Camden County, New Jersey

I had planned to leave town for four days after the election to visit Camden County, New Jersey, almost three hundred miles from Morgantown on old Mapquest, where you could choose between "shortest" and "fastest" routes. The short way was under 300 miles; the fast way, 311 miles. Old Mapquest is gone now, so, under new rules, it's too far for me to visit.

The news Wednesday morning was awful, especially that in all counties in West Virginia, including Monongalia, the majority voted for the Republican candidate for President. My visit out-of-state seemed more important than before. I was afraid of what I might say to people around here.

I booked a cheap motel, part of my usual chain, in Bellmawr, a suburb right off the New Jersey Turnpike, at exit 3. If you look for motels in Camden, they will first show you downtown Philadelphia, just across the Delaware River from downtown Camden. I spent less for four nights in the 'burbs than I would have on one night in downtown Philadelphia.

I usually look for ten historic places per day, so twenty on this trip. But since many of them were within a few blocks in downtown Camden, I thought I would up the ante and look for a total of thirty places. There are 93 historic places on the National Register in Camden County.

I arrived late afternoon Wednesday, checked in and napped, then went out to a diner just up the road from the motel. It had been raining and cold most of the day. I was not sure this whole thing was going to work out. But the diner was one of those aluminum and faux wood paneling places with dinner specials for $10.99 including soup or salad, and dessert. The waitress, skinny, blonde and tattooed, asked me how I was doing. I could barely speak, but I finally said "I'm not doing that well." She was sympathetic. The food was plentiful, but just okay. Still, I started to feel at home. The diner was crowded and noisy, and just seemed so...urban, I guess. I started to relax.

And I guess that is the theme of this trip- being more relaxed. There are more than two hundred thousand people in a relatively small area, with Camden city, and boroughs and townships ranging from poor to well-off. There are synagogues of all stripes in Cherry Hill, a vibrant Puerto Rican commercial district on the east side of Camden, malls, restaurants, friendly people. Many of the people are Jewish, Italian, African-American, Puerto Rican. There is a gay community. The county mostly voted Democratic in the election Tuesday.

The City of Camden is in the northwestern part of the county, which has an oblong shape running northwest to southeast to close to the ocean near Atlantic City. I spent Thursday moving from the south end of the county to the north, running through my list of historic places. Unlike Philadelphia, which was a big city at the time of the American Revolution, southern New Jersey was rural. There weren't major places like Independence Hall or the Liberty Bell. There were some nineteenth century towns in the south, with a few older farmhouses mixed in. In the farther-out towns (boroughs in New Jersey) I saw a few Trump signs around. The weather both days was sunny and breezy, with a high in the 50s Thursday to about 60 Friday. The autumn leaves were near their peak.

Haddonfield is the one late 18th century town in the county. I saw an independent bookstore , and a little café, and thought about stopping. I took one picture, and went on. It all looked a little too precious for my taste.

Just north of there is Cherry Hill township, a giant mid-century suburb, like where I grew up in northwest Baltimore County, only much bigger and better. I stopped for lunch at Wegman's, the best grocery store in the country, jammed with people eating from the $9.99 per pound buffet. I had finally gone native. From there, I headed to Collingswood, an early twentieth century borough, close in to Camden, with row houses, larger frame houses, and an old-fashioned shopping street now filled with trendy stores (gourmet pastries, anyone?). At that point, it was three P.M., and I headed back to the motel for a nap. Unfortunately the hotel is on a major truck route connecting the New Jersey Turnpike to parallel Interstate 295, I didn't get a lot of sleep.

Once I was fully awake, I went looking for a mall I had seen in the morning, figuring to eat at the food court. I managed to get to Voorhees Town Center, south of the turnpike, not too far from where I stayed. This was one of those slowly dying malls, with lots of empty space. They have a Macy's and Boscovs, a more local department store. I walked around the mall; I can't remember what I ate there. I found a Camden County office, still open, with people waiting for some kind of interview, and the person in charge gave me a detailed street map of the county. This should have helped me more than it did. I got out of the mall on the wrong street, and wandered around for about an hour before finding my way back to my motel. Since the hotel had a minimal continental breakfast, I stopped at a supermarket, and bought two cartons of yogurt, two pieces of fruit and two bagels, real northeastern bagels, one of each for a late snack and one for breakfast Friday.

I told someone in my OLLI class about going to Camden after the election. The woman was from Philadelphia, and told me not to get out of my car in Camden because it was so dangerous. Having lived in downtown Baltimore, in central Los Angeles, in Miami and New Orleans, I brushed her off.

