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.

Tree of Life Pittsburgh

I am the spouse of the rabbi here in Morgantown, West Virginia, Joseph Hample, "Rabbi Joe." Our congregation is called "Tree of Life"; we are eighty miles south, an hour and a half drive, from Tree of Life in Pittsburgh. The news tonight is that eleven people were murdered by a man at this morning's service in Pittsburgh.

I was at a meeting today with City Councilors and other local officials and the three men on the Monongalia County Commission. I am on Morgantown's City Council. Rabbi Joe has Torah study every Saturday, which I don't attend. I got the news from one of the Commissioners about the shooting.I stepped out of my meeting and called Joe to tell him the news. I tried to concentrate on the meeting, but I was too freaked, and left early to be home with my husband.

This wasn't the first time I was upset about an event in another Jewish community. Last summer, Nazis carrying swastika flags and guns demonstrated in front of the synagogue in Charlottesville, Virginia, about 230 miles from Morgantown, over the mountains. They have a small synagogue on a main street in the middle of a college town, just as we have. I was already on the City Council and suggested we have a plan in case something like what happened in Charlottesville happened in Morgantown. I couldn't get anyone excited about "doing something" including the rabbi.

Two bouquets of flowers were left at the door of our synagogue today and both Rabbi Joe and I have gotten notes of support on social media and concerns for our safety and well-being. I was in Squirrel Hill in Pittsburgh, the neighborhood where the shooting occurred, just this past Wednesday, and posted about my trip on Facebook.

I've heard lots of cries of "How can this happen here?" People who go to Europe are always surprised that synagogues are often unmarked, that someone has to vouch for you to be allowed in. Here in the United States, synagogues sit boldly on main streets with little or no protection.

Of course, it has already happened here. People were murdered at Emanuel A.M.E. Church in South Carolina by a white supremacist in 2015. Someone with a grudge shot up a high school in Parkland, Florida last year. And in just the past week, pipe bombs were discovered mailed to figures in the Democratic Party, and another white supremacist killed two people at a Kroger near Louisville, Kentucky, because the African-American church he originally targeted was locked, and he couldn't get in.

The shock is that this could happen to us, to Jews, as if we were somehow on a different plane than African-Americans and high school students. We are not exempt, not even in the United States, and despite our wealth and the relatively conservative political bent of many Jews in Pittsburgh, we are not "better than" any other religious or racial minority.

Even though there are still many Jews in this administration, there is a prejudice against anyone who is not "white" and "Christian" pushed by the right-wing ideologues who are now in power, and despite their denials, anyone who is a Republican has signed on to that. And we still need sensible regulation of firearms, desperately.

Thoughts and prayers are something we, as religious people, can do. We can also call out prejudice, not just against Jews, but against Muslims, African-Americans, immigrants, and certainly against gay and trans people. There is an election coming up. I've already voted here in West Virginia. It might help, but we need to form alliances and be out on the street with all people of good will. There will be a vigil on WVU's downtown campus, at Woodburn Circle, Monday, October 29, at 7. I will be there.

Rabbi Joe at Tree of Life Morgantown, with flowers left at the door on Sunday after the shooting in Pittsburgh

Most of February

I returned from my trip to Maryland and Virginia on Monday, February 6, to more cold and snow, and lots more meetings and demonstrations. Although I was well over my illness, whatever it was, I was sleeping through the night, with two naps, one after breakfast and one late afternoon. I went back to the new gym I joined just before I get sick, where I am a hot young guy, instead of being the oldest one, by at least twenty years, and more often, forty years, at my old gym. I've gone to two weeks of line dancing classes, much easier than the Israeli dance I attended for twenty-five years in L.A., but for all my scoffing, just about what I can do for an hour, now.

