The Art of Making Great Gobs of Money... Spending It Wisely...!!

Memoirs of a Geezer!

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth 

to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:    The Art of Making Great Gobs of Money...  Spending It Wisely...!!  

The famous Pier at Cocoa Beach.  Good food, shops,
volleyball, fish, big waves...  swimming, more shops, beer!

I have no idea how to make great gobs of money! It's a concept that's eluded me most of my life.  However, I know a few people who have or still do make great piles of the stuff.  But that's not the point.  This piece is really about taking holidays or vacations affordably, inexpensively...  you know, on the cheap (if and when possible...  sadly, many lack the necessary financial privileges...)!  So I figured the title might be provocative enough to generate some readership...  maybe?!?

The Rocket's Tail...  Up There!...
Above Our Heads!!  

In July of this year, for example, we spent a week in Florider. You know the place... where every other transplant Flaridian from the Eastern Seaboard is wearing a loud, flowery tunic or a moo moo.  On our first full day in the Sunshine (about 90 or more degrees of glorious heat!), we actually witnessed a rocket launch, right from the sandy shores of Cocoa Beach -- not the rocket launching from that beach, but our viewing point of said rocket! -- where SweetHeart's cousin (with siblings!) owns a condominium.  She, a sweet and generous soul, allows us to rent the place quite affordably, for which we are most grateful.  The rocket launch was a thrilling thing to behold.  It departed the earth from Cape Kennedy Space Center, some 15 or so miles north of Cocoa!

I waived stupidly at the thing, as if expecting some lunatic riding on its nose to waive back.  "Give our regards to Jupiter," I hollered fecklessly! SweetHeart took pictures, or was it our Sweet Alie...?!       

The actual rocket that flew on July 5th
launched from Cape Kennedy...
It carried a communications satellite! 

And a couple of days later, we went boating on the Banana River, a 30-mile-long lagoon fed by the Atlantic and other sources.  Captain Quinn was the boat master, a seasoned and well-schooled Skipper who knows where to find manatees and dolphins!  Wonderful day on the water!  Not terribly expensive.  Oh, and he offers a bit of fishing and shell collecting...  beautiful conch shells in the main, collected from a small island! Alie, Tad, Coen, Lucy, SweetHeart and I thoroughly enjoyed the voyage!   

Tug fully restored for quick sale!

"What's that place?" I asked at one point during the cruise.  
"Oh...  that's a boat, barge and tug rehab center," the captain answered.  "They install a huge inflatable balloon-like device under the barge or boat to be rehab'ed, and then they sort of roll it onto the shore of that island we're looking at to begin repairs and rebuilding.  It's quite an amazing technology." 
I responded: "Something akin to what pyramid builders used, I reckon, eh?!" 
"What...?"

SweetHeart and I tend NOT to gravitate to the more obvious, "family" and "child-oriented" touristy destinations. We prefer "Eco-Tour Travel and Eco-Adventures." On one of our visits to Mexico, we learned about the "Sian Kaan Biosphere Reserve!" Extraordinary place! We get bussed to a jumping off point near Tulum, board an open boat and then race across a surprisingly large lagoon. As we approach what looks like land fall, most of us "crew members" are terrified of crashing into said land fall because we aren't slowing...  the pilot does slow eventually and takes us through a serpentine channel into another enormously large lagoon... (Several passengers have near seizures...  gasping...  mumbling...!)

We speed across that lagoon at the same insanely urgent pace, and finally come to a halt at a pier or wharf. We disembark and all of us don life jackets.
"What are we doing here?" I ask.
"We're going for a swim," answers our superb Mexican guide, one "Quetzalcan," also known as "Kukulkán Quetzal." He's a citizen of Mexico, a product of Chilean and Argentinean parentage, a fine-looking and splendidly well-informed individual, a delight in whose company and tutelage we enjoy the entire adventure!

We didn't see those fish...  We might
have if the boat had slowed down!

