Facing Up to Facebook

It’s political pot-shot season, so in the spirit of fairness I feel compelled to retract some of my own biting rhetoric aimed at Facebook.  Yes, Facebook is eroding the social skills of our children and perhaps us in the process.  True, there is a suspicious lack of concern for our privacy and identity.  It is forcing me (albeit with my consent and some help from the First Amendment) to stomach objectionable hate speech from a few people in my network.  Although Facebook can be smarmy in a big-brother sort of way, I confess apologetically to enjoying many of Facebook’s benefits. 

For one thing, it bridges the miles and the years.  I left my home town at the age of 17 and rarely returned, even spending my summers since sophomore year in Boston.  I tried to keep in touch with a few dear friends, but even the closest relationships suffer over time and distance.  When I was planning my wedding, it took a true act of espionage to track down my bridesmaids.  Today, cellular networks make it cheap and easy to place a call; twenty five years ago long distance bills were our single largest household expense.  And even though I love the “art of the letter” as much, if not more, than anyone, I am lucky to be able to write a few timely thank-you notes each year.  Alas, the trials of family and career preclude constant contact with more than a handful of friends.  Without Facebook, I could certainly survive without being able to share photos and foibles with elementary school classmates, but I am thankful for those who make the effort.  My life is enriched by keeping the connections and shared memories alive.

One of my favorite Facebook features is the photo album.  I am a shameless poster of photos of my kids, and I appreciate those who do the same.  What is more fulfilling than beaming over our children, laughing at the persistence of DNA and the way it expresses itself?  Many of my former classmates are becoming grandparents; I love seeing life renew itself and the happy glow it brings to the gently weathered faces of my lifelong friends.   I also live far from my own twelve nieces and nephews.  Facebook allows me to be a fly on the wall in their lives as they play football or baseball, get crowned homecoming queen, dress for the prom, and march in a graduation procession.  Of course, this is a double-edged sword.  In my college days, my parents did not have knowledge of how I spent my Saturday nights; nor could they get easy access to pictures.  It takes a lot of restraint when you can see scenes of your children doing who-knows-what with who-knows-whom at college.  I would rather sleep comfortably in my delusion, imagining them camped out in the library burning the midnight oil.

Facebook can also be practical.  On more than one occasion, a friend has reached out blindly through Facebook to ask for help (raising money for a good cause, recommending a good hotel).  For example, I keep in contact with the daughter of a close friend because she is a gifted musician whose developing career I follow closely.  She put out an appeal to her musician friends for help procuring a harp to rent in Paris.  Because I caught this on my newsfeed, I was able to put her in touch with another close friend who restores and rents harps, making him well dialed in to the manufacturers and suppliers worldwide.  He made a few suggestions and turned out to be a great resource for her.

Even more incredible was the role Facebook played in the aftermath of my father’s sudden death.  I was at the airport bound for California with my daughter for a fencing tournament when we received the sad news.  I had made prior arrangements to visit with my cousin while we were out West, but with time changes and complex logistics, I had no easy way to contact him.   I was busy pulling baggage off one flight and trying to get on another, while also trying to get my son, a college sophomore in a small town in Oregon, to Miami in time for the funeral.  (When I reached him, he had not yet gone to sleep from the night before!)   It was a crazy day.  As a sort of “hail Mary” play, I posted a status notice on Facebook and sent a message through to my cousin.   A few hours later I was on my way to the airport for the second time that day.  As we were changing planes in Atlanta, my cousin caught me on my cell to inform me that he would also be on a plane for Miami.  It turned out that we were able to spend our weekend together after all, however not in the way we had planned.   

Where Facebook is concerned, there is much to whine about.  I did not consent to Timeline, and objected to having the format thrust upon me.  However, I am starting to understand the rationale for the new design.  It is a wiser use of the screen’s real estate, simplifying the organization of activities.  I deplore the integrated apps and the way I get sucked into participation.  It bothers me that I cannot tell whether an app that I ignore is still taking liberties with my personal information by virtue of being “invited” by one of my friends.  I also hate that my tastes in reading and music, or my participation with a specific app can be broadcast widely unbeknownst to me.  No one needs to know what I am reading, and I do not wish to be a tool for advertising any features.

