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.

Johnstown, Cambria County, and the Flight 93 Memorial for 9/11

This past weekend there was a free Brad Paisley concert on the hill at WVU's law school Friday night and a football game Saturday afternoon. It seemed a good time to get out of Morgantown.

My next county to visit was Cambria County, Pennsylvania. Although Johnstown is the largest city, the county seat is at Ebensburg, twenty-three miles northeast of there and one hundred twenty-one miles from Morgantown. It's one of the larger counties I'm visiting, and far enough away to merit an overnight stay. I took a toll-free way to get to Johnstown, winding through southern Pennsylvania's countryside. It took two and a half hours to go eighty-five miles. I didn't stop on the way.

I stayed with a cheaper branch of my customary motel chain, located, for once, near the center of the city. Johnstown has a central square with a fountain and a gazebo, just a few blocks from the hotel. There was also a small farmers' market at the square. The weather was warm and overcast, much the same as in Morgantown. I found a little café on the square, and had a salad for lunch.

According to the U.S. Census, Cambria County is estimated to have 136, 411 people in 2015, down from a peak of 213,459 in 1940. In 2000, the population was ninety-five percent Caucasian. Part of the decline was from heavy industry leaving the area, and part from disastrous floods in 1889, 1936 and 1977. The 1889 flood, the most famous, killed thousands of people when an earthen dam, built to create an artificial lake upstream, failed and sent water crashing into the town. Most of the city had to be completely rebuilt after that flood. The walls along the river were built after the 1936 flood, and were supposed to prevent further flooding. Still, the town flooded again in 1977.

I saw many Catholic churches in the county. There were Trump signs on lawns; not one Hillary sign. and  also signs saying "Push The Pushers Out" with a number to call to report drug transactions. Apparently, this is a big problem. There were blue ribbons on many trees. It is part of a "Teal Campaign" for ovarian cancer.

I had marked out ten of the thirty places on the National Register to visit. As usual, I didn't stick to that, because there were many of them a short walk away in central Johnstown. Here are the places I saw in Johnstown Friday afternoon:

The fountain in Central Square

The former Nathan's Department Store

A food truck at the farmers' market at Central Square

Grand Army of the Republic Hall, built for Union Civil War Veterans

Across the Conemaugh River,

The 1891 Carnegie Library, now the Johnstown Flood Museum

Community building, originally used by Cambria Iron Company

Cambria Iron  Company former offices

Cambria Iron Company factory, now abandoned

Johnstown City Hall

one of the rare streets where the houses appear to be pre-1889

View from the top of the Johnstown Incline Railroad

Johnstown Incline Railroad

The bridge leading to Johnstown's Incline Railroad

I attended synagogue Friday night at Beth Shalom, the only remaining congregation in the area. There was an exhibit in the lobby about the Jewish history of the town, and it is like small-town Jewish stories everywhere. At one time, many of the merchants were Jews, and there were three active synagogues, two of which built new buildings around 1950 in the suburbs west of town, above the incline railroad. With a declining Jewish population, the synagogues merged into one in the 1970s, keeping the newest building and letting the others go.

I headed out to that suburb at six, looking for a restaurant I found on line, and Westmont Historic District, directly atop the Incline. I couldn't find the restaurant and settled for a sandwich at a chain sub shop before heading to services. There were thirteen of us in attendance, counting the rabbi. We used a Reform siddur. Most of the people were elderly. I spoke to a few of them.

Westmont Historic District

Beth Shalom, Southmont

Saturday was to be a short day, heading out to the places in the county away from Johnstown, then leaving for home about one. I left my hotel at 8:15 on a beautiful sunny morning.  I started at the Johnstown Flood Memorial, east of the city. There was a lake, surrounded by resort home, created from the damming of the Little Conemaugh River. After a heavy rain on May 31, 1889, the dam broke and the flooding downstream destroyed most of Johnstown. The valley below the house in the picture was the lake.

