Co-inky-dink

That's the silly way of saying the word "coincidence" that my older daughter Hannah and I used to have fun with. I've written about coincidences in this blog thrice before: here, here and here. And, as I discussed in the latter post, I tend not to view coincidences as being random moments of oddly connected or relevant happenstance. They are certainly inexplicable but part of their magic comes in not needing an explanation. I like to think they're a clue to some as yet unrealized eventuality. That something in the future will transpire, not necessarily beyond my own will and motivation, that will justify and bring meaning to the "coincidence."

So here I am, a writer who is trying to get an agent to represent his first novel. My progress on this front is being built on the foundation of several form letter rejection notes (and one very nice one). And there I was, last week, with my wife and two daughters away for a week, and I was missing them very much and feeling profoundly sad about my life in general. And there I was, during the time of their absence, on Martha's Vineyard for an organizational retreat, which provided much-needed collegiality, belonging, acceptance, and alcohol. And there I was, after a delicious dinner with my fellow Boardmates, with several drinks in me, walking the streets of Edgartown, and finding an interesting shop open, and entering said shop and looking around, that I found a book.

The book is called To See Every Bird on Earth: A Father, a Son, and a Lifelong Obsession, by Dan Koeppel. The cover features a collage of images of dozens of different birds. The design of the book cover is what caught my attention (indeed, that is its purpose). The title didn't particularly stir me, nor did the description on the back cover. The only thing that seemed at all relevant to me is that the bird-watcher in question was a father at a certain crossroads in his life who had two children. OK, that's sorta like me. But again, after a few drinks, it was just the cover that got me curious. And then I opened the book.

I didn't open the book very far into it. Page viii, in fact. Because it was lowercase Roman numerals, I knew it was an intro or prologue of some sort; in fact, it was the Acknowledgments, the section of a book when an author is so extraordinarily grateful at being published that he or she spills his or her guts in a thank-you fest designed to appease the Literary Gods so that this good fortune may continue and lead to the next-best thing to getting a book published: getting a second book published.

And so I open the book and you know how certain words that are familiar to you are so well known in their shape and construct that regardless of the font in which they are set, these words literally leap off the page and stab you right in the eyes? No? Well, trust me, it happens. And it happened this night in the store in Edgartown on Martha's Vineyard while my children were away and I was profoundly sad yet also pretty buzzed. And here's what I saw: my older daughter's name. I saw the words Hanna Rubin (though my daughter's first name has the palindromic spelling). And I was so shocked, I had to read the paragraph in which it appeared, which I reproduce below:

I wish I was the kind of writer who was supremely confident in his talents and instincts. But even when I haven't had faith in myself, Hanna Rubin has. There is nobody I've met who has been more supportive, more generous, and more decent to me than Hanna. ... I don't know if I've ever told her how much she means to me.

In the next paragraph, the author notes that Hanna introduced him to his agent, who also eventually served as his editor and, after she founded a small press, his publisher as well. So let's recap:

1. Hanna Rubin, almost exactly my older daughter's name
2. A writer who is not so much supremely confident in his talents and instincts
3. Hanna's supportive, generous, and decent to the writer (OK, maybe this one doesn't always fit so well)
4. Hanna brings agent and publisher into the picture

So even though this book is nonfiction and mine is a novel; even though it's about bird-watching, which to me is a major snooze; even though it's Hanna and not Hannah, I was really knocked out by this coincidence. I was missing my children so much and then suddenly one's name is staring at me. I was doubting my dream of becoming a published author, and here is one who made it. I showed the paragraph around to several of my Boardmates, and their sharing of my amazement suggested to me that I needed to buy this book. And so I did.

I haven't begun reading it yet, and I'm still not convinced I will enjoy or be much interested in it, but I'm willing to hold out the hope that this book might someday prove to be a clue into a future time when my dream comes true and my daughter, when asked what her father does for a living, can answer not as she does now ("a writer of some sort") but with that wonderful one-word description, a title as noble as any that I could ever aspire to: "author."

A Safe, Positive, Healthy Facebook Outcome

So I'm on Facebook, which is fun and highly addictive. I think I have twice as many Facebook friends as real-life friends, but it's proven to be an easy and effective way to reconnect with old classmates, colleagues, friends, and relatives.

If you're not Facebook-knowledgeable, all you need to know to get the point of this post is that in addition to people you can befriend, there are groups you can join, causes you can support, and sheep you can throw (the last one is true but irrelevant).

So if you've read my blog before, you'll know that my mother died of a neurological disorder called Lewy Body Dementia or Lewy Body Disease (conveniently LBD either way). One day, my younger sister, who also is on Facebook, came upon an LBD cause page, joined it, and alerted me to it. I also joined, and I posted my Dove Nested Towers blog post to the LBD cause page's "wall" (a posting forum).

Some time later, I received the following message in my Facebook inbox:

Dear Mr. Rubin,

Pardon this message from a complete stranger, but I was reviewing the Lewy Body causes page and read your incredibly powerful and beautiful passage about your mom. So much of your entry was applicable to our situation. And your writing is beautiful. My mother died of LBD three days before my wedding (2006). And we as a family also had to make the same sad sad choice you did guiding her toward the end of her journey with LBD. We found a wonderful hospice home in Philadelphia for those last grueling 8 days.