One thing is certain, that we are all fumbling around learning the politically correct way to interact with the big elephant in our lives.  We invited it in, and now it is here to stay.  Whatever it peculiarities and annoyances, it has made my world a bigger—and therefore—a richer, place.

That Wacky Woodpecker

Drilling.  Drilling.  My consciousness was interrupted, usurped by the repetitive sound.  As if in slow motion, I came to recognize the softness of my sheets, the hum of the fan, and the trickle of morning light.  I was asleep, or at least I had been.  More drilling, only now I discerned a rhythm to the annoying sound:  duh-duh-duh-DAH-ta, duh-duh-duh-DAH-ta.  It was a woodpecker, no doubt discovering a dried and aging sill on one of the dozens of windows in my house.  The windows are beautiful lenses with which to gaze upon the conservation land that surrounds our property, but their sashes and sills are easy marks for the relentless weather that bears down unprotected on the south face of our house.

Duh-duh-duh-DAH-ta.  Duh-duh-duh-DAH-ta.

This was no ordinary woodpecker.  It was calling to me with a familiar refrain that I had heard my entire life.

As a child, I used to love Woody Woodpecker cartoons, the Walter Lantz classic featuring a mischievous “screwball” acorn woodpecker.  His battle cry, “Heh-heh-heh-HEH-ha,” was something I loved to imitate.  My father took to whistling this sound, a feat that took me much longer to learn to replicate.

The Woody Woodpecker battle cry, which I learned recently had been performed originally by the great Mel Blanc, was a signature of my family’s.  The whistle version is so deeply embedded in my past that I cannot honestly say where I first heard it.  Perhaps the cartoon was simply a case of art imitating life?  As long as I can remember, my father used it as his personal “come hither” for family members.

My earliest memory of this was at a vast discount store in North Miami Beach called Zayre.  Zayre, which apparently was named for a Yiddish word, was a large format department chain like Target, albeit without the attempts at color and style.  I remember it as a rather basic and dull warehouse filled with rows and rows of nondescript stuff.  When we entered the store, my family would scatter instantly.  Mom would head for housewares to the right while my father loved to comb the aisles to the left for motor oil, hardware, and fishing supplies.  My brother and I would head to different ends of the toy department across the back.  The dolls abutted “dad’s side” of the store, so I would normally end up walking around with him while he tried to explain to me the finer points of motor oil viscosity.

By the time my father finished evaluating the latest in epoxies he would be ready to leave, but my mother would be nowhere in sight.  She had apparently figured out what I had yet to learn—stay as far away from my father as possible when he was in shopping mode.  Rather than look for her or call her name, this is when he would whistle, sending his shrill cadence through the store.  In no time flat, my mother arrived with her cart of necessities, picking up my brother from the toys on the way.  Once united, we then headed for the checkout lines.

Over the years, this whistle—and the obedience it engendered—became engrained in our family karma.  It’s ability to rise above the din, whether at football games, baggage claim carousels, or crowded supermarkets, proved highly effective as a round-up mechanism.   I never really gave much thought to the fact that whistling was how you called a dog—it just was what it was.  Simple and expedient.

It was no surprise that when I was old enough to marry and have a family of my own, the whistle came with me.  I was a relative newlywed when I got separated from my husband in a large department store one day.  He is impossibly tall and hard to misplace, so it frustrated me when I could not find him.  As if by instinct, the whistle escaped from my lips:  woo-hoo-hoo-HOO-hoo!  It startled me to hear the familiar sounds come out of my mouth.  Oblivious, my husband finally surfaced.  On the way home, I told him about the whistle and we had a good laugh. 

But it did not stop there.  The next week we were at the supermarket.  While I bagged up a collection of fresh produce, my husband took off toward the carbonated beverages with the cart.  When I turned around and found no cart or husband, I once again emitted the involuntary whistle.  This time, however, both spouse and wagon came rolling down the aisle on cue.  “You paged?” he asked, mocking but with his usual good humor.

Over the last thirty years, our whistle has become the signature of our little family.  Not only do my husband and I use it as non-verbal communication (he will often whistle at the ladies’ room door as he exits the men’s room, letting me know he has moved on), it is also effective at summoning the attention of kids who have turned off their ears to the sounds of their parents’ voices.   In crowded venues like airports and stadiums, a distinctive whistle is easier to recognize than thousands of people calling “Mom!”   On occasion, my husband will endure a gentle ribbing for the way he heels obediently when I whistle (rest assured, it works both ways), but why use a shout when none will do?

