Covid-19 and me

     Whoever you are, I'm pretty sure you've heard about the worldwide pandemic of Covid-19.  My experiences during that strange time aren't unique, but they're mine and maybe you wonder what I did then.

    The 19 in the name is the year this virus was discovered and became a pandemic, autumn 2019.  For me basically two things happened, everyone completely freaked out and life remained almost exactly the same.  I was and am retired, so the fact that businesses closed with the exception of groceries and hardware, made little impression.  It made some, of course.  At first we were advised to use grocery delivery services, which I did, and then I watched a YouTube video about how you should sanitize all the packages.  Did that too.  Wiped down cereal boxes and canned vegetables. Not for long however - I was too lazy.

    It became almost impossible to find rubbing alcohol and by the time I thought to get some sanitary wipes - the shelf was bare.  Many shelves became bare.  So I bought some baby wipes. Luckily I had the alcohol and I just poured a lot of the bottle into the baby wipes - presto - instant disinfectant.

    The President was Donald Trump. Love him or hate him, those were some pretty interesting news conferences.  I've read that he didn't want to scare the population.  We were scared enough without any encouragement, information or lack thereof from him.  It didn't take long to hear news about people dying.  Lots of people.  Mostly older people (that includes me?) with health conditions and woe to them if they lived in a nursing home or anyplace with lots of other older people.  One of the aides, inevitably it seems, would be sick - with or without symptoms - and the next thing you know - more dead seniors.

    But younger, healthier people were dying too.  From the news, I think New York City should be a village by now.  So many dead that refrigerated trucks had to be brought in because the morgues couldn't handle them all.  Doctors and nurses and all hospital personnel were stressed to their limits.  Some sickened, some died, some took their own lives, many simply left the profession.  People would go to hospitals and leave gifts and food for the staff - just to be encouraging.  There is still a lot of turbulence in the medical profession especially among nurses who have gone on strike and not always for more pay, but to demand more staff.  One of the issues is that "traveling nurses" are much in demand and command very high pay, so hospital nurses feel their patients are not getting appropriate care.  But I digress.

    It really didn't matter to me that restaurants closed.  I was perfectly happy getting a Junior Whopper from Burger King - no contact.  Plexiglass barriers went up all over the place and stayed up for three years.  We were told to wear surgical type face masks.  Those went out of stock instantly and were then reserved for health care workers.  People began sewing and donating masks.  I remember reading about it on Facebook right here in Eustis.  Timothy Totten, who I'd met at an event some time previous was spearheading the local effort.  I made my own mask from an old kitchen towel.  

    But I had a life to live and one item in that life was a car to be bought and left at the cabin in Minnesota.  The previous car had completely died on the very day I was scheduled to drive it to Duluth, leave it at Don's garage and take a cab to the airport.  No car and the airport an hour away.  I called a friend at a lake across the road, Ken Swanson, and begged him to take me.  He did.  He and his wife Bonnie have been life savers a number of times.  

    This exercise in car buying during a pandemic wasn't as tough as you'd think.  Cars are still available, car lots are open and you can search inventory pretty easily on line.  I knew the car I wanted. I love cars that look like boxes, but turns out the car I liked - used of course - didn't have any of the things I needed.  Number one was gas mileage.  Yes, gas is cheap in 2019 but we all know that won't last forever and if I leave the cabin, the nearest destination is twenty miles away and a weekly grocery run is forty miles, one way.  After doing the research, it turned out that the perfect car for me was a Honda Fit; forty-five mile per gallon, more interior space then imaginable (is it a tardis? Never heard of a tardis?  Research Dr. Who) and a few used one are in the area.  It looks like a bubble, but never mind.  I was willing to pay $10 thousand.  Unfortunately, the going price was $13,000.  But by searching just a little farther there it was in Daytona: 2017 red Honda Fit, 35,000 miles, $9,995.  I called so they knew I was coming.  What they didn't know was that I had stumbled on some information to my benefit in my research.  Turns out that Florida has a statute that says dealers are not allowed to charge any items they make a profit on if it's not on the sticker.  Almost no one knows about this, so dealers simply ignore it.  I played somewhat the dumb consumer to the salesman; did he know about this statute?  I showed him the photo I'd taken of it.  Dealer Prep Fee?  I don't think so. He said he had to talk to the manager.  I was more than prepared and told him, "take your time, I've brought a book".  The manager came out in record time.  We did the deal and the car was mine.  They even delivered it.

    I had to drive the 1,500 miles without touching anything unless I'm wearing gloves or talk to anyone without being at least 6 feet away and preferably wearing a mask.  Turned out to be pretty easy as not many people were driving anywhere. Motels and gas stations were turning somersaults to prove they were doing everything to make you safe and McDonalds drive-thru is still in business. At the end of summer I flew home and while it was surreal to be in a quiet airport with no line at security and keeping 6 feet away from everyone, it wasn't unpleasant.

    By late fall, a vaccine was being promoted, however getting one was proving to be a challenge.  But I had some dumb luck.  I was out in the yard when my neighbor Jerry drove by and stopped for a minute.  He was on his way to Ocoee to get the shot because his daughter is a nurse there.  Turns out I could qualify too as a friend.  He told me the website and I made the appointment immediately and was vaccinated that week, January 2021.