But I digress...  We then plunge into a smaller body of water. It's steady, modest, a "few kilometers-per-hour" current floats us pleasantly along a narrow and beautiful channel through mangroves, past verdant vegetation.  The entire "float" lasts about half an hour. We swim over at least one manta ray and many tropical fish before coming at last to a wooden pier. We then climb onto the pier connected to a long board walk that leads us through bogs and prairie back to the place at which we first took the plunge! A remarkably fine Eco-Tour, a truly beautiful experience!!

Back on the bus, we motor off to Muyil, site of a well-preserved Mayan ruin, consisting of an  enormous castillo,  temples, dwellings... where we wander about listening to our guide's presentation of the site's history and preservation efforts. And then a traditional Mexican feast at a seaside restaurant follows. In all, a truly magnificent day's outing!!  

In Door County, Wisconsin, a more recent adventure, we witnessed the solar eclipse from

An actual eclipse as seen from special
glasses that enable viewers to see
the spectacle safely! 

Newport State Park. The special glasses were in extremely limited supply, but the "eclipse-niks" with whom we shared the experience were exceptionally thoughtful and generous, each sharing glasses with her or his fellow viewer. And what a sight it was, the eclipse, that is! 

Bethie, Seany, Phi Phi, SweetHeart and I shared an old log cabin in Ephraim, dark interior but welcoming, commodious and comfortable. We swam in the waters of Green Bay at a beach in Sister Bay. The younger travelers kayak'ed and paddle boarded. We biked for 10 miles in Peninsula State Park, to Nicolet Bay Beach and back to the Fish Creek entrance. Oh, and we ate a lot at DC's many fine dining establishments, including Julie's, Wild Tomato, La Puerta and others! (I believe I may have contracted permanent indigestion and breath issues!!)  

Following a brief but beautiful cruise aboard one of the County's fabled passenger and auto ferries -- this trip aboard the Arni J. Richter, I believe! -- Elaine and Jim introduced us to some of the attractions on Washington Island we had previously not experienced -- School House Beach (one of the very best locations for skipping stones!!), the Art and Nature Center, a newly refurbished 100-plus-year-old hotel, the grounds and site of the annual Lavender Festival...  Much more to that island on the other side of Death's Door (or is it actually floating in Death's Door?) than one can imagine.  The ferry ride back to the mainland was equally enchanting, if a bit brisk for some voyagers! 

If there's a point to this piece (What? Finally...?), it's the idea that one can enjoy relatively modest travel adventures to destinations that are affordable and not so far off as to bankrupt the traveler.  Particularly important, delightful and gratifying is travel with one's family members, viewing the sights and sounds through the "fresh eyes" of children and those for whom the experience is brand new, fun-filled and exhilarating. The larger point?  Travel is among the best medicines to maintain healthy Geezerhood!! Dog or cat therapy is another...!! 

Oh! Almost forgot another "must" destination for a great many DC devotees: Wilson's! They have ice cream -- like peppermint stick and "Cookie Doug" -- popcorn too! It's in Ephraim.  Some ice cream consumers fancy flavors such as blue moon and caramel collision, I'm told! (Asked to hold onto cones by certain smaller persons who race to use the area "jungle gym," I find that Blue moon has a tendency to drip and leave stains on a person's white sockies! Stickiness too! I prefer the popcorn!)  

(Special Note of Dedication:    The perpetrator dedicates this posting to his beloved traveling companions...  SweetHeart, Alie, Bethie, Tad, Coen, Seany, Lucy and Phi Phi, Rob and Sue, without whose companionship the aforementioned travel adventures would not be nearly as rewarding, laugh-filled or suffused with delights, discoveries and edification, even!! I once learned about "dirty grids" during a particular travel experience, but that's a subject for another story entirely!  Thank you, and Good Day, Good Night and Happy Traveling!!)    

Humbly Submitted, 08-29-17 -- Joel K.      

  

   

"Captain Romance" and Rapt Attention to Birthday Planning!

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth 

to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:        

"Captain Romance" and His Rapt Attention to Birthdays...  Sort of...!


I freely confess the fact that I'm not great at giving the Gift of Planning -- meaning birthday

celebrations -- and it is a gift that most spouses genuinely appreciate, and to which they should be richly entitled...  Yes, I'm aware it's true! In my Geezerhood I should know better; I should certainly know by now!!...    