My world was shocked by the February 14 shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Florida. That particular suburb didn't exist when I left South Florida in 1984, but I recognized from the names that the students were a generation or two later version of the people I knew from my time in Miami: Cubans, Jews, African-Americans, whose parents had become affluent and educated, and moved north and west to a new, "safer" suburb, away from Miami. Maybe because I recognized these kids more than those from other shootings, or because I have cousins who grew up near there and are now still in their twenties, I took this hard. And these kids, smart and media savvy, were able to express their grief and desire for change to the world in way that previous survivors could not. I posted about this on my own social media and spoke at length about the need to ban assault weapons nationally at our February 20 Morgantown City Council meeting. Our Morgantown Interfaith Association held a vigil on the 21st downtown. One candidate for state legislature was there, and I attended from City Council. I've checked Twitter, and besides my relentless tweeting, and retweeting students from Stoneman Douglas, what we got from our politicians was "thoughts and prayers" from our Republican congressman and our Senator, who also thanked "first responders." Not even that much from our Democratic Senator, nor from any of our state Delegates or Senators. Meanwhile, in Charleston, our state capital, Republicans, who have a majority in both houses, are busy passing bills to demand that colleges allow concealed carry of weapons on campus,  and that weapons be allowed in cars at any business. More on these horrible people later.

Interfaith vigil against gun violence Thursday, February 22. This is less than half of the group

The President spoke with some of the students, one of whom saw on his note card the expression "I hear you," meaning it was in his script to say that. At the end of the week, when funerals were held for the first students, the Jewish ones, who by custom have to be buried as soon as possible, the President was on the golf course at Mar-A-Lago. Students and parents spent the week trolling Florida Governor Rick Scott and Senator Marco Rubio, who refused to say he would no longer accept campaign money from the NRA. Conservative pundits on television and in the news have suggested that the students who spoke out were actors, or that the whole thing was the fault of the FBI, who knew about the shooter, or that we need better mental health screening, or raise the age when someone can purchase an assault weapon. Of course, the administration would love to end Medicaid, and has tried to cut off the Affordable Care Act's expansion of Medicaid, which provides much of the mental health and drug addiction benefits to the poor.

I remember the shootings at the club in Orlando, the church in Texas, the outdoor concert in Las Vegas (where the shooter was over sixty) and now, in Parkland. What these all have in common is that the shooters had an arsenal of legally-acquired weapons, including AR-15-style weapons. If one is not frightened of the NRA or receiving buckets of campaign cash from them, it is obvious that these weapons have no civilian use and should be banned. I find it hard to believe that America's children should be "collateral damage" so that everyone with a grudge can have an assault weapon. I can't imagine that we have such cowards in both parties running our government.

Meanwhile, our representatives in Charleston proposed a one percent raise for teachers, the first in ten years, while increasing premiums for health insurance and retirement, which would wipe out even that pitiful raise. Additionally, they introduced bills to insist that the teachers' unions get written permission each year to deduct union dues from teachers' salaries, and to end awarding full-time union leaders, all teachers, retirement credit in the system. They voted to lower standards for new teachers, since they can't fill many positions with qualified applicants, and they want home-schooled kids to not need a GED to get a state-sponsored college scholarship. There was a bill this year to mandate an elective course in the Bible, and to allow school districts to write their own science standards. Read into that what you will.

Teachers went to Charleston to protest, and they were effectively locked out by the House Speaker adjourning the session at 11 A.M. until 6 P.M., when visitors would not be allowed. The net result of this is that teachers in all fifty-five counties in this state walked off the job. Thanks to Messrs. Mason and Dixon, and to former President Lincoln, West Virginia is oddly-shaped. Many people in the state could easily commute to teaching jobs in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland or Virginia, where the pay is lots better than in West Virginia. Instead of dealing with these pay and benefit disparities, the Legislature has voted this session, not to pass a budget, which is their main job, but to ban Medicaid from paying for abortions, to create an unnecessary extra level of courts, to allow clergy to not perform weddings they object to (they already can do that) and to give a tax break to out-of-state corporate interests.

