"What's Goin' On" and "Ramblin' Man"

 Other than being from the same time period and having an apostrophe in the title, these two songs don't have much in common. I had expressed frustration, unnamed, on Facebook a while back, and I think it's time to explain what's goin' on. I have a lot to say, so I'll be a ramblin' man. In my last post here, in September, I said that West Virginia University Medicine was looking for cancer. In August, I was invited to a 102nd birthday party in Naples, Florida for my mother's best friend, Aunt Shirley. She's not really my aunt, and her three sons, all close to my age, are not my brothers, but I accept them as such, not having biological brothers. When I failed the Cologuard test, I decided to go. I'm glad I did. 

It took until February for WVU Medicine to schedule a colonoscopy. The doctor didn't say "Ick," but he could have. They found lots of polyps, but none cancerous. I already have an appointment for next year in February for another test. However, they were concerned that my PSA (prostate specific antigen) level had gone up in a year, and when they tested again it was even higher. After an MRI and a biopsy, they found I had prostate cancer, "intermediate, unfavorable."  

I had a week before any appointments, so I did what I always do in cases like this: I ran away- rambled, as it were. I visited two counties in Pennsylvania, Huntingdon and Juniata, about 165 miles from home to Huntingdon farther to Mifflintown, another 50 miles. These were my 154th and 155th counties I've visited within about 300 miles of Morgantown. I stayed in Huntingdon at the usual chain for three nights, and although I had points to cover the cost, the website wouldn't let me do it. They offered me a "discount" which I'm sure is more than I would have paid a year earlier at the regular rate. The weather had warmed some. There was still lots of snow on the ground. The two counties are east of Altoona, south of State College and west of Harrisburg. Huntingdon has a pretty core city. Unfortunately, like so many small towns, the synagogue closed and was sold to someone who wants to make it an "event space." Mifflintown, the seat of Juniata County, has a few streets of big houses on lots with trees, and an old city center. Many of the stores downtown had signs in Spanish; none of them were open. School was getting out in the afternoon, and Mexican-looking mothers came out to pick up their kids. They looked at me, a stranger in their little town, with terror, as if I were an ICE agent. 

I had appointments with a radiation doctor and a surgery doctor when I got back, one each week. The surgeon wanted reassurance from a cardiologist that my heart was strong enough for surgery. The nurse practitioner who is my de facto cardiologist approved it without seeing me, based on tests from two years ago. I decided to go ahead with radiation, despite having to follow a diet and take Gas-X and Metamucil, and a testosterone killer. Not that I have an active sex life, but people I know who have had this say they can't get an erection. Look, I've already given up running, bicycling, and dancing. How much more?

Joe asked me before all of this if I wanted to go to the annual Reform rabbi convention, and have a few extra days to see friends in San Francisco. I wasn't feeling up to it. I've also been to some of the rabbi conventions, and feel like we have passed that phase, with Joe retiring July 1. And then, our President, and the Israeli Prime Minister start a war. Now I don't want to go anywhere. It's not just the price of gas. It's that if we're having a war, we should cut back on everything. This was a half-baked idea from Trump and Netanyahu, two old buzzards (Netanyahu and I were born the same day) trying to hold on to their floundering careers. This is not good for anyone,  including us American Jews, where many people equate all of us with the Israeli government. My mantra is: "I love Israel and the United States. I don't love the present government of Israel nor do I love the present government of the United States."

Speaking of travel, our Suzuki SX4 died on the way back from Pittsburgh after Thanksgiving.The clutch died as we pulled into a gas station in Waynesburg, about 25 miles from home. We couldn't find anyone to replace it, other than the dealer, in Uniontown, Pennsylvania and they wanted $2300. We ended up giving the car away to a charity. We are friends with a couple who are not poor, but decided to live with one car. I thought we could do that, but after six weeks, we went to a local dealer. They had a 2013 Ford Fusion with 127,000 miles on it for $6700. They added lots of things we didn't want, and the price came out to $10,000. We put down $2,500 and got turned down for financing at lots of places. We ended up with a fly-by-night (IMHO) bank that sent us a letter after three weeks that they weren't happy with the high-interest loan we had gotten. We paid the first month. I called the bank and they couldn't find a record of the letter. Meantime, the second payment was due yesterday, but they haven't sent us a bill. I called them Monday and they said they would send it. I don't have it today (Saturday).

The car is great. Gas mileage is high, it's beautiful and comfortable. I always wanted an obsolete American car (a 1959 Buick Electra 225 convertible, for instance) and this car satisfies that craving- and it's a hybrid. 

I have an IRA that I started when I was still working. The company that has it says that time is up and I have to decide what to with it. They sent me a form, which they rejected twice for some error. I talked to one of their phone reps and went over everything on the last one I sent. I asked them to send us the money. This was about a month ago. I haven't heard.

All of this is to wonder if everyone isn't out to rip us off or cause my failing heart to fail. 

I've mentioned moving a few times. We have our house, and our cat, and we are on a quiet street in a safe neighborhood with good neighbors. I have great respect for for the very few Democrats in our state legislature here in West Virginia, but the Republicans, the supermajority, are horrible, every one of them. We had cold and snow through January and most of February, and Joe wants to be somewhere that doesn't snow. I'm obsessed with comparing cities, but right now, Richmond, Virginia looks good. It's not snowless, or all that cheap, but warmer and less snowy than here, much cheaper than California, and they've elected a Democratic governor. 

Last thing : The Actor Awards, formerly the S.A.G. Awards. I did not have a great experience in my stunted Hollywood career. My best acting was in community theater, which took all my time and didn't pay anything. The few times I got to speak to agents, they didn't think they could use me. They wanted me to gain weight and be funny, like John Candy, who was a year younger than me and died thirty-two years ago. I wasn't going there.  They couldn't cope with a handsome, bald-headed guy. The casting people wanted me to take off work to audition for non-union work, which I wouldn't do once I was in the union. There were things I could have done differently; I could have been a better actor, but I hated the general culture. For the Awards, I watched two episodes of "The Studio" and "Hacks" and couldn't bring myself to watch more of either show. Rich people in Hollywood being jerks. No thanks. I watched all of "The Pitt," fifteen episodes, and some of "The White Lotus." I was blown away by "Sinners" and I liked "One Battle After Another." "Blue Moon" was not as good as I expected. 

If you made it to here, thanks for listening. Joe is away until the 19th. I'm home doing nothing. Today on the Jewish calendar is two years since my sister Robin Wendell Olson died. I went to services last night, lit a candle. Today, I'm being a hermit, cuddling with the cat, reading and writing this. Commenting here is hard. It's easier to comment on Facebook (Barry Wendell) or in an email (wendell.barry@aol.com).

High Holidays 5786

 I always dread the holidays. I  don't fast on Yom Kippur, and the whole month upsets my careful algorithm of schedules and meals. My  therapist suggests  I'm OCD. This year is different, however.

My husband, Joe Hample, known as Rabbi Joe, is retiring next summer, so this is his last High Holidays at Tree of Life in Morgantown. We've been batting around what we'll do next, stay here or leave? Where would we go? We are bicoastal people somewhere in the middle of the country (but still in the Eastern Time Zone). Joe wants somewhere warm, maybe Florida. We have friends all over California, especially in Los Angeles and Long Beach and San Francisco. My closest first cousin and his children and grandchildren live in the East Bay. And many of our friends have retired to Palm Springs, a gay Mecca for old folks.

What actually happened this year was different from the past. At the Rosh Hashana evening service, the most popular one, because it's relatively short and people don't have to miss work or school, I looked around the room. I knew just about everyone there and I liked and respected them. We have very few friends in Morgantown who are not also congregants. In our thirteen years here, we've been with these people while their children grew up, through illnesses, deaths, marriages and divorces. As much as I miss my California friends, this has become my community.

Of course, it will be different next year. The congregation has begun the process of finding a new rabbi, and even if we are here, our position will be different. It will be awkward for us if we are members, and awkward for the new rabbi if we hang around, like ghosts from the past. 

I was talking to a couple in the congregation who are almost the only Jews in the county they live in, about sixty miles south of Morgantown. Their son was twelve when Joe became the rabbi; he was one of Joe's early bar mitzvah students. He's twenty-five now, has his own construction company. I was telling them what I was feeling, and I had to stop or I would have cried.

We bought a house ten years ago. It's mostly paid for, but we have so much stuff, it could take us a year to go through it. Our house is overflowing with books, records, CDs and tapes. There are boxes I never unpacked from when we moved in.We are friendly with our neighbors and we are on a quiet street. As we age, I worry that our house has steps, with our bedroom, and the second bedroom (my office) upstairs. Joe's office is in the basement. 

I'll be seventy-six this month,  in a family where men don't live past eighty. They are checking for four kinds of cancer: pancreatic (I passed that test last week), and thyroid cancer, which I had two years ago when they took out my thyroid. They'll check that Monday, October 6. They will do an MRI on  my prostate in December and a colonoscopy in January, since I failed a Colguard test. I have complaints about WVU Medicine, but at least they have people to take care of these things, even if one haas to wait weeks or months, and they take my lousy insurance, which pays them about twenty per  cent of what they ask. I know some places won't take that. I guess I worry that we'll go to a lot of trouble to move, and then I'll die. 

