The Mafia and Me

Friends.  For whatever reason this entry came to mind today.  It is one of my favorites.  Thought I'd throw it out there again for anyone who might have missed it.

                                                                                                June, 2014

Dear Friends and Family:

A few weeks ago I had the good fortune to be invited to Kansas City where long-time Beth Torah Director of education and long-time G.U.C.I. faculty member Marcia Rittmaster was retiring.  I was to be one of the speakers at the Shabbat service honoring her.  It was a great evening for a wonderful person.  There were many current and former campers as well as parents of former campers present.  I was a surprise guest so many wanted to talk to me about camp, retirement, Jewish education etc.  But what usually happens at events like this is that the time of the informal dinner buffet also becomes prime schmooze time.  I talked away the dinner and never got to the food.  (More about that in a minute).   I’m fortunate that people associate me with those positive Jewish experiences their children had at camp.  So the schmooze/camp talk flowed…and I loved it.

 

  After the formal Shabbat service, the congregation had set up an artificial campfire in the lobby.  Kids and adults sat around the “fire” while Charlene Gubitz led a song session.  In the middle I told a story.  Then more songs.  As the song session was just beginning to wind down a girl, maybe fourteen years old, came up to me to tell me how much she loved camp and that she wanted to, someday, be a counselor and help other kids love camp.  Then, with a bit of an embarrassed smile she said, “But, it’s not G.U.C.I.  I go to camp Schwayder with my cousins from Denver.”  I think she expected me to say something like…too bad you didn’t come to our camp.  I didn't.  Our conversation went like this:

Ron: “Is that a Jewish camp where Jewish kids sing Jewish songs, say Jewish prayers, and have a wonderful time with each other?”  (I knew that it was that kind of camp)

Camper:  “Yes, that’s why I love it.”

Ron:  “Well, if you can help other kids love being Jewish with their camp friends, you will be doing something great for the Jewish world.”

She looked at me for a second, I guess surprised by my comment, and then gave me a great hug.  We finished the song session together and she was gone.  I didn't even get her name.

 

So I walked out to my car after the whole shebang and realized that I was famished.  I never got to the buffet or to the Oneg food after the service.  On the way back to the hotel I spotted a small pizza place called, “Mafia Pizza.”  I loved the name and I stopped.  I half expected to see pictures of Lucky Luciano, Al Capone, or at least Marlon Brando on the walls.  But quite the contrary, greeting me at the door was a very Middle Eastern looking gentleman who shook my hand and introduced himself as the owner, Mohammed.   I kiddingly asked if Mohammed was an Italian name.  He joked back telling me that it was not, that he was from Ramle in Palestine, but that he knew a few Italians.  That started us off.  When I told him that I had been to Ramle and had lived for a few years in Jerusalem he invited me to sit and have a lemonade with him.  I ordered a cheese pizza to go and sat down.

 

Enter Mohammed’s cousin, who sits with us.  We talked about Israel (they were quite complimentary as to Israel’s’ great accomplishments in building the country and quite angry with their fellow Palestinian leaders for not following suit), Chicago, where they had lived for several years, Jerusalem, the West Bank, Green line, but all in a very friendly way (this was before they knew I was a Jew).  I took a chance when they asked what I had studied in Jerusalem and told them that I was a rabbi.  Just as we were getting into what that was all about my pizza arrived and I got up to pay and leave. 

“No.”  Mohammed said, “You can’t pay.

“Come on,” I replied, “You already treated me to a lemonade, I’m paying.”

“No!  I can’t charge you.  You’re my cousin.  We’re family.” 

He gave me hug (my second of the night) and handed me the pizza.  I was a bit stunned to find out that I was actually a family member of the Mafia…the Islamic, Kansas City branch of the family.  What could I do?  He made me an offer I couldn’t refuse…kinship.

It was an interesting trip to Kansas City last month. 

Until next time… Arivederci.  Ciao Bambinos.  And Salaam Aleykem.

Ron

Spring, Camp, Jeremy, Earl

Friends:

For you G.U.C.I. people, it is Spring again and camp is coming.  Now our son Jeremy is the Director of the place we all love so much.  Jeremy's wife Melisa is so involved in the success of G.U.C.I. as well. Earl's fern is growing and thriving in our backyard.  Can it get better than this?  I don't think so.  Well, read my blog about Michael and Steph's wedding.  That's pretty terrific too.  