South Broadway in Camden, where there was once a commercial district, does look terrible. There are some great old buildings, but empty lots and vacant houses and storefronts are ubiquitous. The population is mostly African-American. I wondered about all the coming coddling of white working class people due to the Republican victory, and wondered why the people here have been neglected, and I wonder still who will look out for them in the next four years. Farther downtown, Market Street runs about a mile from City Hall to the Delaware River, directly across from booming downtown Philadelphia. At the waterfront is an aquarium, mobbed with people on this Veteran's Day holiday, with kids out of school. There is also a campus of Rutgers University. I found the Walt Whitman House, a museum, closed for the holiday. There are some streets where trees have been planted and houses fixed up- modest row houses like one might see in Baltimore. I drove to the north end of town, where there was supposed to be a historic ship, which I couldn't find, and to the east end of town, predominantly Puerto Rican, with more people and little shops.

There is a bridge over a creek at theeast end of town, and suddenly I was in Merchantville, a beautiful leafy suburb with grand old houses, and a small commercial district. It was lunchtime, so I stopped at a little Japanese restaurant, and had a yummy plate of hibachi chicken, rice and vegetables. Four people worked there: the sushi chef, who was Chinese, as was the woman out front. I suppose there was a cook, and a burly, bearded guy doing deliveries. An HYM sat at the counter near me (Handsome Young Man, not that I noticed). The workers knew him, as well as some of the people who came in for carry-out. They included me in the conversation, which surprised me. People in West Virginia often won't talk to you unless your grandmother and theirs went to school together.

I found one last historic place in Pennsauken, the township on the Delaware at the north end of the county. It was only 2:30. I couldn't get on the road I wanted because of a complicated interchange, but I stopped for gas, looked at the map, and figured it all out. The guy at the gas station was a Sikh. He pumped the gas for me, as self-service is illegal in New Jersey.

I needed to replace the corduroy sport coat I brought with me for Friday night services, because, after five, maybe six years, it looked shabby. I headed to Cherry Hill Mall. I was with the people of the area. What does everyone do on a sunny warm (for November) holiday afternoon, a national holiday in commemoration of the sacrifices of our veterans? Right. They go shopping. Mobs of people looking for bargains in the first sale day of the holiday season. It's a lovely mall, anchored by J.C. Penney, Macy's and Nordstrom. The crowd was wildly eclectic, from tattooed gangsters to thin stylish matrons, hip-hop types, kids, bunches of teens, all races and ethnicities, everyone out for a good time. I tried to find a jacket at Penney's, at Macy's, at Nordstrom, Hugo Boss, Armani Exchange. I felt rich at Nordstrom, but not rich enough to buy their on-sale store brand plain blazer for $295.00. Nothing fir me at Armani and Hugo Boss- they design for tall skinny men- I knew that going in. I finally bought a $200 corduroy jacket, similar to the one i have, on sale for $49.99 at Penney's.

It was already 4 P.M., so I hurried back about ten miles to the motel to sleep a little. It was my intent to go to the 7:30 "Kristallnacht" shabbat service at  Temple Emanuel in Cherry Hill. I skipped dinner and found the temple at about 7, giving me time to rush out for "dinner." That turned out to be a bagel with light cream cheese from Dunkin' Donuts, which I ate in the car just before services started.

They have  a beautiful 1960ish modern sanctuary, not fancy, but well done. Maybe seventy-five people, mostly older, came. They have two rabbis, a cantor and an accompanist. Only one rabbi was there, and the accompanist played an electric keyboard and sang. Most of the service was English. The rabbi opened with something non-partisan about the frustration of the election and how some were happy some not (mostly not, from what I could see there) and how we all need to come together. They called up all the veterans for a special blessing. The youngest was probably 70, a Viet Nam veteran, most were older. Young Jewish men do not go in the Armed Forces since the draft ended.
In remembrance of Kristallnacht, the night in 1938 when Jewish businesses were attacked throughout Germany, a local Holocaust survivor, Ernest Kaufman, spoke. Although he is 96 years old, he spoke clearly and stood straight, as he told us a piece of his story. It is humbling to hear what people like him saw and lived through, how they were the only ones to survive, the great strength, luck and optimistic attitude needed to pick up, start over and not be bitter. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thought about the Neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klanners who have been emboldened by the Republican presidential campaign and the election. results I was thinking about how bad things might get here, how Germans in the early 1930s could not imagine the horrors that later occurred. Looking back, we can see how things happened, and how it could happen here after all.

A woman greeted me when I came in to the synagogue, and handed me a program and some flyers, but before and after services no one spoke to me. That wouldn't happen at our Tree of Life Congregation.After services I ate a chocolate rugallah and some fruit at the oneg, had a cup of decaf and took my evening meal pills. I chatted up the accompanist, complimenting him on his singing. He's a tall skinny guy, sixty-one, he said. He is bald with a shaved head and lives in Philadelphia, in Society Hill, the good downtown neighborhood. The rabbi saw us talking and came over to greet me. I told him I was the "rebbitzin" (rabbi's wife) in Morgantown, and how I came to be in Cherry Hill, and at that congregation. I also spoke to the Mr. Kaufman, who told me about joining the US Armed Forces and working as a translator for political prisoners during World War II. He was a poultry farmer in southern New Jersey after the war.