I do studies of cities and counties. I've visited in (mostly) alphabetical order over 150 counties in nine states since we moved here, within about three hundred miles of Morgantown. I'm going through them, including the rest of the alphabet that I haven't gotten to yet, and looking for where we might live. My idea is that we could come back to Morgantown for a wedding, a bar mitzvah, a funeral, if someone  asked. The best choices are between Philadelphia and Richmond along I-95.

The rub to this is the lawlessness of the present national administration. Will we be safe in a Democratic city? I don't want to be anywhere else. The one gay couple we're close to who aren't Jewish are looking at France as a place to go. In other times, I would have thought of Israel, but not now. Most countries don't want old people to move there unless they have a ton of money. We don't. 

The services were lovely-all of them. We have a guest soloist and others (including me)  sang some parts of the services. His sermons were more political than usual ("Are they going to fire me now?" he asked), but were well received. One woman in the congregation, who has a husband, said she was jealous of me, and wished that she were married to Joe. The congregants pitched in on everything from security to a break-the-fast-dinner after Yom Kippur.

All of it was beautiful. But we will all be in a different place, even if Joe and I are still in Morgantown next year. I wish everyone who reads this a healthy, prosperous 5786 Shana Tova!

Brian Wilson 1942-2025

 I've hardly been posting on here, but the death of Brian Wilson hit me harder than I expected. I was a Beach Boys fan before The Beatles hit America, and I can still listen to their old music and think "This is cool." Right now, I'm listening to "Surfer Girl" from a cassette by Time-Life called "The Beach Boys 1962-1967" from a set called "The Rock 'n Roll Era." I bought a complete set of these with a rack from a thrift shop. When I see someone's collection, whether the person gave it up or the survivors sold it, I feel like I have to keep it together. In addition to "Surfer Girl,"Be True To Your School" and "In My Room" were favorites of mine from the early days.

In the summer of 1965, I traveled to California by car with my friend Joel, his parents, and his cousin from Brooklyn. We had only t-shirts and shorts to wear, so we were surprised by snow on the ground in Wyoming, froze in San Francisco, and, 15 year olds that we were, we were stopped by the police in Los Angeles for being out at Hollywood and Vine in Los Angeles after curfew. We wondered why nothing was happening at this famous intersection. We made it Ensenada in Baja, hung out at the beach, and came home via a southerly route. We just missed the Watts riots. "California Girls" had just come out, and we thought it was about the coolest song we had ever heard. When we got home to Baltimore, we found out that our new favorite song had not yet been released on the East Coast.

I continued to listen to The Beach Boys, although my main love at sixteen was Motown music. I bought "Pet Sounds" when it came out. I can admit now that it was too deep for me. Like everyone, I was moved by "God Only Knows," but the song that hit me hardest was "I Guess I Just Wasn't Made For These Times." Even at sixteen, I was beginning to think that might be true, and that song continues to hold meaning for me. 

I continued to collect Beach Boys albums, particularly liking "Surf's Up" and "Holland." At the time I didn't know what was going on Brian's life, only that they were  no longer in the "my girl, my school, my car, my surfboard" era. 

Fast forward to 1985. I was living in Los Angeles, ironically, since my first trip there I hated the city. I was working for Social Security as a first-line supervisor, and although I was good at the job, I could see I wasn't going to stay there. I took a class at UCLA Extension called "The Career Exploration Seminar." I thought I might be an actor, starting at thirty-five. There was a gorgeous woman in the class, an actress who thought she was too old to get parts. She encouraged me to try acting. The last night of class, we all went out to eat later. She lived with her boyfriend at an address on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu. He was a therapist, handsome enough, probably fifty at the time, with a diamond stud earring. I said "You must be doing well to live on PCH in Malibu." He smiled at me and said "I actually only have one client right now."

That mystery lasted until I bought a Brian Wilson solo album, where the woman in class was listed as cowriter on some of the songs, and on the liner notes, he thanked his therapist, Eugene Landy, the man I met at that restaurant.

I tried to complete my collection of Beach Boys albums. "Beach Boys Today!" became a favorite, especially the song "Kiss Me Baby," a perfect expression of teen angst, and a gorgeous piece of music.

I moved to Morgantown, West Virginia with my husband (we met in 2005 and legally married in California in 2008). He is a rabbi and was hired by Tree of Life Congregation here. People encouraged me to go to Osher Life-Long Learning, since I had no plan to work here. I saw some of the classes people taught about music, and I started teaching about my favorite music. One of my first classes, which I later taught in a more expanded version, was about The Brill Building sound. I had a book about it. Like me, Brian was a fan of "Be My Baby" by The Ronettes, and cribbed some of his orchestration from Phil Spector's "Wall of Sound." 

I pretty much devoured the 2014 film "Love and Mercy" with Paul Dano and John Cusack as Brian. Eugene Landy was much better-looking than Paul Giamatti, who played him in the movie. When we bought a used Honda Civic in 2018, I showed the pretty blonde saleswoman the trailer. She screamed "Oh God, is that Elizabeth Banks? I love her." Brian married the car salesperson in real life. 

I came to learn about the split between Brian and Mike Love, grieved over the deaths of Dennis (my crush for longer than I care to admit), and Carl, who kept the group together when Brian was having issues. 

For my fiftieth birthday in 1999, I threw a "Soul Oldies Dance Party." I bought four tickets to see Brian at The Wilton Theater in Los Angeles. My friend Jeff and I went with a lesbian couple we knew. We were in the front row. Brian introduced a song he wrote in memory of his brother Carl. He was met with weak applause from most of the crowd. I could see how angry he was. He brought out an electric guitar and played "Barbara Ann." not an original Beach Boys song, but the Beach Boys' cover was popular. People jumped up and screamed, and I could see the look of contempt on Brian's face. 

I recently found a copy of the reissue of "Carl and  The Passions So Tough" and "Holland," of which I had a decades-old copy. I still collect solo albums by Carl and Dennis. I cherish my CD copy of "That's Why God Made The Radio." When it came out, I watched the video over and over. Thinking about it though, I knew no one drives on PCH when there is no traffic, no group of young people are all happy and skinny like those actors, and they wouldn't be excited to meet The Beach Boys. What The Beach Boys sold us was a fantasy of California, not necessarily the real thing, at least not often. 

The Beach Boys were faves of mine from the time I was twelve, and I continued to love their new music long after the end of Motown and the breakup of The Beatles. 

I'm not the kind of genius who can write and arrange music, and I was never a great actor, but I can appreciate great art, like Brian's songs, and also how hard life can be, and how we deal with our difficulties, even when we are materially well off.

The great musicians we loved as teenagers in the 1960s, if they managed to live past thirty, are all in their eighties now, and like Brian Wilson and Sly Stone this week, may not last long. At least they've left us an enduring legacy that I hope we can pass on to the next generations.

The Plan

 I wrote my end-of-year piece this year after Rosh Hashana. Looking back at this blog, and the pieces I wrote for the end of  the year in 2014, 2017 and 2019, I can see a progression. In 2014, I felt homesick for Los Angeles, although we'd been away for almost five years at that point. By 2017, I had been elected to Morgantown's City Council and started to make friends and have some influence, and we had bought a house. I was more comfortable here. After we had been here two years, Tree of Life offered my husband Joe Hample, aka Rabbi Joe, a five-year contract, to July 2019. Joe asked me if I wanted to stay here after that. I said I wanted another two-year term on council, just to prove my election wasn't a fluke. The congregation then offered Joe another five-year contract, to July 2024. At the end of 2019, I was beginning to feel satisfied with our life here. Last year, he asked for a two-year extension, because he will turn seventy in 2026, and plans to retire. The congregation agreed to that.

The question is, what do we do then? We're here, we have a house, I have medical issues and get care through West Virginia University Medicine, and we know more people, in and out of temple, than ever. We were featured in AARP Magazine, as a couple who relocated later in life.We presented a positive view of our lives here. I don't want to betray that.

On the other hand, I miss our aging friends in Los Angeles. Joe has college friends in San Francisco with whom he keeps in touch. I have childhood friends in Baltimore and Washington, and, until March, a sister in Maryland. Joe's sister, a first cousin, and an aunt and uncle in Memphis.

We were in Maryland, in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Memphis this year. We're worried about affording California at this point, and although I miss Los Angeles, when I was there, I was happy to leave with Joe as he embarked on his rabbinic career. This year, I reconnected with a cousin in Florida, who invited us to visit in Boca Raton. Joe hates cold weather, and is anxious to visit South Florida. We are both political junkies, and Florida as a state is as bad, or maybe worse, than West Virginia. Today (January 6) we are snowed in. Morgantown schools were closed today and will remain closed tomorrow. 

I often do studies of cities, and I've embarked on a study of the first 256 counties of 100,000 or more in the United States, one a day, getting larger each day Today, I finished the 128th, Clark County, Ohio, which includes Springfield where they're (not) eating the dogs! They're (not) eating the cats! I've been there on my journeys to counties within 300 miles of Morgantown. I divided the 128 counties into groups of 16. First I eliminate the eight most likely to have voted for the incoming President (I had to update for the 2024 election). Of the eight remaining, I delete the four with the coldest January average temperature, then the two in states less-than-friendly to LGBT people, and finally. pick the one with a lower housing cost. At the end, I'll have sixteen winners, and I'll pit them against each other. Logical? Maybe.