Well it is Spring.  Camp's around the corner.  That brings a smile to everyone; those who will be at G.U.C.I. and those who have been there in the past.                                                                                                                            May, 2014


Dear Family and Friends:

It's Spring; when an older man's fancy turns to....well, summer camp.  I can't help it.  It's three years since I retired but camp is still in my head, heart and even my dreams.  I guess it  is understandable when you think that I spent all or part of fifty-six summers in camp; various camps.  I was a camper for ten years, a staff member and Assistant Director at Olin-Sang-Ruby in Wisconsin for ten, and Director of the Myron S. Goldman Union Camp Institute (G.U.C.I.) for thirty-six.  As I often say, "That's a lot of macaroni and cheese."

As springtime rolls around, a camp director's life-pace quickens.  It's not just the anticipation of the coming summer with all of its challenges and victories, it also has to do with getting camp ready in the narrow time frame that comes between the melting snow, the spring rains, and camp's opening day.  The pace of life starts to feel like driving the pace car at the Indy 500 (it's a pace lap, but everyone knows what is soon to follow).  I guess it is a natural part of my internal clock because, even though I'm no longer involved in the stress of it all, and the excitement of it all, I still feel it at this time of the year.

Allow me to interject at this particular juncture in time (thank you Broadway Danny Rose), that I am extremely proud of the fact that the Klotz family is still very present at G.U.C.I.  Our son Jeremy is the chair of the camp board, and our granddaughter Zoe is a regular (of course nothing is regular about her, but...) four-week camper.

But I have another springtime reminder of camp, Earl Beeler's fern.  Sounds crazy, no?  Not as crazy as a fiddler on the roof; but almost.  Earl was the long-time caretaker of Union Camp Institute and then the Myron S. Goldman Union Camp Institute (one and the same).  He worked for the camp for just under forty years.  Camp's old timers knew him as Uncle Earl.  He was certainly Uncle Earl to our kids, Jeremy and Michael.  I was fortunate to work with him for his last ten years at camp and in life.  I learned so much from Earl I'd be hard pressed to recount all the life lessons he taught me.  Stories still linger at camp about Earl's farm, now the camp's Midurah, fire circle; Earls' pigs, and his many talents.  I worked with Earl during the week and usually visited him on weekends (often with Jeremy and Michael).  There was always something interesting happening at his place.  He drove an 1954 big, old, black Buick.  He had another exactly the same parked in the barn that he used for parts.  There was nothing Earl couldn't do with motors.  He fixed Danny Gottlieb's car (temporarily) by shoving a quarter into the electrical system.  He devised a wood splitting system that ran on conveyor belts attached to the jacked-up back axle of his tractor.  He built an elaborate barbecue with rotating spit out of the old Hobart dishwasher we replaced.  I could go on and on.

One spring day Early walked me out to the side of his house where he showed me a long row of ferns.  He asked if I wanted any and I took a few home.  Juca planted them on the side of our home in Indianapolis where they grew and spread.  When we moved to Bloomington we took one with us and planted it in the back yard.  It didn't do very well.  Juca is the one with the green digits around here and she decided to move the fern to a different spot.  Now Earl's fern is back in all of its glory.  We look for it each spring.  Maybe that's one of the reasons camp is present in my mind, especially now.

I think about Earl a lot.  He was very quotable.  He'd just throw out a line that would stay with you forever. Once, walking through the woods at camp where he knew every kind of tree and how it could be used, I noted that it was too bad that one had died and fallen over.  Earl said, "Us old trees got to move over and make way for the young ones coming up."  Ain't it the truth.  Thanks Earl.

Now one last thought.  For years I spoke with families about the benefits of a session at G.U.C.I.  It's not just hype.  Camp may be the best present anyone can give a child.  If yours is not yet signed up for this summer, there may still be time.  Call G.U.C.I.'s Director, Jeremy Klotz and get your kid to camp. The number is 317-873-3361.  Look at the camp's website, it's all true.  Like the man from the Men's Warehouse says on TV, "I guarantee it."  And I know that if Uncle Earl heard your child singing in the dining hall with all the others, he'd have a great big smile on his face, toothpick sticking out of the side of his mouth.

That's the way I see it.

Ron
                                           Earl Beeler                                                   Earl's Fern

"Close Your Eyes and I'll Kiss You..."

