and Advocacy related to prostate cancer. I would love to invite you to join in on a fun-filled morning by the lake, but with no knowledge of what COVID restrictions we might be dealing with in a month, I will instead ask you to support me in my personal fundraising campaign. You can donate (any amount is welcome) by clicking here. Donate in honor of all the men you know–those who have prostate cancer, those who have lost a battle to prostate cancer, and those who just by being a male are at risk.

To my young friend–keep your hopes high and know that there are many resources to help you. Your dad is a success story, you can be too!

Just one note in closing. UsToo is merging with Zero-The End of Prostate Cancer in an effort to combine the strengths of each of these two great non-profits. You can learn more about the merger here.

Thank you for being a supporter.

Once more, the link to donate to my fundraising is Ustoo.rallybound.org/sea-blue-2021/lesraff

The opinions expressed above are the opinions of the author and not necessarily UsToo or UroPartners.

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Answer: Me. Question: Who Should Be the Next Jeopardy! Host?

My first game show appearance (1971) Photo courtesy Sullivan Navillus

OK readers. You knew this blog was coming. You knew that I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. My life’s goal is once again obtainable, and you knew I was going to speak out–or at least write about it.

What am I talking about? Of course, it is the chance of a lifetime to be the permanent host of Jeopardy! For those of you who have been more concerned with other important matters (Afghanistan, COVID, politics,) let me fill you in on the J! host saga.

The parade of guest hosts to replace Alex Trebek resulted in the show’s executive producer, Mike Richards, being named the new main man. Now, being a showbiz novice, I am not exactly sure what an “executive producer” does with their time. But I am pretty sure Mr. Richards had more than a bit of influence in deciding who the answer-and-question guru would be.

Do you think that a few steps were skipped in the process of making the choice? Things like reviewing previous public comments the guy had made on his own podcast a few years ago? Comments that would not be suitable for America’s favorite quiz show. (Note in passing: Way back in the last millennia, when my episode as a contestant of Jeopardy! was being taped, Alex fat-shamed one of my competitors during a commercial break. But that was then…)

Once Richards’ remarks came to light, it took less than a week for him to step down from the moderator role. A new search will begin. And once again I ask the question. Why not me?

In addition to my game show credentials, I promise that a search of all my writing will produce an absence of non-PC, non-woke comments. Any film or digital photography or videography available for perusal will only show me keeping my hands to myself, and my eyes clearly focused on appropriate parts of others persons’ anatomies. I swear I have never touched, groped, fondled, or mauled anyone who I was not invited to touch, grope, fondle, or maul. (And believe me, there have not been many of those invitations!)

Sony Pictures Entertainment, I am and will be your Boy Scout. Now is your chance. Pluck me from obscurity. I want this gig. And I won’t stop writing until I get it!

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The Drake Wedding Rap

Give me a beat, boys!

I read the story, ‘cause it’s in the newspaper
About a building up for sale, no it’s not a skyscraper.
Yeah the Drake Hotel, it’s at the edge of downtown
Is on the trading block, it’s got Barb and me down.

The Drake is where we married in the distant past
After lots and lots of planning it happened at last.
November seventy-eight was the month that we did it
Just a few winter weeks before all the snowy white shit hit.

We got married in the ballroom in the hour after noon
Walking down the aisle while a flautist piped his tune.
“What I Did for Love” was the song that he was playing.
“We hope this all goes well,” is what the two of us were praying.

We had faml’y we had friends in the wedding party
And our Rabbi’s name was Ox, the dude was big and he was hearty.
Said our vows, put on rings, read some lines of Jewish prose
Then I smashed the crystal glass to the shouts of “Mazel Tov.”

We served a fancy lunch, I’m a guessin’ it was chicken
And after every course the big orchestra would kick in.
They played a slow waltz then they played a fast hora
It was fun in those days, no Spotify and no Pandora.

The band kept on playing and our friends they all kept dancing
And through the goings on, the daytime hours were advancing.
Some people made some speeches and more people made some toasts
And we gave a big shout-out to Barb’s parents who were hosts.

Now it’s been 42 years since we all partied at the Drake.
Did I forget to mention–we had a chocolate wedding cake?
The crumbs have long been eaten but the marriage stays strong
Barb and I are always knowing with each other we belong.

So whoever buys the Drake, don’t you dare go and destroy it
You gotta give new couples a fun day reason to enjoy it.
And we’ll come and have a drink and lead some lusty cheers
“Cause we’ll not forget the Drake after all of our years.

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Those Darn Geese are Leaving and Other Good News!

I told you about our anti-goose dog silhouette project. Most of you doubted it would work. People regaled me with their own experiences. “The phony dogs won’t keep away the real geese,” our readers honked.

But guess what. It has been two weeks now. And our driveway is poop-free (most of the time.) There have been two exceptions, but those have been on days that I didn’t have a chance to relocate the silhouettes. (The instructions state to move them daily.)

As long as I follow the rules, the geese do seem intimidated by the black cut-outs as they rotate in the wind around their wooden stakes. The foul fowl will still approach our driveway but not venture onto it for the purpose of leaving a deposit.