    Many every-day items became scarce.  Toilet paper is the one often talked about.  With most people staying at home - schools and businesses are closed - this is something we all need and people hoard it while factories can't keep up with demand.  There was a bird flu and eggs disappeared and those available were triple the price. One week I really had a desire for rice.  Nope.  No rice on the shelves at all.  It wasn't unusual to walk down a grocery aisle where most of the shelves were completely bare.  

    Somehow, I never got sick, nor do I personally know anyone who died.  Almost four years have passed since March of 2020. Many of the plexiglass barriers are just now being removed.  But grocery delivery is booming, as is delivery of just about everything.  Very few people still wear masks and I usually assume those who do have some health condition.  Times are still very odd though.  Prices of many things are much more than pre-pandemic, although some are coming down.  Interest rates are going higher and higher to try and bring the inflation under control.  

    There have been and will continue to be consequences to shutting down the world.  I'm most concerned for young people who were forced to stay home without the company of friends and have their schooling online.  Behavior issues from lack of socialization may be a consequence as well as other mental health conditions.  The cost of housing is higher than many people in lower paying jobs can afford so homelessness is increasing and out of control in many larger cities.  

    This pandemic resulted in major changes in many areas of life and change is always difficult.  Yet change is one of the only constants in the universe.

A Very Strange Dream

     I never remember my dreams.  But one night around 2010 I had such a vivd and terrifying dream, I never forgot it.  And, in one sense, it came true.

    It's a beautiful day.  Crystal clear.  The sky is a wonderful shade of blue without a cloud in sight.

    I'm alone, driving a car that's very comfortable but not familiar, and I'm on a lovely highway. I feel perfectly content. There's no one else on this highway at all, and there's no scenery because this lovely expanse of road has concrete on both sides that obscure my vision left and right, plus I'm sure it's elevated.

    Off in the somewhat far distance I see a city sparkling in the sun.  It's reminiscent of the Emerald City Dorothy sees in the Wizard of Oz.  I'm thrilled to be heading there.

    Suddenly and too soon for me to take any action, the road just ends and I'm plunging over the edge to my death.  

    And then I wake up.

    It's morning and I'm terrified.  What was that all about?  Why am I dreaming about my death?  I told friends and colleagues at work who were sympathetic, but after all, dreams are strange, right?

    This dream plagued me for days.  I do think that dreams are a way we work out things that happen in our everyday lives, but I couldn't think of anything related to this until I remembered ...

    About two days before the dream I'd received notification from the Social Security Administration about my retirement that was 4 or 5 years away.  It was one of those government mailings where you have to tear off the sides and the top and it had a lot of that "fine print" governmentese, that requires careful reading. I'd read what it said, but didn't realize that my brain was working out what this meant for me and how I would respond.

    When I connected this to the dream it all fell into place.  That beautiful city? That's how I felt about retirement.  And the road there?  That's where I was - happily enjoying a career I loved.  The road ending?  Of course it would.  My death could be my fear of the unknown.  How would I handle the transition to who I would be if I didn't define myself by my work?

    Once I realized this, I smiled to myself.  I didn't forget the dream, far from it, I can still see it all clearly.  But now I live in that beautiful city of retirement and it is even more beautiful than I imagined.  

    While I do think longingly and so fondly of the career I had, when I look at the life I've been able to create for myself it's amazing.  I have old friends and new.  I have communities in both my northern and southern homes.  I get to do things I've looked forward to and have chosen to do things I would never have guessed would make me so content. As for dreams, I haven't remembered any since then.

    

About Mom - Part 2

About Mom – Part 2

    So Sara Abrams gets off the train in Duluth, Minnesota in 1945 or 1946 after having spent several years on islands in the South Pacific as an Army nurse. Then what?

    The story becomes a little odd to my mind because of the way she gets engaged to and marries my father, Paul Winer. To hear my mother tell it, my father’s mother Jennie Winer, “went around telling everyone that her son was marrying Sara Abrams”. That’s it? No love in bloom? How did he propose? Why didn’t she go back to New York City? I can’t answer any of these questions. Maybe she wanted to stay with family in Duluth? Maybe he was a stable Jewish guy who was a professional? No clue? But in March of 1946 or 1947 they were married.    

    July of 1949 I showed up. They both wanted children but it turned out she had something called a “tipped uterus” which made it very difficult for her to carry a child to term. She had two miscarriages before I was born and two after. That must have been very sad for them, but neither one talked about it and I never thought to ask – being one of those spoiled brat only children we’ve all heard about.

    I’m really not sure about the power dynamic in their relationship, but I’m quite sure my mother was comfortable wearing the pants.  And sometimes I think that was okay with my father too.

    So it’s post war, the economy starts booming, next on the checklist turns out to be a house – they were living with my mother’s mother – which, honestly, couldn’t have been great. So they buy a two story, three bedroom one bathroom house with a basement at 2021 East 9th Street. Nothing fancy, but that’s where I grew up. The phone number is Randolph 4-4130. Strange how many of us Boomers remember our home phone numbers.

    Duluth has an economic divide. Wealthier people live on the East side, poorer on the West.  My high school had the not very imaginative name East High. Kids from the other schools (Central, Denfeld and Holy Rosary) called us “Cakes”, because we could afford to eat cake I suppose. Or maybe it’s the Marie Antoinette saying – let them eat cake. My dear friend Don, who went to Denfeld, will still call me Cake, when he wants to accuse me of being "uppity".