Anyway, thank you for your words, and I just had to tell you how much they touched me. I'm so sorry for your loss as well.

Kindest regards,
Ilana Davidson

I replied with humble gratitude and then invited her to be my Facebook friend. In so doing, I was able to access her page and I learned that she is a professional opera singer, a soprano. On her website, I further learned that she will be appearing in Boston (where I live) in March, performing Mahler's Symphony No. 2. This prompted a note from me to her:

Seeing your page now, I realize you're a professional opera singer. I come from a family of opera buffs, from my grandfather who performed in local operas, was a freelance bass-baritone in temple choirs throughout Boston, and had his own radio show at one point. Googling your website, I see you're performing here in Boston in March, doing Mahler. My mother's maiden name was Mahler, and her family came from Austria. She always thought she was related to Gustav, though she had no genealogical proof. And my singing grandfather was paternal, so no musical talent was apparent on my mother's side. Still, we like to carry on the idea that there may be a familial connection, so it's a nice coincidence that you connect with my mother on this other level, as well. I will keep an eye out for the performance; it would be fun to hear you in it.

Jason

A further coincidence is that the conductor for the March concert will be Benjamin Zander. I once interviewed him for a freelance article I wrote that was also printed in the CD booklet for a recording made of his New England Conservatory Youth Philharmonic Orchestra's tour of Chile and Buenos Aires in 1995. You can see it here.

Thus, a nice correspondence was begun with this woman, who is based in New York. She offered to try to get me tickets to the performance and we did a little Jewish Geography to see if we know any of the same people. In the meantime, I searched Facebook for any Lewy Body hits and found that the UK-based Lewy Body Society had a page. I joined it, and again posted my blog piece about my mother.

Now Ilana, being my Facebook friend, can see any update I make to my Facebook account, including any new groups or pages I join. So she saw that I joined the Lewy Body Society page and she did likewise. Some time later, I got the following message from her:

Hello Jason,

So the Lewy Body Society (the one we joined here on facebook) and I have been in touch. We are working on the possibility of me doing a benefit recital / concert for LBD. We are trying to consider venue or country (!) as they are based in the UK.

In just my preliminary thinking: All is need is a pianist of my choice and to pick a beautiful program ... But we will need to think about other details (location, as I said is one of them)

Might you be willing to be my sounding board ? Or feel like getting involved to work with me on this possibility?

I replied enthusiastically thusly:

I'm honored to be asked and would be thrilled to help out in any way. I don't know if you sussed it out from my info, but I'm a marketing copywriter, so in terms of strategy, theme, proposals, copy, etc., that's all up my alley. As far as pure event/program brainstorming, absolutely, count me in.

BTW, I know you're in NYC somewhere; we'll be visiting with my brother in law and his family in Chelsea from 12/26-30. Maybe we could discuss this over bagels?

Thanks again for offering me a seat at the table.

To which she replied:

Great news.

I actually just kind of presumed that it might be up your alley. And had a gut feeling too - and hoped even more that you might be up for helping.

And as it happens I'm very comfortable on the musical end of things and the other stuff kind of paralyzes me in event-programming-strategy-proposal fear... Perhaps it's all fate somehow. I'm really excited about this now.

I definitely should be here in NY when you guys come this way! When it suits the family schedule, I would be so happy to come down.

This concert (s) is so important for me. I want so much to contribute to their memories and to LBD. I couldn't do this alone ~ so glad you're at the table.

And so, in a few days, if all goes well, I will get to meet this soprano in person and hopefully create an event - and cement a friendship - that will have lasting impact. Certainly, there are weird things you hear about when people take social network relationships and take them offline, but this is something very positive and worthwhile...not least because it's gotten me to play more Mahler!

Mom would be thrilled.

When stars are aligned...and maligned: Andy Pratt in concert

Frequent readers of this space (i.e., me) know that I am fascinated by coincidences and try to see them not as random curiosities but as potentially Divine hints, signposts put in your way by a benevolent guide. Such a coincidence occurred last night.

As background, know that 2009 was an incredibly difficult year for me, and 2010 doesn't promise much more happiness and comfort. There are few pleasures in my life, and fewer still that I can afford. In that context, I was up late last night, searching the Internet for songs about the end of the world. A morbid subject, perhaps, but I chose it not simply because of my own personal pessimism but also because I recently learned of an opportunity to submit one-act plays about the end of the world in a competition, with the winning entry being staged by a New York City-based theatre troupe. I wanted to assemble a mix CD to serve as a soundtrack to my writing.

Some of the songs were obvious and well-known: "End of the World" by Skeeter Davis (which I own, as well as cover versions by Herman's Hermits, Julie London, Bill Frisell, and Nina Gordon), "It's the End of the World (As We Know It)" by REM, and "Until the End of the World" by U2. Others I found within my iTunes library: "My Whole World Ended (The Moment You Left Me)" by David Ruffin, "(I'll Love You) Til the End of the World" by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, "Armageddon Blues" by Gary Willis, and "The Last Days" by the Osmonds (yes, the Osmonds, want to make something out of it?).

