family – Retired White Coat

July 20, 2024

A Father’s Legacy: Lessons in Life and Love

As time passes, memories fade, and the essence of who we are and how we came to be becomes increasingly obscure. Recently, thoughts of my father crystallized when my dear friend of many decades paid tribute to his own father at a museum dedication. His father had been a member of the Ghost Army during World War II, a secretive unit designed to deceive the Germans with decoys and sound recordings, diverting attention from combat Allied forces. Their contributions remained classified for half a century, but were recently recognized by Congress, awarding the unit the Congressional Medal of Honor for their role in saving over 30,000 lives.

My father also served during World War II, as a traffic controller in the Army Air Force during the North African Campaign, directing air traffic against Rommel’s Nazi forces. Like many veterans, he rarely spoke of his wartime experiences.

His life was characterized by self-sacrifice. Losing his father at a young age, he supported his mother by working as a soda jerk, scooping so much chocolate ice cream that he developed a lifelong aversion to it. He left for the war as a newlywed, uncertain if he would return to his bride.

After the war, he moved our family to Queens, to a housing development for returning GIs. I grew up in an environment where friends and family were always present. My father was dedicated to us; he attended Little League games, took us on vacations in the Catskills, and celebrated our academic and sports achievements. He never resorted to physical punishment; a word or a look from him was enough to keep us in line. He spent every Friday night with his mother-in-law, content with the close-knit family gatherings.

He was a pillar of the community. When our neighbor couldn’t repay a Mafia loan, my father used his own limited funds to save him from retribution. He volunteered at the local Credit Union, and when it was on the brink of closure, he took over and saved it. Despite his limited formal education, having grown up during the Great Depression, he excelled in banking and aspired to improve his position. He treated my friends and acquaintances with fairness and shared his hard-earned wisdom on navigating life’s challenges.

For half a century, he worked at a multinational textile company. Lacking a degree, his career advancement was limited, but his work ethic, fairness, and sense of responsibility were recognized, and he managed a division separate from the main headquarters. He supervised a diverse office with respect and fairness, never uttering a disrespectful word or racial epithet.

My father was my moral compass, teaching me right from wrong through his actions. Beyond providing for us, he imparted lessons on family, duty, respecting others, and “doing the right thing.” Over three decades have passed since his death, but his lessons remain with me.

This tribute is long overdue: “Thank you, Dad. I love you.”

April 12, 2023

Digital Monopoly and Family Bliss

Picture this: a family vacation in Park City, Utah and ten feet of snow.The ski slopes were pristine, the views were breathtaking, the ski and snowboard turns were on point and on edge. The family was having a great time. But, what brought us even closer, was something unexpected: a highly competitive digital Monopoly game.

Yes, you heard that right. Monopoly! The game where players buy and sell properties, build houses and hotels, and bankrupt each other. It’s not exactly what you would call a family bonding activity, right? But it turns out capitalism can be a social glue too.

The idea of playing Monopoly came as we sat in the living room and watched the Rocky Mountain snow pile up against the silhouette of the ski lift. Siri suggested that we look into the digital version, and four clicks later, we had the Monopoly board streaming on the big screen. At first, I was skeptical. I mean, I had played Monopoly before, and I knew how intense it could get. But the group was game, and soon enough, we were all huddled around the monitor reading how to electronically roll the dice.

The game started off pretty innocently. We all picked our favorite game pieces (I went with the top hat, of course) and started buying properties. I delegated management to my younger son, a real-life mergers and acquisitions attorney, who parlayed our portfolio into a few monopolies. Adrianne, my older son’s girlfriend, snagged all the railroads and piled up big time currency as we repeatedly landed on her railroad holdings.

But things really started to heat up when my older son and his girlfriend, Adrianne, started negotiating over St. James Place. He was willing to buy it from her for $200, but she wanted to sweeten the deal. She suggested he throw in a pedicure at a spa in Miami and only then she might consider the sale of St. James Place. Introducing a real-life aspect to the game left us all in hysterics.

