Different Slants

Ed and Margery Bernstein Weren’t Too Busy to Care

By Robert M. Katzman © 3/23/23

 I knew different members of the Bernstein family: Ed, Margery, Amy and Hal, when I was operating Bob’s Newsstand during the ‘60’s and 70’s. Mostly Ed, though, who taught Social Studies at the University of Chicago Lab School where I was a student between 1964 to ’68. I wasn’t in his classes.

When I contacted Amy to help with my memory, now that I’m older than many trees, she told me that her younger brother Hal worked at the newsstand for a while when he was in grammar school. She did not. I remember her mother Margery clearly for one particular moment, but it mattered, in 1970. Mostly, I remember Ed.

(Read on …)

by Robert M. Katzman ©  March 5, 2023

Many years ago, I hired this older disabled man, Albert, to work in my Morton Grove, Ill old magazine store. He had the gentle manner and a kind of childish delight in ordinary things. My customers seemed to enjoy talking with him, which he would readily do, sometimes for too long, forgetting the other work he was supposed to do. He never matured emotionally beyond pre-adolescent, but he had a precise way of doing things. Very focused and silent when engaged.

(Read on …)