    Next on the list is their own pharmacy, Paul’s Reliable Drugs, between first and second Avenue West on 1st Street. Evidently, they had this when I was young enough to need 24 hour care because my mother hired people to be with me during the day. I have no memory of any of them, but my mother had guilt about it.

    My father was the pharmacist and my mother took over the cosmetics counter. There was one other person who worked at the cash register in the front and Don Pasek was the assistant pharmacist and bought the store when my parents retired in 1967 and we moved to Hollywood, Florida. My mother was one heck of a crackerjack saleswoman and got all into a company called Allercreme. Today you can only find it on EBay –and don’t use that stuff, it stopped production in the late 1980’s. Anyway, it was Texas Pharmaceuticals and it’s big thing – ahead of its time perhaps – was being hypoallergenic. She sold the heck out of that stuff, enough that I remember my parents were invited to visit the company and treated as quite the VIP's.

    At home, Sara Winer had a tendency to revert from time to time, to 1st Lieutenant Abrams. She was in control! The bad news is she has a very stubborn daughter. But generally, what Sara wanted, Sara got. I learned how to make a bed using nurses corners and the bottom sheet had to have the majority of its length tucked under the head and torso because that’s where the body moves the most in sleep. The things you remember!

    I also had to learn to play the piano. This was something very dear to my mother’s heart as she had so desperately wanted a piano as a child. Poor as my grandparents were, they got her one. But Terri, being given things her heart didn’t desire, wasn’t all that keen on practicing. And she was rebellious by nature along with being stubborn. The story goes that one day I got good and mad and kicked the piano. Maybe I was 8 or 9 years old. Mom walked over and kicked me. It was a shocker all right. Evidently, I never kicked the piano again, but I didn’t make much of an effort to practice either. Fast forward and one of the things I wanted very much after I got married was a piano. I still have that Baldwin spinet and I play some of the same music she played. She was a much better pianist. I make the same mistakes on the same pieces I made when I was 12. All classical. Oh yes, I am my mother’s daughter. I remember occasionally asking my husband what he’d like me to play. Invariably his answer was “softly and far, far away”. Ha, ha, very funny.

    Another point I remember about her was her desire to be a vaudeville star. A showgirl I suspect, because she would occasionally enter a room (when it was just me there) as if she was entering a stage as a Flora Dora girl or some such. Skirt or apron in hand she’d flounce in humming or singing some tune. I was, a. annoyed and b. embarrassed. MOTHER! Sheesh. In retrospect, it’s so adorable.

    After some years, my parents would take the entire month of March as a holiday. The store operated without them and they drove (the Buick Le Sabre) to Miami Beach to the strip of small motels. For the first year or two of this, I was looked after by my mother’s mother. Then for a couple years they took me out of school and I brought a month’s worth of schoolwork with me. I did some of it – but - lazy student here. But then they decided that I could be left home alone. I had done an excellent job of pulling the wool over their eyes and had convinced them that I was trustworthy and could take care of myself. This was partly true until I was 16 and had a learner’s permit. What I learned about myself is that I can be quite devious. At this time they had two cars. My mother had a Buick Skylark. Do you know, that if you put in the key, turn the ignition to ALT, you can then pull out the key and as long as you don’t turn the ignition all the way back to OFF, the car can be used just as if you have the key? So Terri had a car for the entire month of March and could drive herself and her friend Susie to school daily instead of walking and even went to a concert, after which there was a terrible blizzard and it was simply dumb luck we were able to get home, put the car in the garage and the snow covered up the fact that the car had been used at all. I told her all about it 20 years later. She was very annoyed. Ha ha.

    Beginning in 1967, she and my father moved to Hollywood, Florida 3501 Jackson St, Apt 402.  I attended the University of Miami. As the years passed, my focus became myself, then a boyfriend I acquired, Jan Roher by name who I married in 1973. So the comings and goings of Sara and Paul became very much background noise.

    During the winter they spent time with friends they made in Florida and in the summer they drove to “the cabin”. Then came stories of the bears in the yard: rolling the heavy steel garbage burning drum like a circus performer, getting a paw stuck in the top of the drum and waving it around in the air until he was

 able to peel back the wired-on steel cover and free himself, and my all-time favorite, the bear who was sitting on the front stoop at dusk while my mother was inside typing and my father, who had come in from fishing was hiding behind trees in the yard while screaming her name – Sara! Sara!. This noise encourages the bear to amble over to the side of the cabin. My mother finally hears him screaming, comes out on the low stoop and with great annoyance says, “what do you want”. “There’s a bear”, and the bear sticks his head around to the front. Lieutenant Abrams (I think) grabs her ever present Donna Reed style half apron, shakes it at the bear and says, “shoo, shoo”. The bear shoo’d.

    Another famous story involves not only a bear but includes a favorite cabin activity, raspberry picking. She would pick gallons of berries, turn them into jam and sauce, put them in jars and drive them back to Florida. If you’ve never had wild northern raspberries, they resemble store bought in color only. In size, they’re about a third of cultivated, and in flavor, at least 5 times more flavorful. So, one hot and sunny, probably August, day, Sara and Kathy Babcock, who lived down the road but not on the lake – but who also been a nurse – decide to go berry picking at a nearby gravel pit. The picking is good and they wander farther and farther from each other. In the meantime, it’s also getting hotter and hotter and my mother removes her blouse. Suddenly, Kathy screeches, “Sara, a bear!”. My mother’s reaction was to drop her bucket and cover her bosom – she was wearing a bra. The bear left and mom and Kathy were left breathless with laughter. I’ve heard all these stories so many times.