The teachers in every county in the state walked off the job Thursday and Friday, forcing the schools to announce in advance that they would be closed, and as of Saturday night, it looks like they won't be back Monday, either. Arrangements were made for social service agencies to provide food for kids and families at lunch, and people were asked to drop off food and supplies at food pantries throughout the state. It's a sad commentary that many kids in West Virginia only get a decent meal at school. It rained last Thursday, the 22nd, in the morning, although this week the weather has been freakishly warm, breaking records Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. With all the rain we've had, there have been flood watches and warnings. I went Thursday afternoon for less than an hour during a break in the rain to stand with teachers from North Elementary, near my house. Parents brought shipments of coffee and donuts from a nearby store while I was there, and a woman introduced me to her developmentally disabled son Anthony, who recognized and hugged his former teachers, held a sign to passing motorists, and screamed with pleasure when a car honked at us. His mother told me that Anthony, at three, could not stand up, and she was told that he would never get much past the mental stage of an infant. She took him to kindergarten at North Elementary, where the teachers worked with him, and although she no longer lives in our county, she wanted to come out to support the teachers at North. While our state votes, or in the last election, voted Republican, people I've spoken to support the teachers.

Teachers picketing near Morgantown's North Elementary, Thursday afternoon, 2/22

We had a marathon five-hour City Council meeting Tuesday, February 21, where we picked six people from the ten we interviewed for our new Health and Wellness Commission. In the regular meeting, later, we passed, 6-1, an ordinance to give a tax break to businesses who spend at least five million dollars on new development or improvements to an existing business downtown or in an area that becomes annexed to the city. I had my doubts, which I expressed to the Mayor and City Manager at a meeting Monday. Joe and I had been out the previous Thursday with our gay social group, only five of us that night, at the south end of downtown We started with drinks at a hotel, then adjourned to an Indian restaurant with a buffet. Lots of people were there for the yummy food, but I couldn't help notice the empty storefronts and surface parking lots at that end of downtown. Despite my misgivings about the bill, because I'm not in favor of tax breaks for big business, generally, I voted for it, in the hope that something will give our downtown a boost. Two people spoke against the bill, one a friend , and one of our Councilors, with good reason, voted against it. I hope that we can now do something for smaller businesses in the area, which was one of the objections, and that, ultimately, new development will provide jobs and an increased tax base for our city. We didn't adjourn until 10:30.

Wednesday dawned with a temperature of 65 F. (average low 24 F. for the date) and it was supposed to get warmer. Joe had office hours and a work-related dinner date, so I decided to go to Pittsburgh for a "big city fix." I picked five historic places and figured on lunch somewhere, a stop at a CD store I know about in the Strip District, just north of downtown, and a bookstore, possibly the one in Squirrel Hill. I thought I might hit a movie if it rained, and stay past dinner. I visited numbers 121 to 125 on Wikipedia's list of historic places, bought three CDs from my list of the best-selling albums of the first decade of this century (by Faith Hill, Lenny Kravitz and No Doubt) and visited a book store on Carson Street in Pittsburgh's South Side Flats. More on that later.

Of course, it started to rain not far into Pennsylvania. It's about 75 miles from our house, at the north end of Morgantown, to Central Pittsburgh, and although it hit 72 early in my stay in the city, the rain came on and off, and by the time I left at 3:30, it had dropped to 47 F. I started downtown at the Pittsburgh Renaissance District, the twentieth century rebuild of the historic center of the city at the point where the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers meet  to form the Ohio. I got there close to noon and paid $4.00 to park on the street for an hour. I took a few pictures, saw a demonstration by high school students at Market Square, protesting the shootings in Florida, and lunched at a chain restaurant that serves noodle dishes.

Pittsburgh Renaissance Historic District, Wednesday, 2/21

Gateway Center, Pittsburgh, one of the entrances

Flooding along the Monongahela River in Point Park

Students holding a vigil, Market Square, Pittsburgh, 2/21. The glass building is the headquarters of Pittsburgh Plate Glass

From there, I headed north to the CD store (which also has records and comic books) then just east to "Reymer Brothers Candy Company," a 1906 building, now used as offices. The candy company no longer exists.

Reymer Candy Company, 1425 Forbes Avenue, Bluff District

I crossed the Monongahela River from there, to Carson Street, once an old working class neighborhood at the foot of a bluff and subject to flooding, now gentrifying. It looks like Morgantown's High Street if it were three miles long instead of two blocks.
I visited the Pittsburgh Mercantile Company Store, near the east end of Carson Street, built 1906-7, and originally, according to Wikipedia, a "company store" for a steel company. It has lately been converted into apartments. The steel company no longer exists.