I got back to the hotel about 10 and crashed. Saturday I was back on the road, this time starting from downtown Camden about 10 A.M., paying the $21 toll on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, arriving home about 4 P.M.

I loved being in an ethnically diverse, urban-suburban, friendly community. If I sound like  Morgantown is not that, well, it's not. I'm bitter and sorrowful about the election, worried about being gay and Jewish in this outpost. Strategically, there are people here who want to make at least Morgantown a progressive place, if not the rest of West Virginia. For the short term, that is a goal worth fighting for.

Club Diner, Bellmawr, New Jersey

Historic District, Berlin Borough

A bed and breakfast in Blackwood Historic District, Gloucester Township

Chew-Powell House, originally 1688, Gloucester Township

Gabreil Daveis Tavern, 1756, used as a hospital in the American Revolution, Gloucester Township

Glendale Methodist Episcopal Church, 1855, Voorhees Township

Greenfield Hall, 1747, Haddonfield Borough

Barclay Farm House, 1816, Cherry Hill Township

Bonnie's Bridge, Cherry Hill

Commercial District, Collingswood Borough

Residential District, Collingswood

Camden Talmud Torah, now a church

former Camden Talmud Torah

former Broadway Trust Company, Camden

Carnegie-donated former Camden Main Library, 1905, sign says it will be restored

Walt Whitman House and Neighborhood, downtown Camden, now a museum

Camden Safe Deposit and Trust, 1929

Federal Building, Camden- this might be a newer addition

National State Bank Building, Camden, 1913

detail, RCA Building 17

RCA Victor Building 17, now "The Victor" loft apartments, Camden, 1909-1916

View across the Delaware River to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Cooper Library in Johnson Park, Camden, 1916, now part of Rutgers University

Edward Sharp House, 1810, Camden

Rutgers University Campus, Camden

House in The Oaks Historic District, Merchantville

mid-century modern in The Oaks

Arthur Dorrance House, Merchantville. Dorrance was the president of Campbell Soup, once headquartered in Camden

Burrough-Dover House, 1710, Pennsauken Township

Discrimination prohibited in more categories in New Jersey than in West Virginia

Santa's House, Cherry Hill Mall

Lego Store, Cherry Hill Mall

modeling my new sport coat

I Wish This Would Be Over Soon (But I Know It Won't Be)

Comments last night and this morning on Facebook: There was a post about the Republican woman running for state treasurer in West Virginia, and people were supporting her in the comments. I should have kept my mouth shut, but I said "I never vote for Republicans."
Responder1: "Isn't time (sic) for change?"

Me:"Yes. Let's vote out the Republicans in West Virginia. I'm in a same-gender marriage. I can't afford to have haters trying to overturn that. And no, I don't vote for Democrats who would overturn my marriage, either."

Responder 2: "Barry's gonna vote for Hitlery (sic) who wants to flood America with hundreds of muslims (sic). Barry, you know they'll want to throw you from the roof of a tall building to splat on the concrete below. You Libs are crazy! You should let some refugees move in with you . Maybe you can change them."

Responder 2 (again):"Republicans won't let 'em do that to ya, Barry. We'll keep the animals away!"

Me; "You are full of crap,[name]. That minister in Iowa they all visited wants us all killed. The Republicans have never been any kind of friend to gays. None of us are that stupid."

Me (again): "And calling people 'animals' who are fleeing for their lives is not something I, as a religious person, can abide. It further proves how debased conversations by Republicans are. Have a nice day."

No comment from the candidate whose page this was on.

Someone else suggested I read the Bible, because I can't be gay and religious. I said "It doesn't say that," and suggested he read about helping the poor, healing the sick, and welcoming the stranger.

Then there were comments, possibly deleted, about how the church bombing in Mississippi and the graffiti that said "Vote Trump" could not have been done by Trump supporters.

Respondent 1: "the clintons have instigated violence before, plus who tf writes vote trump lmao seems like a dumb move that the clinton campaign and the Democracy Partners and Americans United for Changes SuperPACs would do" (exactly like that)

There are lots of folks out there who do write grammatically and sound like they know what they're saying. One was astonished when I called him an anti-Semite. Why? Because he said Hillary Clinton voted for war in Iraq because "Israel told her to." I asked for (but didn't get) proof that his statement was valid.

I wrote most of that in my OLLI writing group Thursday, before the election. After the Jewish holidays, six weeks of OLLI classes, and the election, I planned to be away four days on my own. Joe and I are spending time with our families in Memphis, metro D.C. and New York between now and the end of the year. I needed time to be on my own.

As everyone knows, the election did not go as most of us hoped. We woke up on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, to find someone who had used Fascist-type rhetoric, consorted with blatant racists, and lied repeatedly, elected President because a minority of the population doesn't like Hillary.