    Eventually, in her late 70’s, mom felt she was no longer able to make the trip. Neither she nor my father were accustomed to air travel and she had begun to show signs of dementia. The last year they were there together was 1993. They returned to their Florida apartment and I spent more time there as the years went on and I realized she was becoming less and less able to care for both of them. In 1998 she began having abdominal pain that she ascribed to the fact that she had drunk a free sample of Diet Pepsi from a vendor at Publix. Turned out to be cancer, of course. The surgeon operated, realized it was too advanced and closed the incision. By luck, there was an empty apartment on the same floor as my parents that the administration allowed me to rent by the month. I contracted both Hospice and a home health care agency, so she had care around the clock. Whatever medications she was given were great as she didn’t seem to be in any pain. She enjoyed seeing friends who visited. My father was just down the hall, although it was hard on him. And she passed away quite peacefully two weeks later.

    My memories of her are quite strong. She was amazingly loving to me – her only precious child – but she wanted me to take after her in ways that weren’t natural to me. I was very introverted, tended to be chubby, then overweight, then obese and her disapproval made me angry and resentful. I didn’t care for science and I’m sure that was a disappointment. But I did give her the grandchild she desperately wanted.

So sorry I made her wait 10 years to have him. What torture that must have been. 

    Many things now in my house were hers. Some I like, some I simply can’t seem to part with. Turns out I have her adventurous spirit, her positive and loving nature and the same desperation for grandchildren – thank heaven for twins! 

Sara Abrams Winer, Part 1

    Writing about my mother will be quite a task as she was really a character with a busy, amusing, annoying and adventurous life.  I’m like her in many ways and her voice is in my head – not as often as it used to be – but it’s still there.  “Why do you want to buy that?  You’ll just have to clean it.”

    She was born Sarah Avramovitz (in the 1920 census), probably somewhere in the vicinity of Irkutsk, Russia (her mother’s home town), which is in Siberia, in 1912, possibly December 12^th although she could have made that up.  I know why her father (my grandfather) was there.   In all documents I can find he’s named Roy and yet in one writing of hers she calls him Leon.  He was a conscripted soldier in the Imperial Russian Army, a furrier and a tailor.  He made those tall fur hats emblematic of Russian headgear of the elite in winter, as well as many other coats, jackets, and muffs, etc. 

    

He often spoke of his relationship with “the general” for whom he did a lot of work.  When I was doing genealogical research, I actually found a father and son who were both generals in the southern part of Siberia and I believe it’s very possible that the father (who had the same name as his son) is, in fact, this general.  In Wikipedia he is Mikhail Mikhailovich Pleshkov.  He fought on the “wrong side” against the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution and when that was over he moved to Harbin, China where he lived for the rest of his life. 

Now it turns out that Sarah’s mother and father were married in Harbin, which had a sizeable Jewish population and a synagogue.

 

 

 

 

 

    Her mother Lena Shusterman Avramovitz, was certainly born in Irkutsk.  How her family came to be there is quite a puzzle.  It seems unlikely although possible that someone was a political prisoner, as it surely would have been a family story, yet there was a long period when Jews were not allowed to move to Siberia that had rich land for farming.  It’s a mystery.  The only story I have from my grandmother of her youth was when she was a young teen, which would have been just before the turn of the 20^th century.  According to her, she and some of her friends were arrested for political activity. My grandmother the Bolshevik?  While in jail, she had her mother bring in her skates so she and her friends could skate in the prison yard.  She never spoke of it as a great hardship and I’m guessing the authorities just wanted to tamp down the unrest of the youth.

    I don’t know how my grandparents met, but Lena was a seamstress and my grandfather was a tailor, handsome and Jewish.  So there we are.  Lena wound up working for the general’s wife, which makes sense. 

 

    Here’s the story of how they left Russia.  At some point, I would guess around 1911 or early 1912, my grandfather discovered that Jews who were due to leave military service would be retained for an indeterminate time.  Uh oh.  My grandmother’s two or three brothers (Samuel and Joseph), had already emigrated to Duluth, Minnesota and Roy and Lena determined to leave.  I don’t know how long it took to make preparations, but my grandfather asked the general for a leave of absence.  He used to say that the general knew full well that he would never see Roy again, but he gave him the leave.  I don’t know how long it took for them to cross Russia, although I’m quite sure it was by train, and then on through Belarus, Poland and Germany to Hamburg, where they crossed the Atlantic and landed at Liberty Island in New York in 1913.  My mother at that point was 8 or 9 months old, very pudgy and active.

 

    This leads us to the next story, which is of my grandmother and the banana.  On the train to Duluth an American woman notices my mother and fusses over her, says how cute she is, etc. and gives my grandmother a banana for the baby.  Now my grandmother had never seen a banana in her life but understands it is something for the baby to eat.  When the woman left my grandmother took a bite of the banana, skin and all.  “Feh! Who would give this to a baby?”  This pretty much wraps up my mother’s stories of infancy.

 

    As a little girl, her stories of herself paint her as mischievous, a tomboy and a bully.  She would sometimes involve her younger sister Helen, who was the “good child” that was dragged into trouble by Sarah.  The emblematic story is about the sheets.  White starched sheets hanging on the clothesline to dry in the summer.  Sarah decides they would make a perfect tent but there need to be windows.  I’m sure my grandmother had sharp scissors handy which Sarah took and cut out the required windows.  Much trouble ensued and it added to the family lore. 

