New York and New Year

It's New Year's Eve and we are back from more than a week in New York City. We stayed with Joe's stepmother, Naomi. A friend of hers recruited Joe to officiate at the wedding of a couple from Liverpool on December 29, and Naomi said we could stay with her. But Joe's brother Henry, a Cajun musician in Louisiana, had booked a concert at a hipster club on the Lower East Side with his New York-based jug band, Washboard Jungle, for the twenty-first, so we decided to extend the vacation.

We were both busy the evening of the twentieth, Joe with a temple board meeting, and I with a Morgantown City Council meeting where they were to discuss banning guns in municipal buildings. I am in favor of restrictions on guns.

So we were late getting out and late getting to Henry's concert. Henry also stayed with Naomi until Christmas day, when their sister Martha came from Memphis with a friend, then he stayed with their half-brother, Naomi's son, the famous Zack Hample.

It's too bad we are not rich. We could easily be bicoastal jetsetters. I am most comfortable in New York and Washington, San Francisco and Los Angeles. We have friends and family members who can put us up in all of those cities, so we are able to visit.

In New York, we spent an afternoon in Macy's, like the "hicks from the sticks" we really are. We visited the train exhibit at the New York Botanical Garden in The Bronx. I wanted to go there because I read about it in New Yorker, and I love model trains, and because The Bronx is the county in New York State where the President-elect got the lowest percentage of votes. I can tell you which county that would be in every state.

In addition to Joe's family, we saw cousins from my mother's family, and one more distant cousin from my father's side. I met him through Jewish Genealogy. I love them, but we don't get together often.

I started to understand how people in West Virginia feel about being "eleventh generation West Virginians." I hear that all the time here, and, as someone without West Virginia connections, I'm a bit offended by it. Yet my ties to New York, although I never actually lived there, are strong. My parents grew up in The Bronx and the club where Henry's band played is two streets over from where my maternal grandfather lived at thirteen, as recorded in the 1910 census.

My relatives in New York expressed concern for us being in Morgantown, as some people here worried about us being in New York, which feels safer to me than West Virginia. Naomi Hample lives in an apartment building with a doorman. It would be hard for someone to get to her at home; we live in a house on a public street. My relatives thought we should live in New York, if  Joe could get a pulpit there. It's tempting, but we own a home in Morgantown, and have a cat who likes to be out on our lawn. Most importantly, we have meaningful work here. Joe is the mayven of liberal Judaism in this part of the world, and I am working with other progressives to change the political culture here. Our life is now in Morgantown, and I don't see that changing soon.

This year I noted that the street food in New York is more likely to be Halal than kosher, the cab drivers all had Arabic names, the people working at a luncheonette where we ate one afternoon were all from Bangladesh. Yet, on the Upper West Side, where we stayed, each apartment building had a Hanukkiah as well as a Christmas tree in the lobby, and Jews are an accepted part of the scene.

The wedding Thursday night was lovely. The groom is sixty-four, the bride, sixty. There were fewer than fifty people there, mostly relatives and some friends from England. I loved hearing about being Jewish in Liverpool, and they talked about how the city has grown and changed since the days of John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

Manhattan has changed too. While some things seem timeless, others change rapidly. When I see immigrants there, wherever they are from, I think about my father's parents and my mother's grandparents, who came to New York as immigrants in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I feel a kinship with them, rather than a fear.

And here's piece for the end of the year that I wrote on December 15 at my writing group at Osher Life-Long Learning  at WVU.




I'm at Life-Long Learning, where a group of us elders spend two hours Thursday morning on our writing projects. I thought I would spend a half-hour reviewing my year on Facebook, then write for an hour about what happened this year. Instead, I spent an hour on Facebook looking at posts from last January and February.

Many people have said 2016 was the worst year on record. That typically refers to the presidential election this year, which left people like me (gay, Jewish, urban, educated) appalled by what has happened, distrustful of our own neighbors, especially here in West Virginia, where a higher percentage of the population voted Republican than in any other state.

But for me, personally, the year has been a great one. Against the advice of everyone I asked, and with the help of only a campaign treasurer, I ran for state delegate in Morgantown. I lost, which I expected, but I did better than anyone expected, made lots of friends, and a point, about how people need to be treated.

