Real Music & Real Estate . . .

My neighbor got rid of a lot of her books because she’s moving. Twenty-five years of books.  Many of them dirty.  I took these:

Cobbler, Mend my Shoe!
by Thom McAn

Stupid Bastard: The Life of Harry Purim
by Meier Meier

Amusing Car Sales
by Del Spitzer

Good Riddance, Chancres
by Rodney Benson MD

Fungo Batting
by Woody Held

Tie Your Own Tubes
by V.A. Szechtomijh

My Selfies
by Elaine “The Body” Sugarman

Put It Right There
by Vera Panting

The Cry of the Serbo-Croats
by Boris Crzwcwzw

10 Days to a Hairless Body
by Alice Greune

The Wiener in Bavarian Folk Arts
by Nathan Famoso

So You Want to Be Jewish?
by Saul Bernard Roth

The Story of the Harlem Cooperative Bakery
by Rose Towne Krug

100 Years in an RV
by Gabe Marquez

The Cheater
by Bernie Madoff

Algebraical Puzzles, Nuts, Wrinkles and Twisters
by Albert Einstein

Sexism at the Battle of Waterloo
by “Jilly”

Chillicothe: Ohio’s First Capital
by Les Peterson

Jesus in My Glove
by Mac “Octopus” Vouty

Cuckoos and Grosbeaks
by Nancy Debeak

Golf Your Way to Sexual Fulfillment
by Franz Godemiche

How to Identify a Child Molester
by Frederick McFeely Rogers

Blood and Bills: My Life as a Successful Surgeon
by Kirk Benway MD

I Broke My Knee and Ran 10 Miles
by Mark Schilling

What It Means to Be a Coprophile
by “Raymond”

The History of the Electric Toothbrush
by Ralph Solonitz DDS

The Streets of San Francisco (and Richmond, California)
by Cindy L. Barbour

Covering Your Lawn with Sheet Metal
by Leo Kaufman

Throw Away Your Truss
by Charles Atlas

Jackoff in the Old Red Barn
by Ricky Dickey

An Appreciation of Aluminum Siding
by Kenneth Goldberg

Regular Guy: The Life of Nelson Rockefeller
by Barry Grovel

So You Want to Dance, Act, and Play the Clarinet!
by Priscilla Peck

Lieder and its Influence on Mick Jagger
by Aaron Alwitz

The Birdwatcher
by J. Philip Stratton

My .38 Special is So Special
by Stan Urankar

Masturbate Those Pounds Away!
by Weary Reilly

The Hipster Jogger Handbook
by Meghan Corriendo

Lesbianism in Western Ireland (1886 – 1891)
by Olive D’Olyly and Winnie Carr

Speling Maid Ez
by Kent Read

A Priest Looks at Group Sex
by Pedro Nanismo

Kreplach in the Congo
by Reb Yellen

All My Laundromats
by Johnny Park

Pet Insurance for Dummies
by Fido Buster

More Selfies
by Elaine “The Body” Sugarman

Bowl Game Jitters
by Glenn E. “Bo” Schembechler Jr.

Sitz-Bathing Around the World
by Lee Huang

How to Get into Princeton
by Muncy Rowfant and Michael Yu

Fracking Jews
by T. Boone Soltzberg

Guess Your Neighbor’s Net Worth
by Alton Whitehouse IV

Thank you and Goodbye, and Hello
by Hillary Clinton

Peeing is the New Smoking
by Amy Streem

Social Media for Seniors
by Betty Dumchick

Life on the Outskirts of Beer
by Isaac Miller

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A major hat tip to Gilbert Sorrentino. Forty-nine percent of the above book titles are from Sorrentino’s novel Mulligan Stew (1979).

The German wiener photo is by Eric Broder

File this under Fake Profiles.

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My son Teddy had a birthday party at Putt-Putt on Northfield Road. This was in 1990.  I think that’s the last time I played Putt-Putt — official Putt-Putt. There are only 49 Putt-Putt courses left in the United States.

There was a Chinese miniature golf course on Libby Road at Broadway Avenue in Cleveland. (I think that’s where it was.)  It had a Buddha that went up and down.   My high school friends and I couldn’t get enough of that course.

Arnold Palmer Miniature Golf  . . .  Just had to say that.

I would like to live long enough to play Putt-Putt with my grandchildren.  (First, I need the grandchildren.)  I want to stay healthy enough to bend down and pick up the ball.  That’s the hardest part of mini golf.

Adventure golf, such as Pirate’s Cove, sounds good.

Putt Putz

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There’s a  vid version of this post — slightly more in-depth.  (Originally posted in 2011).

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Come to Cain Park, Cleveland Heights, 7 p.m. Sun. (June 29) for a free klezmer concert by the Josh “Socalled” Dolgin Sextet, featuring super clarinetist Michael Winograd.  (Jack Stratton on drums.)

Josh Dolgin

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Here’s a new vid, Don Bryon Salutes Mickey Katz.

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The letter is from Milt — a friend of my parents — to his kids. 

May 15, 1990

Dear Children,

In 15 days I’ll be 71.

As you know, I’m not religious, but I do like a good party.

About my funeral: Use the gentile funeral home, Fioritto in Lyndhurst, to deliver my body to the Workmen’s Circle Cemetery.  Just bury me.  Invite some family and friends.  No rabbi!  I’ve never gone to synagogue, so don’t start with that now.

Pick a convenient Sunday afternoon to throw a memorial service at the Workmen’s Circle hall on Green Road.  There is plenty room, a loudspeaker, and a kitchen. Anybody who wants to speak, can speak. Except Bernstein.

I want a nice sendoff: trays, Scotch, music, dancing, food, coffee, pastry, wine and cold beer.  Whiskey too.  Hire a klezmer band — Bert Stratton’s band.  (Bert is Julia and Toby’s son.)  But remember, one hour of klezmer is enough.

Get the trays at Bernie Shulman’s at Cedar Center.  They’re good and cheap, but you have to pick up the goods yourself.  Get pastries from Acme supermarket at Mayfield near Green.  Their pastries are excellent and much cheaper than the Jewish bakeries.

I want coffee, lots of coffee; the Workmen’s Circle can make it by the gallon.  And plenty of soft drinks and wine — good wine. No Champagne.  And hire kitchen help.

Mom will say I’m nuts.  She can stay home if she wants!  This is what I want.

Love,

Dad

—

Footnote: Milt died 16 years after he wrote the letter.  He ate a lot and never exercised and lived to 87.  He had a graveside service with no band and no food.  No hard feelings, Milt.  All mourners received a copy of Milt’s brisket recipe at the funeral.