I've read all the calls to prayer, heard him say he wants to President for everyone and we should all come together, and nice words from Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton. I don't think so.

I don''t actually know what to do. I'm too old and weak to be out demonstrating, and I don't think it will do any good. I'm not anxious to leave the country, not yet. And Joe likes his job in West Virginia, where Mr. Trump won a majority in every county, although a smaller majority in Monongalia County, where we live, than in any other in the state. Small comfort.

Most of the places I have visited on my monthly visits voted for him. I've seen many depressed places. Now they've blown up the country. I'm tempted to just walk away and tell them to deal with the mess they've created. Or maybe restrict where I visit in the future, like my parents, who only visited New York and South Florida, because they didn't know where else Jews would be welcomed.

Locally, we got two more  Democrats in the state legislature, the two least progressive of the four non-incumbents who could have won. The two of us who were the most progressive got knocked off in the primary.

There's a lot of talk about understanding the frustrations of working-class white men. Same old story. What about the frustration of same-gender couples? Of women who feel like it's open season on them? Of people with family on two sides of the border? Of Muslims and Sikhs who came here for the freedoms others take for granted?

My young friend talk about waiting for old people to die off so they can take over. Thanks, guys. We are not all heinous troglodytes, and we will be gone soon enough. Young people overwhelmingly voted against Trump-except in West Virginia. And I spoke at the gym I go to to one of the sweet young girls who works there. She didn't register to vote.

I'm not sure what to do. I'm just venting here, like everyone else has been doing. He was right about the system being rigged: only it was rigged in his favor, what with gerrymandering in many states, most notably North Carolina, voter ID laws in many places, and the way the electoral college is set up to favor small states that can be easily swayed with money, like West Virginia.

I've heard pundits and sociologists say we all have different ways of interacting. In New Yorker magazine, there was an article about how you have to be friendly to your neighbors, even if they put a sign for him on their lawn. No.

In California, people say "Hi!" to you and smile when they pass you on the street. It doesn't mean much, except to acknowledge your presence and that you belong. The locals in West Virginia always say they are friendly people, but I find, just walking around, that people will turn away from you or ignore you when they pass by. Maybe I need to look at more people as being my enemy, because in effect, that is what they are. "No, we don't hate you. Our religion tells us two men shouldn't marry." My answer to that is "If you voted for that guy, you have lost the right to start a sentence with "The Bible says...". Charity, acts of lovingkindness, welcoming the stranger? Aren't those in the Bible, or were you absent from Sunday school that day?"

Enough ranting for now. There will be consequences. And not just "unfollowing" people on Facebook. I did that a long time ago. I'm siding with the people I've lately learned about: the ones who use words like "intersectionality" and "microagression." The people who decide on their own what race and gender they are. I'm a queer, non-white religious minority, and if it comes to taking sides, that is who I am with.

I have two days to explore Camden County, New Jersey. Then I'll be back to real life in West Virginia.

Cameron County, Pennsylvania

I didn't think I would get to visit a county this month as I usually do because of my six-week class on Thursday and the Jewish holidays throughout October. My county of choice was Camden, New Jersey, which is more than two hundred miles away, and requires two full days of exploration. An opening came up because Sukkot, which started Sunday night, is being observed at Tree of Life on Friday night. The traditional important parts of the eight day festival are the first and last days, this year Sunday night and Monday, two weeks in a row. I thought I couldn't get away. The county after Camden is Cameron County, Pennsylvania, in the north central part of the state. The county population is less than 6,000 and the distance is just under two hundred miles, so, by my own rules, I could go one day and come back the next.

My expectation was a place where people were poor, depressed and angry, with Trump signs on every lawn. I was pleasantly surprised. Not that there weren't some Trump signs, but there were also Clinton signs. The leaves were in full color in this mountain region, unlike in Morgantown, where most of the leaves are still green in this unseasonably warm October. The people I met were all upbeat and friendly. The Pennsylvania tourism people call this area "Wild Pennsylvania." The brochure talks about crafts and restaurants and pretty little towns. Cameron County is in the center of this district, less populous and touristy than the surrounding counties.

From Morgantown, I drove northeast on US 119, avoiding the Pennsylvania toll roads, and merging into US 219, which ultimately heads north to Buffalo, New York, not as far as one might imagine. I turned onto  PA 120 in Ridgway to head east to Emporium, the county seat of Cameron County. I had sent an e-mail to a motel on the edge of town requesting a room. When I got there the clerk said that the e-mail system had been set up by a previous employee, and no one knew how to use it. She had a ledger where she wrote down my information. The motel looked like 1959, two rows of rooms facing a driveway. The room was small, and shabby, the internet iffy, the TV old.  Still, it was clean and the hot water worked just fine. I haven't paid so little for a room in a long time.

PA-120 is Fourth Street, the main route in Emporium. The town is about a mile long and six blocks wide. North of town is a mountain; the railroad and another hill is south. There is a trail through town marked "snowmobiles." The temperature was still in the 70s October 16 and 17.