 

    She was a tree climber and the one who got dirty.  My grandmother made all their clothes and in the formal picture taken at a studio, they’re in beautiful white appearing dresses with ruffles, embroidery and pinafores.  I’d guess they were about 6 and 8 years old.

 

    The final childhood story is the time she and some neighbor boy got into a fight.  According to Sarah, she beat him up and then tied him to a tree where he was found crying by his mother.  I imagine she got quite the beating.

 

    By now, her mother had opened a little grocery store in the front of their house and my grandfather was a tailor at a men’s shop six or seven blocks down the steep hill to downtown.  So they were making a living and possibly even saving.

 

    There are no more stories until she graduates from high school. She then was able to travel to Chicago for nursing school.  Now I would ask, were there no nursing schools in Duluth or even Minneapolis?  Why Chicago?  I’ll never know.  I have no stories from this period but the next thing I know is that somehow she’s in New York City and is head surgical nurse at Mt. Sinai Hospital.  How did that happen?  Where did she get the experience to have that position?  Unknown.  Her one story from the operating room shows her as unwilling to take any flak.  A very short surgeon – she had definite opinions of short men in power – was operating and she was assisting.  He held out his hand for a suturing instrument, but didn’t like the size she gave him and threw it across the room.  Specifying what he wanted in a shout and a brusque tone, he held out his hand.  I can almost see her eyes narrowing as she took the instrument and slapped it as hard as she could into his hand while meeting his glare.  Suturing instruments look like scissors but with small teeth at the end for grabbing the needle with thread.  Imagine being hit hard in your hand with the rounded finger holes of scissors.  Ouch!  She did enjoy telling and retelling this tale.

 

On to WWII

 

    I remember asking why she volunteered to join the military after the outbreak of war.  Her response is that she felt it was her duty.  So, first there’s the story of the train trip to a training camp somewhere in the Arizona desert.  She and a friend, Ione Vogel who is in the photo below, got off at the required stop, which was merely a platform, no building.  They looked around, but the only visible thing was the train heading off to the West.  The rest was empty dessert as far as the eye could see.  I have no stories about the training.

 

    Things get very interesting though when she arrives at the tiny island in the Admiralty Islands chain in the South Pacific.  This is part of an island chain close to New Guinea.  The island she was on had to be Los Negros because in the research I’ve done, there was a huge naval base there with medical facilities.  While the Women’ Army Corps was in existence, I’m not sure if she was actually attached to them, although she was certainly in the Army.

    How I wish I’d written down these stories when mom was still alive because so many details are missing.  But here’s what I have from memory.

 

    There were local women who served as maids and general helpers to the nurses.  The one who worked for mom once said to her, “Oh, Miss Sarah you are so beautiful!”.  My mom replies, “What makes you say that?”  “You have such a big nose!”  As long as I knew her, she was always sensitive about the size of her nose, which really couldn’t have been termed big.

 

    The local people were dark with very Negroid features and extremely kinky/curly hair.  They, of course, found the Westerners themselves as well as their things, including some of the trash, to be quite exotic and useful.  Mom talked about the fact that most of them loved the empty cans found in the trash and would wrap their hair around these “ornaments’.  These were different times, of course, certainly not politically sensitive or aware, and the term everyone used to refer to the island natives was ‘fuzzy wuzzies’.  No longer an appropriate term for human beings.

 

    The next to last story from this episode involves an officer from the Navy and happens on Los Negros.  I know she dated some officers and this was one.  His name?  Unknown.  In any event, the story goes that he said his men had nothing to do and were bored.  Would he like them to make her some furniture?  I’m sure, “of course”, would be her answer.  Some weeks go by and then one day – just like on the TV show Mash, the loudspeaker calls her name.  “Sara Abrams, Sara Abrams, come to the receiving gate”.  She arrives and a convoy of Navy trucks is there with dressers, and desks for all the nurses.  Everyone was thrilled. 

 

    At some point in the 1980’s it occurs to me to ask her about this episode and refer to her as “Hot Lips”.  What an angry reaction that engendered.  Methinks the lady doth protest too much?  I’ll never know. 

    Finally, in 1945, Mom is sent home on a convoy ship where she is very seasick and also where there is (somewhere) a very colorful certificate that shows she crossed the equator.  After landing in California, she travels by train back to Duluth.  Her sister, Helen, once told me that she thought a skeleton was getting off the train.  In contrast, my mother’s memory is that her parents and her sister looked like they’d been pumped up with air, they were so robust. 

 

And so ends part 1 of her life.

 

 

 

Never Marry A Tall Man

 Never Marry A Tall Man

 

My father, Paul Arthur Winer (nee Vinitsky), was born July 25, 1908 in Duluth, Minnesota.  He was the sixth of eight children born to Abraham and Jenny (nee Ostrov) and the only boy.  As a result he had 5 older sisters who, according to him, behaved as additional mothers and who treated him like gold.  On the other hand, again according to him, his father treated him severely.  Maybe Abraham thought that the attention of all these females would make him weak.  Abraham, as a great number of Jews, was a tailor, but I also have a faint memory of my father telling me that Abraham’s family had something to do with horses and wagons in Odessa.  Until very recently, I considered myself of Russian heritage  Guess what?  Ukraine!