In the midst of the campaign, Joe asked me to go to Israel with him to the conference of Reform rabbis. I didn't know if I had the strength to do it, and things have not been going the way I would like in Israel, politically. What I found in Israel was  that the people are friendly and welcoming, even many of the Arabs. There are leftists who fear their militaristic government, just as we do here. I saw some long-time friends, and since I was not technically registered for the conference, I had time off to rest up if I needed to.

Joe turned sixty in August, and in lieu of a party, I suggested we visit San Francisco and Los Angeles. We missed some of our friends, who were away when we were there, but we saw many of our peeps in both cities. Part of me wished we could be back there, where we are not freaks like we are here, but a part of the social structure of those cities. We stayed with friends in Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco, and a few blocks south of Beverly Hills in Los Angeles. In L.A. we stayed where Jews are an overwhelming majority- almost like being in Israel. Still, another part of me felt we got out just in time, before the cities were overrun by zillionaires whose agenda is not the same as ours, and where we could not compete even if we wanted to.

We were in Memphis for Thanksgiving with Joe's family, still in shock from the election. We attended an interfaith meeting, where Jews, Christians and Muslims came together to pledge to fight hate. There was gorgeous gospel music, in the Memphis tradition, and the invocation of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who spoke, just before he was murdered, at the church where we met, now used as a community center.

Travel was theme for us both this year. I'm leaving Saturday for my twelfth county of the year within three hundred miles of here. Some of the places I visited this year went so heavily Republican in the election that news crews went out to interview people about their views. In some of these declining counties, people are frustrated by cuts in jobs, especially in coal country. Here in Morgantown, where the economy is more vibrant than in most of Coal Country, young people still don't stay here after college. I tried, in my campaign, to change the culture here, make it more accepting.

Joe and I both taught at Life-Long Learning this year. Joe had two classes on Jewish themes, booked solid. I taught about the popular music of 1960, 1961 and 1962. Our classes were wildly popular, and I learned a lot from my research. I'm a bigger fan of Elvis, Brenda Lee, Patsy Cline and Judy Garland than I was before.

In our congregation, we lost five young families. The reason given was that the young college professors were offered better, higher-paying positions, but in two cases, sons of the families were harassed at school, one for being half-Asian, and one for being openly gay. Those two families had lived in California and went back there.

We'll be in New York at the end of the year. where Joe is doing a wedding, and his brother is having a CD-release party. Since the election, we have both been happy to be away in bigger cities, with family and friends.

Morgantown seems less friendly than before, although we have friends beyond the congregation after nearly four and a half years here.

My goals for next year include keeping on with the same things, being politically active, trying to block almost everything the Republicans in the US and state governments here try to do, and making the Democrats a better party.

I hesitate to make my perennial resolutions: to lose twenty pounds, organize the junk in the house and finish my novel.

I wish everyone reading this a healthy and happy 2017.


All the pics are from New York between December 21 and December 29. Apple Photos has changed, and now I can't get my photos onto the blog. These were all from my phone or taken by others and downloaded on my computer as documents.

At Macy's window

Selfie with Joe, Henry and Zack Hample

New York Botanical Gardens Model Train Exhibit

The Empire State Building, lit up for the holidays

Lighting candles for Chanukkah

With many of my cousins from my mother's family December 24

With my cousin Georgeann

At the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village

The four Hample siblings

The view just before sunset from the wedding venue at 5th Ave. and 14th St., looking east

Concert at Naomi's apartment with Henry and members of Washboard Jungle. That's Naomi on Henry's left

Campbell County, Kentucky

My next county to visit was Campbell County, across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, Ohio. It's a lot like Camden, New Jersey, across the Delaware from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Philadelphia is bigger than Cincinnati, and the Ohio River is not as wide as the tidal Delaware at Philadelphia. Newport is one of the two county seats in Campbell County, and is on the river. 

December is a hard time to travel. The days are short; the weather is iffy. We also were just back from a week in Memphis at the end of November and are off again, this time to New York, on December 21. 

I picked Saturday, the tenth, and Monday the twelfth to travel, and Sunday to explore. This was my first trip to a Republican county since the election, and although I considered not visiting counties that voted that way, I decided to go with my original idea, which was to see everyplace, good and bad.

Like driving to Camden, unless one wants to take a whole lot of time, the distance is more than three hundred miles, my limit. Camden is mostly east and a little bit north; Newport is mostly west and a little bit south. 