As much as we have made that whistle a part of our family lore, I never forget that it was my father’s whistle first—a gift, perhaps, that keeps on giving.  Out of respect, it must be delivered in tune and on key exactly as he would have executed it.  And it must always be used with a playful sort of humor, even as it performs a vital function.

As that woodpecker works to find his prize in my weather-compromised trim, I thank him for the sweet memory.  Sometimes it is important to remember the source of things we take for granted.  I might have lived the rest of my life without remembering that wacky woodpecker that I once loved so much as a tiny child, or without remembering this one among a million wacky quirks that defined my colorful father.  Both are a welcome start to my day.

Blast From The Past

Each Fall, after my kids leave for school, I take the opportunity to lighten the load around the house.  It’s not so much an effort to exorcise the demons of their childhood as much as to clean out the clutter.  To them, each piece of debris is a forgotten memory; to me, it is rubbish compromising my chi.  Not everything gets the ‘heave ho.’  I have carefully boxed up and stored report cards, artwork, and term papers as well as beanie babies, baseball caps, and an impressive collection of tiny Zamboni machines.  On the other hand, the American Girl dolls, Betty Spaghetti sets, Magic The Gathering Cards, and Funny Bones are long gone.

Today’s task uncovered a long forgotten box of rocket supplies.  Back when my son was just starting school—in those years when kids still think their parents have magic powers—my husband came across a hobby rocket section while I was picking up supplies in a craft store.  Realizing that he was now an adult and did not need parental permission or supervision, we left the store with a fuselage or two, a launch pad, and a package of engines.  Together, he and my son began assembling and decorating rockets.  I will never forget the amazement in my son’s eyes at the first launch, when the darn thing lifted off in a burst of smoke.  Soon, the two became an amusing pair of macho and macho-in-training—barely containing their excitement as they headed to the soccer field to blow things up.

I always thought it remarkable that we could trespass on school property with incendiary devices, sending the ever larger and larger rockets into the air, without causing the local police detail to put an end to it all.  Even when the occasional wind gust sent a projectile into a neighbor’s yard, they would chuckle amiably when asked for permission to retrieve the spent the tube.  For my son’s ninth birthday, we held a rocket party, walking 20 excited young boys down the street to shoot rockets into the air.  We used the extra manpower for search and rescue detail.  When all the rockets were recovered we rewarded them with cake.

Then there was the elementary school Science Fair.  We live in a town where every other house contains a Harvard or MIT professor.   There are seven Nobel Prize winners living here.  The guy who invented the Internet lives here.  My children’s friends are the offspring of notable physicists, biologists, chemists, and engineers.  It was hilarious to see 3^rd, 4^th, and 5^th graders displaying “their” projects.  Most required an understanding of more science than I had learned in my own lifetime.  It was an interesting display of the intellectual bench strength of the community—more Science Exhibition than Science Fair.

My son came home with the Science Fair permission slip and asked if he could do something with rockets.  “Absolutely,” I agreed, glad that he was trying to lever his own interests.  “What do you have in mind?”  “I was wondering if we could try to figure out how high they go,” he answered.  “OK,” I agreed, “but whatever we end up with, you will have to learn the science and how to explain it.”  He was in 3^rd grade at the time and not expected to complete this on his own.  Participation was voluntary and I was happy he had an interest, but I was determined that his project would reflect something around which a 9-year old could wrap his head.

That night we had a family meeting, laying out the equipment that we had on hand.  We discussed various approaches.  My son’s original thought was to launch different size rockets with the same engines to see how the size and shape affected distance.  It was a good idea, but the problem was in being able to measure or prove how high the rockets went.   I had my son draw a sketch of his experiment, showing how he thought he could assess height or distance.  He drew a line of rockets on their launching pads, then himself kneeling several feet away watching while the rockets soared upward.  He thought he could tell visually when each rocket reached its peak and began falling again.  It was a good approach, but very unscientific.  The human eye was not reliable enough; too much observation bias for my statistically-oriented husband.  

