Stories

Six Words: Soak, Function, Snarl, Mass, Scrape, Nerve

One of the greatest pleasures that a person can have is to go outdoors at night, preferably under a clear sky, take off all of your clothes and immerse yourself in a hot tub or spa. Soaking in water between about 98 and 103 degrees, you don’t feel your mass, your mind slows its functions, and you are near nirvana. If you’ve been careful, as you should, you haven’t scraped yourself or pinched a nerve while you entered. If someone tells you it’s time to get out, the common, and 100% appropriate response, is to snarl and tell them just a few more minutes.

Six Words: Alarm, Pie, Parameter, Flavor, Law, Correspond

A question that there is no reason to ask is: Can an engineer bake a pie? Would the flavor matter?

The answer is: of course an engineer can bake a pie. The first thing the engineer would do is to establish the parameters for the pie. Next, ingredients would be acquired. Then, an early step in the process would be to preheat the oven. Some people would simply ask what temperature the oven should be set to, but the corresponding question for an engineer might be how to apply laws of heat transfer and thermodynamics to the baking process. This would also assure that no smoke alarms would be set off. The calculations would also take into account whether the pie was going to be apple or cherry.

Why only apple or cherry you may ask. Because when you start thinking about kitchens and thermodynamics, you obviously start thinking about refrigerators and freezers, and that leads you to thinking about ice cream, and then that transitions to pie ala mode. So obviously the pie has to be apple or cherry. No one orders pecan pie ala mode.

Six Words: Copy, Needle, Extort, Shadows, Distinct, Spine

At this time of year, a time of gift giving and gift exchanges, there is one gift that seems to lurk in the shadows. Some folks with strong spines will argue that there are distinctive variations, while others will argue that there is only basic type and any variations are mere copies. This gift is nothing like a multi-layered, crème filled torte. Although it is a gift that lasts for ages, and it looks aged, you would never get away with calling it an ex-torte.

By now, you’re probably on pins and needles wondering what this gift is. It is of course, the gift that is said to circle the world, passed unopened from recipient to recipient, year after year. It is – drum roll please – a fruitcake!

Six Words: Unanimous, Learn, Class, Process, Layer, Stage

It’s unanimous
That it is a process,
Plus perhaps a class,
That skills and knowledge you amass,
Learned layer by layer as you age,
Are things that help
To become a star of screen and stage.

Six Words: Generate, Shine, Wedding, Maximum, Visual, Ground

The wedding venue was designed to generate maximum visual impact. The grounds were immaculate. The silverware shone. Even the doorknobs were polished to a high gloss. The staff was well trained. The proprietors nervously awaited an opportunity to excel. All that was missing were clients.

Six Words: Shelf, Paint, Transaction, Headline, Confidence, Train

This story is a little long, but I hope it has you on the edge of your seats as you share my adventure. It is a true story. About 43 years ago – and I’m finding it very hard to believe I’m old enough to say that – I had the good fortune to have to be in Paris for a meeting. That was after spending a week in Stockholm. Denise came with me on that trip. I know you’re going to have a hard time feeling sorry for me, but we’ll see what you think as this story unfolds.

Read More »An Adventure in Paris

Six Words: Abbey, Location, Neighborhood, Sticky, Appear, Basin

You have probably heard of St. Francis of Assisi. A number of years ago, my wife Denise and I visited Assisi in Italy. There is a street that people stroll and that has some shops and at least one church. We stayed in a hotel on that street. Occasionally you see a monk, I think a Benedictine monk, in his robe walking along the street. There must be an abbey somewhere in the neighborhood. The street follows the slope of a hill and at the end of the street, atop the hill, is the Basilica of St. Francis. A long, wide staircase leads up to the Basilica. The Basilica is huge. It was consecrated in 1253. Inside are marvelous frescoes by Giotto and others depicting the life of St. Francis, and perhaps how he actually appeared during his lifetime. It is dim inside. I’m sure there is a basin in there somewhere, after all, it is a Catholic church, but if I saw it I don’t remember it.

I can’t say how it affects others, but for me, it was a place that had a special feeling of reverence. That feeling of reverence sticks with me still. I’ve been in many temples, synagogues, churches and mosques, but there was something unique about the way I felt in that location. I’ve tried to think of other locations where I’ve had that feeling of reverence. There aren’t many. The ones that I do think of are Yad Vashem, which is the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, and the memorial room that you find within any Holocaust museum.

If you left our hotel and turned to the left you went to the Basilica. But if you turned to the right, you came to a fantastic gelato shop.