Dear Friends and Family:

In 1964 I was a senior in High school when I sat on the floor at my cousin Judy's house and watched the Ed Sullivan Show.  I also became an instant Fab Four fan.  Below is an article written by my friend and colleague Rabbi Jon Adland.  I couldn't say it better and I'm happy to share it with you.  

Pirke Avot 1:2— Shimon the Righteous was one of the last survivors of the Great Assembly.  He used to say: On three things the world is sustained: on the Torah, on the (Temple) service, and on deeds of loving kindness.

February 7, 20147 Adar 1 5774Shabbat T’tzaveh Exodus 27:20-30:10

Dear Friends,

  “Ladies and gentlemen—The Beatles!”  On Sunday evening February 9, 1964, Ed Sullivan uttered those immortal words and my life changed.  I had actually heard “I Want to Hold Your Hand” a month or so earlier before that historic night.  I was riding in the back of my then best friend Bobby Bredhoff’s mother’s white Oldsmobile.  We got into the car, Bobby in the front seat and me in the back, and Bobby turned on the radio.  Within seconds he said, “You've got to hear this,” as the DJ announced the new hit song that was taking America by storm.  The guitar chords started to play and I was hooked on rock n roll and The Beatles.

 Unlike Pete Seeger, who I wrote about last week, The Beatles didn't push me to march or protest against the ills of the world.  Their music wasn't always easy to dance to like the Motown sound that we heard soon after.  But their sound was fresh and crisp.  The words were easy to sing.   They—John, Paul, George, and Ringo (whose names were always, and I mean always, said in that order)—were new, different, exciting, and ours.

I was just nine when I heard them in that Oldsmobile and around sixteen by the time they broke up as a group, but what a joyous ride those seven years were.  Like so many others, I anticipated the release of every new album and the ones I bought I played over and over again on my terrible record player.  Rubber Soul was released when I was 11 ½, Sgt. Pepper when I was 13, and Magical Mystery Tour when I was 13 ½.  Something was changing in the music and something was changing in me.  Their music was becoming more sophisticated and the words were touching on new themes and new ideas.  As The Beatles grew musically, I was growing right along with them.  This was rock n roll in its heyday and I loved every minute of it.  These four lads from Liverpool’s music wasn't loud (though I think our parents thought it was—but they hadn't seen anything yet, nor, evidently, had we.)  Their music was creative and complex.  It was just something else, something that doesn't happen much today.

 Only two of The Beatles are still with us today.  John Lennon was murdered and George Harrison died of cancer.  Paul McCartney is married to a Jewish woman and has accompanied her to Yom Kippur services (so we are told.)  He continues to make music and tour.  Ringo, Richard Starke, is, well, he continues to be Ringo.  He is married to Barbara Bach and is quite involved in the entertainment business.  The members of The Beatles have been in the public eye for 50 years.  For those of us who have grown up with them, they are a part of us.  Their music is our music and most of us can sort of sing along when we hear the music played by an orchestra, in an elevator, or on the radio.  It only takes a few notes of “All My Loving”, or “She Loves You”, or “Yesterday” or “Hey Jude” to get us going.  And how many of you when you turned 64 didn't think about The Beatles?

 So as you walk down memory lane thinking about the first time you heard “Well she was just seventeen” or “Last night I said these words to my gal” it is hard to believe that fifty years have passed since Ed Sullivan introduced us to The Beatles and the screams in the audience began.  Our baby boomer journeys have taken us to many places on our Long and Winding Road as we've mourned and celebrated and danced and graduated and loved.  It may have been a Magical Mystery Tour or A Hard Day’s Night as we crossed our own Abbey Road.  At times we may have asked for Help, but “in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make.”  So let me just say that when I hear the words, “Oh yeah, I’ll tell you something, I think you’ll understand, When I’ll say that something, I wanna hold your hand”, it still makes me feel like a teenager and that yesterday doesn't seem so far away.  It is easy to smile.  It was a great time to be alive.

 When you light your Shabbat candles this evening, light one for the memories that bring a smile to your face or a toe to tap or a song to sing.  Light the other candle for John and George and all those who've shared with us some of their creative genius to make our lives filled with a bit more joy, but are no longer here today.          

 Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Jon Adland

Dear Friends:

We are having a hootenanny on Feb. 9th from 4 to 5:30 at Hillel 730 East 3rd street, Bloomington, IN.  YOU ARE INVITED.  Hootenannies are informal folk song singing gatherings.  You don't need to have any experience with folk music or music at all.  We will have all of the words to all of the songs and we sing together in a group.