As the game progressed, we all became more and more invested. We started making alliances and deals in an effort to outsmart each other. The bankruptcies started to pile up and the monocled, rich Uncle Pennybags began ruthlessly deleting the accounts of the moneyless, propertyless contestants.

As the evening turned into a late night event only two players were still solvent: Adrianne declared victory based on a Fort Knox wad of cash and hotels on Boardwalk and Park Place and her real-life pedicure appointment already secured. My younger son and I were not ready to concede and we await the final report from our forensic accountant.

We all had a great time playing the game. It brought us closer together and we laughed and joked the whole time. It was a reminder that sometimes, it’s the unexpected and simple activities from days gone by that bring us together.

So, next time you’re on vacation with your family, consider breaking out the virtual Monopoly board. An old-fashioned game night might just bring you closer together. And who knows, you might even get a pedicure out of it. It worked for Adrianne.

December 30, 2022

Holidays, Families and Lionel Trains

As the holiday season approaches, my thoughts turn to memories of childhood adventures with Lionel trains. As a young boy growing up in proximity to Penn and Grand Central Stations I was fascinated by trains and the intricate and detailed world of these miniature marvels slaked my interest. My uncle, an avid collector and enthusiast who worked for the New York Subway system, had inherited a treasure trove of Lionel memorabilia. One of my favorite memories was a vintage Lionel locomotive from 1940, a rare and valuable piece that he had always coveted. The locomotive was intricately detailed and had the ability to blow smoke when using special pellets in the smokestack, adding an extra layer of realism to our adventures.

As a faux conductor and engineer, the enterprise did not alway run smoothly. As my brother was fixing a track, I couldn’t resist the temptation to engage the transformer and send the trains chugging around the tracks. However, in my excitement, I didn’t realize that my brother’s hand was still on the tracks and he was shocked by the sudden jolt of electricity. “Ow! What the hell are you doing?” he yelled, as he jumped back in pain. My penance was removal from any electrical equipment and I was delegated to the mundane task of snapping together the plastic diner and signs that lined the train route.

A nod to NASA was a rocket launching car, a special edition released in the wake of the Soviet Union’s successful launch of Sputnik. As a child, I was worried about falling behind the Soviets in the race to space, and this little train offered a glimpse into a future filled with endless possibilities

I remember grinning at a later addition to our Lionel train set – a cattle car filled with plastic cows vibrating on platform, mimicking the movement of live cattle being transported across the country. “This is going to be the best train adventure yet!” I had mused, as I placed the cows carefully in the car.

As we sounded the train whistle and the locomotive chugged around the tracks, our terrier mix dog, Domino, started barking at the cattle car and shivering with excitement. Whether it was setting up intricate tracks and scenarios, or simply watching the trains chug along, there was something timeless and special about the world of Lionel trains. And as we spent the afternoon lost in the world of these tiny locomotives, I couldn’t help but feel grateful for the memories and adventures that these beloved trains had given us.

It was moments like these that brought our whole family together, united by a shared love for these miniature marvels.

November 15, 2022

How Sweet It Is: The Rise, Fall and Resurgence of the Bakery

The events are fresh in my mind though the incident had occurred 6 decades earlier. My 6th birthday party was, by all metrics, a rousing social success. A spirited game of ‘pin the tail on the donkey’, engaging conversation about the latest “Romper Room” TV episodes and gourmet entrees of Nathan’s hot dogs gave way to a highly anticipated dessert. A platter of Hostess Twinkies were brought out and distributed by my mom to the sugar craving denizens of North Queens, N.Y. A shadowy arm crossed my plate and and as fast as you could say “Captain Kangaroo,” my Twinkie was snatched by the pig-tailed girl who hastily ran through the door with her purloined goods and back to her lair one block away. New York City penal codes, my mom explained to my inconsolable self, did not apply to minors stealing baked goods. From that moment on, I never took pastries for granted. Was there something out there that could replace that lost Twinkie?

