Different Slants

Robert M. Katzman’s Amazing Story: www.differentslants.com/?p=355

© October 27, 2014

Why support small Brick-and Mortar stores? Why bother? Some old man or woman selling a limited selection of whatever they sell or create. Walmart, Target, E-bay, Starbucks are infinitely more accessible, have mountains of things to sell and are coast to coast enterprises. You see one, you’ve seen them all.

Then why travel? Why visit little villages with unique pottery or cool coffee shops? Why go anywhere or meet anyone with the passion to create an imaginative, determined and one of a kind store? The odds of success are irrational. Some shopper can usually buy anything the small stores try to sell for so much less online. Brick-and Mortar shops?? Why not kill ’em all and just stay home in bed punching buttons and have stuff brought right to your door? That’s the life we all want, isn’t it?

(Read on …)

Robert M. Katzman’s Amazing Story:  www.differentslants.com/?p=355

I originally wrote this poem on Friday, April 13, 2007, after interviewing Mike Hecht, the 88-year-old man who wrote the forward to my first book. He was the cantor on Yom Kippur (Jewish Day of Repentance) in my temple for forty years, the now sadly extinct B’nai Torah in Highland Park. His job, an honor in Judaism, was to blow the shofar, or ram’s horn to announce the beginning of a new year, every Rosh Hashanah, usually occurring in the fall.  Mike died May 16, 2009, a week after his 90th birthday. I saw him the day before, May 9th, and gave him a birthday card featuring Yoda from Star Wars on the cover with the movie’s theme music playing when he opened the card.  He laughed, as he lay on his bed, and then asked me as I turned to leave him, “But Bob, who is Yoda?” Surprised at the question I paused, thought about how to explain the connection and then said, simply: “Mike, he’s you. Yoda is you.”

That was the last time we spoke.

This is the link to my eulogy for him. I miss him still. http://www.differentslants.com/?p=701

I noticed there was a line in the last part of my description of Mike that seemed to vibrate. I thought about what it meant, what I really was trying to express and that line became the title of the poem. I realized it was a protest against the 2nd Iraq war began by then President Bush and VP Cheney, after false clams that there were weapons of mass destruction there. Years later, Iraq is now disintegrating into three parts.  A new war is now raging there, and the future of the area is unknown.

I also added this part (in 2007) for people to think about:

Today, beginning last night, is Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day. Take a moment to think about it. Whether you are observant or not, whether you think about Judaism less than a minute a year, would have made no difference to Hitler. Who your grandparents or great-grandparents were, would be enough reason for the Nazis to kill you.

I think about that, and wonder what I would have done, if I were trapped in a situation like that, today.
What would you do today, if you knew then, what you know now?  Maybe the poem will motivate you to action. I hope so.

Robert M. Katzman

(Read on …)

Robert M. Katzman’s Amazing Story: www.differentslants.com/?p=355

© October 11, 2014

She called me her Eagle. I called her my Swan.

We collected many of those ceramic birds at yard sales and flea markets, over the years. Now they have all flown away, somewhere. We remaining two old birds have shed so much besides feathers. All the chicks are also gone. Feeling weightless is so freeing, but we now seek a smaller nest.

Our exploration of the possible has gradually taught us about seeing life, land, rivers, shores, some buildings abandoned and some buildings preserved. And how we learned to perceive people differently, as well.

Not so surprising to us, but nevertheless causing a stark loneliness was a confirmation of our assumption that in so many small places with red-painted farms, “The People of the Book” have run out of pages. (Read on …)