“Milt” is a pseudonym.  If Milt’s children want his real name here, they’ll let me know.

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Ask me about my bike trip

On the Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure (GOBA), I’m around far fewer Jews than I’m used to. I’m most comfortable with a 20 percent-or-more Jewish crowd in life. If the Jewish count is less than that, I get a bit uneasy, mostly because less people understand my sense of humor.

My high school was about 25 percent Jewish; my college was about 20 percent Jewish; my social scene in Cleveland is 58.7 percent Jewish; and my place of worship is 100 percent.

On GOBA, there are at most 20 Jews out of 2,500 riders.  It’s like a motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota.

Oddly, one year (2009) I pedaled GOBA with an Orthodox woman. She brought more tuna fish than Nixon took to China. She wore a skirt. There was an Amish woman with a skirt too. The Frisco Kid: Gene Wilder and the Amish thing. Maybe both women will be at GOBA this year.

In 2010 I met a Jewish doctor from Dayton, Ohio; a Jewish guitar player from University Heights; and my buddy — and fellow cyclist — Irwin Weinberger (Yidddishe Cup’s singer) played “Ose Shalom” on Friday night.  This was after a fried fish shabbes dinner at the Fraternal Order of Eagles hall in McArthur, Ohio. We made kiddush over Miller Lite, which technically isn’t brucha (blessing) material. (Tain’t a grape.)

GOBA kicks off in Mansfield, Ohio, this Sunday.

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Gear shift . . .

Is there a market for a Jewish-tinged “Chosen to Ride” bike tour of the Midwest?

Day 1

We meet at Chicago Midway airport and bike to Pepe’s, a Mexican restaurant on Cicero Avenue. Traffic is crazy but fun in Chicago. Bring a helmet and a sword.

Lodging at the Beloit, Wisconsin, Holiday Inn.

Day 2

Lunch stop at the Park View Motel, Richland Center, Wisconsin, next to AgriDairy. See the Frank Lloyd Wright silo.

Dinner at the Ground Round, Dubuque, Iowa.

Day 3

Pitch tents on the lawn of the Omaha JCC and check out the exhibit in the hallway about The Bagel, the name for the old Jewish ‘hood in Omaha.

Chosen to Ride

Day 4

Dinner in Nevada, Missouri.  We’ll eat in the cafeteria at Cottey College, an all-women’s school.

Days 5 and 6

Shabbes in St. Louis. We spend time off the bikes and at riverboat casinos, where we suck cig smoke and lose a few fun bucks. Each night we’re at Ted Drewes custard stand.

Day 7

Dinner at Wabash College, an all-men’s college in Crawfordsville, Indiana. Equal rights for men.

Day 8

At the Indianapolis Hebrew Congregation, we attend a concert by Gabe Kaplan and Yiddishe Cup. Kaplan doesn’t look like Gabe Kaplan anymore. He’s a million years old. (As is Yiddishe Cup.)  Kaplan’s best joke is “A widower in Miami Beach asks his date, an elderly woman, if she likes sex, and she says, ‘Infrequently.’ The widower says, ‘Is that one word or two?’”

Day 9

Our farewell banquet is at Ken’s Diner in Skokie, Illinois, a glatt kosher hamburger joint. Music by the clarinet/harp duo of Kurt and Annette Bjorling.

Think about it.

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Yiddishe Cup is in Parade the Circle noon Saturday (June 14), Wade Oval, Cleveland.

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I audiotaped a family dinner in April 1973.  I told my dad I was doing “cinema verite.”  (Don’t knock it. Louis Armstrong did a lot of audiotaping.)

In 2010 I played the audiotape for my adult children. They thought I sounded like my then college-age son Jack.  My parents had asked me questions about my college roommates.

My mother said What’s So-and-So from your dorm doing?

Doing what?  I stonewalled my mom, like a good college kid.

My son Ted, listening to the tape in 2010, said, “You’re weird, recording everything.”

Weird?  No.  Wired?  Yes.  You can never have too much documentation. (“This is the age of investigation and every citizen must investigate” — Ed Sanders.) For instance, I wish my mother had saved my dad’s letters from Fort Benning, 1941.  My mother threw nearly everything out.  When she moved to assisted living, I cleaned out her apartment in about two hours.  Two hours, not days.

My audiotape is boring.  “I don’t want any dessert” — that kind of thing. I hope somebody throws it out.  Maybe I will.  For one thing, there’s a horrible sax solo after the dinner recording, and I sound like a jerk — on sax and at dinner:

Dad:  “What the hell you got it [tape recorder] on for?  There’s nothing going on.”

Mom: “He likes to do it.”

Bert:  “I don’t listen to them anyway, so what do I care.”

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I had an essay in Belt Magazine last week.  Belt is online dispatches from the Rust Belt.  “On Lee Road.”

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A New York editor wrote, “You should write a book.  After reading your wonderful essay in the New York Times this morning, I’ve spent the last couple of hours reading everything you’ve written that I could find online. You root your essays in your personal experience, but they have a universal appeal.”

The editor concluded, “A humorous book about real estate would have tremendous commercial appeal.”

Yes!  But what if I worked a year on the book, got a paltry advance, and only four people read the book?  Besides, I’ve already published a book. I published a novel in the 1970s about sex and college.  It was small press (my press). I gave a copy to Allen Ginsberg. You can find it on Google.  A Cold Night in Ann Arbor.

I’m fried from writing books that go nowhere.  I wrote unpublished books before that New York editor was born.  I wrote Check My Balance (about my mental health and the family business), and Riding on Mayfield (about my youth) and Kicked in the Groin (about my hernia operation).  None of them got published, and I had great agents too.

One time — when  I was in Latin America — my dad acted as my literary secretary.  He wrote to my literary agent, “We’re very proud of Bert and are very pleased you are representing him.”

I’m glad my dad was “very proud” of me.  I still think about that.

But I’m done.  I just wrote the New York editor back: “I’m not going to write the real estate book.”  If anybody wants to read about real estate, they can always click here for 92 Klezmer Guy posts about real estate.
—

The above is Philip Roth–style fiction.  Yes, my dad was my “literary secretary,” and the bit about the unpublished novels is based on fact, but I never received any email from a New York editor.  If I had, I would have written back, “Yes, I’ll do it.  Can I pay you?”