SweetHeart has a milestone birthday coming up very soon!! As a point of reference, however, related to the theme of this tale, I suppose we need to look into the distant past...  Some years ago, she asked me to plan her special day, complete with a particular choice of ice cream cake and one or two additional special

This wasn't exactly the cake, but you
probably get the idea.

elements, such as choosing and booking a restaurant, along with maybe a music venue, a movie perhaps...  Dancing!  (I don't dance very well...  I tend to move my arms a bit while my lower torso remains sort of "mired in concrete," on a chair or stool!)  

But, to continue...   I arrived home from work on that fateful Birthday...  "Where's the cake?" she asked, pointedly.  
"Uh..." I responded.  "I, uh, the cake, you say...  I sort of forgot.  Should I dash out and make the purchase now? Um, what were the particular ingredients you wanted again?"
"Where are we having dinner," she asked, now just a bit beyond skeptical as to my reply.
"Uh...  um... I sort of forget to..."
"Wonderful!," she responded. "I should have known better."  
"I'm really sorry, SweetHeart," I stammered and sputtered nervously, guiltily too, of course.
"Do you remember what I always say about what I want for my birthday?" SweetHeart asks.
"Um, gosh," I began to reply, "that you don't want to have to plan it?"
"And then what do you most often say in response?"
"Uh... I guess, um...  something like, 'Sweetie Heart, what do you want to do for your birthday?" (Gulp!!)

In the end, I believe I... actually we, to be honest more SweetHeart than me...  figured out a place to dine, and then we went to the ice cream cake store to remedy that portion of my brilliant lack of planning.  "I'm really so sorry," I continued to say, pleadingly, throughout the evening. SweetHeart is nothing if not endlessly patient, understanding and forgiving.  "I'm really sorry," I repeated frequently.  "I'll really do better in the future...  really!!"


"That'll be something novel to behold," said SweetHeart, her words appropriately drenched in sarcasm and disbelief!  

Although one year, to my credit, I planned a Birthday Date Night, complete with a decent hotel in Madison, dinner at a restaurant beyond my means, and even a nighttime horse-drawn carriage ride. My, my, but I was gallant, "Captain Romance" and "Commodore Money Pots" at the zenith of my powers!  Well, yes, it was only that one year in a row!  

Not the actual
costume, but you
get the idea, eh?

But!  This Year!... This year it'll be something quite different, a Birthday Celebration to remember for years to come, no doubt!  We'll lunch at a fine restaurant, attend a Brewers Baseball contest during which we've both pledged to eat stadium hot dogs!! A true rarity!!  By golly, this is quite a magnificent plan, and SweetHeart should be suitably delighted and gratified. "Lemme see, now...  did I order the baseball tickets?  Did I make the reservations...?"

The image above is an actual photo
of Miller Park where SweetHeart
and I plan to view an actual ball
game on her Birthday!!...  Hot Dog!  

As SweetHeart's major birthday celebration draws near, our beautiful daughters are planning a gathering, much to their credit and thoughtfulness.  In many respects, this should surely be a birthday to remember, and cherish! Maybe I'll write about it, post event. You know...  were there fireworks, a live band...  the Beach Boys, for example??!!!  Stay tuned...

One additional reflection, having to do with SweetHeart's brilliant design of one of my own pivotal birthdays.  She created an ersatz costume party, ostensibly hosted by a dear friend. I was exceptionally reluctant at first, having no great fondness for costumed events. In the end, I relented, and then embraced the idea enthusiastically. I dressed as a bag of leaves,

replete with leaf designs painted all over my silly face, leaves glued to a knit cap atop my head, a large garbage sack fastened to my torso containing bushels of leaves.  SweetHeart dressed as a raker of leaves, clad in a simple flannel shirt, cap and jeans. 

As we arrived and our host opened her door to us, a mighty and rousing shout of, "Surprise!" greeted my completely shocked auditory orifices!! I was the only lunatic in costume! The ensuing laughter was louder than the greeting. It was, I'll admit, great fun overall, and a truly remarkable ruse played upon me by the clever and creative SweetHeart. And I was eventually allowed to "de-leaf" myself so that I could actually sit upon a chair and enjoy the festivities.

