Different Slants

Seeing the World from a New Angle

Incident in Nick’s Diner…by Robert M. Katzman

Incident At Nick’s Diner by Robert M. Katzman © June 2005

After my divorce in 1977, I would pick up my daughter at her mother’s house early everySaturday and bring her home Sunday morning. Sometimes, before I would return her to her mother’s house, she and I would stop off for a quick breakfast at Nick’s Diner, a popular local restaurant.

Nick was a very friendly Greek man from Athens. He would wave and smile at me whenever I would stop by his place.  The food was good, and cheap, and Kate, the waitress, was fast and sweet to my daughter. We liked Nick’s Diner.

One Sunday morning in 1979, when my daughter was four and I was twenty-nine, we were sitting in our usual spot in a booth near the door, when I heard a loud and obnoxious voice from across the diner.

(Read on …)

Last of the Magnificent Seven Bites the Dust!!

Filed under: Children,Jewish Themes,Katzman Biography,Katzman's Cinema Komments,Life & Death,Uncategorized — Bob at 11:36 am on Sunday, January 13, 2019

by Robert M. Katzman © January 13, 2019

Painful News Flash for South Siders and Undying lovers of the Original (and best!) Magnificent 7: That stunning deathless film which came out in 1960 when I was living near 87th and Jeffrey, and the three movie theaters were the Avalon on Stoney Island, or north of the RR tracks on 71st St, The Hamilton and the Jeffrey, has lost the last and most seductive member of its original cast:

Mexican actress Rosenda Monteros, the young woman, Petra, hiding in the forest wearing the all white pants and top costume, because her father warned her the seven American gunslingers “were brutes” and she should hide with the rest of the villages older girls, has died at the age of 86 in Mexico.

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/01/11/obituaries/08MONTEROS1/08MONTEROS1-superJumbo.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp 

(Read on …)

On Not Finding a Girl in the Wilds of Wisconsin, (or) The Widower in the Woods…by Robert M. Katzman

On Not Finding a Girl in the Wilds of Wisconsin

By Robert m. Katzman © July 2018

I wrote this on Facebook months ago and forgot about it. All 600 words of it.

Seems funnier now than when I first wrote it.  Even tho’ nothing’s changed, you might read it and smile:

So here’s my ironic and quixotic quest to find a new love using the internet since the death of my wife in May 2017.

I tried Plenty of Fish for anyone of any background, and JDate and SuperTova for Jewish girls only. I wrote very nice, friendly, romantic and honest descriptions of myself and put up current photographs.

I received a number of responses and met with two women. One was from a prosperous North Shore town and one was from Germany.

(Read on …)

My Father, Sgt. Israel Katzman on Veteran’s Day, 11/11/2018, a Century After the 1st World War Ended in 1918…by Robert M. Katzman

*
What about my Dad?
The kid who was the son of two Jewish immigrants and was named Israel?
The kid whose teachers told him when he was about to graduate grammar school that it was his last chance to “Americanize” his name on his degree, from Israel to Irving so he would “fit in” better to American society. We all know how well that idea turned out. Imagine some teacher saying that to a kid today? “Irving” remained “Izzy” to his friends, tho’.
 
Israel, nearly 30 years old, joined the US Army on St Patrick’s Day, March 17, 1942, along with 12 other Jewish guys from the old neighborhood. His younger brother Milt was already in the army as an MP, and his tour was ending when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Israel became a sergeant with the Signal Corps teaching other men how to send vital messages from the battlefields with a telegraph key. He worked under General Douglas MacArthur, whom he met only once and felt was a “pompous ass”.

(Read on …)

Bookstore Stories (1) On Turning Away Hate…by Robert M. Katzman

Filed under: Bewilderment,Friendship & Compassion,Gritty Katzman Chicago Stories,Jewish Themes,Rage!,Retail Purgatory — Bob at 10:10 am on Wednesday, November 7, 2018

Bookstore Stories (1) On Turning Away Hate

by Robert M. Katzman © November 7, 2018

In 1991, I owned a small foreign-language world-travel bookstore on the north side of Chicago in the Lakeview area, near Clark and Belmont streets. It was the center of Chicago’s gay/lesbian community, and was also and still is known as Boy’s Town. The store’s name was Le Grand Tour, and before that, Europa.

(Read on …)

My 68th Halloween. Trick, or Treat?…by Robert M. Katzman

My 68th Halloween. Trick or Treat?

by Robert M. Katzman © October 31, 2018

 

Well, of course, Trick

What did you expect?

The Trick for me is, this far gone

Is to remember what the Treats were

As life gradually unfolded

(Read on …)

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