File this under fake profiles.
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SIDE B

WE INTERRUPT THIS BLOG

Every year I pause to thank the major commenters to this blog. I could do Klezmer Guy without comments, but it wouldn’t be as interesting.

In no particular order, thanks to kibitzers Marc, Ken G, Jessica Schreiber, Gerald Ross, Ted, Bill Jones, Mark Schilling, Ellen, Seth . . .

David Korn, Dave R, Irwin Weinberger, Alice, Don Friedman, Lea Grossman Hapner, Ari Davidow, Pierce G, Charlie B, Jeff Moss, Nancy Kane, Jack, Gerry Kanter, Michael Wex, Faruk Ahmed and Steven Greenman.

See your name here next year by writing in.

An extra gracias to
Ken G and Mark Schilling. They crank out comments in bulk — always insightful, inciting and/or stupid.

Lastly, thanks to bloggie illustrator Ralph Solonitz, the best and cleverest drawer around. Here’s an old post about Ralph and his motorcycle.

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During the last days of the shah of Iran, I taught Iranian teenagers at a fly-by-night ESL school in Cleveland.

I punched a kid from Hamadan.  The school director called me into his office and said, “What’s with the discipline problem all of a sudden? These kids are under 18.  We’re liable.”

I apologized to the principal and promised I wouldn’t punch anybody . . . else that day.

Javad –- another Iranian — flicked a pen into the air during class and said, “Excuse me, is this toss?” I was in the middle of teaching the song “Tom Dooley.”

Solheil –- Iranian #3 — said:   “Dooley means dick in Farsi.”

I punched Soheil.

Javad interrupted, “Anus is asshole?”

I didn’t touch Javad.  I just punched Solheil!

The principal wasn’t happy with me.  My students were smaller than me, and the principal was very solicitous of them; he washed the kids’ clothes in Woolite and presented each new student with a can of Right Guard.  He also took the kids bowling, to the art museum, and threw parties. He took the boys to the dentist, the visa office, the optometrist, and the jeans store.

The principal was also the school owner, and he was burning out.  He said to me, “I don’t know what stinks more — an Iranian or nine cats. These sons of millionaires have two undershirts and two underpants, and I still don’t know color they are.”

The ESL school didn’t last.  I wonder where the principal is. [Google: Washington state.]  I bet the Iranians are in California.  I never see Iranians here. But if I ever do see an Iranian, I’ll punch him just for old time’s sake (assuming he is under 5-5 and 110 pounds.)

I-ran a school

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I have an essay up at City Journal,  “Tales From Landlordia.”

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I play house concerts; I perform in people’s living rooms and sleep in their bedrooms. I play guitar, sing and tell stories.  I’ve taught a class or two at old-timey music camps in West Virginia.

The house-concert scene is my Airbnb, except I get paid; I don’t pay.  And I usually sell a handful of CDs.

I wish the  house-concert scene was bigger.  Fifty people in a living room is my best draw.

I saw the movie Inside Llewyn Davis recently and thought to myself “that’s me!” except I’m happier than that guy.  Right now I’m doing a Bix Beiderbecke transcription in a bedroom in Columbus, Ohio, and enjoying myself.  I’ll  be in Pittsburgh tomorrow. I live cheaply and save money, so when I’m 65 — three years from now — I’ll stop this train and settle down.  I’m thinking about Austin.  I’m tired of sleeping in other people’s beds.

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SIDE B

The  post above is a fake profile. This one is true.

I WAS A HERRING ADDICT

In my refrigerator, I had Golden Herring (Brampton, Ontario), Ma Cohen’s (Detroit) and Ducktrap River (Belfast, Maine). In wine sauce, not in cream sauce. Must say “tidbits.”

Ma Cohen’s was the best. It was lower in sodium and sugar than the others. They all had omega-3s.

I bought my Ma’s at Corky & Lenny’s, my Ducktrap at Whole Foods, and Golden at Heinen’s. For a while I thought “Golden” might be the owner’s name, like in Al Golden, my late uncle. I Googled the company; Golden is owned by Lorne Krongold of Brampton, Ontario.

I stopped by a Polish deli in Slavic Village, Cleveland. The place had a ton of herring, even matjes herring, which I had only seen previously at KlezKamp.

Here’s an interesting tidbit:  1) Herring was a major source of protein for impoverished Jews in Eastern Europe.  2) Don’t take herring to a hunger center.  They’ll refuse your donation.  They’ll say, “We can’t even give this stuff away.”

If you don’t get it — herring — you probably think this subject is idiotic. But listen,  you can acquire herring love. Start out on sardines and move up. A third way: anchovies.

My sister and I used to eat anchovies right from the can, straight. My sister isn’t that crazy about herring. I don’t get that.

I’m down to a jar of herring a month.  Something bad about salt, my doc says.
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An earlier version of this post is a video.

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Some excellent free activities are sex, talking about the weather, and defecation.

A few more: dreaming, library books, jaywalking.

I sell toilets — not free.

You want a urinal?  What kind?  Stainless steel?

When I sleep, I see gold and brown dots, and movement.  It’s entertaining and free.  I have a friend who sees bright lights — red and black — when he falls asleep.  I don’t.

People say, “Hey, look out your window and get some sensory stimulus.”  That’s fine, but I prefer looking inside toilets.  The blank looks I get.

How about a 0.8 gpf for $150 total?  Would you buy one?  Niagara Stealth.  How about five Stealths at a discount?

I say, “I know you don’t want to talk about toilets, but think of the sudden shifts, the transitions, the swoosh.”

A good bowel movement is as good as sex; Harvey Pekar, the comic book writer, said that.  I sold 10 toilets to Stratton — this blog’s author — with that literary crap. The froth, the bubbles, the shine.

I still have an intensity, to this day, that goes back to age 21. Yes, my life is scarier now that I’m 35, but I’m not at “flush” yet.    I have a slick pack of possibilities, and I appreciate deep listening.

Gurgle.

Lavatory means sink to a plumber. Commode, yourself!  By the way, you look like an elongated toilet seat.

When a stranger takes off her pants and sits on one of my toilets, that’s a good feeling — a fragile catastrophe, a tinge of very heavy weight, a grand opening.

The key factors: the empathic rictus, the squeeze, the brilliant flash.

It’s all binary.  One and two.  Map it.

—

Fourteen percent of this post was stolen from the Poetry Project Newsletter.

The complete fake-profile collection is here.