My picks halfway through the study:

1. Wicomico County, Maryland (Salisbury)

2. Monongalia County, West Virginia (Morgantown)

3. Kankakee County, Illinois (Kankakee)

4. St. Mary's County, Maryland (Leonardtown)

5. Wayne County, North Carolina (Goldsboro)

6. Clark County, Indiana (Jeffersonville)

7. Skagit County, Washington (Mt. Vernon)

8. Wood County, Ohio (Bowling Green)

So far, I don't think this  is working out. The only county where a majority of citizens voted Democratic for President in 2024 is Skagit County, Washington, the most expensive of the counties I picked. Our county (Monongalia) is the second most Democratic county, giving the Democratic candidate for President 48% of the vote last year. Our county was the only one of twenty-seven in our Congressional District to give me a majority in 2022. The two counties in Maryland are the only two, other than ours, that has a synagogue. 

It looks like our choices will be A) to stay here B) to get rid of 90% off the things in our house and move to Memphis,  Tennessee, Long Beach, Palm Springs, Los Angeles or San Francisco in California, or somewhere in Florida. Boca Raton is the most Jewish spot; Fort Lauderdale is the gayest. 

I'll look for eight more cities in the current study, and see what turns up.

More Life

 Wednesday night, we attended a costume party/murder mystery at a restaurant in downtown Morgantown.  Kathy, the guest of honor, was turning seventy-five. She is a friend from temple, although only her husband is Jewish. She's been active in Democratic Party politics here, and helped me with my first political campaign. We were to dress in gangster outfits from the 1920s. We had roles to play: I was the butler to the head gangster and it was suggested I wear a tuxedo. Instead, I came in a black shirt, black pants, a loud jacket- and saddle shoes. The costumes ranged from very successful to not so much. The game was moderately interesting. What I realized was that the guests at the party were mostly people I know and like very much, and that seventy-five is only ten months away for me. My sister and I offered to make our mother a seventy-fifth birthday party in 2003, but Mom insisted on planning her own party at an Italian restaurant in Pikesville, Maryland, inviting only family. She died thirty-nine  days later, so the idea of being that age is scary.

They pulled my cancerous thyroid gland out in early November, and, as predicted, it wasn't too bad. I'm still sleeping a lot, but less, and I'm back at the gym, and went out for a run today. I'll see the doctor in February, and he'll decide what, if anything, needs to be done next. So I guess I'm doing well for seventy-four. I can feel my joints freezing up, especially the knee that was bad over the summer. 

Joe and I were back at my sister's house in Greenbelt, Maryland last week. I didn't throw up, and no one from the temple died, two events which have messed up our vacations in the past. We ate at a Jewish deli in Fulton, a Howard County suburb, and my sister Robin treated me and Joe to some new clothes. I hear a lot about how awful the economy is, but the stores were mobbed with people, so someone has money. We ate the traditionally Jewish Christmas meal: Chinese food, at a storefront restaurant in Beltsville, just north of Greenbelt. The portions were huge, and everything was yummy. Robin has all the streaming services Joe and I don't subscribe to, so we watched "Maestro" and "Oppenheimer." The commonality is that both are about chain-smoking Jewish men who are unfaithful to their wives. I thought "Oppenheimer" was a better movie. "Maestro" didn't cover a lot I would have liked, about the man Bernstein left his wife for, who later died of AIDS, or about the party for the Black Panthers at the Bernstein's, which was organized by his wife, Felicia. In The Forward, a critic pointed out that they downplayed Bernstein's commitment to Israel and to Judaism generally. It might have been interesting to see how both men died from their smoking habit, Bernstein of a heart attack when he was hospitalized unable to breathe, and Oppenheimer of cancer of the larynx. 

A young man at the party last night, a friend of one of  Kathy's grown daughters, asked me about staying in Morgantown. He was raised here by adoptive parents and now lives in Virginia, near Washington. The people at the party, mostly about my age, are our friends, and although Joe would like to live elsewhere when he retires in two years, preferably somewhere with warmer winters where we know people and he wouldn't have to be "The Rabbi" all the time, I'm not sure I have enough life expectancy to start over someplace else. We've been here more than eleven years, and we're invited to a party with gay fiends on the 30th, and a party with temple people on the 31st, so we do have different crowds we can hang with. I also have political friends, some of whom were there last night. 

I can say now that I'm doing okay. My health problems are all typical of someone my age, and I think I'm in better shape than most. That's no guarantee that I'll make another year, but I'm doing my best to stick around. Joe and I agree that we have good lives, even as the country and the world fall apart. But that's a whole different essay.

October, 2023

 I haven't posted much on this blog lately. I used to write about all the places I visited, one or two a month, and post lots of pictures, mostly of historic places. It took hours, and at most 20 people would read what I wrote. Lately, I've been putting a few pictures on Facebook, without much commentary, and 75 or 80 people give me a "like" or make a comment. 

I've also gotten a lot more private about how I'm feeling and what I'm doing. I was diagnosed, long ago, with "mild, chronic depression," whatever that means, But turning 74 last week really hurt. I know I'm in better shape than most men my age, the ones who haven' t died yet, anyway, and when I look in the mirror, I think I look better than most my age. Still, I've had two cancer diagnoses since the summer, one a skin cancer thing that was ugly, but is fixed except for a scar. I'm scheduled for an operation to remove my thyroid gland this Friday, November 3, and that is stressing me out. The doctors thought they saw something on my pancreas this summer, but after an endoscopy, said it wasn't a big deal, "come back in six months" and have it rechecked. Then they called two weeks later to tell me they wanted to take another look. My mother lived with pancreatic cancer for fifteen months. She was diagnosed at the age I was in August. She said at the time "How long was I going to live anyway?" I think about that a lot. She and I too, don't want to end up in a nursing home, like her mother, my grandmother, with no memory of anything. And I feel like my time has come and gone. The world is not what it was and, while at one time I had some power in it, now I don't think I do.

I ran for Congress last year against a MAGA-Republican hack who had not done anything in several terms of office, who beat a more rational Republican in a primary with signs that had his name over Trump's. He never appeared in this area, which was new to him, refused to debate, and didn't run a campaign. We did an interview together with the Morgantown Dominion-Post where we could only answer questions, not debate. I didn't think he had anything to say, and the paper endorsed me. I won only in this county. The race wasn't close, only closer than predicted. He's now running for Senate against our Governor, Jim Justice, a shameless liar, deadbeat and grifter, originally elected as a Democrat, who switched to the Republican Party in short order. I was at the state convention where he was nominated, and almost no one at the convention liked him, in fact, most of us there walked out of his speech. Joe Manchin wanted him, so that's who we got. He has a high popularity rating in the state. Don't ask me how that is possible.

It's not just this state. The Republicans, who have a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, just elected a speaker, without Democratic support. He has railed against same-gender marriage and abortion rights, which one might expect from a radical Christofascist, but he also is open to cutting Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid, against aid to Ukraine, and wrote many of Trump's lawsuits arguing, falsely, that he won the 2020 election. This is what the United States has come to. 

Meanwhile, there is a war in Israel-Gaza-Palestine. My friends on the right blame Obama and Biden and say Trump would have taken care of this. My friends on the left think Israel is totally the villain here, that the country is a "colonial power," engages in "apartheid" and "genocide." I grew up in an apartheid state called "Maryland" and as to genocide and "colonialism" if you're an American of European origin, you need to tread carefully, given our history on this continent. Yes, Israel could conform to international law and not risk murdering innocent civilians, But Hamas has to go. There should have been a reckoning a long time ago among the nations about Palestine, but no one wants to touch it. Israel took in Jewish refugees from Iraq, Iran, Egypt and the rest of the Arab world, yet Palestinians cling to the false hope that they will be able to turn back the clock, and they've lived in refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt for 75 years. The Jewish homeland is in Israel/Palestine. There is nowhere else. I've seen signs that say "Anti-Zionism is not Anti-Semitism." It's a thin line. Jewish students at Cornell are afraid to leave their rooms, and in a former Soviet republic, protestors attacked a plane from Tel Aviv, looking for Jews to beat up. It's scary now for all of us. When I was in high school, a speaker came to my Jewish youth group. He was a Holocaust survivor from Poland, and had been in college in Poland in the 1930s. He was probably only 45 at the time he spoke to us, but he told us that Jews were treated badly by other Polish students and faculty at his campus. I am reminded of that by the events today.

I'm out of patience with everyone. While on City Council, I was called a "centrist" which was a high insult to the person who lobbed that word at me. I still consider myself on the left, but I don't really fit in that community anymore. The Republican Party would love to reach out to me and profess how they "Love Israel." It's American Jews they don't much care for, especially those of us in same-gender marriages who also think corporations have too much power.

You might notice that I'm not relaxed. I'm working on it. Tonight is Halloween, and I'll give out candy to the goblins and ghouls who come to our door. Tomorrow, November 1, is the 15th anniversary of my marriage to Joe Hample, and we'll celebrate that milestone. Friday is my operation, and I'm told that the prognosis is good. 

I still want to live, I'm just not sure I want to continue to interact with the rest of the world. Maybe I'll just fade away as I continue to age. I'll update this when/if I recover.

2022- The Year I Got Old

 Technically, I've been old for a long time. I retired from LA Unified School District on my birthday in 2004; I applied for Social Security at sixty-two and got my first check eleven years ago. Still, I ran (slowly and short distances), rode a bicycle, hiked and belonged to a gym. 