Six Words: Late, Frighten, Flu, Advocate, Timber, Flatware

The people in the area say it sounded like a tornado, or perhaps like a waterfall. Indeed, several small lakes and ponds suddenly appeared across a surprisingly wide area. To say folks were frightened would be an understatement. Neighbors speculated on the cause. Some advocated that it was a sign from heaven, although no one could agree on what the sign might mean. Others advocated that it was an effect of climate change. In both cases, some feared that it was too late to do anything about it.

And then Paul Bunyan strode into town, along with Babe, his blue ox. Paul apologized in case his sneezing had frightened anyone. He explained that he was recovering from the flu and he knew that his sneezes could be a little loud and forceful. But he was better now and said that he should get back to work.

With that, he strode into the woods, carrying his mighty ax over his shoulder as if it were a piece of flatware. Soon afterwards, the folks heard the call of “timber” and the sound of a tree falling, and they knew that Paul would be OK. But they weren’t sure that anyone who wasn’t there would believe this story. Do you?

Six Words: Cheese, Engage, Union, Particle, Leaflet, Pilot

Whether it’s The Love Boat, or the Pequod in Moby Dick, the Titanic, the African Queen or a more typical river or ocean cruise, the Captains of ships get a lot of attention. But there are unsung masters of the sea that those captains depend on – the men or women that board the big ships when the maneuvering is critical and there is little room for error. They’re called pilots and when they’re aboard ship and on the bridge, the safety of the ship – and its passengers – is in their hands.

I had the opportunity to be the photographer for the wedding of a pilot and the man she was engaged to. Before their union was official, we took some pre-ceremony photos. The backdrop for the photos was a scene painted on particle board, so in the photos there is a beautiful ocean view behind them. You know, of course, that I did ask them to say “cheese” as I took a series of photos.

When I began editing the photos, I discovered a problem that we hadn’t noticed during the photo-shoot. Small leaflets had been falling from the nearby trees and a few were visible in the photos. I thought about making up a story to say that Noah’s dove was bringing back leaves and that the leaflets were a sign from heaven. But I didn’t. Instead, it was easy to Photoshop the leaves out of the pictures. Pilots aren’t the only ones that can prevent disasters – and like pilots, photographers may also be unsung heroes.

Six Words: Thin, Ideal, Decorate, Agile, Relative, Float

When you think of a ski resort, most people don’t think of Israel, but you could. Mount Hermon, Har Hermon in Hebrew, is at the northern end of the Golan. Snow melt from Mount Hermon forms the headwaters of the Jordan River. The river flows into the Sea of Galilee, called Lake Kinneret in Israel, and then to the Dead Sea – the lowest place on the surface of the earth!

In places, the Jordan river has enough volume to swim, but in many places it is thin and shallow. We drove across it in a jeep but could easily have walked across. I started to sing “Just a going over Jordan”, but no one joined me and I ignored the strange looks I got.

If Mount Heron is the head of the River Jordan, I guess you could call the Dead Sea its foot. If you’ve been to Israel, chances are you’ve been to the Dead Sea. And if you’ve been there, ideally you had a chance to float in it. You don’t want to shave or cut yourself for at least a day before you go into the waters of the Dead Sea. The salt will sting anywhere that your skin is raw. It’s not the time to worry about your bikini line.

When you first learned to swim, you probably tried floating first, maybe on your stomach, and also on your back. It was challenging in the beginning. Not so in the Dead Sea. In the Dead Sea you cannot help but float on your back. You can’t sink and you don’t want to get the extremely salty water in your eyes, so you won’t swim or float on your stomach. It takes no agility. You just lean back and you’re floating – high, with your tummy and any other parts that bulge sticking up out of the water. You’ll want a relative or friend to take your picture.

Some people decorate themselves with mud from the Dead Sea. The minerals are supposed to be good for the skin. But it is hard to wash off and very hard to get it out of a bathing suit. You’d certainly be bringing a bit of Israel home with you. It’s much easier to simply buy a bottle or jar of Ahava skin care products. They’re made from Dead Sea minerals and Ahava is Hebrew for love.

One final thought. The water level in the Dead Sea has fallen drastically over the last several decades. From 2004 to 2016 it has fallen 16 meters! That is 52 feet! It is currently falling by about a meter a year. There is a proposal by Israel to desalinate Red Sea water and pipe it to the Dead Sea, but that will take the cooperation of Jordan and of the Palestinian Authority, which is complicated. A lot of ahava, of love, is going to be needed to make that happen.