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Benching the Sunday Times

Forget the New York Times.  You don’t need it.  SUBSCRIBE to this blog. You need a weekly fix of real estate-and-music news.  Enter your email in the column on the right, where it says SIGN UP HERE. You’ll get one email a week, every Wednesday morning.  Just one email a week.  And I won’t sell your email address to anybody.

I’ve had five op-eds in the Times lately.  (My previous op-eds can be found in the columm on the right, where it says ARTICLES.)

***

My dad, Toby Stratton (1917-1986), age 50:

***

My son Jack — the Los Angeles musician in the op-ed — was on All Things Considered and written up in Rolling Stone, The Atlantic and Le Monde.  All in the past three weeks.  He’s the leader of Vulfpeck, which has more than 4,000,000 streams on Spotify.  My favorite Vulfpeck tune is “Outro.”  Catch the sax solo at 0:47 . . . .

***

See you back here on Wednesdays, I hope.

P.S.  If you want to read 92 more stories about real estate, click CATEGORIES — Landlord Biz.   (Or if  you prefer to focus on music, or Cleveland, or my dad, go to the right-hand column and click the appropriate CATEGORIES link.)

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My son Ted was interested in ice cream.  One summer he worked the night shift at Pierre’s, loading ice cream onto trucks.  One summer he worked at East Coast Custard on Mayfield Road, making shakes.

He owned a shake mixer and concocted date shakes at home, using date crystals from California.  He had a following (his mother).

After his junior year of high school, Ted and I drove through the Upper Midwest, hitting A&Ws and assorted other chazerai shops, while looking at colleges .  (He wound up at Brandeis. Oops.)

We rode the amphibious Ducks in The Dells, Wisconsin, and saw The House on the Rock, which Teddy described as an “affront to Frank Lloyd Wright.”  Ted was good with words, even back in high school.

We visited the mustard museum in Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin.  Then we hit the A&W, where Ted asked for a “mama burger, papa burger and a rooty tooty.”  He knew that terminology from a junk-food guide.

That trip to the Upper Midwest was one of my favorites — l0oking for A&Ws and colleges with my son.

Root beer!  (I’m still good for a Diet Hank’s or Diet IBC at Tommy’s in Cleveland.)

—
“Root beer,” to rhyme with “put beer.”  That’s how we say it here.

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Here are my greatest letters (my greatest hits) to tenants:

1. Dear Tenant, The building manager heard you yelling out your window, “I’m a porno star and a sex machine.” This isn’t the only time this has occurred.

2. Dear Tenant, You flicked 20-to-30 cigarette butts out your window.  Some of these butts landed on cars and left burn marks. This must stop!

3. Dear Tenant, You got in a fight with a female in your apartment and tore the door jamb off. Also, you have slipped unsolicited notes under the door of other tenants.  That can be construed as sexual harassment, depending on the content of the notes. You are a self-described drunk.  That, too, won’t do here — at least not outside your apartment.

4. Dear Tenant, There was very loud recorded music coming from your suite between 3-5 a.m.  That’s when people sleep. You aren’t living in a dormitory.

5. Dear Tenant, You were incessantly buzzing a neighbor’s entry buzzer, banging on a neighbor’s back door, and banging on your ceiling. You phoned me and said a neighbor’s cat was annoying you by running across your ceiling.  Tenants are allowed to have cats.  The tenants pay extra for cats.

6. Dear Tenant, The hallway smells outside your apartment. You need to clean up immediately. 

7. Dear Tenant, you and a female visitor were drunk and screaming in the parking lot.  She lay down on the ground.  She could have gotten killed.

8. Dear Tenant, You disturbed other tenants’ sleep at 3 a.m. by loud talking, running through the halls, and kicking on the locked door.  Three tenants complained.  Three!  That’s serious. Please understand, this building is not party central.

—

In case you missed Jack Stratton on NPR’s All Things Considered, click here.

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Save the date: August 31, Cleveland.

We’re having a costume ball at The Challah Fame fundraiser.  We’ll have styling stations with plenty of gear in case you forget to dress right; we’ll have Greek fishermen’s caps, Tevye vests, Russian cavalry boots and wash-off Yiddish tattoos.

We’re blocking off three blocks on Euclid Avenue for bowling, pierogis, borscht, schnitzel, herring, slivovits and brewskis.  The theme is The Other, as in Jews, Slavs, Gypsies and Martians.  IDs not necessary.

Live music,  of course.  We’ve already booked Beyond the Pale and Sharon, Lois, and Bram.

We’ll march up Euclid Avenue to East 17th Street, where the Alpine Village used to be, and play Austrian oom-pah music. [Mickey Katz played at the Alpine during the war.  The club’s owner, Herman Pirchner (an Austrian), wanted to show he wasn’t pro-Nazi.]

Robert Gates, former secretary of defense, will lecture on “The Klezmer CDs We Found at Bin Laden’s Lair and What That Meant.”  Other lecturers are the usual suspects: Wex, Sokolow, Horowitz, Netsky.  Also, a Ladino lecture by Septimo Rodriguez:  “Soluciones para pequena empresas Ladinas.”

Finally, a motorcycle ride out to the Popcorn Shop in Chagrin Falls, led by Mayor Merle Gorden of Beachwood.  (We’ll have three-wheel motorcycles for rent.)

Save the date: August 31.

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SIDE B

The post above is so stupid it deserves another . . .

BLOW HARD

I sometimes get a spiritual lift from playing clarinet. This might happen during a pop tune like “Hallelujah,” or an old Naftule Brandwein klez number, or even a scale. I never know.

Young musicians ask me, “I see you put a lot of heart into your music. Where’s that coming from? How do you do that?”

I have no answer. I say, “Blow hard. Don’t worry about it. Blow hard.”

Blowhard?
 
 
 

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I’m related to few Strattons.  So I got a bit excited when I came across Jon Stratton, author of Coming Out Jewish.  I found him on the Internet. Another Stratton writing about Jewish matters?  Maybe I was Jon, using a pseudonym.

Jon Stratton is a cultural studies professor in Perth, Australia. His mother was Jewish and his father Christian. He grew up in England, not knowing anything about Judaism orYiddishkayt (Jewishness).

I ordered Jon’s  book on Amazon. In 2000 he “came out Jewish” in multicultural academic circles, making a mark for himself by writing about “ghetto-thinking” — Jewish anxiety, basically.  He said he had been slightly different from his friends in England because his mother had made him “ring home” whenever he went out, while his chums never had to ring home.  Jon’s mother was an angst-ridden Jew from the Continent, he said.