Googling songs about the end of the world, I found a couple more: "Waiting For the End of the World" by Elvis Costello, and "End of the World Party" by Medeski, Martin and Wood. I also added Todd Rundgren's "Fade Away" and Bunny Wailer's "Armagideon". Finally, I checked a site that offers free mp3 downloads (not totally legally) and found the song "It's Not the End of the World" by one Andy Pratt.

Now, I had come across the name Andy Pratt last year. I don't recall how exactly, but somehow the name got on my radar screen and I learned he was a "one-hit wonder" from the '70s, whose one hit was called "Avenging Annie." The title didn't ring a bell but I heard a sample online and immediately went, "Oh, yeah, THAT song!" Featuring his surprising falsetto and a wicked piano part, the tune was covered by Roger Daltrey on one of his solo albums and made it on the soundtrack of the film, Velvet Goldmine. I read his entry on allmusic.com and was intrigued. Born to a well-to-do family in Boston, he went to the finest schools, including Harvard, but was drawn to a career in music. A virtuoso on several instruments, sustained success nevertheless eluded him. He apparently became enfolded in obscurity and disappeared, moving to the Netherlands and becoming a born-again Christian. And for me, that was that. Until last night.

Last night, when Andy Pratt again was put before my eyes, I was curious. The cut in question was wonderful, much more stripped down than "Avenging Annie" and that tune's follow-up album, Resolution. The voice, though, was still thoroughly compelling, and the lyrics ("It's not the end of the world/It's not the end of the sky/It's not the end of my life/It's just the end of you and I") resonated. So I went exploring. I reacquainted myself with his biography and learned that he moved back to Boston a few years ago and was apparently still active. I went on YouTube and found a number of recent performances that were wonderful. Then I went to his website and looked around. Turns out that "It's Not the End of the World" has yet to be officially released, so it was pretty amazing that I was able to find a version to download.

But the most amazing thing I saw on his website was his gig calendar. Only two shows were listed, but the first was the very next night (meaning tonight), an early show (6:30 p.m. start), and a five-minute walk from my office, with no cover charge. In other words, it couldn't have been scripted any better for someone in the immediate throes of a particular artist, who doesn't get out much because of family responsibilities, who doesn't need the hassle of parking in Boston, and who has zero money to spend. It was just too good to be true. And yet it was. For the most part.

And so this evening I went to see Andy Pratt perform. He was playing in a cozy room in a restaurant in the Back Bay. The small stage faced about 20 small tables, set up for dinner patrons. Those not eating (like me) had to stand behind the tables in a small area with the kitchen at our backs. I arrived about 20 minutes before the scheduled start time, but Pratt was already at the piano, just playing for his own pleasure. Three people were seated at the tables. Pratt was dressed casually, his unkempt hair, still '70s length but with a strip of scalp running across the middle in a sort of reverse mohawk, white and wild. He had the expression of ecstasy such as one finds in musicians who must feel the very force of their music shooting out of their fingers. He looked up at one point, saw me admiring him, and nodded and waved to me. He didn't know (yet) that I was the person he had just friended on Facebook a few hours earlier.

By the time the show started, there were nearly a dozen people at the tables. I was the only one standing. I quickly finished my Bass draft so my hands would be free to applaud. He simply started playing and I was mesmerized by his voice, the quality of his songwriting, and his nifty piano playing, with such exquisite chords and occasional fleet solo runs with his right hand. Unfortunately, his was not the only voice on display this evening. At one table, two women were chatting nonstop. As the set went on, more diners arrived and were seated at choice spots in front of the stage. Few of these diners were there for Andy Pratt, and one couple I overheard contemplated asking the hostess to seat them in the next room away from the music. For the others, Andy Pratt was little more than background music to their own incessant gabbing. I was very annoyed at this.

Some of the people were clearly there for Pratt and were capable of eating and respectfully listening at the same time, but most of the diners sitting comfortably while I stood never even looked at Pratt as they alternated stuffing their faces and talking. A few would give polite applause between numbers, but I was dismayed that this was not a proper concert experience. Any schmuck off the street who knew a few tunes could have commanded as much respect as Andy Pratt did that night. It definitely colored the show a bit for me.

When he finished his set, I went up to him and thanked him for the great show, introducing myself as one of his newest Facebook friends. He wasn't the most communicative person I've ever met, but I didn't care. The man doesn't owe me anything and he just put himself out for my benefit. I was honored to shake his hand.

I left the restaurant being even more interested in the man's music and can't wait to delve more deeply into his extensive catalogue. The term "one-hit-wonder" is typically derogatory, but that's because the emphasis is on "one-hit" instead of "wonder." Well, Andy Pratt is indeed a wonder. A supremely gifted singer, songwriter, and musician, who somehow continues to ply his trade despite the indifference of the music industry, who seems as happy to play for a couple of dozen ignorant eaters as for a hand-picked audience of aficionados, Andy Pratt is an inspired and inspiring performer. He and I share musical heroes in Brian Wilson, and like Wilson he is a survivor. At this time in my life, Andy Pratt's music and his example are very much what I need.