This is from the visitor's center at the Johnstown Flood National Memorial, run by The National Park Service.

This was the clubhouse that once sat on South Fork Lake. It is being restored

 I headed north through small towns along State Road 53.

Historic District in the borough of Portage

Portage

 

 Another National Park Service site is Allegheny Portage National Historic Site. The eastern border of Cambria County is at the peak of the Appalachians. There were steam-powered engines that pulled trains and boats over the mountains on rail lines. At the visitor center, I met a couple from Georgia. We commiserated about the election, and she told me about a senior visitors' pass for only ten dollars that gets one into National Park Service sites for free. The ranger, a young man whose last name is Rager, didn't think I was 62, bless his heart. We talked some about parks. He likes Shenandoah, which Joe and I visited. I said I liked it, but I was spoiled by Yosemite, the most beautiful place I have ever been. He said he wanted to go there, but San Francisco was high on his list because he wants to go to Amoeba Records. Small world. I asked him what artists he likes, and I, to my embarrassment, didn't recognize any of the names.

At Appalachian Portage National Historic site. This is an engine house.

 Ebensburg, the county seat, is much smaller than Johnstown, and appears to be more prosperous.

Cambria County Jail, Ebensburg

A.W. Buck House, now Cambria County Historical Society, Ebensburg, 1889 and 1903

Cambria County Courthouse, Ebensburg

Beach at Prince Gallitzin State Park

Prince Gallitzin Park, according to Wikipedia, "is named for Demetrius Gallitzin, a Russian nobleman turned Catholic priest who was instrumental in the settlement of Cambria County." The park is at the northern end of the county.

By 1 P.M. Saturday, I was just finishing up in Ebensburg. I still wanted to see the mall east of Johnstown, and the campus of University of Pittsburgh in Johnstown. And there was a car show at a church near the college campus and a "town center" development, all on the way home.

I went to the mall, called "The Galleria." It's like Morgantown's mall, only many of the stores have closed. I had a dish of chicken teriyaki served by a Vietnamese women who called me "darling" and "sweetie." I took a few minutes to check out the college campus, and, yes, the car show. The car owners, as at other shows, are all crazy men my age.

On the campus of The University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown

1961 Plymouth painted in honor of those killed on Flight 93 on 9/11

1968 Plymouth Fury

1965 Plymouth convertible

1959 Ford Skyliner Hardtop-Convertible

I had read in the paper in Johnstown about ceremonies at the site where Flight 93 crashed on 9/11 near Shanksville, in Somerset County, just south of Cambria County. It was almost on the way home. The paper said there would be a candle ceremony Saturday. That, as it turns out, was private, and after dark. Still there were many people there that day to remember and commemorate.

The field where the plane crashed was a surface coal mine, "reclaimed," meaning covered with dirt. Nothing was growing there. The monument, by architecture firm Paul Murdoch Architects, sits at the top of a low hill. The landscape design, a field of wildflowers on the old mining site and forty groves of forty trees (still incomplete) is by Nelson Byrd Woltz. There is parking at the bottom of the hill, then a walkway leading to a white wall, with marble slabs commemorating each of the forty people on the plane. There is a low wall left of the walkway, with only a boulder marking where the plane crashed, creating a fifteen foot deep crater, now covered. The visitor center is up the hill, on a winding path from the memorial.

The visitor center across the field of wildflowers

The memorial wall

Mark Bingham was the gay rugby player from San Francisco who helped organize the passengers to fight the terrorists

A closer look at the visitor center

The walkway to the visitor's center

I didn't stay long at the top. It was hot out, and I wanted to get home. I looked at some of the exhibits. Much of it was old television news shows with the planes flying into the World Trade Center and the newscasters obvious horror. It was hard enough to watch fifteen years ago; I didn't really want to see it again. 9/11 is not something I dwell on, and had I not been so close, I might never have gone to that memorial. I left there at 5 P.M. and was home, eighty-two miles away by 7. Traffic in Morgantown was still backed up from the football game.