New York City was the crucible for inspired bakeries. The 19th Germans were more interested in wars (Austro-Prussian War , Franco-Prussian War) than dessert cuisine, encouraging German bakers to bring their flour, butter, eggs and sugar to the land of opportunity across the Atlantic. The Glasers, a Bavarian family, established a bakery in Yorkville, New York City and in 1904 invented the black and white cookie. Frosting, atop a cake dough base, it became a metaphor for racial equality (Seinfeld Black and White Cookie) as well as an iconic cookie. In Stuttgart Germany, an emigre, William Entenmann relocated to Brooklyn, N.Y. and peddled baked goods starting in 1898 to the hungry borough. His children expanded the product line and produced the near perfect N.Y. Style Crumbcake, enjoyed by proletariat and luminaries such as Frank Sinatra who had the cake delivered weekly to his abode. The same year as William Entenmann was delivering his horse carriage delivered sweetness, a German couple, Catherine and George Ebinger started their version of cakes and pastries in South Brooklyn. My paternal grandmother, Celia, always had an Ebinger’s 7 layered chocolate cake prominently displayed in the kitchen.

The excellence of the bakeries in Brooklyn and Manhattan spilled out to Queens by the 1960’s. Storks, a German Bakery in Whitestone, was replete with their own version of buttery-inspired petit fours, black and whites and crumb cakes. Adventurer’s Inn, an amusement park near LaGuardia Airport, had an in house bakery that deconstructed the black and white cookie and re-engineered v. 2.0: a double-decker sandwich with a 2nd base cookie layered with thick fudge in the middle.

As my dessert satisfaction score and body mass index (BMI) rose in tandem, I felt some trepidation relocating to Los Angeles to further my education. Was this going to be baked goods hell or a hidden cookie oasis? I promptly found Canter’s Deli in L.A. and scored a West Coast black and white. Entenmann’s fortuitously expanded their crumb cake empire to the West Coast in the ‘70s and introduced the left coast to the wonders of their cookies and cakes. Ramen noodles and crumb cake; Mac and Cheese and black and whites; chef boyardee ravioli and Entenmann chocolate chip cookies: these were the student Michelin 4 star meals that resonated.

All things must pass, proclaimed George Harrison, and so did this pastry paradise. Cholesterol consciousness, living longer and the eating healthy mafia chipped away at my treasured baked goods. Ebinger’s went bankrupt, Glaser’s of Yorkville closed after a century of business and Entemann’s was sold and resold and nearly expunged all of their crumb cake production. Bakeries were shuttered and replaced by juice bars and Acacia bowl outlets. Even the venerable Twinkie was re-engineered to include synthetic compounds that had little taste resemblance to earlier Twinkie generations. A dark age of baked goods was a foot.

With a sullen demeanor, I capped off a recent lunch with apple slices and a bran muffin and set out to walk off some calories around Manhattan. Past the healthy bowl places and the passion fruit bars I went until I came across a serpentine line stretching multiple blocks down 3rd Avenue. “A new cookie store just opened” opined a prospective customer who was at least 45 minutes from being served. Crumbl, a cookie emporium based in Utah was opening up their first store in New York City. Sullen looks turned to smiles as I contemplated the possible resurgence of the New York baked goods scene. Twinkies may come and go, I mused, but the circle of spice arcs toward sweetness.

November 4, 2022

Learning From the Dead: Life Lessons of the Cemetery

A field trip to the Green-wood Cemetery, nestled between bodegas and diners in Brooklyn NY, seemed timely as my own expiration date looms closer as the aging process inexplicably marches on despite my total commitment to sunscreen and healthy eating. Just days from Halloween, the compulsion to explore an iconic burial ground beckoned and detoured me from my previously decided upon destination having been the Brooklyn Museum and Botanical Gardens. My wife and partner appeared dubious. We boarded the Q train for Brooklyn at 72nd street. We disembarked at the Green-Wood Cemetery transit station. Our journey started somewhat inauspiciously upon emerging from the SW exit. I saw signs for the transfer train lines: The D, The N and The R (DNR). Was this a deliberate attempt at macabre humor by the NY Transit Authority? My wife, a fellow physician, recognized the DNR or DO NOT RESUSCITATE acronym in full display as we entered the cemetery from the 36th St. entrance and she chuckled to herself.