My mother, on the other hand, was from the Delta (the Mississippi Delta) and didn’t worry much.  My mother left me off at freeway exits to hitchhike.  One trip I made a left on I-80 and wound up in South America.  She was even OK with that.

In 1990, at the Cleveland airport, I waited for my mom to arrive on the “snowbird” flight from Florida, and I let my then 9-year-old son run around the airport.  I told him, “If you wander off too far, you’re going home on the Rapid.”

He wandered off and I left him.

A Cleveland policeman called me a half hour later, and I had to go back to the airport — 20 miles one-way.  The airport cop gave me a “you’re a douche bag” smirk when I entered the airport police office.  The cop didn’t realize my son had practically memorized the Rapid Transit timetable and had ridden the complete Lee Road route.

I learned a lot about laissez-faire child rearing from my mom.  The only thing Continental about her was her airline.

If I ever get to Australia, I’ll buy Jon Stratton a beer, and we’ll talk about our mothers, I hope.  We’re  mishpocha.

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Footnote: I’m related to  few Strattons because my father changed the family name from Soltzberg to Stratton in 1941.

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Jack Stratton’s latest project. Also, check out the interactive map at Vulfpeck, which shows you where Vulfpeck’s fan base is.

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Yiddishe Cup is at Park Synagogue, Cleveland Heights, 7:30 p.m. Saturday  (March 15)  for Purim.  Gonna have Tamar Gray, soul singer extraordinaire, with us.  Free and open to the public.

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Pamela Paul, editor of the New York Times Book Review, keeps a list of all the books she has read.  She wrote about her list — that goes back to 1988 — in the book review.

I know somebody else who keeps a list.

My list goes back to 1973, Ms. Pam Paul!  (Actually 1971, but I can’t find the 1971-72 portion right now.)

My four literary horsemen of the early 1970s were Kerouac, Saroyan, Thomas Wolfe and Henry Miller.  Plus every beatnik writer.  Every beatnik.  That included Dutch motorcyclist/writer Jan Cremer and Turkish East Village beat Erje Ayden.

Here is my 1974 list, edited:

The First Circle  Alexandr Solzhenitsyn
Geronimo Rex  Barry Hannah
Kentucky Ham  William Burroughs Jr.
Confessions of a Child of the Century  Thomas Rogers
Strangers and Brothers  C.P. Snow
The Manor  Isaac Bashevis Singer
Pere Goriot   Honore de Balzac
Tropic of Cancer  Henry Miller
Blue Movie  Terry Southern
Monday the Rabbi Took off   Harry Kemelman
I’m Glad You didn’t Take it Personally  Jim Bouton
Call It Sleep  Henry Roth
My Friend Henry Miller  Alfred Perles
The Wanderers  Richard Price
Imaginary Speeches for a Brazen Head  Philip Whalen
Franny and Zooey  J.D. Salinger
The Boys on the Bus  Timothy Crouse
Nine Stories  J.D. Salinger
The Autograph Hound  John Lahr
Raymond Chandler Speaking  Raymond Chandler
Lolita  Vladimir Nabokov
My Last Two Thousand Years  Herbert Gold
The Slave  Isaac Bashevis Singer

***

Did you skim or read that list?  If you read it, here’s your reward — a continuation, with asterisks for really funny books. (At the end of the list, there is a prose wrap-up.)   My fav books, generally . . .

1975

Keep the Aspidistra Flying  George Orwell
Burmese Days  George Orwell
Fear of Flying  Erica Jung
A Fan’s Notes  Frederick Exley
The War Against the Jews  Lucy Dawidowicz

’76

Little Big Man  Thomas Berger
Hot to Trot  John Lahr *
The Fight  Norman Mailer
Miss Lonelyhearts  Nathanael West
The World of Our Fathers  Irving Howe
Bloodbrothers  Richard Price
The Rise of David Levinsky  Abraham Cahan
Tales of Beatnik Glory  Ed Sanders
The Idiot  Fyodor Dostoyevsky

’77

While Six Million Died  Lucy Dawidowicz
Thirteenth Tribe  Arthur Koestler
Chrysanthemum and the Sword  Ruth Benedict
The Last Tycoon  F. Scott Fitzgerald
Confessions of a Nearsighted Cannoneer  Seymour Krim

’78

Union Dues  John Sayles
All My Friends are Going to Be Strangers  Larry McMurtry
The Chosen  Chaim Potok
A Feast of Snakes  Harry Crews
The Basketball Diaries  Jim Carroll

’79

The Cool World  Warren Miller
Rabbit Run  John Updike
Airships  Barry Hannah
The Rector of Justin  Louis Auchincloss
Sophie’s Choice  William Styron
King of the Jews  Leslie Epstein

’80

The Pope of Greenwich Village  Vincent Patrick
Dubin’s Lives  Bernard Malamud
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz  Mordecai Richler *
The Right Stuff   Tom Wolfe
Tess of the d’Urbervilles  Thomas Hardy

’81

Jane Eyre  Jane Austin
The House of Mirth  Edith Wharton
Ethnic America  Thomas Sowell

’82

Zuckerman Unbound  Philip Roth
Maiden Rites  Sonia Pilcer  *
The Friends of Eddie Coyle  George V. Higgins

’84

God’s Pocket  Pete Dexter
Rabbis is Rich  John Updike
This Way for the Gas  Tadeusz Borowski
The Abandonment of the Jews  David Wyman
Survival in Auschwitz  Primo Levi

’85

Man’s Search for Meaning  Viktor Frankl
The Headmasters Papers  Richard Hawley
Bright Lights Big City  Jay McInerney
The Art of Fiction  John Gardner
Fathers Playing Catch with Sons  Donald Hall
La Brava  Elmore Leonard

Elmore Leonard junk mail

’86

Babbitt  Sinclair Lewis
Wiseguy  Nicholas Pileggi
Providence  Geoffrey Wolff

’87

The Sportswriter  Richard Ford
The Great Pretender  James Atlas
Bonfire of the Vanities  Tom Wolfe

’88

Papa Play for Me  Mickey Katz
Life is with People  Mark Zborwski and Elizabeth Herzog
The Facts  Philip Roth
A History of the Jews  Paul Johnson
In Praise of Yiddish  Maurice Samuel

’89

Old New Land  Theodor Herzl
Architects of Yiddishism  Emanuel Goldsmith
From that Place and Time  Lucy Dawidowicz