But, if you play an instrument (we have had banjos, guitars, violins, mandolins, drums, bass, etc at various hoots) please bring it along.  It should be great fun.  

Also, bring friends; the more the better.  We will meet upstairs at Hillel in one of the big rooms at 4 on Feb. 9th.  This is all American folk music, no religion, no preaching, one size fits all.  We will certainly honor Pete Seeger at this get-together.

SO COME.  Hope to see you then.

Ron Klotz

Nothing But Net(s)

Dear Family and Friends:

I hate February. Thank goodness it is a short one.  It’s not because of the cold, and the days are certainly gaining momentum compared to January.  But once the Super bowl is over there is nothing, really nothing... but basketball.  I must be the only non-basketball loving Hoosier in the state of Indiana.   Basketball makes me nervous.  The score changes every ten or so seconds (you really only have to watch the final two minutes of a game anyway).  Give me a good football game any day.  They call it a game of inches, but it usually takes several minutes for a team to march down the field to score.  And give me baseball, the ultimate game of strategy where, if you can stay awake in between pitches and spitting, you really see some great stuff.  Basketball is so fast you hardly have time to eat three or four hotdogs and drink a few cups of beer and you’re out of there.  It’s uncivilized.

I've found that it is impossible to escape from basketball here.  I don't go to games or even watch them on TV, but I do go occasionally to the local YMCA to walk on the track.   At the Y, the track surrounds two basketball courts so I am constantly watching those games as I walk. 

One morning I watched what must have been a vacation camp for young kids.  They were dividing up into teams with several high school age leaders.  I'm a camp person so I see things through programmatic and group dynamic eyes. That morning on one of my loops around the court I saw a small boy, maybe ten years old, leave the group crying.  He went and sat by the wall alone.  I wondered if anyone noticed that he was gone from the group.  Next loop I see one of the high school boys sitting next to him.  From the little I was able to overhear I gathered that the leader was telling the boy that he was not going to make him play, but that he was going to take care of him.  I loved that message.  I wanted to give that high-schooler a hug.  One or two loops later the ten year old is playing basketball and it is quite obvious that he has no idea how to play the game.  Last loop around the track and the Hollywood ending to the story; I see the boy take a shot and, my goodness, the ball goes through the basket.  I don't care much for the game, but that kid's smile, well, I‘d say it was worth a March of madness.  It stays with me.

Last week I find myself looping the courts once again.  This time I see a group of Asian boys playing b-ball.  It was easy to notice that one of the kids was quite a bit smaller than all the others.  He must have been a younger brother that tagged along.  But the older boys included him in the game and even occasionally passed him the ball.  That boy also was all smiles.  I watched him play on each loop of my loops around the court.  He didn't make any baskets but was happy nonetheless.  I thought, “He’s at quite a disadvantage because he's so much younger and shorter than the others.”  Later I noticed that the boy had no right hand.  He played with his left hand and the stub of his right arm.  I hardly noticed it.  The other boys paid no mind.  The kids just played. 

Maybe basketball isn't so bad after all.

Ron

What are You Doing the Rest of Your Life

Dear Friends and Family 

I’ve been thinking lately of a song I’ve always loved.  It’s called, “What are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?”  Sinatra, Streisand, Sting (what’s with all the S’s?), Bill Evans, and best of all Sarah Vaughan all recorded it and recorded it well.  You can find it on You Tube.  This is a beautiful love song.  Its chorus goes:

What are you doing the rest of your life?

The North, South, East and West of your life.

The song came back into my head, not because of its great love theme, rather because of the enormity of the concept, “the rest of your life.” In the past year or so I’ve had several conversations with Indiana University students who have come to me to declare that they have no idea what they are doing with their lives.  They personalized those lyrics to read “what am I doing the rest of MY life?’  Some talked of leaving school (“it’s all bullshit, you know”) and making Aliyah.  Others were simply lost and/or frightened by the thought of making their way in the world.  That’s usually about it for the students’ part of the conversation.  Then there is silence.  Then they look at me as if I have answers.  How to respond?