I visited the Chamber of Commerce / Artisan Store on 4th St. The docent was a woman in her sixties wearing a Boston Pops sweatshirt. I told her that seemed incongruous for a small town in Pennsylvania. She told me she was a retired teacher who used to take her honors history classes to Boston one year and Washington the next. She thought her kids should see what is possible in the world. She likes living in a small town. For culture they drive an hour and a half to Penn State in State College. She suggested I go see the herds of elk south and east of town and gave me directions. It turned out to be far, and the Elk Visitor Center was in the next county. There is a park on the way, set up so the elk will like it, with meadow and forest and fallen trees. Plants the elk like were planted there. Visitors can see the elk from a blind. I learned that the elk were  imported from out West, since the local herds were exterminated early on. I didn't see any elk.

The enter of town boasts a Sheetz gas and convenience store, the one place open all night in the county. I bought a sandwich there for lunch. I found the courthouse, the library and the post office and walked much of Fourth St before heading out for the elk. I met a woman named Connie who saw me taking pictures on the street. She was with a friend, and also had a camera. She asked to take my picture, and I agreed, if I could take hers. Connie and her friend laughed when I asked if there was a mall in town. They shop at Wal-Mart in St. Mary's, 25 miles away.

Across from Sheetz is an ice cream stand, still open with outdoor seating. I got a chocolate cone from a pretty, smiling young woman.

After the invisible elk, I went back to the hotel, and slept deeply. I have not been well since Yom Kippur (Wednesday, October 12) and I had a flu shot on the fourteenth, which made things worse. I  awoke just after six and felt awful. I got myself up and found a restaurant called The Cabin on Fourth St. I had a salad with chicken, hold the cheese and fries. I felt better after that.

I was back in the room by 7:30. There is nothing going on after dark, especially on a Sunday. We don't have a television that works (it's analog), so I watched "Once Upon A Time" a time-traveling show with Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde and Snow White living, apparently, in modern times as well as the past. I couldn't figure out what was going on. I was asleep by 10.

The motel has a restaurant open for breakfast and lunch, where  groups of older people congregate. The menu offered different-sized portions. I had one sweet potato pancake, something I hadn't eaten before. I had tea, knowing enough to not ask for green tea. The bill was $4.50. I left a nice tip.

I thought I would leave town at 10, as Joe and I had been invited to dinner by the rabbi at Chabad, the Orthodox Jewish group in Morgantown. I walked the snowmobile trail through most of town, and found the abandoned factory, which apparently once made Sylvania light bulbs. There was an operational factory nearby- I could smell the fumes. It rained overnight and the clouds were entangled in the colorful mountains.

I drove home a much longer way, taking 120 east to Lock Haven, then I-99 and US 220 to I-68 near Cumberland, MD. PA-120 is a beautiful road along tributaries of the Susquehanna River, rocky cliffs, mountains of colored leaves, small towns, all in a valley shared with a railroad and the river. I stopped for lunch at Nittanny Mall, dying, near State College, and arrived home by four, in time for another nap before dinner in Chabad's sukkah.

Cameron County Courthouse, Fifth St.

Fourth St. The central building was a McCrory's

My new friend Connie on Fourth St.

US Post Office, Fourth St.

Public Library, Fourth St.

House on Fourth St., mid -19th century?

looking west on the west side of Fourth St.

House on Fifth St.

Veterans Museum, Fourth St.

Newspaper, possible evidence of Jewish life?

Elk viewing site, Cameron County

I have more pics I will post, maybe later today.
These wee pics from Monday- cooler (at least in the morning) and overcast.

Looking south from the center of Emporium

trail through the middle of Emporium

green grass and colored leaves in the backyards along the trails

Abandoned factory in Emporium

along the trail

another view of the abandoned factory

Yom Kippur

I'm generally a little scattered in my ways. No, really. This week, I've had to find a way to be organized- to study my Torah chanting for Wednesday, put together my class for Thursday, straighten up the house so the cleaning woman can come, post questions to the League of Women Voters to ask candidates at their event tonight. And I haven't been feeling that well. On and off fever, coughing, feeling tired. When I last lived in this part of the world, in January 1978, I had been sick on probably my last ten October 21 birthdays in Baltimore. A doctor finally suggested it was a seasonal allergy. After four years in the East, the allergies are coming back.

These are the things I was thinking about as we started Yom Kippur. The evening service, when Kol Nidre is sung, is easy, unless you're the cantor. Traditionally, Kol Nidre is sung three times. At Tree of Life we had a pianist and  celloist play Bruch's Kol Nidre, a concert piece based on a traditional melody, then the cantor sang it once. The prayer asks that we be excused from vows we were forced to make. It was written when Jews were forced to convert to other religions to save their lives. Modern Judaism has tried to take it out of the service, but regardless of its meaning, it is what people expect to open Yom Kippur.