But I digress!  SweetHeart's birthday celebration is planned, and will -- as our family mandate insists -- continue for at least an "octave," that is, for 8 days at the least, possibly a fortnight! And, yes, there'll be cake, possibly balloons, gifts of course, family...  all of the important and necessary ingredients of a truly fine and memorable fete. I hope to be invited myself!  

(Special Note of Dedication:    For SweetHeart, the light and love of my life, my best friend and companion. Happiest of Birthdays to you! And just wait'll next year...  Wait...  what happens next year?? Do I have it on my calendar??!!...)   

Humbly Submitted 07-21-17 -- Joel K.  

  

     



  

A Truly Remarkable Woman, and Talented!

Memoirs of a Geezer!

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth 

to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:     Soap Carvings, Soggy Cereal Soaked in Cocoa, Cod Liver Oil...  
                            A Truly Remarkable Woman...  Her Legend and Legacy!

"What is this stuff?" I asked the mother of my little friend, Jimmy, when he and I were kids, and in Miss Brooch'es fourth grade class at St. Bernard's School. It was a sleep-over at his home.  (Jimmy never slept over at my house!...)
"Are you trying to be cute, or funny?" Jimmy's mom replied, "Or, are you simply being obtuse?!...  It's a bar of soap! Hand soap!" With profound irritation, she spat the words, like stinging projectiles.  

"But..." I stammered, "But Mrs. Igglegoober, it isn't shaped like soap...  I mean, like any soap I've ever seen! I'm not trying to be...  Hello!!??  Missus!!??... Um...  Missus!..."

She turned quickly away from me, padding off in her pink mules shaking her head, mumbling and grousing, "Stupid child," I heard her say, and then, "How did my smart boy connect with such a rube...  Honey!," I heard her yell to her husband, "Our son has befriended a rustic, some sort of countryfied gnat brain!..."  

Today, as a grown geezer, I tell my children, grandchildren and friends about my mother's relationship with soap, and thus mine as well.  You see, Helen Genevieve Raccoli was an artist and an art teacher.  She taught legions of eager young students for more than 45 years in the Milwaukee Public School system. Among her perennial art projects, assignments given her students, was soap carving.  Each pupil was required to bring a bar of soap to school -- usually Ivory brand -- and then carve the bar into a creative shape, such as an animal or an effigy or a familiar object one sees in everyday life.

My mother was the empress of frugal.  She had an ulterior motive, I think.  Home came all the

soap carvings for use in our upstairs bathroom, downstairs "half-bath" and kitchen sink. We washed our hands and faces with fishies, chickens, duckies, dogs, cats, swine and an assortment of model cars, a 1950 Chevrolet truck, a studebaker, a LaSalle and other soapy autos. I think there may have been carved vegetables too, and heads of students' family members...  famous heads, too.  Calvin Coolidge and Herbie Hoover heads, for example!  My siblings and I never saw a "cake" of soap shaped rectangularly. How the hell would I have known the classic shape of hand soap?!...   (You snot-nosed, nasty old poop of a Mrs. Igglegoober!!)


Not only hand soap, but laundry soap.  She'd grate and flake the excess and broken "sculptures" and soak them in warm water, using a strainer in her "manufacturing process" to liquify the flakes and make laundry detergent.  Didn't exactly remove stains but then what did in those days?! Everything we wore smelled like old soap and spoiled eggs because of the ancient starch she somehow managed to obtain for nearly nothing.  My older brother was not amused.  "Ma!  My friends say I smell like rotten eggs! Why can't we get NEW starch, like udder kids...?"

Greeting cards!  My mother never sent a new greeting card.  She'd white out or somehow obliterate print and signatures and "re-purpose" the cards she received.  I think she mistakenly sent the same card to someone who sent the card to her...  on several occasions. I don't think the recipients ever challenged her. If they did she'd simply laugh it off and suggest the complainer was merely delusional.  "Just duplicate cards," she'd insist. Gift wrap? She made us open those rare, wrapped packages with great care so that she could re-use the stuff, and not just once! "Be very careful, honey, don't rip the paper...!!" 