That’s when I saw it—there on my son’s diagram—a perfect right triangle.  When the observer stands back from the rocket observing its trajectory, it placed the rocket at the apex of a right angle.  If one could ascertain the true angle from the ground for observing the peak of the trajectory, it was mathematically possible to determine the height of the rocket using sines, cosines, and tangents.  Although the math was far beyond the comprehension of a third-grader, it was possible to build an Excel spreadsheet that allowed him to input his observations and retrieve a result.

My son, however, was infinitely more fixated on the mechanics for determining the angle accurately.  He envisioned a viewing scope (small tube) mounted on something hinged, allowing him to follow the rocket into the air.  When it hit its peak, he could freeze the viewer and measure its angle.  He drew a sketch of what he imagined in his head.  “I think we can build that!” I announced.

In the end, it required less than $10 in materials from Home Depot:  a small piece of PVC pipe, a fitting to attach the pipe, a small hinge, a few small screws, and a piece of 1x3.  At no charge, they cut the long piece of wood to our specifications.  Back home, my son got a kick out of using an electric drill and making his design come to life.  He called it the “Angled Rocket Viewer.”

The math was advanced in concept but simple to implement.  Once the Excel spreadsheet was set up, (an example of “miracle occurs here” if ever there was one,) it was an easy project for a third grader to execute.  On a Saturday morning, we took a range of rockets of different sizes to the field and set them off from a fixed spot.  My son got down in the grass and operated his viewer, carefully measuring his angles and recording them on his paper spreadsheet next to the name for each rocket.  My daughter, only 6 at the time, played the important role of watching where the rockets fell and running to retrieve them.

On Science Fair night, we were amazed at the bells and whistles going off in the school cafeteria.  There were lasers and engines (and maybe even a linear accelerator or two).  My son stood proudly in front of his poster that diagrammed his problem of how to measure the height of his rockets.  On his table he displayed an assortment of rockets.  On center stage was his “Angled Rocket Viewer.” 

The school principal approached and asked him to explain his project.  My husband and I stood back a few steps, listening to him explain how he loves to launch rockets and how he wanted to use them for his project.  He showed her how his observation of the launch created a right triangle, and how he learned that there were “special properties” of right triangles that made it easy to calculate its sides if you know the angles.  Proudly, he demonstrated his “Angled Rocket Viewer.”  She asked him if he made it and he answered, “I designed it, too.”

There were no prizes or ribbons at this Science Fair.  Who would dare to compare one parent to the next?  But at the end of the night, my son stood a little taller.  This is what I remember today as I gaze into the large plastic storage box filled with cardboard tubes and small explosives.   Smiling, I reseal the cover and stick it back in the overstuffed closet.

Visiting Coney Island

My grandfather was a simple man who enjoyed simple pleasures:  a hard day’s work, a phone call from a loved one, and a good hotdog.  After retiring for the second time from a busy dental practice in the Bronx, he settled in North Miami Beach to endure (not necessarily ‘enjoy’) his retirement.  He and my grandmother, always home owners, reluctantly bought in to a condominium development, settling into a small one-bedroom rental apartment to await the promise of a vibrant high-rise senior community where 60 was to be the new 40.  Sadly, the developers misappropriated the funds and the towers were never built; nor was my grandfather’s deposit ever returned.

Taking this as an omen, my grandparents spent decades in their “temporary” abode, rooting themselves more and more firmly as my grandfather’s brother and then his sister moved into units in the same building.  An incurable pack rat, Papa never threw anything away.  He seemed to have infinite secret compartments folded into the closets and walls of that apartment.  You had only to wish for something and he would disappear around the corner and emerge with a worn cardboard box—repurposed from drug or dental supplies—filled with old wine bottle corks, or wooden nickels, or washers of any size, or scallop-edged photos from the 1940s.  As he idled away the days organizing and consolidating his “collections,” my grandmother would dutifully produce a sandwich on a plate at high noon, placing it down at the kitchen table just as the automatic alarm in Papa’s stomach went off.  It was a well-coordinated ballet years in the making.

The only interruption to this routine was an unexpected visit from family.  During the slow summer months, I loved to walk the seven blocks from our house, down 10^th Avenue, to their apartment.   I would build up a head of heat and thirst in the hot Miami sun that was instantly discharged upon entering their apartment.  There, I found the greatest love known to mankind—two people who loved each other completely and shared that love unconditionally with family.  To them, a grandchild was an event worth celebrating, and that could only mean a trip to Coney Island.