’90

Paris Trout  Pete Dexter

’91

Patrimony  Philip Roth
Mr. Bridge  Evan Connell

’92

Devil’s Night  Zev Chafets
Rabbit at Rest  John Updike
Rabbit Redux  John Updike

’93

Class  Paul Fussell
Days of Grace  Arthur Ashe

’94

Lost in Translation  Eva Hoffman
How We Die  Sherman Nuland
Roommates  Max Apple

’96

Moo  Jane Smiley
Independence Day  Richard Ford
The Road from Coorain  Jill Kerr Conway

’97

Parts of My Body  Phillip Lopate
American Pastoral  Philip Roth
The Wishbones  Tom Perrotta

’99

Ex-Friends  Norman Podhoretz
Hole in Our Soul  Martha Bayles

’00

The Trouble with Cinderella  Artie Shaw
The Human Stain  Philip Roth
Winning Ugly  Brad Gilbert

’01

Up in the Air  Walter Kirn *

’02

John Adams  David McCullough
Selling Ben Cheever  Ben Cheever  *
The Corrections  Jonathan Franzen
The New Rabbi  Stephen Fried

’03

Samaritan  Richard Price
Funnymen  Ted Heller  *
My Losing Season  Pat Conroy
Fabulous Small Jews  Joseph Epstein
The Case for Israel  Alan Dershowitz

’04

The Da Vinci Code  Dan Brown
Good Vibes  Terry Gibbs

’05

Made in Detroit  Paul Clemens

’06

On Beauty  Zadie Smith
Prisoner of Trebekistan  Bob Harris
High Fidelity  Nick Hornby
Sweet and Low  Rich Cohen

’07

America’s Polka King  Bob Dolgan
Prisoners  Jeffrey Goldberg
Infidel  Ayaan Hirsi Ali

’08

A Random Walk Down Wall Street  Burton Malkiel
Lush Life  Richard Price
Dean’s List  Jon Hassler
Irrational Exuberance  Robert Shiller

’09

Rabbit at Rest  John Updike
How I became a Famous Novelist  Steve Hely *
Facing Unpleasant Facts  George Orwell

’10

The Great Indoors  Eric Broder  *
Pops  Terry Teachout
Olive Kitteridge  Elizabeth Stout

’11

I Feel Bad About My Neck  Nora Ephron
Open  Andre Agassi
How to Win Friends  Dale Carnegie
The Whore of Akron  Scott Raab  *

’12

I Married a Communist  Philip Roth
Pocket Kings  Ted Heller  *

’13

The Love Song of Jonny Valentine  Teddy Wayne *

***

I bought the Richard Price books for pleasure and investment purposes.  His books are probably worth nothing.  I have followed Price’s career since he was 25.  I knew a woman who dated him at Cornell.  Price is a Lit god around my house.

I like short books.  Most classics are long, so I’m bad at classics.  Funny books are my favorite.  Throw in a few jokes, or lose me.  I don’t need a strong plot.

I’ve read The Great Gatsby five times because it’s great and short.  I would read it more often if it was funny.

I can’t remember most of what I read.

A lot here — in this post — is a rip off of Nick Hornby and his Ten Years in a Tub, about books Hornby has read in the past 10 years.

I haven’t read much philosophy.  Any?  I’ve tried the Bible a few times.  Proust — I’ve done 50 pages with him.  I’m good with Shakespeare!

I haven’t read The Hobbit or War and Peace.  (Check out Buzzfeed’s “22 Books You Pretend You’ve Read but Actually Haven’t.”)

I’ve read many books about Cleveland.  Here are three random CLE books: A Fares of a Cleveland Cabby, Thomas Jasany; Confused City on a Seesaw, Philip W. Porter; and First and Last Seasons, Dan McGraw.  I’ve read all of Harvey Pekar.  Harvey didn’t write much.  Maybe 90,000 words total.   Thanks, Harvey.

I’ve read every klezmer book, I think.  Did you know a Polish academic, Magdalena Waligorska, cited this blog in her book Klemzer’s Afterlife (Oxford University Press)?

My wife occasionally takes my literary recommendations to her book club.  But not lately.  She recommended How I Became a Famous Novelist by Hely. That ruined my wife’s credibility.

If you read a book on this list, pick one with an asterisk.  And if you don’t think the book is funny, bail immediately.

I’m bailing.  Gotta list something.  What, I don’t know.  Maybe I’ll tally the people who liked this post vs. those who thought it was too self-indulgent.

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Every few days I get an email from my synagogue that reads something like this:  “Subject — the passing of Melvin Weiner.”

About three people die per week at my shul.  (I belong to a big shul.). My rabbi must live at funerals.  True, he has an associate rabbi, but still, I think he — the senior rabbi — does most of the heavy lifting.  The senior rabbi told me Costco has the best lox in town. He should know; he must see at least five dairy spreads a week.  (I see my fair share, too.  Love a dairy spread!)

The passing of  Albert “Bert” Stratton . . .

That’s overkill.

I prefer “the passing of  Albert Stratton.”  A bit more consequential than “Bert.”  I wonder if Melvin Weiner went by Mel.  I didn’t know him.

I visited my mom’s grave recently and couldn’t find it because it had snow on it.  (The headstone is flush with the ground.)  I found the approximate location of the grave and drew a Jewish star and Mom.  She’s been dead 10 years.  She’s at Hillcrest Cemetery, as is my dad.

My grandparents are buried on the other side of town, as are two of my great-grandparents.  [Stratton kids, see notes below.]

My wife doesn’t want to be buried in our shul’s cemetery (Park Synagogue / Beth Olam) because it’s too cramped.  I’m fine with the Park cemetery.  I would like to be up close next to a bunch of other people’s bones. My wife wants to be in Lake View Cemetery.

Actually, she doesn’t “want” anything.  For instance, she doesn’t want to discuss this.

I wonder if my rabbi does burials at Lake View, or if his college-age son will someday.  Maybe the kid will become a rabbi, and I’ll live another million years.

I think my rabbi will do Lake View — a nondenominational garden-style WASPy place.  I see Jewish stars on some of  the tombstones there now.  Lake View is in Cleveland Heights.  Nice touch.  It’s not by the freeway.

But I’d rather be in a cramped funky Jewish cemetery by the freeway, like Park’s cemetery.  On the other hand, I do want to be near my wife’s bones, so I guess I’ll go with Lake View.

Maybe I can talk her into Park.  How much time do I have?

—

You won’t want to read this part unless you’re very closely
related . . .

Bert’s parents, Theodore “Toby” and Julia (Zalk) Stratton are at Hillcrest Cemetery, 26200 Aurora Road, Bedford Heights. Temple Emanu El section,  by the  tree.