Coincidence? I think not.

Andy past:


Andy present:

Jim Nabors, Carl Yastrzemski, Abraham Lincoln, and Me

I am a lifelong fan of the Boston Red Sox, yet I was only four years old during their magical 1967 season, when they competed through to the seventh game of the World Series after having finished the previous season in last place. Therefore, I have no first-hand memories of the team nicknamed the Cardiac Kids, or their remarkable season, dubbed the Impossible Dream. Yet as I came of age and followed the team more closely, my hero became Carl Yastrzemski, who had the most incredible year in that most improbable season. Leading the major league in home runs, runs batted in, and batting average, he remains 43 years later the last player to win the Triple Crown.

But the crux of this story begins closer to the time of the Impossible Dream, and at its core is the song of the same name, which was the show-stopper of Man of La Mancha, the musical version of Cervantes’ Don Quixote. I suppose it makes sense to go back briefly to the very beginning. By chance, I was born on February 12, 1963 – the 154th birthday of Abraham Lincoln. My family made a rather big deal over this coincidence, as if it were a positive omen of some kind. Perhaps no relative of mine was more instrumental in drumming the connection into my psyche than my Uncle Arnold, a teacher who shared a birthday with the far less notable Millard Fillmore. He would grill me on the Gettysburg Address, asking me to correct his intentional mistakes (“Four score and 11 years ago,” “The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or subtract.”).

So, suffice to say, I quickly became, and remain to this day, a certifiable Lincoln nut. Fast forward to 1967. Shortly after the unhappy conclusion of the World Series – which the Red Sox lost to the St. Louis Cardinals (though they finally got their revenge in 2004) – on November 3, to be exact, a new episode of Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. aired. It was episode number 99 of the series, which was in its fourth season. The episode was titled “The Show Must Go On.” In it, the cast is in Washington, DC, to perform a show. Gomer (played by Jim Nabors) is supposed to sing but he develops severe stage fright and loses his voice. Sgt. Carter, naturally, loses his temper. Gomer walks distraught through the nation’s capital, eventually finding himself at the Lincoln Memorial. He enters and striking close-ups of the Lincoln statue are shown. Gomer walks to the left, where, carved into the marble wall, are the words of the Gettysburg Address. He begins to read them in a raspy voice, which gradually – magically – begins to regain its full strength and sonority. He is cured at Lincoln Lourdes! The show does indeed go on, and Gomer performs – what else? – “The Impossible Dream” (a big hit in real life for Nabors).


As I was too young to experience the 1967 Red Sox season first hand, I was also unable to experience first-run episodes of Gomer Pyle. However, I know I was still of single-digit age when I first watched the episode in re-runs. I was transfixed. Around that time, maybe later, I got an album with broadcast highlights of the Red Sox’ 1967 season. It was titled The Impossible Dream and featured an instrumental arrangement of the tune, along with a groovy little ditty about my hero’s heroics that year, called “Yaz Song.”

Thanks to photographic evidence, I know that I first visited Washington, DC in 1971, when I was eight years old. I recall clearly how I felt ascending the seemingly endless stairs leading to the temple. My heart was beating wildly. I was somewhat fearful of seeing the huge statue up close. I must have seen the episode of Gomer Pyle by then, for I was in awe of its apparent power. My father took a photograph of me looking up at the statue. My face is not seen but it is not unreasonable to assume that my mouth was fully agape. I have returned to the Memorial several times since then, most recently in 2005, when I took a photograph of my oldest daughter – then-eight, like me when I first visited DC – melodramatically recreating my pose from 34 years before.

Just about everyone who knows me well knows that I’m a Lincoln nut and that Yaz is my all-time #1 sports hero. In fact, I hope to meet Yaz next week when he does a public signing. But there are not many people who know that I have Jim Nabors on my iPod. Fewer would even care to know the reason why. I don’t mind. I know Jim Nabors is not what you might call hip. But I can’t help it. To this day, when I hear him singing that song, I truly feel like I can reach the unreachable star.

Coincidences: Lewy Body Dementia and Life

I was once the congregant of the brilliant rabbi Larry Kushner. He taught me...strike that. Not his style. He suggested I consider the possibility that there are no coincidences. That there are reasons beyond rational explanation why things happen the way they do, in terms of timing, effect, or other observable factors. He was introducing to me and to my fellow congregants the notion that God is at work. We didn't have to believe it. We just had to consider it. The interesting thing about this approach, I realize in retrospect, is that in considering the possibility it soon becomes clear that one cannot disprove it. Suddenly belief doesn't seem like such a large leap of faith, and even if doubt remains it does not preclude the possibility. Hold that thought.