Most people think of Coney Island as an amusement park and boardwalk in New York.  In North Miami Beach, however, Coney Island was a basic and unassuming destination for a hot dog.  Situated on the west end of town on the “main drag,” the eating establishment was a simple concrete slab surrounded by glass on three sides.  Across the back wall were a variety of food stations, much like you would find on a boardwalk.  You had to wait in different lines for grill items, shakes and drinks, and sides.  The signage was loud, screaming out specials and features as if they possessed great importance.   I could not tell you what was on the exhaustive menu at Coney Island.  We went for hotdogs, and hotdogs we got.

I cannot recall ever standing on the many lines at Coney Island.  My job was always to grab a table.  There were times when the place first opened that every table in the restaurant was filled.  Long lines at the grill station were endless as each item was made one at a time.  Papa would simply ask “How many?”  The hot dog was implied; we never improvised with a burger or a cheese-steak.  My grandmother would fetch drinks from another station.  My favorite was an orange soda, but there was a huge selection of milk shakes, malts, and even lime-rickeys and egg-creams.  A large sign behind the counter even offered “2¢ plain.”

The hotdogs were delivered in individual thin cardboard troughs, custom-sized to hug the hotdog and to contain any amount of chili, cheese, or condiments.  The fun part of Coney Island started after the delivery of the dogs.  Finally, I could relinquish my spot at the table and head to the condiment bar.  There, infinitely long spoons with thin twisted handles peeked out of bottomless vats of onions, relish, mustard and ketchup.  My favorite, however, was the sauerkraut.   I was allowed to pile on as much of the pickled delight as my little dog could carry.  By the time I reached the table, the soft, fresh bun would be soaked with the pickled juices, making it a race to consume the hotdog while its holder still maintained some of its integrity.  To this day, I still prefer my hotdogs in the style of this Coney Island—steamed and bland in a thin casing as opposed to the spicy grilled, tough dogs at Nathan’s.

For me, the guilty pleasure of Coney Island was the Gabila’s potato knishes.  There are many styles and shapes of knish in the world.  I have seen examples where the shell is made of everything from phyllo dough to puff pastry while the fillings range from mashed potatoes to kasha (buckwheat groats) to broccoli to spinach.  A Gabila potato knish, for me, is a constant rather than a variation.  It is the Platonic Form of “knish”—the ideal to which others aspire but fall short.  There is perfection in the square shape, textured like a basketball and pinched at the corners.  Inside, the potato filling is darkened, betraying the time spent caramelizing the onions for optimal flavor before pulverizing it into a smooth, dense paste.  Served on a square molded paper plate, it was important to cut the knish in half to allow the steam to escape before eating it.  A good knish is served impossibly hot, adding to the anticipation as it cools ever so slowly to an edible temperature.

Papa never said what it was about Coney Island that spoke to him, drawing him back again and again.  For certain, he preferred eating there to any fancier establishment in town.  Perhaps it was the simple food at a fair price, affording him the opportunity to treat his family on a modest budget.  But I always suspected there was something deeper—a memory, perhaps, of another time and place from his youth.  There was something about the way he closed his eyes with the first bite of his hotdog, pausing to acknowledge the pop of each topping as it hit a receptor on his tongue.  Maybe this quirky little place made him feel young again.  Maybe it was all he had left of something he cherished from the past.  Or maybe this was just the best darn hotdog he ever had.

Today, the Coney Island of North Miami Beach past is my nostalgic sweet spot.  It does not evoke its namesake; rather, it is the place to which my heart goes when I conjure the simpler times of my youth.  I can still feel the sensation of a hot summer day, sitting beneath the ceiling fans and trying to catch a wave of breeze as the blades rotated.  I remember how the hotdogs popped as I bit into them, their steaming centers cooled against the chilled sauerkraut.   I am forever blind to the unsanitary conditions of the condiment bar and the dirty tables, forever deaf to the shouts of the service personnel yelling orders among themselves.  For me, this Coney Island is a place that will be remembered always in cotton candy colors and childhood wonder.  Though long gone, it’s where I still go in my memory when I need hug from my grandfather.