I stopped the gym at the start of the pandemic and haven't tried to get back and I can't run at this point. Some days I can walk. I had an accident on my bicycle in May, like Joe Biden, Two friends, older than I, had more serious accidents on their bikes. In my case, I was getting off the bike to take a picture, and somehow a piece of metal that controls the height of the seat on the bike, went a half-inch into my leg. Of course it got infected, and at one point, while Joe and I were on vacation in Baltimore, my whole leg swelled up and was so painful I had to stop and sit down. I haven't been back on the bike since.

In August, just when we thought it was safe to go out again, Joe and I both came down with COVID. Our cases weren't as serious as most; we did not need to be hospitalized, and were up and about in a few days.

The big news this year was my run for United States Congress. I drove all over the District, twenty-seven counties in the Northern half of West Virginia, as much as 170 miles from home. I met a lot of good people, almost all of them Democrats. 

A friend 's son works for the Center for Disease Control. They sent him to Pakistan for a time. I asked him how people reacted to a gay Jew in Pakistan. He said "They never got past American." I didn't get hassled about being Jewish or gay. The people never got past "Democrat." 

I was hurt that my opponent's strategy was to say as little as possible, to not go anywhere in the District, to not acknowledge my existence. His whole primary pitch was "Donald Trump endorsed me." I guess that was enough. I represented Democrats in the state. Maybe there aren't enough of them to win a Congressional seat.  I had a committee of women who were dedicated to the campaign and worked hard to help me get elected. I will be grateful forever to them.

I've been sick with my trademark sinus and bronchial infection since late October. This happens when I'm stressed or not resting enough. Nowadays I can sleep nine hours at night and maybe two one hour naps during the day. If I do my usual walk I'm sometimes out of breath walking uphill.  The doctors at WVU told me I may have COPD, and they just called me from WVU Medicine yesterday to give me an appointment for emphysema. I was checked three times for COVID, flu, and RSV. Those tests are always negative.

I'm finding it difficult to be involved with anything. I met many good candidates across the northern part of the state; almost all of them lost to MAGA-affiliated Republicans. It's heartbreaking, and maybe my broken heart is as much a problem for me as the congestion in my airwaves and my fatigue.

I have to work on being healthier, whatever that takes, both physically and mentally. A politically involved friend called today to ask if the Democratic Party had asked me for help with future campaigns based on my experience as a Congressional candidate. I need to deal with my resentment that they have not, that the Democratic Party was uninterested in supporting my campaign and would be just as happy if I disappeared. 

Running for office was the thrill of a lifetime, and I don't regret it. I knew going in that the physical and emotional stress could kill me. It didn't. I just feel like I aged ten years this year. 

I hope 2023 will be better for everyone than 2022.

The Post-Election Rant

 Maybe it's too soon to write this. I need to heal both physically and emotionally from what transpired. I've had an ongoing sinus and bronchial infection since before Election Day. They swabbed me twice at Urgent Care and said "It's not COVID, not RSV, not flu." I had a flu shot in October. They couldn't tell me what was wrong, just to rest and hydrate. I'm not terribly good at either of those things. I try to walk in my neighborhood every day, about a mile and a half, and I do sit-ups, push-ups, stretches and a yoga pose involving balance most mornings. I'm always afraid that if I don't exercise, my heart will stop or I'll get fat. Emotionally, I don't know what's wrong. I went back to my former therapist, but I didn't have much to tell him, only to show him my paper calendar, scribbled all over every day in October, and totally blank in December. 

Three things made me ill. One was riding in the WVU Homecoming parade in a vintage Mustang convertible, which I loved, except it was cool out, and we were stopped for a long time, while the unfiltered exhaust from the car wafted back over me. I love old cars, but this 1964 1/2 Mustang had a 3-speed on the floor, no pollution controls, and an AM-only radio. It's a pretty car, a classic, but I'd rather drive my 2012 Suzuki. Another thing that didn't help was coming back one night from West Virginia's Northern Panhandle, about 70 miles away, driving uphill out of Wheeling on I-70, under reconstruction for what seems like years, going 50 in a 45 mph zone, in the left lane, where the right lane is about to disappear in a few feet, and there's a car there, and a giant truck getting up within two feet of my car, blasting his horn and flashing his lights at me. The trucking company was VSP. I regret that I didn't contact them as soon as I got home. The last thing to send me into a spiral, was when a friend in Morgan County said I should look at Nate Silver's "Five Thirty-Eight." I did and it said that I had a less than one percent chance of winning and that I might get thirty-three percent of the vote. 

My committee thought all along that I would win. I knew that this was an overwhelmingly Republican district. I went to as many events as I could in as many places as I could. I met some wonderful people, almost all Democrats, putting up a fight for their values. In Morgan and Hampshire Counties, I was fussed over by the Democrats. Morgan County found me an old Humvee to ride in for their Apple Butter Festival Parade. Neither Morgan nor Hampshire Counties had any other Democrats on their ballot. 

Alex Mooney, my opponent, never showed up anywhere in the District, even though he was unknown in north central West Virginia and the northern panhandle. His claim to fame was an endorsement from Donald Trump. His primary opponent, David McKinley, the long-time Congressman in out area and the Northern Panhandle, was endorsed in the Republican primary by our Democratic Senator, Joe Manchin. McKinley used to be a climate-change denier, but the last few years suggested we should study the problem for twenty years or so before taking any action. He is a totally-owned subsidiary of the coal industry. That didn't help him in the primary. I had no endorsements from anyone. The national Working Families Party endorsed me, but the local chapter head wouldn't return phone calls from my campaign manager. West Virginia Can't Wait interviewed me, and then said they couldn't endorse me. The Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, which endorses LGBT candidates, had me fill out a complicated form, then told me it would be sixty days before they could make a decision. I emailed them after sixty days, and they responded that they would not endorse me. The national Democratic Party, the DCCC, ignored me. All of these groups asked me almost every day to send them money for other candidates. The week of the election, I blocked all of them. 

Mooney and I were together on an interview with the Morgantown Dominion-Post. We took turns answering the same questions. I was nervous about going up against a five-term congressman, but I spoke more clearly and forcefully than he did, and in my opinion, I gave much better answers, even given that we are on opposite ends of the political spectrum. The article about the interviews, written by David Beard, who I think is a Republican-leaning reporter, made Mooney sound better than he was.

Still, the Dominion-Post endorsed me, which was a surprise. Not that I wasn't the better candidate, but that they tend to ignore me as much as possible. I also spoke to Leah Willingham, an AP reporter based in Charleston. We talked for a long time, but the article she wrote was mostly about Mooney's plan to challenge Joe Manchin for Senate in 2024. I ran into Senator Manchin at a West Virginia Federation of Democratic Women luncheon in Charleston, and I introduced myself. He said "Good luck to you" and walked away. His communication manager handed me his business card. I spoke with him, and requested an endorsement from Senator Manchin. He said he would talk to Manchin's campaign manager, who would get back to me. He didn't.

So Mooney won in 26 of the 27 counties. I won in Monongalia County, my home county and the second largest in population in the district. I beat Nate Silver's prediction of 33% of the vote by getting over 34%. Mooney announced a week after the election that he would challenge Joe Manchin for U. S. Senate in 2024. Manchin says he hasn't decided if he will run again. He's older than I am, so I can see his issue.

I met good candidates from all over the district, running for State Senate and House of Delegates. That "red wave" that didn't happen nationally, did happen in West Virginia. All of the seats in the House of Delegates were on the ballot; only twelve of one hundred seats were won by Democrats. In the Senate, Barbara Evans Fleischauer, a long-time House of Delegates member, lost a Senate race to Michael Oliverio, who had been in the Legislature as a Democrat at one time, but is now a Republican, and  the state representative of ALEC, the corporate lobbying group. The people who lost wanted to put coal miners' health above coal company profits, wanted to bring infrastructure money into West Virginia, reduce medical costs and expand Medicaid,  and bring back the Extended Child Care Tax Credit, that had lifted 40,000 children out of poverty in our state.

We're all depressed. I'm sure people had their reasons for voting for Republicans, who are anti-abortion, openly hostile to LGBT people and immigrants, and consistently put corporations over people. They support pollution, and are anti-public schools. Many people have talked about giving up, and if they can, moving away. I understand that, but now that I'm well-known, at least among active Democrats in the northern part of the state, I feel an obligation to stay and fight for my people.

Today, Saturday, November 19, I rested much of the day, although I got out to walk once the temperature went above freezing, and my physical symptoms are starting to subside. I'm out of politics for now. A friend, a retired union organizer, suggested I run again in two years. It's doubtful.

For now, I'm grateful to the group of women who managed the campaign, worked the website, created the graphics, put ads on Facebook and Google, and took care of the lawn signs. Democratic Party members in overwhelmingly Republican counties welcomed me with open arms; candidates for local offices became my friends. I had about two hundred donors, all friends, family members, people I met in the district and out, and people I don't know from out-of-state who must have heard about my campaign somewhere. I had no corporate money and ran an entire campaign on $25,000. I'm deeply grateful to everyone who worked or donated to the campaign, and I'm proud of what we accomplished.

Recent Writings

People want to know what I've been saying, so here it is. 

This was in response to a column by Hoppy Kercheval, who writes for both the Charleston Gazette-Mail  and the Morgantown Dominion-Post. The Charleston paper published this as a letter two weeks after I sent it. I sent it to Hoppy and  he gave me ten minutes on his radio program.