Green-Wood unrolled in front of us as we entered the gates and passed the guardhouse on our left. Bucolic best describes the 478 acre land that was dotted with multiple bodies of water, fountains, trees, rolling lawns, massive gravestones and individual family mausoleums constructed with stone, glass and marble. Breathtaking! I briefly stopped at an information kiosk and learned that this South Brooklyn cemetery had been established in 1838 as a burial site for the burgeoning city in which it lies.. As an amateur student of history, I was drawn to the celebrity names of the past promised in the self-guiding map provided. For these departed individuals, the splendor of the mausoleums and monuments of their burial sites broadcast their influence and importance in their past lives.

DeWitt Clinton, 6th governor of New York and father of the Erie Canal, is buried on a green covered hill with a life-sized statue of himself standing on an oversized marble sarcophagus. He gazes over all of Brooklyn with his left hand raised as if shielding himself from the sun to better his view. Commanding!

Boss William Tweed, head of the 19th century corrupt political machine known as Tammany Hall, was prominently interred on Battle Hill, a revered site at Green-wood cemetery because it was the site of George Washington’s battle with the British at the inception of the Revolutionary War. A world class rogue and huckster, Tweed siphoned millions of dollars from construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, Central Park and the Courthouse in Downtown New York.

Among the century old London Plane trees and Dogwoods lies Samuel Morse beneath a Greco-Roman inspired monument. The inventor of the telegraph, classical painter and Morse Code originator had a near perfect record until he advocated for slavery during the Civil War.

While the glamor of the granite palaces marking the famous and infamous in death never failed to impress, I realized that the essence of humanity was to be found in the more modest gravesites. Thousands of small granite tombstones marked those who had served in the Civil War and the World Wars. Rows and rows of tombstones lined the grassy knolls as if the stones were marching in a regimented formation.

Fighting on opposite sides of the Civil War, William and Clifton Prentiss were reunited after sustaining mortal wounds in the same battle and interred together in perpetuity at Green-Wood.

Louis Abel, an electrical engineer serving in the 112th Infantry was stationed behind enemy lines in France during World War I. He writes his brother a letter 13 days before his death:

My dear Brother Eugene: 

As the war goes on and as I come out of each engagement still alive, I think often of those at home and wonder if I will ever see them again. You are all in my thoughts continually when I have time to think of other things besides the continual shellfire and fighting. My nerves have been sorely tried and many officers and men have lost out completely due to nervous strain making them useless. I sincerely hope all is well with you and yours. Love to all and may God who watches over us all bring us together again.

Lovingly your brother, Louis

Charlotte, a 17 year old girl on the verge of becoming a married woman, was accidentally killed in a carriage accident in 1844. She is interred next to her fiance who took his life in complete and utter grief over her unexpected death. Do-Hum-Me, an 18 year old Sac and Fox Nation Indian woman, was brought to the East in 1843 from her native lands in Iowa by her father to negotiate treaties with the federal government. She was hired by P.T. Barnum to perform Indian war dances in his New York theater. Without resistance to Western disease, Do-Hum-Me fell ill and died of an infectious disease. P.T. Barnum was so distraught he paid for her burial and tombstone. Two women, ill-fated for early deaths and thus virtually unknown during their lives, have become well-known and are frequently visited gravesites at Green-wood.

The sky darkens and a late October rain begins to fall. My wife and I open our umbrellas and prepare to depart the cemetery. We are headed back to the subway to return to Manhattan. We cannot help but to reflect on the beauty of the cemetery and the lessons it has taught us: it is the quiet lives of so many who are unsung in the world that reach out to us in the most unexpected places that remind us the importance and beauty of every life.

December 21, 2021

The Real Genie in Genealogy

As new grandparents, we await the wondrous moments of human development to flow into our much loved grandson. It has also awakened our curiosity of what lies ahead during his lifetime after we are a forgotten footnote of family lore. Sensing our own sense of evanescence, my wife and I embarked on the worldwide pursuit of genealogy. Who are our ancestors? What were their struggles? What can we learn about the past that we can pass on to the future members of our family?