I stayed with my usual chain, in a building on the river. It looks like that whole area may be a redeveloped industrial area, with a shopping center and movie complex, the motel and new loft apartment buildings. One can easily walk across a pedestrian bridge into downtown Cincinnati from there, although it is a bit cut off from the center of Newport.

I traveled north from Morgantown to Washington, Pennsylvania, then west to Wheeling and Columbus and southwest to Cincinnati. It was dark and snowing to Columbus, then sunny and clearer, but cold from there. On the way back, I headed east from Cincinnati to Athens, Parkersburg and Clarksburg, then north to Morgantown. The weather was better going back.

From past experience, I knew there was a good Chinese buffet in Zanesville and Union Street Diner in Athens, and I stopped at the buffet on the way in and the diner on the way back. 

There are sixty places on The National Register in Campbell County. I reluctantly decided to visit only a random ten of them, but as I had time Sunday, I walked around in the late afternoon in Newport. It was about 25 F. in the morning, then warmed up, with some drizzle, to about 40.

Saturday night, I walked to a chain diner, not far from the hotel. It was cheap, but not especially good food. I asked the waitress if the string beans had bacon in them, and she verified that they did. I learned to ask from traveling in the south. It was still early, so I walked through town a bit before heading back to plan Sunday's jaunt.

The view of the Cincinnati skyline from my room

Holiday lights on a street in Newport, Saturday night.

East Newport Historic District

York St Historic District, Newport

mid-century bank building, Monmouth St, Newport

new housing, central Newport, looking old

former library building Monmouth Avenue

Marianne Theater, Bellevue, east of Newport

Dayton School, Dayton, now apartments

Newport-On-The -Levee shopping district

Northern Kentucky University, Highland Heights

There was probably a mistake in directions for the first historic place I tried to find, but I found this interesting modern house instead  near Alexandria

Camp Springs was a nineteenth century German settlement. This is Blau's Four-Mile House

Kort Grocery, Camp Springs, 1880

County Courthouse, Alexandria, now a museum. There were attempts to move the county seat to Alexandria, closer to the central part of the county. Both Alexandria and Newport are listed as county seats

St. John The Baptist Catholic Church, Wilder, 19th century

Sauser Farm House, near Alexandria

Homes at Ft. Thomas, a military installation from 1890. Each house is now privately owned

The Walking Bridge, connecting Newport and Cincinnati

New "loft-style" apartments on the Ohio river in Newport

Newport to Cincinnati highway bridge, from the Walking Bridge

Campbell County Courthouse, Newport

Colonel James Taylor Mansion, Newport

Mansion Historic District, Newport

Historic Homes in Newport

I can't explain the Israeli flag on this house

Sunday after breakfast, I drove to Northern Kentucky University, a 1968 addition to the state's university system, in Highland Heights, south of Newport. It was cold and cloudy out. As the day went on, it got warmer and darker. Like Camden County, Campbell is narrow and extends south into the countryside. I visited Camp Springs, a 19th century German settlement, then detoured south to Alexandria, a quaint little town, with a southern-style courthouse, now a museum. I found a German Catholic church in Wilder, now in the suburbs, and a farm near Alexandria.

By lunchtime, I was in hilly, pretty Ft. Thomas, more populous than Newport. The 1890 fort has been sold off, and I found an officer's house for sale for just under four hundred thousand dollars. I stopped for lunch at a sports bar, where I had a chicken sandwich with marinara sauce and cheese, and peppery french fries. It was forty and drizzling out. People at the bar were watching the Cincinnati Bengals play the Cleveland Browns, who have apparently not won a game in years.We could see snow accumulating on the players' helmets, as it was 20 F. in Cleveland.

Back in Newport by around 2 P.M., I decided to walk around the city to find more historic places.By 4, cold and wet, I returned to the motel for a nap.

At the movies on the levee, a few blocks from where I stayed, they were showing a Bollywood movie shot in Paris, called Befikre, starring Ranveer Singh and Vaani Kapoor. The film is mostly in Hindi, subtitled, but with a good bit of English and French thrown in. I drove over for the 6:15 show. Only three other people were in the theater. The film, a silly romantic story, with beautiful actors, music, dancing, and sunny Paris, lifted my spirits.

After the movie, I bought snacks at a nearby Kroger, and had a late feast in my room. I enjoyed Campbell County, despite feeling guilty about not visiting more diverse and more Jewish Cincinnati, which was right there.