"Hoppy's not entirely wrong about the Democratic Party. He says 'The party needs strong top-of-the-ticket candidates to energize voters...'  Whether or not the three of us who stepped up to run as Democrats for Congress are 'strong' is a matter of opinion, but three of us did step up. That would be me and Angela J. Dwyer in the northern Second District and Lacy Eugene Watson in the southern First District.

"All of us are interested in slowing or stopping climate change, creating gender and racial equity, helping West Virginia by fixing the roads via the Infrastructure Bill, helping the poor in our state by reinstituting the Extended Childcare Tax Credit, and capping the price of insulin so that people afflicted with diabetes don't have to choose between food and medication. We are all pro-choice, pro-LGBT, pro-union and worker.

"Since the primary, it's left to Mr. Watson and me to be the Democrats in the race. If by 'strong' Hoppy means 'raised a lot of money' we are not. But we don't have the benefit of the corporate and dark fund money that our opponents have. I personally am grateful to the sixty-five or so donors to my campaign, friends and family across the country and people who have heard my message in West Virginia. 

"Our opponents refused to certify the results of the last election, encouraging the false claims of fraud by the former President. 

"The Democrats in the race, with or without support from the National Democratic Party, are in it for the people of West Virginia. We could be strong with support from the good people of our state."

On Monday, July 25th, our Governor added  to the Legislature's "one-day" special session, a call to "clarify" the state's abortion law, in light of the Supreme Court majority overturning Roe vs. Wade. I drove to Charleston on Wednesday, leaving home at 5:30 A.M., to sign up to speak at the one public hearing on the bill scheduled for 9 A.M., with sign-ups at 8. We were close to 100 of us who signed up to speak, about two-thirds against the bill they had passed, which banned all abortions, with no exceptions. The special session adjourned Friday, having taken no action on the original tax cut proposal, and with the two houses of the Legislature not agreeing on locking up doctors who perform abortions or what, if any, exceptions could be made to the abortion ban for rape or incest. Each speaker was allotted 45 seconds (really!) to speak, so I paraphrased the first and third paragraphs. Martha Shamberger from my committee sent this out as a press release on Wednesday; no one published it.

Press release

From: Barry Lee Wendell, Democratic candidate for Congress in West Virginia-2.

Re: HB-302

"This bill takes a private decision about terminating a pregnancy away from the two people involved and their medical team and gives it to the state. This is unnecessary and intrusive.

"The Governor introduced this bill Monday afternoon and scheduled a hearing for the public at 9 A.M. Wednesday. For anyone with a day job or child-care issues, or anyone living in my constituency in the northern half of West Virginia, it was nearly impossible to attend this hearing. This is disrespectful to the people of our state.

"The Governor and the Legislature have repeatedly talked about increasing the population of West Virginia by encouraging young people to stay and people from outside the area to move here. Open minds and hearts and a willingness to accept diversity of thought and religion would do infinitely more to get young people to stay here than tax breaks for the rich and giveaways to large out-of-state corporations. 

"Rabbi Victor Urecki  of Charleston, said on Twitter yesterday, and I agree with him, '… any difficult decision of what to do is made by the woman and the guidance of her family and clergy if she chooses.That is the Jewish position and one accepted by many.That may not be the Christian view for some.' " This law violates the separation of church and state guaranteed by the United States Constitution. 

I will be available before the hearing on the front steps of the Capitol after signing in around 8 A.M. and after the hearing. "

After the hearing, there was a loud demonstration in the rotunda of the state capitol by pro-choice activists. I felt ill suddenly and left the building.

A friend in Fairmont is a member of Physicians For a National Health Program. She arranged for me to speak to the West Virginia chapter of the group on Zoom on Sunday, July 31. Here are my remarks to them:

 PNHP 7/31/22

"I am Barry Lee Wendell, the Democratic candidate for United States Congress in West Virginia’s Second District, which covers all twenty-seven counties in the northern half of the state.  I’m a native of Baltimore, Maryland. I spent the first half of my life in Baltimore, New Orleans and Miami and the second half in Los Angeles, Crescent City, California and for the last ten years, Morgantown, where I served two two-year terms on the city council. 

"I looked at your website, and I am interested in your three parts of 'Medicare For All,' Chronic Care, Prevention and Job Freedom. I have stories relating to each of these. 

"I worked as an SSI claims representative in Miami from 1978 to 1984, when I was promoted to Los Angeles as a supervisor. I was in the southernmost office in Dade County. Many of our clients were poor farmworkers, Black from Georgia or Spanish-speaking from Mexico. We also had refugees from Cuba and Haiti, and people from Puerto Rico who were only eligible for SSI if they lived in the fifty states. One day, a well-dressed professional-looking woman came to my desk. She wanted to file a claim on behalf of her son, who was turning eighteen. He had cystic fibrosis. His parents had enough income that as a child, he was not eligible for SSI or Medicaid. The medical bills for her son were exorbitant, and they could get no help. They had taken out second and third mortgages on their house. At eighteen, their son was an adult. I filled out the papers for her to have her son sign. She said he was unable to come into the office, and was not planning to enroll in college. She looked surprised that I would ask that, but as a college student, he would not have been eligible. The case was quickly approved by the medical people in another office, and her son received a small SSI check and, more importantly, Medicaid to pay his enormous hospital bills. He died three months later. That there was no help for these parents and others like them, I still find baffling. Poor families could get Medicaid from the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program or would have to go to the emergency room where the state would have to pick up the tab.

"I’ve heard politicians say that undocumented people in our country should not be able to receive medical treatment. But if there is a pandemic, COVID-19 for instance, and people are turned away because of their immigration status, then they are likely to further spread disease through the general population. If there is a contagious disease in our community, then everyone must be treated, whatever legal status they have, regardless of their ability to pay for care. It’s not rocket science. Everyone must be protected and treated, or else everyone in the community is vulnerable. Yes to prevention.

"Many of us have been in jobs where we stayed for the benefits. I worked for more than eighteen years in Los Angeles Unified School District as a substitute. If I worked one hundred days in a school year, I was eligible for good health insurance through the district. 

"Though this benefit is no longer available, I was able to keep my health insurance in retirement if I had one hundred days in fifteen consecutive years and was at least fifty-five years old. In February 2003, seventeen years after I started with the District, when I was fifty-three, I suffered a heart attack while visiting my mother in Baltimore. It was her seventy-fifth birthday, and she was dealing with pancreatic cancer. I was supposed to miss three days of work, but I missed two weeks. Three weeks after my return to Los Angeles, my sister called and asked me to come back. Mom was in hospice and it looked like she was near the end. I saw her the last two days before she died. I missed another two weeks of work, and as of late March, I didn’t have one hundred days in. I was working three days a week and going to cardiac rehab two days, instead of the three days they wanted me to do at rehab.

"I came home from school one day to find a letter from the Substitute Unit saying they were firing me for 'not working enough.' They knew about my heart attack and my mother’s death. I threatened to go to the newspapers with this story, and they backed down. I retired on my fifty-fifth birthday, kept my health insurance even to today, although I have Medicare now. 

"I should have been able to leave that job after my heart attack, instead of risking my health, indeed, my life, by going to work when I could barely walk up a flight of steps.

"My experiences in life teach me that we should have a national free health insurance plan, to protect all of us from epidemics, to get the chronic care people need, and to not leave it to employers who are always trying to cut costs, to provide health care for our people. I will publicly support national healthcare, and I pledge to work for it if I’m elected to Congress this year. Thank you for having me on your call today. "

If you've read all of this, and have questions, while you can post here, it might be more efficient to send a question to me at barrywendellforcongress2022@gmail.com. if you are so moved, you can mail a check  made out to "Barry Wendell for Congress" to Barry Wendell for Congress, P.O. Box 831, Morgantown, WV 26507. If you go to ActBlue.com, you can put my name in the box at the top of the page and make a donation there. Thanks for reading.

Tappuz Katom

 My husband, Joe Hample was ordained a rabbi at Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles in May of 2009. There was a recession, he was already fifty-two and gay with what some would say was a leftist husband. Finding a job was not going to be easy.

He finally landed a full-time chaplaincy at Pelican Bay State Prison, a maximum security facility on the far north coast of California, in Del Norte County, outside of Crescent City. We went up to look for housing, and found a development of semi-detached modern townhouses, and rented the largest model, a split level with two large bedrooms and one smaller, and a two-car garage at half the price of our West Hollywood apartment. At that point, I suggested we get a pet. 

We lived near the coast, which I thought was great, only I found out there is no real summer there. It's always cool and rains most days, although it almost never freezes. Inland, in the redwoods is sunnier and warmer in summer.

The county dog pound was down the street, and I went one day to see what dogs were available. There was a black and white dog that looked like one of the dogs in the "Mutts" comic strip. I still think about him, and how our life would have been different if we had adopted him. 

But after talking it over with Joe, we decided a cat might be better. We visited the county shelter at the south end of the city. They had three kittens and a female orange tabby one of the workers called "April" and one of the other workers called "Mamie." She was full-grown, maybe two years old. We didn't get the full story of why she was there. When we seemed to show an interest in her, she walked away and tried to hide. We were charmed, 

That's how we came to own a cat. We thought of calling her "Gluekel of Hamelin," "Glekel" being the maiden name of one of my grandmothers, and "Hamelin" sounding a little like "Hample." Gluekel was a prophetess of sorts in the Middle Ages. My sister demanded we find something much simpler. We called her Tappuz Katom in Hebrew, the first name meaning orange, the fruit, and the last name meaning orange the color.