The middle name Arthur was purely an affectation.  In reality, he wasn’t given a middle name, but my guess is that he was the sort of boy who would have found the tales of Arthur and the Round Table much to his liking and, at that time, if you said your middle name was Arthur, who would have asked for proof?  I also think he was probably a kid who liked sports.  The reason he wasn’t accepted into the military is a chest injury suffered at college during a football game.  His voluntary military service during WWII, was to look out for submarines.  This would have taken place conveniently at home, as his parent’s Duluth house looked out over the not very sub-infested waters of Lake Superior. 

 

He attended the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis where his goal was to become a doctor, but that turned out to be much too expensive and so he became a pharmacist. Don’t get the idea that his family had enough money to send him to school.  In order to pay for his education, he spent every summer as a laborer in the wheat fields of Nebraska.  He said it was incredibly hot, dirty and hard work.  When he graduated, the Great Depression would just be starting but as a professional he was in demand and worked behind the pharmacy counter at Snyder’s Pharmacy on Lake Avenue in Duluth for many years.   By the time I showed up in 1949, he and my mother owned their own pharmacy, Paul’s Reliable Drugs, on 1st Street.  The name makes me chuckle.  In my mind, I see him telling a lineup of drug addicts that his drugs are by far the most reliable.

 

Anyway, by a certain age, maybe I was 11 or 12, my mother decided that a new responsibility, should be added to my, truthfully not very many chores, ironing.   In those days permanent press didn’t exist in our house or maybe at all,  but cotton sheets and pillowcases certainly did.  There was no such thing yet as fitted sheets.  It seems likely I would have started there.  But at some point, added to my part of the laundry basket, were my father’s clothes, specifically his cotton pajamas.   And here’s where I decided that - never would I ever - marry a tall man.  You see, my dad, who I called Pop, was 6 feet 5 inches tall.  I’m sure he was a handsome youth,  but now he would have been in his 50’s and bald.  He may still have been handsome but I was standing at the ironing board with his pajamas and – to make matters even more difficult – his cotton boxer shorts.  The boxers were impossible.  There were so many seams and it would take forever to try to avoid wrinkles.  Yet, the torture to me were those pajama legs.  They went on and on and on and just when I thought I must be close to the hem, there was still more.   I truly vowed that I would never marry a tall man! 

 

So the end of the story is that I fell in love with and married a wonderful 5 foot 10 inch man.  In the intervening years, permanent press became a household staple, people slept in t-shirts, and tidy whities were knit.  You might think that I hate ironing to this day.  Many people do.  Not me.  I much prefer woven fabric to knit and love to sit on the edge of the bed, with the ironing board that can now conveniently be positioned to a number of heights, watch something of interest on the iPad and iron to my heart’s content.

Let's Move To The Dominican Republic

 Let’s Move To The Dominican Republic

 

One Sunday in the winter of 1978, I was getting ready to go to work as the manager of a Kellwood outlet store.  Kellwood was the lead store in the new outlet mall on Highway 65 in Murfreesboro, TN outside Nashville.  This was almost the very beginning of the concept of outlet stores and malls.  Previously, I had managed and stocked the company stores owned by the company my husband worked for, Colonial Corporation, a clothing manufacturer based in Woodbury, TN with sewing facilities across the south, cutting operations in the Dominican Republic and fabric sourcing and testing in Taipei, Taiwan.  He had worked his way up while attending college at the University of Miami, from office assistant at the Miami shipping office to employee in one of the departments at the Woodbury, TN office, to head of several departments.  We were married in 1973.  The 6-8 company stores I managed for Colonial were the “real deal”.  They were located in the sewing plants, open only to employees and their families, and carrying merchandise from not only Colonial’s operations (which were primarily clothing made for Sears, Penney, K-Mart and Target) but I could also get merchandise from other Gulf and Western subsidiaries (Vanity Fair and Catalina are the two I remember).  If you ever owned a flannel shirt from one of those stores or bought any of the Cheryl Teigs clothing line, Colonial was the manufacturer.

 

Eventually, Colonial sold their store inventory to a new Gulf and Western retail subsidiary, Rolane.  But, being a woman – perhaps – I wasn’t offered the job of manager of the new Murfreesboro store, but assistant manager.  My degree in secondary education as a high school history teacher turned out to be a bust as I was one of bazillions of those Baby Boomers who chose that career.  So, I’d been a secretary at City Finance, and a cafeteria manager at Middle Tennessee State University (until they changed food service companies and once again, women weren’t welcome in management).  When I was approached by Kellwood to be the manager of the large anchor store, I jumped at the opportunity.

 

But back to that snowy Sunday.  As I was getting ready to go, Jan (my husband) said, “I think we’ve had enough of working this much”.  We have my parent’s double-wide in Wildwood, Florida (they’d passed away), we both have educations.  You can be a check out girl at Publix and I’ll work at a gas station.  Obviously, he was kidding, but the point was . . . we won’t starve.  I agreed and left to open the store.

 

Jan’s next task was to inform the Vice-President, Bill Little, that it was time for us to move on to warmer pastures.  Bill’s response was to get up, open the door to the President, Howard Stringers’ office and be the bearer of the news.  Howard’s response was to enter Bill’s office, do a hand to forehead swoon on the black leather couch, while Jan was sitting in surprise in the chair, and say he can’t believe Jan would want to leave.  “But if you want warmer, how about taking over the facilities in the Dominican Republic” or words to that effect.  So, instead of becoming a Publix check out girl, I found myself driving a U-Haul truck to Wildwood where I distinctly remember moving my spinet piano inside.  Did you know there’s a tool specifically made for that?  Now you know.