2600 East Carson St., South Side Flats, Pittsburgh

Cruising down Carson Street, I saw a banner advertising a book store and decided to drop in. A sign on the door said "Closed Saturday for Sabbath." I was surprised, as this was never a Jewish part of town. The guy who greeted me was as pale and Nordic looking as anyone I'd ever met,  adding to the mystery, but when he called for the owner to answer a question, a young man in a kippa and tzitzit (ritual fringes) came over. We talked a bit, and he told me he had a non-Jewish last name (which I don't recall now) because he was Jewish only because his mother's mother was Jewish. He was a waiter before he opened the bookstore, but he quit because he had to work Friday night, the busiest night at a restaurant. He had only lately decided to become a religious Jew. I told him I was married to the Reform rabbi in Morgantown, a man. He just shrugged that off. I didn't see anything I was desperate for in the store, so I went on to my fourth historic place, Pittsburgh Terminal and Warehouse Company, built between 1904 and 1906 to link rail and barge traffic through the city. It is now used as offices.

333-400 East Carson Street, South Side Flats

I had one last place to visit, Prospect School, above Southside Flats in Mt. Washington. I turned on the GPS on my phone to get to this place, as the streets in that neighborhood wind around a bit. The school was built in 1931 and now has been converted into apartments.

Former school, Mt. Washington

It was close to 3:30, raining and cold. I figured out how to get to the Interstate home, got stuck in traffic leaving Pittsburgh (the downside of the "big city fix," )but made it home just after five, in time to feed the cat, and sleep for an hour before fixing dinner for myself. It was 60 F. and not raining in Morgantown.

It is now Sunday night, still too warm, raining, with flood watches and warnings throughout the state. The teachers will be off again tomorrow, while trying to get some kind of respect from the Governor and Legislature.

Joe and I did our bit Saturday, attending Empty Bowls, a charity event for food pantries and soup kitchens, where you get soup from restaurants, bread, home-made cookies and a bowl to take home. Almost everyone in Morgantown seems to show up at Empty Bowls.

At Empty Bowls, with Danielle Walker, candidate for WV Delegate in our district

Joe and I at home showing off our new bowls

We have a City Council meeting Tuesday, and Wednesday night, the end of the month, is the Jewish holiday of Purim, also, on the Jewish calendar, the fifteenth anniversary of my mother's death. It's a joyous holiday, but not for me. I keep busy for a retired person in a small town.

In my online world, people are angry that national newspapers are still looking to interview Trump supporters in "The Heartland" while ignoring the importance of a state-wide teacher strike in West Virginia, and television news covers C-PAC, which has become, you should pardon me, an Evangelical Klan rally. I've reminded people that "THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED."

Saturday in Pittsburgh

I heard it was an exciting game between Iowa State and West Virginia in Morgantown last Saturday, November 4, starting at 3 P.M. The weather was just warm enough, and it was sunny. I don't go to football games generally, and a game in town means one is stuck in the house at least an hour before and an hour after the game.

I could have gone to Torah study at Tree of Life in the morning. That's not something I typically do either. In my original retirement plan, I would go to Pittsburgh, preferably with my spouse, the rabbi at Tree of Life, to have lunch in a restaurant, find some historic spots, see amovie that will never play here in Morgantown, and if it's not Saturday, go to the Jewish bookstore and gift shop in Squirrel Hill. We haven't done that in a few months. We've been through Pittsburgh's airport, on our way to and from Canada this past summer, and I went with Joe to two weddings he officiated at the Heinz Museum in the Strip District, even singing at one of them.

I left at nine, before Joe left for Torah study, and went searching for my five historic sites, Numbers 115-119 on Wikipedia's list of National Register Sites in Pittsburgh. First up, in the South Shore neighborhood (the south shore of the Monongahela River, which also flows through Morgantown), there is the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Rail Station, and a separate listing for the  Railroad Complex. These were a major rail hub into the 1960s, but are now, combined, part of Station Square shopping complex. There are also movie theaters, and a hotel. The rail station is now a fancy restaurant.