I worked as a cantorial soloist for High Holy Days from 1997 to 2003, at four different synagogues in seven years. When the rabbi said "And now the cantor will chant Kol Nidre," I realized what an awe-inspiring task I had taken on. Not about the words in the prayer, but that Jews in many countries had heard this prayer for hundreds of years, and that I was part of a great tradition. I felt ancestral cantors looking over my shoulder. When someone dies in the Bible it is said they "are gathered to their ancestors." When I sang Kol Nidre, I felt that the ancestors had gathered with us, that they had come to listen to this prayer with their descendants.

I guess I was jealous of our cantor, Daniel Hazan ("Chazzan" is the Hebrew word for cantor). He is a French Jew from Morocco, who escaped back to France with his family, then emigrated to Israel, and now, with a Doctorate in Music, teaches at a college in Mexico. He sings both Sephardi (Spanish) and Ashkenazic (German) melodies. He's learned a few more modern pieces, mostly because Joe asked him to and got him sheet music. He improvises a lot. It works well and the congregation loves him. There is no accompanist and he gets through pages of material quickly by not stopping to do fancy melodies.

I loved those fancy melodies. Lots of new tunes were written in the post World War II era by composers following Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein. At the cantor conferences I used to attend, new pieces were introduced, some of them just gorgeous. Many of them called for a keyboard and choir.  The last four years I worked, I was a good enough singer to pull them off. I had a full choir and accompaniment two of my seven years, and a pianist most of the other years. While Cantor Hazan was singing, I often imagined the beautiful piece I would have sung at that point. Of course, I won't ever do that again.

We had a break in services at 12:30, and Joe and I came home. He left to go back for his teaching session at 2:30. I stayed home, slept about 45 minutes, had a peanut butter and banana sandwich, fed the cat, and left the house at 3:30 to be back for the 4:30 afternoon service, where Joe had asked me to sing "Zog Nit Keymil" a Yiddush song sung by Polish-Jewish partisans in World War II. I walked a half-mile to the PRT, our driverless mass-transit system here in Morgantown, then walked another half-mile to the temple from the end of the line in the center of town. It was 75 F. and sunny out, so there were no weather issues. I was so tired, I didn't think I would make it. Why? Well, in addition to my seasonal "cold," I had chanted nineteen lines of Hebrew in the morning, memorizing the tune, the vowels and the punctuation. That alone was exhausting. I know I could not stand through an entire Yom Kippur service, even if I didn't fast. Daniel Hazan, who is at least ten years younger than I am, and thin, was in strong voice until the end.

It's no good longing for what you can no longer do. People don't want a cantor like me, and in places where there are many alternatives, i.e. not Morgantown, people often like peppy tunes played on guitar, where the congregation can sing along easily. Daniel Hazan and I both do a few things that people can sing with us, but we don't play guitar, and peppy melodies are not our style. Jewish liturgical music has moved on.

I try to live in the times I live in, and act age appropriately. It's not cool for someone married and my age to tell a younger person they look "hot." I still work out at a gym, carefully, and ride a bicycle, also carefully. I don't wear clothing that reveals my numerous tattoos, like some of the young men and women at the gym, and I don't lift 100 pounds. I try to be asleep by eleven. I can't physically do what a High Holy Day cantor does anymore. I get that.

Rabbi Joe was brilliant. I don't know if people realize how hard it is to script every word you say that is not in the book, to write two lengthy sermons and then have to do more for the following weekend. He's not afraid to talk about God as a believer, and yet to admit that the whole concept can be hard to swallow.

Our prayer book is the 1976 Reform  version. Lots of it is readings about social justice, in English. While it is non-partisan, it's clearly not in favor of the selfishness we hear today in conservative circles. The emphasis is on sharing what we have, helping those in need, especially refugees fleeing for their lives. It speaks of showing compassion for others, about treating "the strangers in our midst" as our equals, about understanding that all people are created in the image of God.

For me, it means not calling people "troglodytes"(what Joe makes me say instead of "assholes"), and sticking to issues when talking about politicians who have been bought off, or don't see things as I do.

There is a memorial service late in the day. We publish a book of names people want remembered. Joe and I both list our parents and grandparents on the page we buy, and I add my Uncle Steve and his boyfriend of many years, and my grandparents' brothers and sisters, who were kind to me, but had no children. They are my mother's Aunt Grace and Uncle Bernie, and my father's Aunt Yetta and Uncle Jake. I thought about them during the yizkor service. People were called on to read pieces about loss and about love after someone dies. The readers, softened up by fasting and a long service, often cried.

At Yom Kippur, we wish to be renewed for another year of life. With most of the congregation over sixty, that wish takes on a more literal meaning. I thought about myself, and about Joe, and the future of our congregation here in Morgantown.

It was, for me, and I think most of the congregation, a meaningful Yom Kippur. I will think about what I saw, heard and felt this year for a long time. Meanwhile, our next holiday starts Monday night. And I'm teaching the hits of 1962 in an hour and a half! Someone just asked me about adding Bob Dylan to the mix.

