Different Slants

Seeing the World from a New Angle

Assaulted by a Stranger with a Hammer: I Fought Back with Words (1966)

Filed under: Uncategorized — Bob at 4:56 pm on Thursday, January 19, 2023

by Robert M. Katzman © November 19, 2021

One sunny day in 1966 when I was 16, I was walking down a dirt road across the street from where I lived in a small apartment with my Father. On the other side of that road was Lake Michigan, about ten miles south of Downtown Chicago. The dirt road was behind a row of apartment buildings and served as their alley.

Then, from absolutely nowhere, there appeared a large person hiding between two garbage cans.

He was tall, wide, blonde, angry and holding a big hammer in his right hand.

(Read on …)

Seeking Forgiveness from a Dead Man, 60 Years Later

Filed under: Uncategorized — Bob at 10:48 pm on Saturday, January 7, 2023

by Robert M. Katzman © January 7, 2023

A friend, Ron Buzil, sent me and a number of our other classmates from Caldwell Grammar School at 8546 S. Cregier St on the South Side of Chicago a message that a person I once was in kindergarten with in 1955, Michael Froman, had just died at 72. What follows is a series of unexpected emotions and memories locked away I thought for good, but I guess the lock was sorta rusty. Long forgotten, I realized I had a debt to pay.

(Read on …)

Romance Embraced by Time

Filed under: Uncategorized — Bob at 6:57 am on Thursday, December 29, 2022

by Robert M. Katzman © December 27, 2022

 Tracing his finger around her ear

Gently pulling back a curl

She can feel his warm breath

He kisses her neck

She turns her face to his

And he kisses her liquid lips

(Read on …)

Flowers For The Godfather…by Robert M. Katzman © April 2002

Filed under: Uncategorized — Bob at 7:57 am on Wednesday, December 21, 2022

I saw the Pope in 1979, when he came to visit the Catholics in Chicago.

From the top of my newsstand at Randolph and Michigan, right in front of the old Chicago Library.

It was really an amazing site, looking down over the heads of at least a hundred thousand Catholics, waiting for the Pope-mobile to pass by.

Considering the terrors of my earlier life in a small Jewish community on the south side of Chicago, completely surrounded by sometimes hostile Irish Catholics, I felt totally at ease.  I might not have been the only Jew in that sea of the faithful that cold Saturday, but I sure didn’t see any others pass by my newsstand.

But there wasn’t going to be any trouble that day.  Everybody there was on their best behavior, waiting to be blessed by the Pope.  I don’t think anybody was going to take a chance on burning in Hell in Eternal Damnation by picking on the solitary Jew near their vast outdoor Mass that day, considering that their Savior had a Bar Mitzvah, too, just like me, and He might not like it.

It sure was an exciting and historic day for the city, and I was really happy to just be there and be part of it.

But I almost missed it.

Because I almost lost that fabulous newsstand.

It’s really quite a story, with my own personal savior, although, not Jesus in this case.

No…not exactly like…Jesus Christ…at all.

Still…

Maybe…I better go back to the beginning, before I bought that stand, two years earlier.

*** (Read on …)

Christmas from the Outside…Looking In…by Robert M. Katzman

Filed under: Uncategorized — Bob at 10:54 am on Tuesday, December 13, 2022

© December 13, 2022

 

I know what Christmas sounds like

So many songs

Written especially

 To bring tears

Tug your heart

Make a person feel

That magic is possible

(Read on …)

To Those Who Hate Us: A Jew’s Response

Filed under: Uncategorized — Bob at 3:02 pm on Wednesday, December 7, 2022

by Robert M. Katzman

Copyright December 1, 2022

 

We are so few

In most states

In most countries

People have never met us

Even one of us

Yet still

There are enough of us

To be despised by

Earth’s marauding savages

Relentlessly pursuing a

Lingering Biblical People

Descended from misty legends

Seemingly trapped in Time

We are the Jews

*

(Read on …)

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