Now, faithful readers of this blog (i.e., me and a colleague) will recall a few things I'm about to tie together. My mother died in 1999 after suffering 10 years with Lewy Body Dementia. A post on this blog that found its way onto a Facebook page about LBD brought me serendipitously into contact with the soprano Ilana Davidson, whose mother also died of LBD. In rushing to meet Ilana in New York City in late December, to discuss an idea of staging a benefit recital for LBD originally concocted by Ilana and a woman from an LBD charity in England, I stopped off to buy the book Life in the Balance, by Dr. Thomas Graboys, his memoir of living with Parkinson's disease and LBD. Since that time, I have been in touch via phone and email with Dr. Graboys and Kim Mitchell, executive director of the Lewy Body Dementia Association in Atlanta, whom I plan to meet in February when she comes to Boston on business. Hold these thoughts, too.

In our early correspondence, Ilana and I noted a number of coincidences, none of which I need detail now; suffice to say it involved the popular game of Jewish Geography and details of a performance she will give in Boston in March. These coincidences, despite the teachings of Rabbi Kushner, seemed to me to be little more than a fun device to build rapport and friendship between me and Ilana. Tonight, however, they seem like something quite different.

Tonight I went to see Dr. Graboys in person. He was giving a talk and a book signing at Brookline High School. Earlier this very same day, on Harvard's radio station, WHRB, they began an "orgy" of the music of composer John Zorn. The very first piece they played was "Chimeras", which features the elastic vocals of one Ilana Davidson. What are the chances? And during tonight's talk, Dr. Graboys himself spoke of coincidences, as did his wife. In spite of, or perhaps because of, their unfortunate situation, they believe they found each other for a reason (Graboys met his second wife shortly after his symptoms began to manifest themselves, though he kept his concerns about his condition private from her). The disease is teaching them both things they might not have learned had they been able to enjoy the carefree life they envisioned having together when they got married.

Seeing and hearing Dr. Graboys tonight was very powerful. It occurred to me that this was the first time I had been in the company of someone with my mother's condition since she died. The patience required to wait for the speaker's train of thought to return from derailment, the straining to hear the voice quieted by uncooperative muscles, the bent frame, the blank face, the shaking hands, all were familiar to me yet it had been so long since I had experienced them. Reading his book, written with the help of a friend, it was so easy to receive and process his thoughts; in reality, the work of getting that information on paper was a long and difficult effort. He seems healthier in the book than he is in person.

Of course, I could tell that when he called me in my office one day a couple of weeks ago. How shocked I was to answer the phone and hear, "Hi Jason, this is Tom Graboys." Not least because I was in the middle of writing an email to a local woman who runs a support group for people with LBD and their caregivers. Another coincidence?

Dr. Graboys' talk was very inspiring, and his lessons about staying engaged and being optimistic were important for many of the people in the room, most of whom had a decade or more in age on me. But it was the testimony of his wife that moved me the most. The patience and proactivity required of caregivers is an immense responsibility. I often think that my family and I failed my mother somewhat. We didn't know what to do or how to care for her; we didn't even have a proper diagnosis until near the end. But in retrospect there's more we could have done for her, to keep both her mind and her body more active. Not that it would have changed her outcome, but it may have given her a higher quality of life and a longer time to participate in it.

I remember one Mother's Day, I decided to take her out for brunch and then to a matinee movie. She'd been spending most of her time on the couch and I thought I was being a Good Son to take her out in public. We had a nice meal, bought the movie tickets, and sat down and watched the movie. Afterward, as we were walking into the lobby, my mother said she had to go to the bathroom. So I walked her to the Ladies Room and she walked in. As soon as the door closed behind her, I realized I'd made a tremendous misjudgment. What if she had trouble doing her business? What if she became confused and didn't know where she was? What if she couldn't find her way out, or remember that I was waiting for her? I tried to think what would be a reasonable amount of time to pass before I panicked and asked any stray woman in the vicinity to go in and check on her. Eventually, my mother came out. She had completed the task effectively, and I felt I had dodged a major bullet.

When it was my turn to have Dr. Graboys sign my book tonight, I said, "Hi Dr. Graboys, it's Jason Rubin." There was a pause, and I couldn't tell if he had forgotten who I was or whether he simply couldn't form the words or display an expression of realization. When finally he said, "Thank you for coming out here tonight," I felt the light had gone on again. I didn't want to trouble him further. I knew from my mother's experience that as the night wore on, her energy and competency would fade. I looked at what he wrote in my book and I recognized the small, tight handwriting so typical of people with Parkinson's.

Listening to Dr. Graboys, I know he is an incredibly intelligent, talented, and kind man. But he looks, acts, and sounds like a sick man. And that is how people see him on the street or in the supermarket. Yet he has such an amazing sense of humor and a remarkably positive outlook. He provides a glimpse of how my mother's experience could possibly have been different, just as his book gave me fresh insights into what her experience actually was.

So what does this have to do with the idea of coincidences, or more accurately the idea that there are no coincidences? I don't have that answer yet, although I have been wondering lately how it is that I am more hungry for information on LBD now than I was when my mother had it, and how I managed to get in the middle of a network of people - ranging from a New York soprano to a researcher at Drexel University to nonprofit heads in England and Atlanta to a doctor in Boston - who are seizing on an idea that was an innocent outgrowth of two people talking on Facebook. What forces brought all of us together, that out in the infinite muck of the Internet there has been this snowball effect starting with a simple post about my mother on the anniversary of her death, and now connections are building and energy is increasing and possibilities are growing.