5777

If the Jewish calendar were more correct, Rosh Hashana would have been September 4 and 5, instead of October 3 and 4. That would have nixed our early August trip to California, but it would mean all the holidays would have been in September, and already over. Meanwhile, Osher Life-Long Learning, where both Joe and I are teaching six-week classes, started September 26. And I've been involved in some election campaigns, trying to attend an almost daily run of candidate events. I am on the Morgantown Library Commission, which meets October 19. I've been to one meeting, where they handed me a 96-page handbook, which I should have read by now.  I won't make my monthly trek to another county this month- no time. For Rosh Hashana, I agreed to chant haftarah, about three pages, in Hebrew. I'm chanting Torah at Yom Kippur, using a special holiday melody, 19 verses, mostly from memory, as the text has no notes, no vowels and no punctuation.

This year, I looked at Rosh Hashana as more of a burden, an inconvenience, getting in the way of my preparation for my class, called "The Great Hits of 1962," interfering with my social life and my desire to be something of a political player. I feel like this last year has been a separation from the temple and Rabbi Joe's shadow, making my own friends outside that circle, finding other things to do and places to go. Still, I agreed to read on the holidays, because no one else can do this, except Joe, and he is already overwhelmed.

Monday and Tuesday were Rosh Hashana day. I was prepared in my one good suit. I helped Joe with the early childrens' service before the regular one. The day was sunny and warm. Joe spoke beautifully, as he always does, I chanted well, the sanctuary was full of friendly faces. We threw our sins, in the form of bread, off the rail-trail bridge over Deckers Creek, then twenty of us went out for pizza.

Something happened during services. I saw the faces of my parents and grandparents greet me, and, as if I were dying, my whole life flashed by. I was comforted, not threatened in any way. I felt the ancestors were stopping by for a visit, and I saw good things from the past.

 I will be sixty-seven later this month. When I read the paper, I look at the obituaries. It's rare for me to know someone in Morgantown, but I count how many of the people listed are younger than I am. A lot. Sometimes I feel that I can look back at my life from a high mountain I've been climbing for the last sixty-seven years. I worry about falling off the mountain if I look back for too long. Better to look ahead to the fog-covered peak in front of me and keep going.

As we were leaving Los Angeles, in mid-August, I found out about the death two years ago of Danny Kolker, one of my first friends there in 1984. My high-school-and-after friend Darryl Ruder died from cancer earlier this year. I hadn't seen him in decades, but he friended me on Facebook, where he rarely posted. His children "tagged" him in a Facebook post after he died, which is how I found out. They told me he had spoken to  them about me.

In my class today (October 6) I will show a clip from "West Side Story," which won Best Picture and lots of other awards at The Academy Awards in 1962. I remember, maybe not accurately, how that movie affected me my overly sensitive twelve year old self.  I had never seen such sexuality, beautiful dancing, handsome men, some as dark as I was. This week, I cried watching George Chakiris and Rita Moreno dancing to "America," overwhelmed by the beauty of it, and by the passage of more than fifty years.I think about my spiritual ancestors, Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins and Stephen Sondheim, all furiously creative gay Jews. Chakiris, Moreno and Sondheim are still with us, now in their eighties. I wonder how they feel looking back down the mountain they have climbed.

I've cried a lot lately, not just for my friends who have died, or for my advancing age and rapidly decaying body. Not to worry: my tests are good, and I'm in better shape than many men my age. I can see how things are going generally, and I understand the rules about end of life. I'm more likely to cry for art than real life: watching a scene from "West Side Story," reading from Vikram Seth's now thirty-year old novel in verse "The Golden Gate," hearing a perfect sermon from my husband,The Rabbi, or even listening to the new Radiohead album, "A Moon-Shaped Pool," as I am while writing this.

I guess I did what I was supposed to on Rosh Hashana, after all, examining my life, expressing gratitude to God for what I have and what I've accomplished, and vowing to keep going and do better in the future.

I wish my few readers a happy and healthy 5777

1962

Next week, the term starts at West Virginia University's branch of Osher Life-Long Learning. Both Joe and I are teaching ambitious six-week classes. His is called "Old Testament Rituals: Don't Try These At Home." Mine is called "Great Hits of 1962." I've already taught four-week classes on the top 40 hits of 1960 and 1961. I've expanded to six-weeks to include the Country, R&B, Album and Adult Contemporary (formerly Easy Listening) charts.

Most of the people in my class were in high school in 1962, so this music will resonate with them. My classes have been popular and well-reviewed. I was in seventh and eighth grade in 1962. I had my bar mitzvah, my voice changed (after my bar mitzvah); I got braces. I was tiny, but just starting to grow, and new kids, annexed in seventh grade, joined us in eighth. I tried to be friends with them, and eventually succeeded, more in ninth grade than eighth. In eighth I tried and failed to be a clown, and the new kids had established friendships among themselves going back to elementary school.