From there, I headed to the "Pittsburgh Central Downtown Historic District," just across the river from Station Square. I parked at a meter on the street, as I did at several stops in the city. They have machines where you enter your license plate number and then pay for the amount of time you want. Downtown meters were $4.00 per hour; in other places they were $1.00 for an hour. Much of the area dates from the turn of the last century, imposing stone and brick structures, including the William Penn Hotel. I was surprised to find some mid-nineteenth century row houses still standing, and the more impressive Alcoa Aluminum building, coated in... aluminum, and now being converted into apartments, and U.S. Steel's steel tower, with its fine coating of rust, a deliberate design feature, now used as offices of University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.  I walked around a few blocks of downtown, and lamented that Kauffman's Department Store, most recently a branch of Macy's, is closed.

My next stop was the former Pittsburgh Brass Manufacturing Company, in the Strip District, the part of town that sits at the bottom of a the cliff along the Allegheny River. This was an industrial area, now full of shops, restaurants, and offices and new hotels. The Brass Company, probably from about 1900, is now a law office.

It was already after noon when I was in the Strip District. I turned on the GPS on my cell phone (something I only recently learned how to do) to head over the hill to Oakland, the hipster neighborhood around the University of Pittsburgh, once the archrival of West Virginia in sports, before West Virginia switched leagues to the Big 12, a more lucrative league, with teams from Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Iowa. The weather had warmed up, and kids were out playing frisbee. It was my goal to do my pictures and get to Whole Foods in Shadyside no later than 1 P.M. for lunch.That didn't happen. I got my pic of the Pittsburgh Athletic Association Building, then stopped for a sandwich at a Starbuck's across the street in one of the dorm buildings from Pitt, filled with young people ignoring each other in favor of their laptops.

I found my way to Bakery Square, a development of offices in an old bakery building and stores in the surrounding area, including a gym, a chain bakery and lunch place, a café, and a few other places to shop. Nothing that interesting, but there are rumors that the developer wants to build in Morgantown, so I wanted to check it out.

My plan was to leave at three, and get home in the middle of the WVU game, when the streets are deserted, and in time for a nap before dinner. I knew how to get to Squirrel Hill from Bakery Square. Classic Lines is an independent book store on Forbes Avenue. I would rather pay full price there than go to a chain bookstore and get a discount. Morgantown does not (yet) have an independent bookstore downtown. I don't buy enough books to worry about a discount, anyway. My sister had sent me sixty-eight dollars for my birthday and told me to spend it on something I wanted. The books cost me eighty, but that was close enough. I stopped in at the coffeehouse next door to the book store (also filled with geeky young people bent over laptops) and bought a fancy cookie as my meter was running out. It was an easy hour-and-a half drive home, eighty miles from Squirrel Hill. I did most of what I planned to do in the time I had allotted for myself.

WVU won the football game, and Joe and I decided to stay in for the evening.


Here are my pics:

Interior, Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Rail Station, now a restaurant

Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Rail Station, 1898

Part of the railroad complex, containing a shopping mall

Lobby of the William Penn Hotel, downtown Pittsburgh

Views from Mellon Square, downtown Pittsburgh:

19th century houses, Strawberry Way, Downtown Pittsburgh

                                      

Pittsburgh Brass Manufacturing Company Building, Strip District

Pittsburgh Athletic Association, 1911

                                        

Forbes Avenue between Murray and Shady, Squirrel Hill, my favorite Pittsburgh neighborhood

My new books

The Wedding, The Fourth of July, and City Council

I normally just do what I have to do, make plans and carry them out. I understand that I am not young and I have to be a little careful. No one else sees that.

Last weekend, my sister Robin came in from Maryland. Part of it was to spend the holiday with us, but also she wanted to see me installed in City Council on July 5. Joe and I were asked to do a wedding July 2 in Pittsburgh. The groom is from Morgantown, and we did his brother's wedding three years ago in Charleston. I used to sing for Jewish prayer services. I stopped after the major holidays in 2003. I had been ill that year, and found doing the services too hard for me. People know I sing, but I am rarely asked. Joe does his own singing at synagogue, and I don't want to compete with him. I have a book of cantor music for life-cycle events. At the wedding, I sang the sheva b'rachot, the traditional seven wedding blessings, a benediction, and a selection from Song  of Songs. I worked on my voice for the week before and rehearsed the music at home with the piano we almost never use.