She always had a mind of her own, always wanted to be outside, always used her litter box when indoors. She liked to sleep with us.

When Joe was offered the rabbi job at Tree of Life in Morgantown, of course we brought her with us. That meant over five days in the car, unhappy unless I let her out of her carrier, although then she wanted to be in my lap or on the floor by my feet, both impossible while I was driving. The rest stops on the Interstates had signs saying "No pets in the rest rooms," and since it was summer, I took her outside in her carrier up to the rest room entrance. Kindly women would coo at her and show her all their teeth, which she took as a threat and howled.

Our first home in Morgantown had two outdoor balconies, and she liked to hang there. They were not covered, so she stayed in when it rained, although she seemed intrigued by snow. Outside was more complicated because the living area was on the second and third floor while most of the first floor was a garage. One time, when we left the front door open, the next door dog got loose and followed her up the stairs, scaring her.

She didn't immediately figure out our second house, although it also had stairs leading outside, but this time the porch was covered so she could sit outside and watch the rain and snow.We are on a dead end street that one can walk through, and many people do, especially when they are out with their dogs. Tappuz loved to watch the dogs go by. She wasn't afraid of them.

We had noticed her getting weaker this year. She asked us to lift her on the bed because she couldn't jump up. Her paws didn't always seem to hold her up. She lost weight. I took her to the vet in early April. She had lost the use of one paw completely and although she could still climb the stairs, it was hard. I moved her food upstairs to my office in what would normally be the second bedroom. The vet offered to put her out right there, but I strongly objected. She could barely see, her one paw was useless, she had almost no feeling in her three working paws, and she had lost more weight. The vet said "You can take her home, but understand that it will be hospice care." The last week of her life she came downstairs one day and wanted to go out on her own. We let her, and she came back up the stairs by herself. She also came over to me while I was sitting on the couch in my office. She didn't want to sit on my lap, because she couldn't balance, but she cuddled up next to me. 

The night before our cleaning woman came four weeks ago, I was wondering where I could put her so the room could be cleaned. It was cool out, and I didn't think I could leave her outside, as I had done in the past. Joe said "She's done." Of course, I objected, but I called my sister in Maryland, who has had many cats over the years, and told her the situation. She said "Your cat's life is over." Still, I objected.

The next morning, she had gone on the pad we left in the bedroom closet for her (she couldn't climb in the litter box), but it went over the boundaries of the pad and onto the carpet. I cleaned it up, and assured Tappuz it was not a problem. While I was brushing my teeth, I heard a yowl from her. I ran out, picked her up, and placed her in the litter box. She tried to dig a spot in the litter, but couldn't. She went in the box, but it was mostly black liquid. She crawled out and tried to go under our bed, where she always hid when she was embarrassed about something. I followed her, and I caught her vomit in a tissue before she could get to the bed. She went back to her blanket in the office. I came in and petted her, which would usually make her purr. This time it didn't, and she gave me a look that said "I'm done." We took her to the vet that morning, before the cleaning woman came, and we sat with her while she was tranquilized and petted her. They took her away from us because they couldn't find an uncollapsed vein to give her the final drug  and they didn't want us to see her stabbed in the heart. We didn't take any mementos, didn't want any of her hair or her ashes. We only kept our memories and pictures.

I know I gave Tappuz human qualities, but she and I became close during the early time of the pandemic, when neither Joe nor I were going out much. I felt that she and I really understood each other, and most of the time I could tell what she wanted, or at least that she wanted something from me. I know this story isn't different from the stories of many people with pets, but I wanted to share my love for this animal and my grief at her passing. I still look for her under my desk, still wish she were sleeping with me or between me and Joe. I still wonder if I should leave the door open for her to come in or go out. 

We've talked about getting another cat, or maybe a dog this time. We decided to wait until after the election in November.

                                         Our neighbors indoor cat watching Tappuz

                                              Napping with Joe

                                              In our yard at autumn

Autobiography- Early morning 4/12

 The first school year I was in New Orleans, I had a roommate named Jack. We found each other from Tulane's housing office, and rented a shotgun house a block from the Mississippi near Audubon Park.  Jack was a senior undergraduate in engineering; I was a first year grad student in Urban Studies. Jack was from a prominent South Alabama family, and a good student, but tried to be rough. He bathed infrequently, rode a motorcycle and liked to sky dive as a hobby. He had a disturbed girlfriend from a decaying Chattanooga family. Jack was crazy handsome when he cleaned up, not that I noticed. 

We moved in together fifty years ago this coming fall. We only stayed together that one school year. He wanted to keep the house, so I took an apartment alone the next year, and we rarely saw each other after that. I left New Orleans a year later.

I still think about Jack, mostly what he said to me when we split up our household. He said " I think you're gonna make it big one day, Wendell, but I ain't sayin' how old you'll be." I didn't sleep well tonight, maybe because I had my second booster shot against COVID-19 on Friday, maybe because of what I ate ( I cooked tonight), or because I walked in Core Arboretum for nearly ninety minutes this afternoon and overdid it. 

So as I lay awake, I thought about what Jack said to me in May of 1973. Maybe he was right. I've been with the same man for more than sixteen years now. We're married, we own a home and two cars, and we have an old cat, who is on "home hospice" with us. And I'm running for United States Congress. Others are shocked that I could run for Congress, and maybe I'm surprised, too. I know enough now, and while I am not likely to win, it's not because I can't do the job or lack qualifications. It's taken me the fifty years since Tulane to become that person who is stable, confident and capable.

 Maybe some other night when I can't sleep, I'll write more about what I've gone through.

Barry Wendell for Congress

 Thanks to redistricting, and our state's population loss over the last ten years, West Virginia has gone from three congresspeople to two in this year's election. Our representative, David McKinley, was placed in the same district as another incumbent, Alex Mooney. People have been looking at this as a contest between two Republicans, McKinley as a "moderate" and Mooney as a full-on MAGA devotee. While McKinley did vote for the infrastructure bill, he calls Build Back Better "reckless social spending." He also claims President Biden has done nothing to stop the pandemic. His party has not proposed anything to help. Mooney criticizes McKinley for supporting Nancy Pelosi and the infrastructure bill. He also touts his own endorsement by the previous President.

This race leaves an opening for a Democrat, someone open-hearted, who favors social justice spending by the government, who is  pro-family, pro-choice, pro-science and willing to do whatever is best for the country, not just for a political party. I've asked at the last few monthly county Democratic Party meetings if anyone had signed up to run against McKinley and Mooney, and was met with silence. 

I'm a Maryland native who lived in Miami and Los Angeles for most of my adult life. I'm Jewish and a gay man in a same-gender marriage. I'm also seventy-two years old. I used these as an excuse not to put in my name for this contest. But I'm younger than David McKinley, and I've lived in West Virginia longer than Alex Mooney. I was elected twice to Morgantown's City Council, the second time, in 2019, with seventy-three percent of the vote. 

There is now another candidate for the Democratic nomination in our district, a woman in Martinsburg. I don't know her. Nominations must be postmarked by tonight (Saturday, January 29), so it will be a few days before we all know if there are other candidates.

I've done interviews with news sources already, and I have calls and emails to return tonight. I still need a treasurer and a campaign manager, and I have ethics forms to complete, so everything is canceled while I get to work on my campaign.

I know it's a long shot, but West Virginians need a candidate who stands for civility, working people, unions, the environment and the science of public health. I'm that person.

Contact me at barryforcongress2022@gmail.com

Franklin and Fulton Counties in Pennsylvania, Part 1: Chambersburg

Franklin County does not look promising when one drives in on Interstate 81 from Maryland. There are acres of beige boxes off the interstate, each with a giant truck in front. The highway is two lanes in each direction and jammed with trucks. 

I had in my head that it was 132 miles from Morgantown to Chambersburg, but I had written down 162. I thought I would be in Chambersburg by twelve, but it was after one when I finally got there, hungry and with a full bladder. I wanted to park in the middle of downtown, but I neglected to stuff my pockets with quarters before I left home, so I couldn't park at the meters. I knew there was a shopping center a few blocks from the center of town, and I found free parking and a Chinese restaurant. The sign on the door said "Sorry. We will be closed on Mondays." It was Monday. I retraced my drive on US 30, Lincoln Way East (you know you're not in Virginia when the street is named "Lincoln") to Hardee's, a place I don't typically eat because of a homophobic owner thirty or forty years ago. They had free parking, the bathrooms were in a vestibule just inside the door, and clean, and a real person took my order. I had the breaded chicken sandwich, no fries, thanks. I felt like Anthony Bourdain, of blessed memory. I bit into the too-yellow roll and the fried, crusty piece of chicken finished with a mayonnaisey dressing and dill pickles. I had to look at the sandwich after biting into it, and try to think of something complimentary to say about this exotic cuisine. 