I was in the top class in seventh grade, after not being in that class in fifth and sixth. I was a whiz at our thrice-weekly Hebrew school, winning "Best Student" in sixth grade. But in seventh, in the top class, deluged with homework, I found it hard to keep up. My seventh-grade classmates included Rodger Kamenetz, the author of "The Jew In The Lotus" and other books. He started a Jewish Studies Program at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, and later at the New Orleans campus. In eighth grade, we were joined by Wendy Sherman, who became Assistant Secretary of State under Hillary Clinton. I often think that my class at Sudbrook Junior High in Pikesville, Maryland was the smartest class in the history of Baltimore County Junior High Schools. If I'm right about that, then I was the dumbest one in that class. Not to mention an undiagnosed ADD case.

Mrs. Crain, our seventh grade CORE teacher, had us keep a notebook of assignments, in order, to turn in after a few weeks. While others turned in perfectly well-ordered folders of material, all I had was a handful of half-finished assignments. Mrs. Crain asked for a conference with my parents. She didn't believe me when I told her they refused to come in. She had my mother write a letter explaining why she couldn't come in. In the letter, my mother promised to help me with my schoolwork, which she never did.

Outside of my own life, the big issue I remember from 1962 was civil rights. Baltimore was still fully segregated, down to the weekday afternoon teen dance show, The Buddy Dean Show, which had African-American kids on alternate Fridays as "special guests." People who have seen some iteration of "Hairspray," based on the Buddy Dean Show, think that was made up. Our synagogue had stopped sponsoring trips to Gwynn Oak Park, the amusement park near our house, featured in "Hairspray" (filmed elsewhere as Gwynn Oak was torn down before the original "Hairspray") because they wouldn't allow African-Americans to go there. Diplomats from newly-independent African countries were refused lunch at restaurants on US 40 between Baltimore and Wilmington, while on their way to the United Nations in New York, creating  international incidents. President Kennedy pushed up the schedule to build Interstate 95 to bypass those towns. Maryland House Restaurant was planned to be in the median of the highway, designed to be integrated. The road, now called Kennedy Expressway, opened in November, 1963, just before Kennedy was assassinated.

I took dance lessons in the spring of 1962. I learned the waltz, fox trot, cha-cha and mambo, my mother's idea being that I could dance with my grandmother at my bar mitzvah party. As it was, because it was a luncheon on Saturday afternoon, my Orthodox grandmother vetoed live music. My bar mitzvah was on October 27, the day the Cuban missile crisis was resolved. This was the first time I bargained with God. "Okay," I said, "There will be a nuclear war and we will all die. But can I please have my bar mitzvah first?"

For those of us living in suburban America, with two parents working before that was the norm, life was good. My parents paid $75 a month on their mortgage, they had a beautiful 1961 Oldsmobile convertible, which cost about $1500. They were still young and attractive at thirty-four and forty; my father had his first toupée. Aside from the usual issues of being twelve and thirteen, my life was good.

In music, too, this was a peak year for American pop music, before the British Invasion. This was the music Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger were hearing in England. Lines were being crossed in popular music. African-American Ray Charles' album "Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music" hit all the charts. Chubby Checker, Dee Dee Sharp, and The Orlons, all from Philadelphia, crossed over to the Top 40 charts with dance hits "The Twist," "Mashed Potato Time" and "The Watusi." African-American owned record company Motown had hits by The Marvelettes, The Countours, The Miracles and Mary Wells. Jewish Artists like Neil Sedaka scored with "Breaking Up Is Hard To Do," and Jewish composers like Carole King and Gerry Goffin had hits with "Up On The Roof" for The Drifters and "The Locomotion" for their babysitter, Little Eva, Burt Bacharach and Hal David wrote "Only Love Can Break A Heart" for Gene Pitney, and Phil Spector produced Pitney's "He's A Rebel" for The Crystals.

Italian-Americans also did well, with the hot new group of the year The Four Seasons, hits by Connie Francis, and Tony Bennett's famous "I Left My Heart In San Francisco."

Country music had Leroy Van Dyke's "Walk On By" and several hits by pint-sized teenager Brenda Lee.

1962 was the year the soundtrack of "West Side Story" topped the charts from May through June 1963, the year of "My Son, The Folk Singer" by Allan Sherman, and the iconic first Peter, Paul and Mary album.

There was American music by and for everyone, in a way presaging the coming of age of the civil rights movement the following year, as kids across America were listening to music by Jews and African-Americans without prejudice.

I'm stoked for this class. 1962 was an era of hope, an era when we thought change might be for the good and our country would be more inclusive and more free.

My class is for six Thursdays from one to three P.M. (followed by Joe's class at three) at Mountaineer Mall, Morgantown, starting September 29. Go to www.olliatwvu.org to sign up.