I strolled through the American Museum of Natural History and came across the hominid tree. Australopithecus, Homo erectus, and Homo sapiens were primitive versions of modern man but broadly complex and contained too many branch points to fully understand and impossible, of course, to trace back to our grandson. Lessons of life on the Serengeti may not be helpful in our grandson’s future. Consequently, I narrowed the scope by 250,000 years by downloading MacFamily Tree 2019 and joining ancestry.com.

Standing on the shoulders of prior family tree creators, I embarked on tracing my wife’s ancestors. A few clicks and I was back eight generations and landed in the 17th century in Scotland and Ireland. Her tree was historically stocked with five Revolutionary War heroes, an indispensable aide-de-camp of George Washington, and our 11th President, James Knox Polk.

Documenting my dearly departed Ashkenazi Jewish brethren proved a more difficult challenge. I summoned wisps of memory from late relatives recalling a “Civil War soldier,” an “uncle with a battle injury,” and a “Wall Street merchant.” The documents were sparse to non-existent until I summoned the meager Eastern European geography clues left in the U.S. census forms of my ancestors. One patriarch listed his origin as Poland Russia and emigrated to New York in 1865, returned to his native land and then returned again to the US in 1875 with a wife 30 years his junior. What were the circumstances that prompted this circuitous path? What made him leave the US so quickly after his perilous journey? Unlike my wife’s clearly documented centuries of ancestor life, including details of her Presidential cousin’s kidney stones in 1812, my great grandfather’s trail turned cold. Serendipitously, he showed up in a Civil War Archive as a private in the 41st Regiment in 1865. As a replacement soldier, he received $300 so that the wealthy could be spared the injury and death that the war bestowed upon its participants. His regiment consisted of European foreigners regaled in the New York press due to their “extensive experience” in wars fought in Eastern Europe. Their return to New York City in 1865, after 70% of the regiment had perished, was snubbed by the mayor who sent a city councilman to attend the ceremony. I could understand his return to his native land and family after these events. But WHY did he return ten years later? History of Russian Poland filled in the explanation. Poland ceased to exist in 1795 and was carved up by the imperial powers of Russia, The Habsburg Monarchy (Austria) and Prussia. Numerous national uprisings against the occupying powers occurred in the 19th century. Russia was particularly brutal in suppressing the uprisings and singling out ethnic groups, especially Jews for punishment. The Pale of Settlement, enacted by Catherine the Great in 1791 and enforced by subsequent Tsars, prevented Jews from migrating eastward to Russia and limited Jewish involvement in public life. Jews were forced to serve in Russian military service for 20 years and their children were coerced to participate in exchange programs with other ethnic families so that Jewish children could be “Russified” and their Jewish heritage could be suppressed. With the assassination of the Tsar Alexander II in 1881, widespread pogroms that indiscriminately killed Jews were encouraged by the government. Fascism, while not invented in Eastern Europe, thrived in the urban and rural areas. This singled out the Jewish minority for the ills of society and excluded them from national life. Out of this maelstrom of terror and unrest came Jewish charity and unified cooperation amongst communities for survival and ultimately migration Westward.

With this background, my great-grandfather permanently emigrated to New York City. His children took jobs as clerks, shop girls, “fancy goods” peddlers and paper cutters. One young relative was employed as a “lemon squeezer” in presumptively a bar. The family took in boarders to put food on the table. My great-grandmother, known to me when I was 8 and in the throes of advanced dementia, had many years earlier extricated herself from poverty and became a nurse-midwife. Sacrifice for the family was evident when sifting through the detailed census information at the turn of the 20th century. Military records recorded service in the first and second World Wars with distinguished service and injuries incurred in battle.

Our hominid ancestors gave us upright walking, tools and reasoning. As my genealogy tree branched and diverted to other spurs, it became apparent that the accomplishments of my generation and my descendants had only been possible by the sacrifices and tribulations endured by my family. Gratitude, respect and knowing the inter-connectedness of the human condition is the take home lesson to pass on to my new grandson who begins his story before our very eyes.