I got four quarters from the nice young man at the counter and tried again downtown. Chambersburg has a pretty downtown, with a traffic circle at the junction of US 11 and US 30, the center of town. I found ten places on the National Register of Historic Places , and a synagogue that says it's been there a hundred years. I took a pic of the synagogue, in a narrow building at least a hundred years old, but it didn't show up on my phone/camera. Many of the stores were vacant. I found a bookstore (closed Monday), and there were a few stores with booths where people sell their old dishes, toys, books, records, CDs, clothes and general junk. I looked for the six CDs from my list, but couldn't find any of them. Many of the storefront windows had model trains set up with miniature snowy little towns. I found Wilson College at the north end of town. It's a pretty campus and I took a few pictures there. The nearby neighborhood has big old houses on wooded lots. 

The motel at "The Usual Chain" was two exits up from downtown, not walking distance to anything. There was a farm behind it. Chambersburg Mall was a short distance down the road. Like so many malls, it was almost empty. There was a movie theater and a J.C. Penney store open, and a mammoth store selling "stuff" in booths, like in town. Many of the booths looked like rooms in my house. I spent close to an hour there looking for the CDs on my list.  It doesn't help that I'm only looking for six titles. 

I looked for restaurants for dinner after my nap. All I could find were chains, all grouped around the exit off I-81 between downtown and my motel. I thought I would go to Panera, but I couldn't find it in the maze of parking lots. I found a Giant Food supermarket, which had some options, but nothing appealing. I ended up at Subway down the row from Giant, and, contrary to my usual custom, got carry-out, because I had hardly seen anyone in a mask, and listening to the radio, all I heard was that Covid infections were multiplying and hospitals in Pennsylvania were jam-packed. I listened to the television news, on cable from Washington. Wikipedia says Franklin County is part of the Washington-Baltimore SMSA. Washington is one hundred miles from Chambersburg. I planned out a complicated day ahead, along Route 16 from James Buchanan's Birthplace to Blue Ridge Summit and the Appalachian Trail. Part Two will be that, and part three will be Fulton County, twenty miles west of Chambersburg, where I spent most of Wednesday morning.

Memorial Fountain and Statue, 1878, Junction of US 30 and US 11 in downtown Chambersburg

Franklin County Courthouse, 1865. The prior courthouse was burned by Confederate  troops in 1864.

Coyle Free Library, 1891

Franklin County Jail, 1818. Cell block behind it is from 1880

Ritner Boarding House, also known as John Brown House, because he roomed there in 1859 prior to his raid on Harper's Ferry.

Masonic Temple, originally 1823-24

Storefront, Chambersburg Historic District. This is the office of a radio station now.

Townhouse Row, North Main St.

Shop window before Christmas on North Main St.

Wilson College Campus

Zion Reformed Church, 1811-1813

The Great Hits and Albums of 1971

 You know how you envy people, especially when you're young? I'm well over that now.  I used to wish I could be as handsome as David Cassidy and as talented a musician as Karen Carpenter, both close to my age. They both died after years of unhappiness, Carpenter at 32 and Cassidy at 67. I'm still here, and despite the pandemic, the usual problems of being over 70, and not being rich or adequately famous, I have a good life. The last six weeks, I've taught a class called "The Great Hits and Albums of 1971," as a volunteer at Osher Life-Long Learning, through West Virginia University's School of Public Health. David Cassidy, as part of The Partridge Family, and Karen Carpenter, who formed Carpenters with her brother Richard, have been  featured in this class. 

I've gained an appreciation of the hard work and commitment of people in music who were also politically involved, people like Aretha Franklin, Isaac Hayes, Curtis Mayfield and Gladys Knight. I have more  respect for David Bowie and Elton John, and "Lola" by the Kinks, breaking  barriers around masculinity. While many people were blaming John or Paul for the breakup of The Beatles, videos from 1971 show Paul and Linda and John and Yoko in love. I have memories of young women I knew who swooned over Carole King's Tapestry  Joni Mitchell's Blue, and "Best New Artist" at the Grammys, Carly Simon. I still think of "So Far Away" from Carole King when I think of friends I miss in California. I played a video of Joni Mitchell accompanying herself on dulcimer, singing her song "California" that knocked me out. 

I was too old for The Partridge Family and The Osmonds, but I am still in awe of The Jackson Five, especially little Michael, who had a brilliant career as an adult, but an early and sad end to his life.

I look at The Bee Gees, three brothers, the younger two twins my age. Someone in class noted that their syrupy ballads, moving syrupy ballads, but still,  were nothing like Saturday Night Fever. Barry Gibb, the oldest brother, is still with us, but the twins died a few years apart some time ago. 

The Beach Boys also were three brothers, where the younger two have died, and the eldest is still here. This was a time of a lull in their career, but their albums from 1970, 71 and 72, Sunflower, Surf's Up  and Holland, have always been among my favorites. I played "Until I Die" from Surf's Up in class, and fifty years later, I still cried when I heard that song. 

I'm ending my class tomorrow with two songs from Gonna Take A Miracle by Laura Nyro, a songwriter who decided to do an album of covers of songs by other writers, and recruited Patti Labelle's new group, Labelle, to sing backup. Although the album never cracked the Top 40, had no singles, and was not on recommended lists from Rolling Stone or Spin, it is my favorite album from 1971. The Word magazine listed it as one of "The 60 Best Underrated Albums." There's a cult of Laura Nyro fans, and I'm in it, and it centers especially around this album. I could earn a PhD. from explicating it. The album is on YouTube. Check it out.

I don't know if I'll teach another OLLI class. I do a lot of research and these classes take way too much of my time. I've been doing this for more than eight years, and I've done a class for every year from 1960 to 1971. Still, I enjoy it, and I think people in my class do, too. I would like to do some other writing, maybe a book, and clean up the piles of trash in my office space left over from my time on Morgantown's City Council.

But just yesterday, I had a thought about classes I might teach. 1972 would bring us Jackson Browne, Bruce Springsteen and Steely Dan, and a new era for Stevie Wonder and Paul Simon. Or maybe six weeks of R&B heroes: Isaac Hayes and David Porter, Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, Nikolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson and Holland, Dozier and Holland. Or six weeks of women artists: Aretha Franklin, Joni Mitchell, Carole King, Carly Simon, Janis Joplin, and Gladys Knight. How about women in country music from Patsy Cline to Loretta Lynn, June Carter, Dolly Parton, Lynn Anderson and Sammi Smith? Make me stop! I don't want to work this hard. But maybe I will. 

It's 5782!

 My last post was about our trip to Los Angeles. I haven't posted about San Francisco and my next trip, to Fluvanna and Essex Counties in Virginia, with a stop on the way back to visit with my sister in Greenbelt, Maryland. Maybe I'll post those soon...ish.

Meantime, time flies, and it's a new Jewish year. COVID-19 has come roaring back, especially in West Virginia, where Jim Justice, our Republican governor, won't put up any mask restrictions because he's afraid he'll start another Civil War. Monongalia County, where we live, has fared relatively well, mostly because people here are not afraid of getting vaccinated. Still, our two hospitals are nearly full, because people in the surrounding areas come here for medical care, and the counties around us have more "vaccine hesitancy." Still, at West Virginia University, the heart of Morgantown, there are no real restrictions, despite the students and faculty both overwhelmingly voting for a vaccine mandate. As I'm writing this, there is a football game, and there are few restrictions on attending, only a suggestion that unvaccinated people wear a mask. 

But I digress. Rabbi Joe wrote sermons for Tree of Life this summer about how great it was to be together after having pre-recorded services last year. Then, as the number of new cases rose, the synagogue committee, which includes several doctors, voted to cancel in-person services. Instead we did it over Zoom, with only the rabbi, a few singers, a tech person, and someone to watch the door, which is now locked.  I was asked to read haftarah on Rosh Hashana, and chant Torah on Yom Kippur. The haftarah is about Hannah asking for a son and pledging him to the temple. Her son Samuel is raised by the temple priest. The Torah on Yom Kippur is from Deuteronomy 29 and 30: "This day I call heaven and earth to witness regarding you: life and death I have set before you, blessing and curse. Choose life-so that you and your children may live." (Deuteronomy 30:19, translation in Mishkan Hanefesh, copyright 2015, Central Conference of American Rabbis). Heavy stuff. I couldn't help but think that getting a vaccine is choosing life, and not getting it is choosing death.

Meanwhile, I haven't been entirely well since our return from California. I had a little bronchial thing going, and I was concerned because we had been in crowds. I went to an urgent care center here on August 6, and they referred me to a central location for a COVID test. It was negative, so I wasn't too worried. I went back September 9, after Rosh Hashana, because I could barely speak and I was feeling pain in my chest from the congestion, where before it had only been in my throat and upper respiratory tract. They gave me a strong antibiotic and another COVID test, also negative, and suggested I see an ear, nose and throat doctor. I went the next day, and he looked in my nose and throat, and while not going "Ewww!," I could tell he was thinking that. He extended the antibiotic, and gave me a nasal antihistamine.  I wasn't sure I would make it to Yom Kippur.

I did drag myself out, having food with my antibiotic in the morning, and coming home for a snack and a nap in the afternoon, before returning for the Memorial (Yizkor) service, where I sang a Hebrew version of the 23rd Psalm, and the ending service. We finished after 7 P.M.  I managed my singing and chanting without difficulty. 

After more than a week on a strong antibiotic, I'm feeling better. The blood tests, which were to check my immune system, were normal except for the one that shows if you have allergies. That one was off the chart. No surprise.

