by Robert M. Katzman © March 31, 2019
Baby, what’s wrong?
I wanna go out
I know, your coat is on and everything
But the rain is so cold
So, want some hot cocoa?
No! I wanna go out…
What would you do…outside?
I’d run around
I‘d watch the ants
I‘d try at climb that big tree
One day, when I‘m bigger…
What else?
by Robert M. Katzman ©March 21, 2019
A nice person I know, Jewish like me, posted a reflection that America may not be ready to elect a gay person to be president.
The basic idea expressed was that South Bend, Indiana’s Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s time was not “now” no matter how qualified he may be. I am not neutral and admire him, so I wrote this:
(I know others may not agree with me, but speaking up is why people came here in the first place. You are legally entitled NOT to agree with me in America or anyone else, but in a civilized way)
This country wasn’t “ready” for the revolution in 1776, either, and a third of the colonists were against it. Many fled to Canada. I know that long before that date, the Native Americans weren’t ready for the English.
(Read on …)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 …)by Robert M. Katzman © December 20, 2018
Fifty years ago, on December 20th, 1968, early in the morning when I was 18, I had cancer surgery on the left side of my face at St. Francis Hospital in Evanston, Illinois. I was unaware of what my prospects were and what my surgeon, Dr. Danely Slaughter, had in mind to do.
I awoke in the Intensive Care Unit, or the ICU, to discover that my head was bandaged like a soccer ball. When Dr. Slaughter came to visit me and explain why they removed my left jaw, he said he was 95% certain that they had caught all the cancer cells. Being me, I asked, very slowly, why not 100%? The doctor gruffly replied, “I think 95% is close enough”.
My father Israel was selling life insurance then, but told me, through his tears, that I would remain uninsurable for five years. To the insurance companies, he said, I was a bad risk, fifty years ago.
Two years later, in April 1970, Dr. Slaughter died of heart disease at the age of 58. I was 20 then, but turned 58 a decade ago. I think about him. Often.
(Read on …)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.
1964: A Runaway’s Renaissance
by Robert M. Katzman © September 9, 2018
Fifty-four years ago on June 8th, 1964 I ran away from a dangerous violently abusive home. I was fourteen and two weeks away from graduating Caldwell grammar school on the South Side, about a dozen miles south of State and Madison, Chicago’s Downtown.
My story is filled with Ghosts, but it is worth writing down, if only to soothe the Ghosts’ anxiety.
After all, aren’t I part of a world-wide Tribe so often called: The People of The Book?
Who am I to resist that Celestial Design?
It is now long past “What will become of this wild child?”
Now near seventy, I must write, “This is what really happened.”