Saturday, we drove the seventy-five miles to the Strip District in Pittsburgh, in time for a late afternoon rehearsal and then dinner at a seafood restaurant. The buffet did not include any "forbidden species," to my relief. We went back to our hotel after dinner; the couple and their friends stayed later to drink and party.

Joe at the restaurant where the rehearsal dinner was held, Strip District, Pittsburgh

It was warm in Pittsburgh Sunday. We left our hotel, dressed for the wedding just after noon, and found a restaurant for lunch. We had looked around the area earlier. We were in suits while everyone else was in summer wear. A nap would have been nice. Instead, we sat in the air conditioning at the  Heinz Museum where the wedding was to be.

The wedding went off without a hitch. The groom was handsome, the bride beautiful in a gorgeous dress, Joe was charming and entertaining, and I sang better than I thought I would. We stayed for dinner and left after 8:30 to drive home, just as the bride and groom were lifted on chairs while everyone danced around them.

The bride and groom are graduates of WVU, and we met many of their thirtyish friends who had gone to school with them, some from West Virginia, all living in Pittsburgh. A typical comment was "We didn't see a future for ourselves anywhere in West Virginia. We learned to do high-tech jobs, which don't exist in West Virginia, and we also wanted to be in a more urban and sophisticated environment." We have work to do here if we hope to attract or retain bright, educated young people.

We got home around ten, and I just wanted to sleep. Robin and Joe played Scrabble before going to bed.

It was my idea to have City Council members ride bikes with the kids in Morgantown's Fourth of July parade. I was already exhausted. We had been out Monday night in Fairmont with friends, who had fireworks, and cooked the kind of vegetarian food we don't normally eat. I take a "water" pill every other day, and I was on the last day of antibiotics for a cut on my arm that was infected. I wanted to stay home, take care of my stressed digestive system and rest up before the parade. The bikes were to meet at five. Instead, we went out late in the morning to walk around Cheat Lake, one of the prettiest recreation areas around here. It was already too hot. Joe and Robin wanted to go out for lunch; we settled on a "fast casual " chain restaurant near our house, so I could nap for an hour before going out to ride my bike the three miles from our house to downtown. It was 86 F. at 5 P.M. Four of us from Council showed up to ride. We rode from the meeting spot to the head of the parade, then waited close to an hour to step off. I was dizzy and had to sit on the curb. The parade went well, and although people offered me a ride home, I opted to ride back. I had used up the one bottle of water I brought, and I had one of those plastic envelopes of juice-like drink, courtesy of one of the organizers for the kids.

At Cheat Lake, July 4, photo by Kevin of Woodburn Shanks Barbecue, who happened to be there

Three councilors on bikes, plus our pal Evan Hansen, July 4 I'm not sure who snapped this photo

I got home close to 8 P.M., overheated and dehydrated. I drank three bottles of water, and Robin put a wet towel on my head, as I was burning up.I managed to swallow some food after 9.

Our first Council meeting was Wednesday, and I had suggested we all meet at a flatbread-pizza-and- salad brew pub in Morgantown's Wharf District for dinner. I knew they could accommodate a crowd. I barely got out of bed most of the day. Twenty people showed up for dinner: the seven Councilors, spouses, some children and friends. I was happy that we could all relax together without the rancor that plagued the last council.

Dinner July 5 with Councilors and family, taken by a server at the restaurant

Our installation on council only took ten minutes, as I expected. There was some business and we each had a chance to say something at the end. My ward is possibly the most politically conservative in the city. I explained my being there by comparing myself to Christoper Isherwood, the author whose story "Goodbye to Berlin" became the musical "Cabaret." Isherwood once wrote that his Catholic British mother wanted him to be patriotic, religious, and married. He said he had become that, only American, a Hindu, and married to another man. As someone who is religious, married, and a homeowner, I said felt that I am  exactly in the right neighborhood.

I'm elated to be on the City Council, and I was happy to be at that first meeting. I've been to City Council meetings before, but it's different being on the Council. It's an awesome responsibility.