Maybe it's God pushing us together. Maybe it's my mother. Or maybe it's just meant to be. But what is starting to really get me excited is the possibility that the spirit of an unborn soul who one day decades from now will benefit from whatever we might be able to accomplish has had the foresight to set her salvation in motion. It's not something I ever would have believed before. But you know what? I think it's worth considering.

Another book review: for Dylan fans

When I posted the book reviews from my company's website before, I had the sneaking suspicion that one was missing. So I went back and looked again and sure enough, this one was out behind the service entrance smoking a butt when I went looking to round up my reviews. Here it is.


Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña, and Richard Fariña
By David Hadju

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, various forces and influences converged to gave birth to the folk revival. Chief among them were the eastward migrations of Joan Baez with her family from California (by way of earlier stints in Staten Island and Baghdad) to the Boston area, and Bob Dylan from Minnesota to New York City. Baez was the first to become a star, but when the two found each other, it signaled the start of a whole new era in music history. As Hadju’s extremely well-researched book shows, these forces and influences were ultimately just plain human beings – astonishingly talented, to be sure, but also full of flaws, foibles, uncertainties, and contradictions. Baez thought she was ugly (in fact, Dylan and many other men were more attracted to her younger sister, Mimi, who was still living with her parents while a new youth movement raged on just beyond her reach), while Dylan and Fariña – both true visionaries – told so many lies about their early lives that no one still knows for sure who they were before they became famous. But the highlight of the book is Baez and Dylan’s unusual, brief, and intense personal relationship. It’s only when she hears his first great songs that she doesn’t consider him a buffoon. He criticizes her as being slow to sing about social and political issues, then she becomes the more vocal activist, complaining about the more personal songs that started to surface on 1964’s Another Side of Bob Dylan. The book ends in 1966 with the eerie coincidence of Fariña and Dylan’s motorcycle accidents (Fariña’s fatal) occurring just three months apart, Baez facing her waning popularity, and Mimi the always-cared-for child now left alone. Dylan was clearly prescient when, in 1965, he sang, "It’s all over now, baby blue." Jason M. Rubin

If a post enters the blogosphere and no one comments on it, does it have any impact?

Heavy question for a long holiday weekend. But it's been on my mind, since I'm still relatively new to the blogging thing and I guess maybe I still need to be convinced that there's a point to it beyond being a purely egocentric forum for whatever it is about me that I want to broadcast to the anonymous masses who come here - mostly quite accidentally - and scan the offerings.

The days when I check my blog and see a comment are extremely gratifying - and rare. I've enjoyed learning how people found my blog and what of value they found in whatever post it was that they commented on. It's endlessly fascinating how connections work in this (n)etherland. I've "met" people who share my interest in family history, who have a loved one afflicted with the same disease that claimed my mother, and who want me to pursue one of my future projects. It is in these moments that Tim Berners-Lee's vision of the World Wide Web becomes real to me - that there is something in these links and pages of user-generated content that can not only connect but potentially heal humanity.

What I wonder about it why so many people from so many countries (at least a dozen, according to my site counter) come here, look around briefly, and leave without making their mark. Maybe they took a quick scan and didn't find anything worthwhile here. I can understand that. Different strokes for different folks. I can't get too upset if someone I don't know doesn't take interest in my personal life and work. But I sense that people (other than a certain colleague who lets me know in personal, analog terms that she has read and enjoyed my posts) are actually reading the content and then clicking away for someone else's two cents. To them I say, "Hey, at least leave a calling card so I can thank you for the visit."

For a writer, particularly, feedback is a critical part of the creative process. Yes, there's a certain sense of "I need to put this on paper regardless if anyone reads it" but the obverse of this is "If no one reads what I write, why then am I writing?" A song never heard by an audience may have an intrinsic value, but the lack of extrinsic interest and acceptance renders it largely moot. It calls to mind the famous quote by Hillel: "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And when I am for myself, what am 'I'? And if not now, when?" To put it another way, if I choose to write that others may learn from and/or enjoy my writing, is there an audience willing to consume it? And should I choose to write to feed my soul rather than my family, how does that change my sense of role, of identity, both in and of myself and in the eyes of others?

And if not know, when? Well, therein lies the rub and the root of my inquiry. If you read something here and do not comment on it immediately, will you ever? And if the time to do so it now, will you do so? If not, why not? I am putting myself out here for your consumption. Will you not do the same? Is it coincidence that most of the comments I have received are from other bloggers? Who knows what lurks in the hearts of lurkers? If they don't comment, we'll never know.

The Story of the "Candy Lady"

This article appeared in the June 22, 2012, issue of The Jewish Advocate, and is reprinted here with its permission.

Newton’s ‘Candy Lady’
The children of Oak Hill Park never knew of haunted past
By Jason M. Rubin
Special to the Advocate

We called her the Candy Lady.

By “we,” I mean the kids in my Newton neighborhood of Oak Hill Park in the late ’60s. It was a wordof mouth thing: Someone told you which house to go to and what to say. In return, she would give you a handful of (unwrapped) candy; my recollection is that the standard ration included mini-marshmallows and chocolate chips.