Well, I’ve thought a lot about where I was at when I was twenty-one and how much I had no idea of what I wanted or where I was headed.  And I’ve thought about my wife Juca in this regard.  How would Juca, living in Brazil, working for Ha Shomer Ha Tsa’ir (a socialist, Zionist youth movement) have responded if, at that age, someone told her she would be married to a guy from Chicago and living in Bloomington, Indiana?  I can almost hear her Brazilian accented laugh from here.

 

What I learn from these thoughts is that these students are asking themselves the wrong question.

So I respond by saying that it is unfair to ask one’s self a question that cannot be answered and then become depressed when no answer can be found.  Perhaps no one can answer the question, “what am I doing the rest of my life?” because life happens, things change, life takes you along, you just use your paddle to try and stay in the middle of the stream.  It is overwhelming to think in terms of life.  Not so overwhelming to think in terms of, “what do I want to do now?  What do I want to pursue in the next part of my life, two years of my life, five years?”  Those are the questions.  I encouraged those students to try and figure out how this semester can be the best possible, next summer, the rest of his or her time here at IU.  “First the socks and then the shoes” was a cartoon that hung in my office at camp for many years.  

  

It is interesting rubbing elbows with Jewish college students.  I’d almost forgotten how difficult it is to grow up and start out in the world.  Also interesting that as wonderful as it is here at Indiana University in 2014 (this is a great campus, great town, great spirit, great community) compared to how terrible it was for me at the University of Illinois in 1965, students still ask themselves the same questions.  So it’s not the time or place, it’s the coming of age, the growing up.  Whereas I used to think that Vietnam, Nixon, the threat of the military draft was the cause of all the stress, now I know that the stress is within us and comes with the age. 

It’s hard to tell a kid to lighten up; to not take it all so seriously; that it will work out (I can hear those words coming out of my own father’s mouth).  But I’m hopeful that I can help a college student discover what might be the appropriate question to be asking; a question that might actually present an answer.

 

Nevertheless, growing up is not easy.  The questions are tough and often the answers difficult to come by.

Ron

Frank Capra? Forgetaboutit…

Dear Family and Friends:

Christmas is a special time for everyone, even us non-Christian, Jewish types.  I like most things about Christmas except for the Capra, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” Jimmy Stewart, bells ringing for Clarence the angel stuff.  This Christmas was the best of all.

Juca and I joined about twenty other members of our synagogue, Beth Shalom in serving a Christmas dinner at the Shalom Center.  The Shalom Center is a non-denominational, non-religious (started by the Methodist church here in Bloomington.  They liked the meaning of the word Shalom, so they used it) daytime homeless shelter.  Juca and I have worked off and on in their kitchen for the past two years.  Our synagogue, as it has for many years, took over the entire food operation of the Center for the Christmas meal.   In addition to those who came to work, others prepared food at home and dropped it off.  You should have seen the turkeys, trays of stuffing, green bean casseroles, mashed potatoes, bowls of gravy, even a couple hams.  The two hundred or so people who showed up for the dinner had a great one.  Best of all, those who came to work really worked.  Our fellow congregants sliced and served and cleaned and interacted with all of the guests. 

As you might have guessed I was on the cleanup crew.  I ran the Hobart dishwasher most of the day while Rabbi Brian scrubbed pots at the next sink.  I guess you could call that Jewish holy water.  We cleaned up a storm.

But the real best of the best happened throughout the meal in the lobby of the Center.  That’s where the Newmans, husband and wife, accordion and piano player, set up their instruments.  The Newmans are in their 80’s.  They are a wonderful couple who play music all over town, usually standards and Broadway tunes.  This day it was all Christmas music (they did manage to slip a “Sunrise, Sunset” into one of their sets).  Joining the Newmans were a violinist and one of the opera professors from IU’s Jacobs School of Music.  You should have heard the music.  Traditional Christmas carols to Jingle Bells, it was beautiful.  I wandered out there at one point to see what was what.  There they were playing beautifully and the lobby, filled with folks who had finished dinner singing with them.  It really reminded me of a Frank Capra film.  Like Curly would have said, “My goose bumps got goose bumps.” What I think of as the spirit of Christmas certainly hovered over the Shalom Center last Wednesday. 

And now we are into a new year, 2014.  That’s 7 + 7 + (7-1) = 20, and 7 + 7=14.  Good thing I don’t live in Las Vegas.  Here’s hoping it’s a year filled with health and happiness for all.  No war, no poverty, no more need for a Shalom Center. “Halavai,” it should only be so. 

Ron