November 10, 2021

Hope for My Grandson’s Future

The alarm blared at 6:00 AM wakening me from a deep slumber. An early message in retirement is never a good thing, I thought, as I brought up the message icon. Our ‘grandson to be’ had decided to arrive five weeks early. We booked our airline flights to the nation’s capitol and arrived, rumpled and tumbled by the Uber drive over the Potomac, to our hotel off the National Mall.

Too much knowledge can be a dangerous thing, we pondered, as grandparents with 70 lifetime years of pediatric and internal medicine experiences. Lung function, oxygen requirements, surfactant, feeding ability, brain development and infection risk percolated through our collective anxiety. Scientific probability tempered with prayer was the way to dispel these troubling thoughts.

He was born fully formed, loudly screaming and feisty. He entered the Neonatal ICU for warmth, feeding, oxygen and observation time for the next 10 days as we wandered around Washington, D.C. awaiting his discharge and arrival to his parents’ home.

My anxiety was heightened by the present and past of the U.S.A. A man with a train conductor’s hat sat in front of the White House blaring music and chanting, “We are on the train of destruction.” Placards in front of the Capitol declared the illegality of vaccination for union workers. We strolled to our grandson’s future home by passing the Garfield Statue (assassinated president) and Ulysses S. Grant on Horseback (Civil War with 600,000 dead). We continued on past well dressed legislative assistants (struggling to pass much needed infrastructure bills) coming out of the Richard Russell Building. I looked up Richard Russell, who was a former Senator from Georgia who defended Jim Crow and obstructed Civil Rights legislation, and wondered how his name was chosen for an entire building in Washington DC.

Our grandson was thriving, gaining weight and bonding with his parents. Relieved, we passed the time in our nation’s collective warehouse: the Smithsonian Institution. Endowed by James Smithson, a wealthy Englishman who dabbled in chemistry and mineralogy in 1820, who generously donated his inheritance to a country he never set foot in for the cause to advance science and knowledge. The Wright Brothers started their research through the museum’s scientific holdings and solved the heavier than air flight conundrum that baffled the world’s best minds. Lieutenant Commander Philip Van Horn Weems, recruited by Charles Lindbergh to perfect a better aviation navigational system led to an era of safer air travel for all. We saw the art of Saul Bellows documenting urban life in the early 20th century and appreciated the genius of the early neoclassical architects such as James Renwick, Charles Bullfinch and William Thornton who shaped our Capitol and early federal buildings.

At the Library of Congress we saw a portion of the over 800 miles of library stacks and more than 25,000,000 volumes that are available to all Americans that wish to research any topic and can participate in a plethora of summer programs for kids to introduce them to learning and research. This spectacularly beautiful building was full of historical treasures and important information. For example, we learned of the accountability of a democracy, embodied by the Presidential Recovery Act of 1978 that transfers Presidential papers to the public domain after office. This Federal Act was prompted by the willful burning of presidential records by Grover Cleveland, Millard Fillmore and numerous other Commanders-in-Chief.

Throughout our stay in DC we continued our US historical scavenger hunt: we saw the documents of Lincoln establishing agricultural/land grant colleges in the 19th century that created American engineering superiority, the bravery of Harriet Tubman guiding slaves to their freedom through the Underground Railroad and the bigger than life statue of Albert Einstein in front of the National Science Administration accompanied by his proclamation of free thought in his new country and safe harbor away from fascism.

Opportunity, American ingenuity, hard work and the limitless resources of art, science, politics and jurisprudence documented in our nation’s capitol left us truly humbled. The presence of such endless possibility that is freely bestowed upon every American Citizen— in the backdrop of our grandson’s birth— left us in awe and rendered us speechless.

Our grandson graduated from the Neonatal ICU into his home now several ounces heavier, with healthy lungs and an animated disposition. We, as grandparents, are now in the grandstand joyfully watching every moment of his wonderful life. Just knowing that opportunity and choice are around the corner as he grows and prospers in our great country brings us comfort as US citizens and hope for a brighter future for our newest patriot and family member.

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