Our official portrait from the City's photographer

It's now Sunday night, and I have stayed as close to home as possible the last few days. I'm still out more than most men my age, but sleeping more during the day, and feeling like I had the wind knocked out of me. I did bicycle an hour and a half this afternoon in cooler than average weather, but I skipped seeing Bernie Sanders, whom we saw in Charleston two weeks ago, and also the Morgantown Interfaith Council this afternoon, where Joe was explaining Jewish practices to the group. Tappuz, our cat, has also been staying close to home, instead of spending most of her time outside, as she had been doing since the weather warmed up. Maybe she reflects my diminished energy, or perhaps she was frightened by fireworks last week.

Tuesday will mark five years since our arrival in Morgantown. My original goal here was only to be a spouse for Joe, and to support him in his new career. Now I have my own career as a representative of my city, and last week I enjoyed performing at a wedding (it helped that the couple was so sweet). I've also signed up for a writing workshop at the end of the month, so hopefully, I will be doing more writing than the disjointed pieces I put up on this blog.

I only hope I can muster the energy to continue these endeavors, pacing myself physically, especially, but also emotionally, so I don't crash and burn.

Shavuot 5777

Shavuot is a Biblical holiday, coming fifty days after Passover. It was originally a harvest holiday for wheat and barley in ancient Israel. The rabbis added the idea that we assembled at Mount Sinai and received the Torah on this date. Some congregations read the Book of Ruth, because much of it takes place during this harvest season. Today, the holiday is not often celebrated. Some have all-night study sessions, which come from the medieval period. Rabbi Joe said they couldn't do this until coffee was introduced to the Middle East. This year at Tree of Life here in Morgantown, we decided to do a dairy dinner (also traditional), a short service and study sessions, not all night, but maybe until ten or eleven. Although the holiday was Tuesday night and Wednesday, the Tree of Life observance will be Friday night. Conservative and Orthodox congregations outside Israel celebrate for two days.

Since my election to City Council in April, I've had meetings, dinners and Council events to attend, even though I will not be on the Council until July. The City Council met Tuesday night, and the Suncrest Neighborhood Association met at 7 P.M. Wednesday. I unhappily agreed to go to both events, since there was no local observance of Shavuot at those times. At the last minute, we were  invited to a congregant's home for a holiday get-together Tuesday night. I was sorry I couldn't go.

The City Council event was a "Meeting of the Whole" where events and issues are discussed, questions asked, but no decisions made. All seven of the current councilors were there. Only two of them will be on the new council. I was the only one of the five newly-elected councilors to attend as an observer. I had prepared, in my head, something to say about Shavuot, then decided not to talk about it and write it as a blog post. I changed my mind when I saw that the three councilors who lost the election were wearing identical t-shirts with a map of West Virginia and the words "Born and Raised" on them. After the election, one had noted that none of the new City Councilors were born in West Virginia. During the public portion of the meeting, I improvised what I wanted to say on my blog. This is pretty much what I said:

" Tonight begins the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, which occurs fifty days after Passover. We will celebrate this holiday Friday night at Tree of Life. It is traditional to read the Book of Ruth on this holiday. Ruth was a Moabite, from present-day Jordan, married to a man from Bethlehem. When her husband died, leaving her childless, her mother-in-law, Naomi, encouraged her to go back to her family in Moab. Ruth famously said " I will go with you. Your people will be my people, and your God, my God." The two returned to Bethlehem, and Ruth eventually found a kinsman of her late husband who married her and provided an inheritor for the dead man. Ruth was accepted into society in Judea, and was an ancestor of King David.

" July 11 will mark five years since my spouse Joe Hample and I arrived in Morgantown. We were outsiders, a same-gender couple who had lived in California for decades and were raised in liberal East Coast families. Our marriage was not legal in West Virginia until the Fourth Circuit ruling three years ago. Joe was offered a two-year contract with Tree of Life Congregation here in Morgantown. We didn't know how this would work out, and there were doubters in the congregation as well. But we made friends and became involved in the community. After two years, Joe was offered a five-year contract at Tree of Life with the possibility of an extension, and we were able to buy a modest house in Suncrest.