The pics are out of order in some cases, because I shot some with my camera, and others on my cell phone. It is difficult to get them arranged just right.

Thanksgiving, Memphis, 2016

There is a new, semi-secret group on Facebook called "Pantsuit Nation." It's mostly women and mostly Hillary Clinton supporters. A Morgantown friend from California, who moved back to California last summer, added me to the group. There is also a West Virginia chapter. Most of the posts are from people who have been victims of hate crimes and discriminatory behavior. Often, posters ran out of a family Thanksgiving dinner because of something awful a parent or sibling said to them. It might have been a racial comment, or a refusal to accept the poster's same-gender spouse.

Joe and I are lucky, or perhaps blessed. I have one cousin who, from what I hear, is a big Republican. That cousin hasn't spoken to me since my mother's death nearly fourteen years ago. Just as well. Neither Joe nor I have political issues with our closest family members. We are always treated respectfully. We are all distraught about the 2016 Presidential election.

It was my sister's turn to have us for Thanksgiving this year, but there were complications, both for her and for us. Joe wanted to attend his family's grand Thanksgiving dinner in Memphis. We drove 210 miles to Greenbelt, Maryland Sunday and had a pre-Thanksgiving meal with my sister, her son and his fiancée. My nephew then went off to his girl's parents in Ohio, and, as a bonus, they left their sweet dog with my sister, where I was able to spend time with him.

We scored a non-stop flight from Baltimore to Memphis Tuesday, stayed at a suburban motel (with one free night), and rented a car. Although we asked for the cheapest, smallest car available, we left the lot in a gorgeous cherry-red 2017 Dodge Challenger with a hemi engine. I became fond of the car.

Joe's aunt and uncle and sister in Memphis have been great to me since I met them nine years ago, in what I see now as a ritual, bringing your new significant other for the family's inspection. Joe and his late mother were the oldest in his family, and I am older than Joe, so the "old" aunt and uncle are not much older than  I am. We were nineteen family members at Thanksgiving.

A cousin's husband is an executive with the Memphis Grizzlies, so we spent Friday at a basketball game. We ate at many restaurants, mostly on Joe's uncle's dime. We saw a few movies, including "Loving" about an interracial couple arrested for being in love. We noted the connection to our non-traditional marriage.

Finally, we attended a rally against hate, held in a once-abandoned church, where Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke in 1968, just before he was murdered. It's a beautiful place, almost literally falling down, a reminder of history and the passage of time. There were religious leaders of all stripes, including the rabbi from Memphis' Reform synagogue. There were speakers from immigrant communities, an LGBT center, the ACLU and Planned Parenthood. Memphis is a multi-cultural, largely African-American city in an overwhelmingly conservative state. People are frightened by the rhetoric of the incoming administration, the backward-looking picks for cabinet posts, and the liberty now felt by racists, homophobes and neo-Nazis to speak out. Older African-Americans have been through this before, The spiritual presence of Dr. King was there in that former church to give us all hope. I attended a Rally For Change here in Morgantown Wednesday night after we got back. That rally was more about enacting specific political change here.

I loved being in Memphis. In addition to Joe's extended family. I found the people outgoing and friendly. I felt more "at home" in Memphis and in Greenbelt, in Prince George's County, Maryland, where my sister lives, than I do in Morgantown.

Our congregation here in Morgantown is still lovely, and although the county voted majority for the Republican presidential candidate, there is a core of people of good will, who are willing to fight the hateful troglodytes who have come out of the woodwork since the election. Joe and I will live here for the forseeable future, and be activists for equality.We have no other choice.

We have already attended two meetings (today is Sunday, December 4) in the five days since we returned from Thanksgiving. The meeting Wednesday was political, the one today was an interfaith council. Things are in the works here.

We'll be off to New York for an extended visit at the end of the year. New York is another spiritual home for us.

With Joe on Beale Street

Brister Library at The University of Memphis

Singing along with the Hamples at Thanksgiving

Shelby County Courthouse

Joe and his sister at the pedestrian crossing of the Mississippi River, next to an old railroad bridge

Shelby Farms Park, east of Memphis

Rabbi Micah Greenstein speaking at the interfaith event in Memphis

Boyce-Gregg House, now The Community Resource Center

We are looking cool with our boss 2017 Hemi-powered Dodge Challenger