Toby’s parents, Louis and Anna (Seiger) Soltzberg, are at Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery, aka Ridge Road #1, 3740 Ridge Rd.  Cleveland.  (“Front Left Section” — that’s what the cemetery sign says.  The grave is about seven rows in from Ridge Road, before the Section 3 sign).  Also, against the fence, Cecile Soltzberg, baby, Anna’s  3-year-old daughter, died about 1909.

Julia’s parents, Albert and Ida (Kassoff) Zalk, are at Workmen’s Circle Cemetery, 5100 Theota Ave., Parma. Their graves are not in the Workmen’s Circle Section.  They are in the Warrensville Synagogue Section.  Rear Left section.  Section P, Row 11, grave 5.  Here is a blog post about Bill Katz and me sneaking into that cemetery after-hours.

Ida’s parents, Morris and Sadie (Levine) Kassoff, are at Lansing Road Cemetery, 3933 E. 57th Street, Cleveland (Slavic Village). Anshe Grodno Section 1. Row 13. Graves 6 & 7.

Julia (Zalk) Stratton (1920-2004), left, and her sister Celeste (Zalk) Kent (1926 – ) at their grandparents’ grave, 1997.

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I check out websites of other klezmer bands to see what I can steal. For instance, clarinetist Joel Rubin’s website had this bit: “Rubin has long been considered by many to be the leading performer of Jewish instrumental klezmer music in the world today.”

I stole from Rubin.

Please disregard the bracketed material . . .

Yiddishe Cup has long been considered by many [Alice Stratton, Irwin Weinberger, Steve Ostrow] to be the leading performers of Jewish klezmer comedy in the world.  Who else is doing klezmer comedy?  Who?  Name somebody!

Yiddishe Cup is an integral part of the music scene in Cleveland, which according to many [Lori Cahan-Simon, Steven Greenman,Walt Mahovlich] is quite vibrant. The Cleveland scene is a focal point of  klezmer and Eastern European music [according to Gheorghe Trombitas, Zenon Chaikovsky and Alex Fedoriouk].

Mickey Katz is where it all started for klezmer comedy.  [Somebody said that. Who?] Literary critic Leon Wieseltier called Katz the “mishugener.”  In Pirket Avot, it is written “Man is born to take the plough against the unyielding earth.” That is man’s job. The counterweight to that heavy lifting is the supremely nutty Katz, said Wieseltier.

Stratton’s former rabbi, Michael Hecht, said, “Make Judaism fun.”

Somebody [Lea Grossman of Boston?] said Yiddishe Cup is the most entertaining band in the country.  Yiddishe Cup is almost cool.  [George Robinson  wrote that, almost, in the New York Jewish Week.]

Yiddishe Cup is also a top notch simcha band [said Shawn Fink].  Let the wedding gigs roll forth! Funerals are more interesting than weddings, but Yiddishe Cup doesn’t play many funerals [zero, in fact]. Instead, the band plays parties and acts happy. You wouldn’t want musicians in mourning at your wedding.

How many bands have comedic and musical talent?  Yiddishe Cup does [said Irwin Weinberger and Don Friedman].

Who else is out there?  Weird Al Yankovic?  Shlock Rock?  They’re not as good as Yiddishe Cup [said Daniel Ducoff].

Yiddishe Cup strikes the classic Jewish outsider pose. Yiddishe Cup has long been considered a funny band. [Sanford Gordon thought so. So did Jack Saul.]

Yiddishe Cup is nostalgic and a bit corny, but in a good way.  Childhood was a lot less hassle than adulthood.

Other klezmer bands aren’t that funny [said Don Friedman].   They aren’t funny at all! [Find a source for that.]  There’s a pianist in Brooklyn, Pete Sokolow, who does Jewish spins on Fats Waller and Dixieland.  Sokolow wrote, “We purposefully try to remain faithful to the original performances.”  Does Sokolow do creative new adaptations?  OK, maybe.   Does Yiddishe Cup? Yes. [At least once: “Meshugeneh Mambo.”]

Don Byron Plays the Music of Mickey Katz –- the album — had two avant-garde jazz pieces and the rest was verbatim remakes of Mickey Katz tunes.  Make it new, Don Don!

Avi Hoffman’s Too Jewish Two album had a lot of humor, but was too schmaltzy. Sample song title: “I Love Being a Jew Blues.”

Yiddishe Cup is considered the best neo-Borscht Belt klezmer comedy band in the world [according to Alice Stratton, Jack Stratton, Daniel Ducoff, Steve Ostrow and Don Friedman].

Yiddishe Cup is the best band in the land.

[Who said that?]

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“Cleveland is a hard town.  I came near committing suicide when I lived there.” — Robert Crumb, American Splendor intro, 1986.

Crumb worked for American Greetings. My dad, Toby, worked there too.

Toby was at American Greetings before Crumb.  My dad worked with Morry Stone, who eventually became a vice chairman.  My dad didn’t like working for anybody, including Morry, so Toby left in 1954.

Toby Stratton, 37, at American Greetings, 1954

Everybody in Cleveland has worked at American Greetings, I think.  Or tried to.  I applied for a job at American Greetings in 1981.

Plain Dealer, 1981

American Greetings had a Creative Building at West 78^th Street.  I didn’t even get called in for an interview.  Maybe I wasn’t sick enough to write sick cards.

***

Robert Crumb again, 1996, Bob & Harv‘s Comics:  “Cleveland is a city that has been ravaged by financiers and industrialists . . . its population abandoned to their fate, left to freeze their ass off, standing in the dirty winter slush, waiting for a bus that is a long time coming.  Somehow they go on living.”

I haven’t lived anywhere else, so I can’t complain like Crumb.  I went to college in Ann Arbor (which doesn’t count) and spent a few months in Bogota, Colombia, in my twenties.

Bogota was tougher than Cleveland. That, I can testify to.  Bogota was rainy, gray, and headache-inducing from the high altitude.  Cleveland was simply rainy, gray and slushy.

***

A pilot stood in a grassy field by the Bogota airport and said, “Tell your friends to throw their packs in back and we’ll be off.”

They weren’t my friends.  They weren’t even Americans.

We climbed into the cargo section of the plane. “It smells like shit in here,” a Swiss girl said.

“This is Fish Airlines,” the pilot said.  (Aeropesca.)

We landed in the Amazon a few hours later.