Yom Kippur always makes me think of life and death. Each year, as I get older, I wonder if this is my last year. I've lived longer than my father and both of his parents. I don't get sick often, but when I do, it's bad, with a long recovery. I try to "choose life" by exercising, keeping my weight down, and getting enough sleep, and I'm grateful for my negative COVID tests. Just in today's paper, they announced that ant-COVID vaccination boosters are a good idea for older people. I'll be first in line when they announce it. 

I wish everyone a healthy 5782.

Los Angeles and Palm Springs

 I finished my second and last term on Morgantown's City Council June 30. Joe had a wedding in early July, a bar mitzvah July 17, and a bat mitzvah August 14. We were working on renegotiating our mortgage. We had a narrow time where we could get away. We were gone July 19 to August 2. 

The Centers For Disease Control said that, since we were fully vaccinated, we could go anywhere without masks and be safe. We discussed driving up to New England, but we both wanted to see our long-time friends in California. We decided on a week in Los Angeles and a week in San Francisco. Joe's credit card gives him points, and they have a travel agent on staff to help out. That took care of much of the plane fare. I booked hotels through "The Usual Chain" where I have points. We were able to rent an overpriced car in Los Angeles, but the agent couldn't find us one in San Francisco. I'll write a separate post about our week in San Francisco.

By the time we left, the Delta variant had shown up in the United States. Los Angeles County required everyone, vaccinated or not, to wear a mask indoors. We had to be more careful than we expected to be.

We drove to Pittsburgh to the airport early for a 9 A.M. flight. I picked up my carry-on bag, which was too heavy, and the strap slid across my arm, taking my paper-like skin with it. This was at 5 A.M. as we were trying to get out of the house. I bandaged it as best I could. We changed planes in Denver, where the airport was crowded with, to my eyes, more people than live in West Virginia. Both planes were full. "Social distancing" was a joke. They did ask everyone to wear a mask in the terminals and on the plane. Almost everyone complied in the terminals, and everyone on the planes. 

We got our car, supposedly mid-size, but actually a compact, which wasn't bad. Compacts are bigger than they used to be. I had booked a motel on Colorado Boulevard in the Eagle Rock neighborhood of Los Angeles, between Glendale and Pasadena. It's not a wealthy or Jewish neighborhood, but there's a mall with a Target and a Macy's and a Trader Joe's. It took an hour and ten minutes to get to the motel from the airport. The desk clerk said "You made good time."

The purpose of the trip was to see our friends, and we had mapped out a schedule for lunches and dinners for the week we were there. Many of my friends are from Beth Chayim Chadashim, the synagogue where most members are LGB or T and where I met Joe in 2005.  Joe was a popular student rabbi there from 2007-2009. I became a member in 1987, and maintain a membership. My closest friends from there are not Hollywood heavies, but teachers and librarians, mostly now retired. Joe's friends in Los Angeles are women who were in rabbinical school with him. 

Despite just getting in and being off by three time zones, we found out that the gay mens' hike in Griffith Park was back on (after being off for a year because of COVID), so we went. It was mostly the same people we knew years ago, maybe fewer of them. They don't go all the way to the top of the hill as they used to, and they rarely go out for dinner afterwards, although they agreed to go with us. We got behind when I saw my friend Meyer, known as Mike, an avid hiker and a Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh native, and we stopped to talk. By the time we got back to the starting point, everyone had left. 

I was worried about my arm, and Tuesday morning I found Eagle Rock Urgent Care online, and we stopped by after breakfast. The motel typically provides breakfast, but all they had to offer was a bag with a microwaveable sandwich, a packaged pastry and juice. We ate that one or two days, otherwise we went out. I had told Joe I wanted to see someone who remembered when I was a substitute teacher in Los Angeles schools, or when I was a bar and bat mitzvah tutor at Temple Israel of Hollywood. 

The woman who checked me in at the clinic was named Karla, and I asked her if she was from around there. She was and had gone to Florence Nightingale and Luther Burbank for middle school and Benjamin Franklin High School, before her parents pulled her out to go to Catholic schools. I told her she was probably too young to remember me, but then she said "I'm forty-two and I thought you looked familiar." She told me some personal stuff which I don't want to share here. I was happy that someone remembered me from my work.

We arranged to be in Long Beach by 11, maybe thirty miles from where we were staying, We met up with two of my favorite couples, Jonathan and George, and Stephen and Thomas. I was friends with Jonathan and Stephen when we were all single, but by the time I met Joe, Jonathan had paired up with George and they had adopted a child, now a rising high school senior, and Stephen and Thomas were together. We walked along the ocean in Long Beach while catching up, and stopped for lunch. Later on, Joe and I went out for coffee with my friend Ted, also in Long Beach, leaving at 5 P.M. in the usual traffic to get back to our motel. Tuesday night we were in Alhambra with my friend Greg, who I used to hike with in Griffith Park, when our group did a much longer and more complicated hike. 

I went back to the clinic Wednesday, then we headed to South Bay, near the airport, for lunch with Deborah, one of Joe's rabbinic colleagues, and her husband and two children. We saw Dahlia, another rabbinic colleague, Saturday night in Woodland Hills, in the far western part of the San Fernando Valley. Joe was close with her in school, and one of my first dates with Joe was to Dahlia's wedding. Their two daughters are thirteen and eleven now, and learning to talk back to their parents.

We spent Wednesday late afternoon and evening with Rabbi Lisa Edwards and her wife, Tracy Moore (not the L.A. writer whose work we've seen recently). Lisa was the rabbi at Beth Chayim Chadashim for twenty-five years before retiring recently. She picked Joe to be her student rabbi for two years (after we were a couple, or else it would have been against the rules for us to get together) and she performed our wedding. We sat by their pool and snacked. I would have gone in the pool but for my bandaged arm. Our friends Jim and Michelle came by. Jim and I were L.A.'s version of Akbar and Jeff, "brothers or lovers, whichever offends you most." We're not brothers and we were never lovers. I sang at his wedding to Michelle. He's still active in BCC. We visited at their home Sunday for lunch.

We took a side trip to Palm Springs, a place where many gay men retire. Two couples, Joe's friends from San Francisco, moved there in recent years, and my friend Richard, a now-retired college-level ESL teacher, also moved there. We spent one night with Dan and Jerry in their mid-century modern house, remodeled. They claim they have more stuff to move in, but I liked it uncluttered and clean looking. We also met with Paul and Deek, longtime pals of Joe from San Francisco. They live in Cathedral City, next to Palm Springs. Friday, we saw Richard, who lives in a large complex that reminds me of where I lived in Florida forty years ago. We all went out Friday night to an early service at a synagogue in Palm Desert (past Palm Springs and Cathedral City). The rabbi there graduated a year or two before Joe, but I met him when I first moved to Los Angeles in 1984, when he was probably just out of college. It was a nice reunion, as Richard also knew him, and he was in school with Joe. We stayed over at Richard's and came back into Los Angeles Saturday.

Joe loved Palm Springs, and suggested we move there when he retires, possibly in three years when his contract at Tree of Life in Morgantown expires and he will be almost 68. I have my doubts. It was 109 F. there and had been 120. I've been to Palm Springs a few times (twice before with Joe) and it's nice, I guess, but I would like a more "real" city and not a collection of resort-style suburbs. 

 I loved seeing everyone, and we're sorry we didn't get to see everyone we wanted to see. BCC had services Friday, but it was only open to board members; they were hoping to have the full congregation back the week after. We didn't get to the West Side and missed Israeli dancing on the beach in Santa Monica with my former dance partner, Reva. We missed Jerry, Gordon and Neal, and friends from Morgantown and Fairmont who live in Los Angeles now. For old times sake, we drove Sunday night to the Farmers Market on Fairfax, near where we lived together, and had dinner outside with hundreds of people. We put at least 700 miles on our little car in a week. I slid right into freeway driving, and I felt "at home."

I want to mention also the "ghosts" who inhabit Los Angeles, friends who died while I lived there and after. I still fell the presence of Sue, Sherry, Art, Fred, Avram and others who are no longer with us. I went through lots of changes in Los Angeles, and everywhere reminds me of something. I pointed out an apartment building to Joe where I rehearsed scenes for an acting class with someone I can't picture, an apartment building in Los Feliz where a wall crumbled in the Northridge earthquake, and I remembered the two young men whose names I can't recall that were in the performance art workshop I attended in the 1990s, and died of AIDS. 

I understand why we are strangers after nine years in Morgantown. We were 62 and 55 when we moved here, and people our age had lifetime friends. I was thirty-four when I came to Los Angeles and sixty when I left. From our temple, I had a community of gay men and lesbian women, singles and couples. That doesn't exist in Morgantown. I'm not criticizing our little town. I understand that people had their long-time friends before we got here, just as my long-term friends are in Los Angeles. 

I don't feel a need to go somewhere else to live, not even to Southern California. I grew up only 200 miles from Morgantown, and there is a familiarity (and familiar allergies) to what I knew in Baltimore. I guess my persona is split these days, and I can cope with that. I'm glad we got away and saw our friends, and I hope the world doesn't shut down again. 

                                             With our hiking group, Great Outdoors, in Griffith Park

                                             The view from Griffith Park across Glendale

          With our crew in Long Beach, l.to r.: Joe, Jonathan, Thomas, Stephen, Barry and George

                                                        On the ocean in Long Beach

             At Lisa and Tracy's pool. Lisa has the glasses. With Jim. The red on my arm is a bandage

                        Bagels and lox and fruit with Jim and Michelle in their garden in Altadena.