As a secondary benefit, the geese seem to be spending less time in the subdivision. They are making less of a racket and not snarling as much traffic. The feathered freaks haven’t evacuated the area entirely–two phony dogs aren’t enough to clear a couple of hundred acres. But the Homeowners Association may consider adding a few more of the silent sentinels around the neighborhood next year and turn our little corner of Riverwoods into a goose-free zone.

Follow-up #2: The Lettuce Entertain You Dining Points. Our hosts on the evening in question read the original blog. They graciously suggested I contact LEYE and claim the points for my own Frequent Diner account. I did, and I have received a tidy number of credits. Thanks, Cara and Ken, the next time we dine out it’s on us!

Follow-up #3: The producers of Jeopardy! have made their selection. It takes two–Mike Richards and Mayim Bialik–to replace the late Alex Trebek. As for me, I am still waiting for my phone call for a tryout. I guess I will need to create my own game show in my quest to be a TV quizmaster. Does anyone have any suggestions?

And on a closing personal note, congratulations to our daughter and son-in-law Laury and Alex on the birth of their beautiful baby daughter. This is grandchild #4 for Barb and me and we are thrilled. Being Nana and Baba is such a wonderful part of our identity.

To all our readers, be kind, get vaccinated, stay well. Talk to you next time.

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Will The Geese Get Gone?

Duck, duck, goose.

Five years ago I talked Barb into leaving our home of 25 years and doing a bit of downsizing, shrinking both our square footage and my daily commute. Barb’s biggest must-have was a spot with some visual interest; something like a house on a pond.

We found the pond, we bought our lot, we built our house. All has gone swimmingly. But the beautiful, calm, relaxing pond is also the source of our biggest annoyance. As a kid I loved Garfield Goose; as a senior, I hate all geese.

Migrating geese have always made their summer home in the area. The Homeowners Association rents pairs of swans for each of the subdivision’s three ponds, in an attempt to keep the geese away. And through the years the swans have been moderately successful in their task.

This summer has been different. Our swan pair did not breed, and since they have no cygnets to protect, they have minimal interest in keeping the geese at bay. In fact, the swans’ performance has been downright lackadaisical. I am giving a thumbs down for this years’ Swan Lake.

And without the Swan Police, the geese have been having their most prolific season ever. Three brooding pairs with a total of 15 goslings, none name Ryan, reside around our house.

So 21 geese in total, the babies now as big as their parents. The geese block traffic. The geese honk. And the geese poop. Oh lord, how they poop. Viscous, lumpy, black, green, and white poop. All over our lawn. All over our driveway. I am so ready to foie gras those damn pests.

Barb and I hose down the driveway five or six times a day, and within 20 minutes the geese have reloaded it. They tend to scatter when Cooper our labradoodle is out, but they return as soon as he disappears into the house. And when Cooper is outside he loves eating all that poop. Don’t ask me to describe what it does to his GI system.

I have been scouring the Internet and the aisles of Home Depot and Menards looking for the best goose repellant. Lots of geese-ridding chemicals are advertised, but the reviews say they don’t work, and who wants to use more toxic, staining, chemicals anyhow. Solar-powered strobe lights and electronic bird noises are sold as deterrents, but the lights are too intrusive and the noises too eerie.

After weeks of suffering, I found a product I am willing to take a chance on. Dog Decoys. Silhouettes of dogs, life-sized, meant to be loosely anchored to wooden stakes and allowed to rock’n’roll in the breeze, are advertised to scare away the geese. They are a counterpart of the blow-up owls many neighbors hang from their eaves to chase away woodpeckers.

I ordered two, and they arrived yesterday. I hammered their posts into the ground, said a little Bracha over them, and hopefully, said goodbye to Cooper’s goose-poop-smorgasbord.

Will this work? Day one has been a success. Our driveway is clean and shiny. But is this a long-term solution? I don’t know, but I promise to pass the word when I find out!

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No Points For You! The People Have Spoken.

You may recall my previous post asking whether I should have claimed Frequent Dining Points for a meal that I did not pay for.

The responses have come in by the pasta bowl full. And your opinion is a decisive “NO.”

To recap, we were invited by visiting out-of-town friends to dinner at one of our favorite local restaurants. The restaurant gives points that can add up to free meals to their “members,” and since our out-of-town hosts would have not had any use for the points, I pondered whether I should have asked our hosts if I could claim them.

As I said in the previous blog, I did not try to claim the points and asked if I should have. About 90% of you agree with my decision. Though almost all of our readers felt there would have been no harm in kindly asking our hosts if they minded my snatching the points (and some of you suggested clever ways of broaching the topic) most of you thought that it was just a wee bit tacky to do so.

And as one of you pointed out in an email, what about the third couple that dined with us? Maybe, the email asked, they were also Frequent Dining members and would have liked the points. (In fact, the third couple, lovely people, are wall plaque members–if you frequent the restaurant I am sure you know what I mean.) Surely they had just as much right to those dining points as Barb and I did. That is just another reason why it was good and fair that I passed up the opportunity to add to my points collection.

If you know us you are probably asking what Barb’s opinion is on the matter. Barb, the best arbiter of all things proper and my guiding light, had a very simple, very direct, one-word online reply: NO.

Man, I am glad I didn’t screw this one up!

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