We didn’t know her name or her story, and we didn’t care. We just wanted free candy. And that’s what we got. All we had to do was ask. I think I may have gone only a few times, when I was 6 or 7. But the memory of the Candy Lady was always a sweet one to this now 49- year-old parent, and both my daughters have heard me reminisce about the mysterious woman who treated every day like Halloween.

In the naïveté of youth, I never questioned the Candy Lady’s methods or motives. If there was a Candy Lady in my neighborhood, I suppose I felt entitled to take advantage of the service. She didn’t seem scary. She seemed like a grandmother.

In fact, my own grandparents lived in the neighborhood, and every Halloween my friends and I would make sure to stop at their house. My grandmother, though, didn’t believe in giving candy to kids; instead, she handed out Red Delicious apples. A friend of mine told me that his mother wouldn’t let him eat his apple because it was unwrapped. I told him, “It’s from my grandmother; you think she put a razor blade in it? Just eat it now. It will give us energy for the rest of the night.”

To me, the connection was clear: My grandmother wouldn’t hurt a child; why would the Candy Lady?

In any case, no one ever raised a fuss about the Candy Lady. Maybe our parents didn’t even know about her; maybe there was an unspoken code that kids wouldn’t tell grownups about her. Or maybe in those days, people (my friend’s apple-fearing mom aside) just didn’t worry as much about life’s many lurking hazards. After all, seat belts were optional; the city would send out trucks in summer to fog our neighborhoods with insecticide; and we could go wherever we wanted as long as we were home for dinner.

Bertha Stern Sharton, the Candy Lady, in Vienna in 1932, and at her home in 1967.

A question on Facebook
Over the years, the Candy Lady faded from my memory. Though I didn’t live in Newton as an adult, I would return to the old neighborhood to see family. I remember taking my daughter to the playground once and glancing over at the Candy Lady’s house. Assuming that she had passed away, I didn’t attempt to knock on the door on my daughter’s behalf. She would have to be content with swinging on the same swings her father had swung on.

Years passed, and Facebook emerged, with a page dedicated to the neighborhood, Oak Hill Park Pride. It attracted people of all ages who had called the neighborhood home. For a reunion last summer, an Oak Hill Park Reunion page was posted. I wasn’t interested in attending the party, but I was intrigued by the photographs and memories that people posted. One in particular caught my eye: “Does anyone remember the Candy Lady?”

The question sparked considerable discussion and caught the attention of someone who once lived next door to the Candy Lady. At last, I learned the Candy Lady’s name: Bertha Sharton. And I learned that before she arrived in Oak Hill Park – about as idyllic a neighborhood as can be found in the Northeast – she fled the Nazis in Austria.

My interest was piqued, and I poked around to learn more about her. I spoke with her son, a retired doctor, and received information from his daughter-in-law and from various Internet sites (Google and Ancestry.com are invaluable to the amateur genealogist). Questions I had never thought before to ask now had answers. Here is the Candy Lady’s story.

A neighbor named Adolf
Bertha Stern was born on March 16, 1898, in the Hungarian village of Vágáshuta, near the border of what is now Slovakia. When she was a child, her family moved to Vienna. Her father, a furrier, owned a store on Stumpergasse Street – the same street on which an 18-year-old aspiring artist named Adolf Hitler briefly shared a room with a musician friend. When Hitler was twice rejected by the Academy of Fine Arts at Schillerplatz, he abruptly left.

Bertha worked in the store with her father. On the fifth floor of the same building lived a blond-haired, blueeyed Jew named Felix (the family has asked that his original surname not be revealed). Felix was born just four days after Bertha. Through proximity and coincidence, they met and fell in love. On March 19, 1920, they married.

Intelligent and talented, Felix earned a doctorate in music and philosophy from the University of Vienna. He was a pianist, composer and vocal teacher, and he served as professor of music and pedagogy at his alma mater. He also taught at the Pedagogical Institute of Vienna, where for at least part of his tenure the faculty included psychologist Alfred Adler, who along with Sigmund Freud was a cofounder of the psychoanalysis movement. Felix also attended law school in Vienna, but left before graduating.

On March 27, 1925, Bertha gave birth to the couple’s only child, whom they named Eric. In 1938, two weeks before Eric turned 13 and became a bar mitzvah, Hitler annexed Austria. On Nov. 9 and 10 of that year, the Viennese Jewish community – like those elsewhere in Germany and the former Austria – was ransacked during Kristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass.” Jewish homes and businesses throughout Vienna were vandalized or destroyed, including 95 synagogues.

Felix happened to be walking through the center of the city in the midst of the carnage. Seeing his fair features, a Nazi soldier assumed he was not Jewish and urged him to go home. While his family apparently came through the pogrom unscathed, Felix could read the writing on the wall. He had already seen the darkness coming during his travels through Europe as a professor and had applied for a visa before the Nazis took over Austria. The following March, Felix, Bertha, and Eric boarded a train and left Austria for London.

“I remember the tension on the train when the border police boarded and checked everyone’s papers,” Eric recalled decades later. “Only when the train passed into Holland could people let out a breath and cheer.”