"Last year, we visited our six favorite cities in the world: San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Washington, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Everywhere we went, people asked us 'Why are you still in West Virginia?' Maybe we didn't realize it until we were first asked, but we are here because West Virginia, and Morgantown in particular, is our home. This is where we live. We are grateful to the people here, that we have been accepted, as Ruth was in Bethlehem, as part of the community, and we have both found a place in this beautiful city. I am happy that I was elected to City Council. Maybe an outsider's point of view was what people were looking for this year, fresh ideas and a different way of looking at Morgantown." The councilor I am replacing sent me a note later thanking me for stepping up.

I had suggested to Joe that we look for a morning holiday service in Pittsburgh. Rodeph Shalom and Temple Sinai offered a joint service at Temple Sinai at 10 A.M. Wednesday and we decided to go. We left the house just after eight Wednesday morning and almost made it to the service on time. Sinai is on Forbes Avenue in Squirrel Hill. A beautiful Gothic-style stone mansion was preserved as  part of the temple. The main sanctuary has clerestory abstract stained glass windows in a semi-circle, dark blue at the ends and bolder yellows and oranges in the middle, symbolizing the move from dawn to dusk. With the two congregations combined, there were about fifty people there, plus five rabbis and two women cantors, both with gorgeous voices. One of the rabbis, a young woman, was in school the first year of rabbi training with Joe in Jerusalem. Congregants took turns reading from The Book of Ruth in English, with the words projected on screens above the altar. We loved being observers of a traditional Reform service, and being a part of the community.

The congregation provided a dairy lunch of cheese blintzes, a spinach-tomato casserole, salad and fruit. We sat with one of the rabbis and some couples we had not met before. One of the women mentioned Baltimore Hebrew Congregation, so I asked her if she grew up in Baltimore, as I did, and where she went to high school? We played Jewish geography and it turned out that her sister was in my class in eighth and ninth grades at Sudbrook Junior High. I remembered her and her sister and I  talked about people we both knew, quite a few, as it turned out.

We drove home and I crashed out for an hour and a half. The Chabad rabbi had invited us to their sanctuary for a service and meal Wednesday afternoon. Chabad is black-hat religious, and although we are different from them theologically, Zalman and Hindy, the couple who run Chabad here, have included us in events and we like them and admire what they do, even if we don't do it. They have a new baby, a girl, I think their fifth (I've lost track) and she was introduced to us, spitting up on her father. Rabbi Zalman placed a table in the middle of the room, put plastic plants on it to create a barrier, and the men stood on one side, women on the other. He chanted the ten commandments to us in Hebrew at lightning speed, left us alone for a brief silent memorial service, then we broke for dinner: blintzes, cheese casserole, ice cream, bagels and lox.

I spoke with another Chabad couple, he all in black with an untrimmed beard, she in a long skirt and a stylish wig. He is a cousin of Zalman's, and they had come to visit with their children. She told me they live in Long Beach, California. I told her that we had met a Chabad rabbi from Long Beach, when he came to Crescent City to certify that our local cheese factory was kosher. She asked if we meant Nechemiah Newman  (we did!) and she said she is his niece. More "small world" stuff.

I had told Joe we had to leave Chabad early so I could make it to the 7 P.M. Suncrest Neighborhood Association meeting. Suncrest is the neighborhood I will be representing on City Council, and the school superintendent was to speak about the lately-vacated primary school, an issue. Sometime at Chabad, I realized that being with people on a Jewish holiday was more important than a meeting. I showed up anyway, late , after the superintendent had left. Still there were things I learned at the meeting, and I was greeted by many people, and had a chance to introduce myself. That felt good, too. It's all about balancing things. Yes, I'm a Libra.

Meanwhile, I'm preparing for our Friday night study session. At Osher Life-Long Learning, I just finished teaching a course for seniors called "The Great Hits of 1963." I agreed to teach a half-hour class Friday night focusing on Jewish songwriters and performers from that time. Stop by Tree of Life at 6:30 for dinner, service and learning. Rabbi Joe is cooking macaroni and cheese with broccoli.

I was worried our holiday wouldn't be meaningful, but it was. We were both able to worship and socialize with a larger Jewish community, and I feel, more than ever, that Joe and I  are exactly where we should be.