 

Our first trip to the Dominican before we actually moved, was to see the “company apartment”.  Oh dear.  This was fine for a single man, but this dark and dreary place did not spark joy – I can assure you!  I still see myself, behind Jan, whispering negatively in his ear.  “Johnny”, the Dominican man who was the local in charge, noticed my distress and mentioned that he knew of a little house under construction in the area that might be available.  We got to see it, I loved it, and I have no idea how much later, we moved in to the little, white plaster walls, red tile roof, 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom house with windows that were wooden louvred with screens but no glass except in one bedroom.  It had rusty red Mexican style tile floors, which was great because if the wind was blowing from the south and it was raining, those wooden louvres let in a lot of rain.  There was a rather noisy generator outside that came on when the power failed, which was very frequently.  I remember buying the used, green refrigerator in Miami.  Shipping was no problem as there was a Miami shipping office.  The sewing operation was in the “free zone” in La Romana, which is a small town located on the southeastern coast about an hour and half away from the capital, Santo Domingo.  The house was located in a neighborhood close by and turned out to be the area where the majority of expat families lived.  There was and still is a lovely resort just a few minutes down the coast, Casa de Campo (or country house) designed by the famous Dominican Oscar de la Renta.  It had riding stables and an artist colony built at the top of a nearby hill, Altos de Chavon.  This place had been built as a replica of a 16^th century Mediterranean village.  It was open to locals at no cost if they wanted to learn pottery (as a possible career) and to me.  I don’t remember if I paid anything, but I did learn how to clean the clay that was dug, prepare it for throwing and to actually make pots on the wheels that were operated by foot power, no electricity.  It also had an artist in residence program.  While I was there, I met and bought art from two of them, Mr. Prats-Ventos who sculpted in wood and from whom I have one of his Las Maninas pieces, and a Mr. Moro whose portraits of Bahamian children in chalk, and pen and ink hang in a bedroom.  For transportation I had a little blue and white Honda scooter with a basket on the front. 

 

The strangest ongoing chapter at that house is something we called “frog alert”.  One night in bed, just after we’d turned off the lights, something cool and damp landed on my forehead and then on the blanket.  I shrieked and Jan turned on the light.  It was a little green tree frog.  My reaction was to go to the kitchen, get an empty plastic margarine container and a thin piece of cardboard.  We corralled the frog and were able to escort him outside where he could live his best life.  And we were done, we thought.  I think possibly a frogless evening or two went by until several night later when we were getting ready for bed there was another frog on the wall.  We repeated the catch and release exercise, but when another frog was spotted later on, we realized we had to make this a nightly thing.  If we found one, we called out “frog alert” and the spotter would stay and watch the frog, while the other got the catching apparatus.  Of course we searched and searched for the source of the frogs to no avail, until one morning while I was bending over making the bed, I happened to look underneath the window mounted air conditioner.  There they were, clustered under the little water outlet opening, three little frogs with six blinking eyes looking so innocently up at me.  So that particular source of nightly “amusement” ended. 

 

At some point after frog alert, I became pregnant, which was something we’d hoped for but thought wasn’t going to happen.   Casa de Campo became a place that Jan visited several times a week because while I’d become sick enough to be hospitalized for a night because of all day morning sickness, when that got better I got a food craving for candy bars.  American candy bars.  Only available at the Casa de Campo gift shop.  I don’t even like chocolate.  I sure did then.  Fifty pounds worth.

 

Another place we visited at that time was the country adjoining the Dominican Republic, Haiti.  It wasn’t as terrifying and destroyed a place then.  It was poor, of course, and the disparity of rich and poor was blatantly obvious, but the markets were functioning.  My most distinct memory is when we went to a casino in Port Au Prince.  It must have been my first time ever as I was amazed.  Adding to that amazement was the man standing next to me at the roulette wheel.  Roulette was totally my speed.  Red or black.  Small risk, small reward.  Not this very black skinned gentleman who stood next to me.  He was dressed all in white or cream with heavy gold jewelry and his bets were hundred dollar bills.  I tried to be nonchalant, but I was shocked.  I don’t think he won, because I’m sure I’d remember.  All I remember is that he left.

 

And at a little over 8 months pregnant I left too.  By myself.  The people who were renting our townhouse in Davie had ample notice to move out so I moved back in.  This must have been late June or early July 1982 because our son Jordan was born in August.  Happily, Jan was able to get a flight out the day I called.  I remember him walking into the room.  I’d already had an epidural so was in no pain and said, “Hi honey, we’re having a baby”. 

 

Jan stayed with me for about a week but returned to the Dominican for a month to oversee the transfer of operations.  When he returned, he was in charge of the Miami warehouse and shipping operation.  And so ended our life in the Caribbean. 

 

My Life As A Chinese Opera Star

 In 1982 my husband Jan and I were back in South Florida after spending the previous three years in the Dominican Republic, where he was head of Caribbean operations for Colonial Corporation, a garment manufacturing firm, and I was an expat wife, playing bridge, driving a Honda motorbike, learning pottery and trying to get pregnant.  When I got tired of taking my temperature, we decided we weren't going to have any children (we'd been married 8 years at that point) and I threw out the thermometer and graph paper.  As you might expect, several months later I felt "odd" and sure enough, I was pregnant.  But morning sickness turned into all day sickness, which turned into very low blood pressure and I found myself in the local hospital in La Romana, where the only scientific words I could use to describe my condition in Spanish were "pee-pee and poo-poo".  Nope.  Not going to have a baby in this circumstance.