She made a great deal of her own clothing, for her children too. On one occasion when we were in 7th and 8th grade respectively, she made my brother, Kris, and me winter overcoats. They were made of a forest green fabric and brown fur collars, and belts. I've never been much for fashion, but even for me that was beyond what I'd agree to wear in public. Strange and "geeky" - looking, the coats were, however, superbly made.  

She was always the artist, a perfectionist in everything she fashioned. My mother painted wonderful pictures, watercolors, acrylics and oils. She worked with ceramics and even sculpted in wood. She did get a bit odd at one point in her career, plopping large flowers in the forefront of some of her paintings, but the phase didn't last long. It was what we termed her

"Goon (-y) (Floral) Period."

Two of my mother's paintings, one
a rowboat and boathouse scene from
a pier on Okauchee Lake, the other
(at right) birch trees...  probably
needless to specify!

In robust middle age, perhaps a bit earlier, my mother became fascinated with investing, the stock market in all of its frightening complexities.  For her, however, it was a hobby that bore great dividends.  She did extremely well with her investments, a talent that sadly passed over at least one fiduciary imbecile in my generation...  meaning me, of course. My brother and sister inherited the talent, to their credit. Alas, some siblings are merely distracted I suppose!...

Back to my mother...  she had a remarkably well-honed sense of humor and an infectious laugh. And she was magnificently eccentric, in behavior, as in attire, wearing animal-print outfits, Attila the Hun fur-rimmed headwear, Persian shoes, enormous purple-rimmed glasses and enough jewelry that would cause many lesser mortals to become stoop-shouldered.  

Her artistry extended to things culinary as well. I must elucidate. She was a terrible cook and baker, but she set a beautiful table. When my mother entertained, the cooking or catering was "outsourced." Here's an illustration of her kitchen "skills." When my wife, SweetHeart, was pregnant with our first child, my mother invited us to dinner...

"What's she serving?" SweetHeart asked.
"What are we having for dinner?" I asked my mother, into the telephone. "What? Oh! Pork roast with mashed potatoes. That's nice. Isn't that nice, SweetHeart? Probably won't affect your morning sickness at all, right?" I opined the latter sotto voce. Things didn't work as I'd hoped. You see, my mother owned a pressure cooker, holes in the kitchen ceiling attesting to its explosive power when the pressure propelled that thing on the top -- I think it's called a "steam vent" -- with such force it might have flown beyond the earth's atmosphere had the kitchen ceiling not intervened!! She tended to cook everything in the pressure cooker. As such, the pork roast was grey and rubbery, the mashed potatoes grey with the consistency and flavor of wallpaper paste. We don't mention the sour kraut for fear of my safety! SweetHeart spent much of the evening in the small downstairs washroom.  

On another occasion, my mother invited us for chicken and dumplings. As though heavenly chefs created a gastronomic miracle, the dinner was superb. "Ask you mother to make chicken and dumplings," said SweetHeart on another occasion, a year or two removed from the first. The chicken was rubber, the dumplings lumps of 1950s school room paste. My mother could not repeat the miracle of the past. To her credit, she knew she was a terrible cook, and laughed along with the rest of us at her gastronomic disasters.

See...  I like big lumpy stuff,
particulates, in my pea soup.  My
brother complained...  Mom pureed
the soup.  I never got lumps, except
on my head when I wouldn't play
properly with my big brother!!

Early in their married life, my brother's wife, Jaynie, made stuffed peppers. She's an excellent cook. My brother picked at the dinner and announced, "This isn't like my mom used to make." Jaynie was highly displeased, to state the matter euphemistically, knowing her mother-in-law's reputation in the kitchen. Happily, the young marriage survived, and, in time, brother, Kris, grew to appreciate truly fine cuisine, cooking skill and good food he had not known in his youth. 

