Different Slants

Joy’s Last Day

Joyce is gradually moving on now

To wherever we go when

That time comes for us

(Read on …)

On Sunday, March 26th, 2017 Joy and I married in a formal Jewish ceremony for the first time among very close friends and relatives from many places and who arrived there on short notice.

The place, a beautiful and very large home was offered to us to do this by a lifelong friend of Joy’s, our Rabbi demonstrated the real meaning of tzedakah and made everything we hoped to achieve that day possible and people who came there last night had in many cases never met each other before. Our friends don’t frequently meet our families, or much of them. Not this time.

The many small children there who were sometimes strangers to each other immediately became a miniature mob tearing around the big house. If you think about that, it is amazing how fast that happened. I guess you have to grow up to become hesitant about getting to know someone. Very cool, children.

Our four adult children, Lisa, David, Rachel and Sarah, worked together and constantly, without instructions or supervision to make the day be all they wanted it to be for a woman they treasure. A gift in and of itself.

If warm feelings were gold, Fort Knox would have been a nugget compared to what we felt among all of them.

(Read on …)

(Originally posted on July 21, 2008, then reposted March 10, 2017 in frustration after the 2016 election, where insanity began to rule what was once a last best refuge for people seeking a chance to live, to be happy)

To me, being an American is an idea.

A concept.

An agreement of equals.

A willingness to tolerate the differences in others.

A celebration of the beauty of cultural diversity.

While maybe originally, ours was a government,

“Of the Protestants, By the Protestants and For the Protestants”

We’re bigger than that today.  A numerically insignificant People like my own family, Jews, now represent less than 2% of the total American population, but I believe that our Constitution includes me when I read it.  I don’t live in fear, here.

Soon, there will be more Moslems in America than Jews, but I don’t care.  They came here to escape the same killing chaos that brought my family here, as well as looking for a new start and a fair chance to become successful.  I welcome them.  Besides, when the hating is missing, they may remember that we’re linguistic cousins who speak two versions of the same Semitic language, as do the Assyrians, who are Christian Arabs.

(Read on …)

by Robert M. Katzman / Copyright July 31, 2016

Forward

Written under a hot July sun while sitting alone on a bench in Chicago’s Hyde Park landmark, The Point, a rocky stepped-stone park projecting into Lake Michigan. A long favorite place for swimmers, sunbathers and photographers located about two miles east of the world famous (and still standing) University of Chicago (1890-  ), and also about one mile east of the once slightly famous (and now non-existent) Bob’s Newsstand (1965-1985).

I was there waiting to meet an unknown number of much younger people who might possibly recognize a much older me as the guy who sold them lots of candy, and who might assume I still remember them as my customers when they were fourteen and went to Kenwood High School across the street from my first wooden and later brick newsstand, over thirty years ago. Both situations seemed unlikely and as a result encouraged me to finally write down the following poem I’d been carrying around in my head and heart for months.

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(Written Wednesday, May 19, 2016) 

6 am

Another day.

Still here.

My lower back is frozen. I stretch my knees to my chest for a while. Body still works if I do what it requires to please it. You grow older, things fall apart.

More than just the sixty miles, returning to Illinois is more like: Out of the woods and into the town, than anything else.

I’m meeting with a man this morning who has invited me to read my poetry or stories to his Jewish Authors Club. Maybe fifty people will be there after he sends out his notice of my coming appearance. Maybe one hundred fifty.

The event is staged inside of a restaurant. Dishes will clink against each other as lunch is served, but that’s the situation such a setting offers. I can bring copies of my five books with me if I wish to do that. Perhaps I’ll sell some of them.

But don’t get my hopes up about selling many of them. I mean, who am I?

Famous?

No.

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By Robert M. Katzman April 23, 2016

Retiring from owning a store

What is that?

Time now indivisible?

Never late and no closing early

No more seeking to please

No more checking the clock

No more damning bad days

Regimentation?

Disintegration

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