Jan was a valued employee and was transferred to head the Miami shipping operation and we bought a townhouse in Davie, a suburb of Ft. Lauderdale.  So our happy little family enjoyed the South Florida sunshine for about two and half years with our little boy until one day . . . 

"Mac Howard in Taipei is having heart issues and wants to come back." "Oh?"  "So what do you think?"  "No."  The look on his face was crestfallen.  "You really want to go, huh?"  No answer  

So, in October of 1985, all our possessions were either packed up or put in storage, the townhouse was rented and we stayed in the Taipei Sheraton until the Howards returned to the States.  One evening in that room there was a strange noise as if the building itself was talking.  And then things started shaking.  "What's that", Jan said.  "That" I replied "is an earthquake".  I never got used to earthquakes.  As a matter of fact, sometimes I'd have that kind of rolling floor feeling, like being on a ship and have to check the chandelier in the dining room to see if it was swinging.  Sometimes it was, sometimes it wasn't.

My mother decided to pay us a visit  Luckily, were were due to leave the country for Hong Kong.  At that time neither myself nor Jordan were able to obtain residency visas, so we had to leave for at least 24 hours every three months.  While we were gone, there was a 4.6 earthquake and we returned to an apartment where all the doors were shut, the heavy glass chandelier was smashed on the sides where it had hit the ceiling, there were cracks in the walls and scratches where hanging pictures had swung from side to side.  My friend, Emmie Lui, who had a little boy Jonathan, just Jordan's age, moved out not long after.  She said it was too terrifying.

Our son Jordan, who was 3 years old, was ready for preschool, but Montessori required children be potty trained.  He got to visit the school and that's all it took for him to immediatelt be willing and able to consistently use the toilet.  The little bus picked him and Jonathan up every morning.

Jan was frequently gone as his job required travel over the whole region and especially China to source fabric.  Samples would be sent to the Taipei office where they were washed and analyzed to see if they met U.S. standards.  

So what was I to do?  I was completely illiterate, so language lessons were begun.  Happily, Jordan picked up the language much faster than me, and I could occasionally use him to translate.  

The American military had had a large presence in Taiwan after WWII and when they left, their officers club became the Taipei-American Club and within that was organized the Taipei-American Women's Club.  You had to speak English to join and their mission was to provide social welfare.  At that time, the government didn't have the ability to do much for the poor, so this group of women, many of whom were locals, raised money to buy and donate ambulances.  Thus, this group charged dues and put on events to attract other people of means who would buy tables, etc. and so funds were raised.  After about a year, I became the membership chair.  I had so many experiences: rolling bandages at a local hospital, finding my way around the city (with help) to get the membership booklet printed, making friends and getting help from other Taiwanese women. 

I found I had more in common with the local women than the expats who, in my opinion, thought rather a lot of themselves because of their husbands positions.  I never forgot that back home I'd never be able to afford to live on the 18th floor of a building that was modeled on 5th Avenue, or have a houseman, a laundress 

 or a nanny for Jordan.  

The company paid for everything.  The only expenses we had were food, and gas for the car.  It was quite the privileged life. 

My time as an opera "star" was for one of our fund raisers.  How and why I agreed to this is beyond me as I was quite shy, but perhaps also a good sport.  We did a piece from what I learned is a famous Taiwanese movie based on an opera.  I played the role of an unscrupulous emperor (aren't they all?) who sees a young maiden in the countryside and decides he wants to have her.  Opposed to this idea is her brother.

I remember the stage fright I felt immediately before going on, but strode confidently on stage, toes pointed out, removed the large red fan from my belt and opened it with a flourish.  And the crowd went wild.  Really.  The laughing and clapping are still in my memory.  They had to quiet down as the music was taped and just kept playing as we lip-synced our parts.  After we finished there was more laughing and clapping and we stayed on stage to have our pictures taken.

What I learned somewhat later is how accomplished in their own right many of these women were.  The woman who took me to the costumer for the outfit and taught me the movements and words? A famous local choreographer.  The woman who organized a flag-bearing official motorcade trip to local hospitals where our ambulances were in use?  The wife of the secretary to the vice-president of the country.  The woman who invited me to the bandage rolling group and who whisked me and Jordan into a clinic to see a doctor when Jordan decided he should shove several salted peanuts up his nose and couldn't get the out?  The wife of the owner of the clinic.

And Pony Hsu (so glad I wrote down her name) who was so sweet and adorable?  Her family owned the largest canned food company in Taiwan.  These were rich, powerful and accomplished women.  

I had no idea, so I was simply myself.  

You may or may not know that the U.S. does not have formal governmental ties with Taiwan - so no ambassador, because of China's One China policy and our desire not to instigate WWIII.  But we do have the American Institute in Taiwan, which opened in 1979 and is wholly owned by the U.S. Government.  When we were there, the Counsel was Mr. Dean.  I was privileged to have dinner with him and his wife - although I have no memory of why, and his wife was in the audience for my performance.  I have tremendous affection for this country and sincerely hope any war with China will be avoided.