The maid and the gardener
Felix’s brother, Hermann, and his wife, Selma, lived in London, and helped them settle there. Eric spent his 14th birthday in this strange new city.

Felix, the musician and professor, could only find work as a gardener. Bertha took a job as a maid. Their positions required them to live in the homes of their employers; Eric stayed with Hermann and Selma. Only on Sundays could all three be together.

But they hardly felt safe from Hitler. By summer 1939, Britain was gearing up for war and staging evacuation drills. Bertha and Felix’s hopes to find a new haven were dashed in September, when the German invasion of Poland triggered World War II. But one charitable group was still helping a lucky few find transport out of England. Weekly, Felix visited the charity to check whether space was available on a ship. One day, he noticed a man who didn’t appear interested in emigrating, but rather in snooping into the lives of those who did. Becoming suspicious after seeing the man on other days, Felix alerted the authorities.

As a result, the man was arrested as a suspected Nazi spy. In gratitude for Felix’s help, the government guaranteed him and his family passage out of the country. Now the challenge was finding a nation that would accept them.

Once again, a relative came through: a cousin of Felix’s lived in New York City, where he was a dealer in animal skins. Felix, Bertha and Eric set sail on the SS President Harding from Southampton, England, on Nov. 15, 1939. They arrived in New York nine days later. They would be among the last passengers of the President Harding; it was bombed by German aircraft six months later and never sailed again.

In America, Felix conceived a new surname for the family: Sharton. He took part of his original last name and added the suffix “-ton” as a tribute to George Washington. The Shartons stayed with the cousin for two weeks, but decided that their opportunities were slim in the refugee-packed city. They moved to Chicago, where Felix joined the faculty of a conservatory. In 1944, he was named head of the Music Department at Whitworth College. That year, the Library of Congress recorded his sole surviving, compositional credit for a piece fittingly called, “Verlassen” (“Abandoned”). In December, the Shartons became US citizens.

Facing the Nazis
With the end of the war in 1945, the family learned the fate of their loved ones in Europe. The news that her parents and many of her siblings were killed in the Holocaust scarred Bertha for the rest of her life. Felix’s mother was believed to have died in a concentration camp (his father had died before the war). Felix was able to help bring some of the perpetrators to justice. Answering an ad for people fluent in German, he was sent to Nuremburg to interview witnesses and assist prosecutors at the war crime trials. He left in October 1945, and returned to the States the following June.

Bertha, in the meantime, had leveraged her experience as a furrier’s daughter to work as a “fur finisher” – the person who puts the lining in the fur coat and does repairs to the finished product. Though living alone, she was busy and earning an income.

Over the following 15 years, Felix took various teaching jobs, including ones in Canada and England, while Bertha remained in Chicago. In 1963, just a year or so after retiring, he died at the age of 65 following a stroke.

The Candy Lady arrives
Now widowed, Bertha was alone in Chicago. Son Eric had moved to Boston in the ’50s to do his medical residency. By the time of his father’s death, he was a physician and with his wife, Joy, raising a family in Newton’s Oak Hill Park. When they purchased their home around 1960, the neighborhood was just a decade old. It had been built for returning veterans on an undeveloped tract next to Brook Farm, the 19th century Transcendentalist community.

Eric bought his mother a ranch house in the neighborhood, at 16 Chinian Path. Not long after, her third grandson was born, as was her reputation as the Candy Lady.

Next-door neighbor, Peter Boisvert, claims to have started the phenomenon. “She was living there widowed when we moved next door in 1964,” Boisvert said. “She taught me to play chess when I was about 7. She was fairly lonely; that’s why she liked being the Candy Lady.”

He said that he, his sister and a friend would bring Bertha gifts of dandelions, daisies, and buttercups. In return, she gave them candy. No doubt, they told others of their successful transaction. As word spread, more kids would ring Bertha’s doorbell and ask for candy. Delighting in the young visitors, she never turned anyone down.

Her grandson, Rick, who was born in 1956, recalled that he and his brothers felt a bit jealous of the competition for Bertha’s attention.

“We always disliked the neighborhood kids because they disrupted our time with her when they rang her bell,” he said. “As we got older, we began to realize how much joy she got out of it and how much the kids looked forward to receiving treats from her.”

A sweet legacy
It’s not clear whether Bertha first called herself the Candy Lady or the sobriquet was bestowed by her sweet-toothed young friends, but without doubt more people knew her as the Candy Lady than as Bertha Sharton. And yet her reign as the Candy Lady probably only lasted a few years. By the 1970s, parents were more permissive, and kids were able to get candy for themselves.

Bertha continued living in Oak Hill Park into her early 90s. She spent her final years in a nearby nursing home, where she died on Aug. 16, 1999, at the age of 101. She is buried in West Roxbury, just about a mile from where she dispensed delight. Dr. Eric F. Sharton retired in 2000 after serving as chief of medical staff at Faulkner Hospital and later as medical director of the Massachusetts Peer Review Organization.

At age 87, the son of the Candy Lady still lives in Newton with his wife, Joy – though now in an apartment building where only a few children ring the bell on Halloween.