I ran into a college friend in the Amazon! I knew him from my freshman dorm.  He said, “I scamp.”  That meant he sold gems, coke, pot or counterfeit bills.  “I’m going to reunite with my creators soon,” he said.

What?

“I’m going back to my parents.”

Adiós, amigo.

I tried to catch the ferry to Belem, Brazil. I waited several days in Leticia, Colombia, by the Amazon River dock, but the ferry didn’t arrive. I flew back to Bogota on the guppy/yuppie flight.  (Guppies to Bogota, yuppies to the Amazon.)

In Bogota, I froze — even indoors.  I wore two sweaters and socks-for-gloves in a small house I shared with a widow and her maid.  I taught English at a nearby private junior high.  For fun at night I read Cancer Ward .  I also looked at photos of beauty queens from El Espacio and El Bogotano — the tabloids. My bedroom had doggy pictures on the wall, a toy cannon on the windowsill, and a crucifix over the bed.

For mental exercise I tried to reconstruct my high school schedule: first and second periods, PSSC Physics.  What was third?  What was PSSC?  [Physical Science Study Committee.]  I didn’t know many people in Bogie.

I heard Charlie Byrd play “Bogota” in Bogota.  He was on a government-sponsored tour.  Byrd en guitarra, con bajo y batería. (Byrd on guitar, with bass and drums.)

I went back to Cleveland after three months.

American Greetings. I couldn’t take Bogie. The major bookstore in Bogota was run by a Nazi, I thought.  The owner was German, and I fabricated a fake bio, in my head,  about him. I went to the Peace Corps office to borrow more paperbacks.  I got Papillon, about a prisoner in Latin America.

I played blues harp for my English class.  The kids loved it but the administration didn’t.

I had to leave. Bogie was un frío horrible (a freezing cold).

Crumb should write about Bogota.  I want to hear his take on a real tough town.

—
Footnotes:
1.  My  Bogota adventure was  in 1974. 
2. I didn’t meet my college friend in the Amazon.  I met him in Bogota.   I remembered the encounter incorrectly. My friend straightened me out  in Cleveland in 2013. 

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 This appeared on the Ann Arbor Observer blog last week.  If you’ve already read it, please skip down to Side B.

Last year at The Ark, my klezmer show got bumped for Judy Collins.  She took my slot.

Ann Arbor ukulele-master Gerald Ross, who was a sideman, emailed me then: “I saw The Ark schedule. I don’t think we’re playing Feb. 9 [2013], because you’re not Judy Collins.”

I had a lock on that date!  I emailed The Ark.  The Ark said how about another date?  I suggested a couple more Saturday nights.  The Ark said how about a Friday night.

I don’t play Friday nights if I can help it.  I like to stay home for Friday nights — shabbat.  Sometimes my shabbats are just a couple hours, but they’re always on Friday night!  I once heard a Reform rabbi say, “Say a prayer over your pizza if you’re out with your kids on Friday night.”  I’m all for that.  I “hold” by that.  (“Hold” means  “I follow that custom.”)

I reluctantly took the Friday night slot last year, but didn’t put Friday in my publicity.

I got up to Ann Arbor on Friday afternoon and met up with an old college friend, Charlie Burch.   He had just donated his 1960-70s political buttons to an archive in the Graduate Library.  I wondered who still used the library. The answer: Charlie.  (His buttons were No Nein Nyet Non Lo; March on Washington; Go Michigan Beat Thailand.)

Charlie pointed out where various stores don’t exist anymore.  Like Centicore Books, Borders Books, Orange Julius and Miller’s Ice Cream.

I like touring Ann Arbor.  It’s the only place I’ve lived other than Cleveland.  I graduated U-M in 1973.

I said a private shabbat prayer in a Mexican restaurant, Sabor Latino, before my gig.  I opened the gig with “Shalom Aleykhem” (a well-known Friday night song) and wished the Jews at The Ark “shabbat shalom.”

I had a good one — a good shabbat.  But playing publicly on Friday night is not optimal for me.

Yiddishe Cup plays  Saturday night this year –- this Saturday, Feb. 8 [2014].  Praise the Lord!
—
SIDE B

180-degree turn . . .

MILK IS MY ILK

I shot a cow once. It was crippled and couldn’t walk. My dad sold the dead cow to the Amish for meat. We couldn’t sell it to anybody else because it wasn’t “choice” grade.

My dad loved everything having to do with cows: barns, ice cream, blintzes. He had me pitching balls against the side of our barn, like Bob Feller. My dad thought I could be the next Rapid Robert even though I was a near-midget.

I planned to go to Ohio State to major in dairy science after high school. But my high school friends — all non-dairy guys — talked me into Michigan, where I majored in diary science (creative writing). A big mistake.

I spent a year in Israel after college, at a kibbutz, milking cows in the refet (dairy barn). The kibbutzniks  were impressed.

I still like unpasteurized milk, but it’s hard to find these days.

I order milk at bars. Women overhear me and say, “You’re like James Cagney!”

Got milk?

I hope so. I have zero tolerance for the lactose intolerant.
—

File under Fake Profiles.
—
Yiddishe Cup is at The Ark  this Sat., 8 p.m. Feb. 8. Here’s a vid from our show at The Ark, 2009:

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At a nursing home gig, a resident told me she knew my late Aunt Bernice.

Another resident remembered me from my junior high days. Her daughter had played first-chair clarinet, to my second chair, in junior high band.

A third resident said he was the former dentist of Yiddishe Cup’s drummer.  “What’s your drummer’s name again?” the dentist asked. [Don Friedman! The great Donny Friedman!]

I said, “I’ll give you the drummer’s name, but first I’m going to be clairvoyant!” I guessed the dentist’s name, his approximate age (90), and what he had done that morning — three hours prior to the gig.

I got everything right, but the dentist wasn’t impressed. He wanted the drummer’s name.

Yid Yak

I guessed everything right about the dentist because 1. I had seen the dentist playing tennis at a nearby racquet club that morning.  A 90-year-old guy playing tennis is hard to forget.  2. I knew his approximate age because he used to play tennis with my dad.  3.  I knew his name because I had dated his daughter in high school.

The daughter and I had gone to see Cool Hand Luke at the Vogue,  then out for shakes at Manner’s Big Boy, Van Aken.  It was a fix-up by our parents.  It was my one-and- only date in high school.

I asked the dentist, “What’s Barbara doing?”  The daughter.

“She’s a piano teacher in Boston,” he said.

I just Googled her.  She teaches classical and jazz.   She used to be a radio DJ.

Did I make a major mistake not asking her out for a second date?

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