(My brother always complained the split pea soup was "too lumpy." I preferred lumpy particulates in my soup.  Mother pureed the pea soup.  His complaints were louder and more effective, obviously, then mine! Once when I complained the bread she served us was stiff and dry, my brother dumped a slice of bread in my tomato soup!...  but that's a story for another time!)

(From Left) The perpetrator of this writing, SweetHeart,
Jaynie, wife of brother, Kris, and Kris at right, taken
during Kris and Jaynie's 50th Anniversary celebration!

My siblings and I grew up on soggy cereal soaked in hot cocoa, the skim on top of the boiled stuff a particular source of nausea for me. And cod liver oil. My mother insisted our daily eye dropper full of cod liver oil was the source of perfect attendance throughout elementary and high school, not to mention the strength and stamina needed to deliver heavy Sunday newspapers through brutal winters in Wisconsin.    

Apart from her eccentricities, her talents and her lack thereof in a certain realm, my mother

That's my mother, Helen G., shown
with my father, photo taken in 1974.
Note the ubiquitous 8mm movie camera!!
The image at top was taken, perhaps, in
the late 1930s or early 1940s!

was an extraordinary person, kind and generous almost to a fault. She volunteered her time and talents for so many, including teaching art classes to seniors, taking care of those less fortunate, the sick and needy in so many different ways and venues. She gave a great deal of her time, love and attention to a certain set of fatherless grandchildren, never complaining, always available when needed, or wanted for her special gifts. She was much loved, respected and admired. 

Oh yes, one more thing. My mother loved to travel. I believe she visited nearly every country on this planet. She collected masks, hats and various artifacts. I have the mask collection in my office. They're wonderful. They scare and fascinate my grandchildren. And 8mm home movies. She made more movies than Cecil DeMille or John Huston, I think. 

My mother was a marvel of creativity, innovation and interests. My brother and I miss her, as do all of her family members who survive. My children, Alie and Bethie, and her other grandkids remember with fondness and humor the gifts she bought them from rummage sales! To my mother, the rummage sale was a kind of religion, and she'd never pass one by, no more than she'd ignore bananas at 29 cents a pound, or canned goods on sale that she'd stockpile in her basement larder, a storehouse that could have fed an army of shut-ins!

"Kids, get those dishes done! Don't make me have to tell you again? I've said it 47 times!! *"
(* Her favorite number, particularly when agitated or wishing to emphasize something!)

Humbly Submitted with Loving Memory, 06-20-17 -- Joel K.

       

        

     

  

          

From Russia with Music!

Memoirs of a Geezer!

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth 

to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:      From Russia with Music! 

(Introductory Note:    In the mist of Geezerhood, an ancestral reflection, with just a touch of conjecture...  chronicling an extraordinary life and legend!)

The year was, perhaps, 1880 or 1881. A young boy sang as he labored in the fields, toil demanded, of necessity, by his father, an impoverished and struggling farmer. The boy sang and hummed the few tunes he knew, given the brevity of his time on the earth, perhaps 10, at most 11 years of age.  He sang almost without pause, a kind of mantra, a meditation, his manner of coping with the rigors of an endless agrarian routine. Russian-Jewish folk songs, or hymns learned in the synagogue, songs inspired by the Torah, its various passages and teachings.  

Painting depicts Russian-Jewish
peasants...  A scene alive with activity
including a rabbi's passionate
exhortation.  Could that be young
 Samuel running to join his family!?

Each harvest day on the small, barely arable farm, the boy carried a sack into which he gathered the wheat his father scythed, or potatoes, onions and other root vegetables wrenched from a stubborn, reluctant soil.  Always the boy sang or hummed the songs in his limited repertoire.  One day, by pure chance, the shtetl's rabbi was passing and heard the boy singing. Stopping along his journey, the rabbi was transfixed, captivated, as if stumbling upon a rare coin or a gemstone, barely able to believe his senses.  

"Reb Gimpel," said Rabbi Nachum, calling to him, addressing the boy's father, "your child, he sings with such a remarkable voice.  I am most favorably impressed.  The boy has a true gift." Gimpel Rochov merely grunted in reply, apparently heedless of the rabbi's astonished words. "Your boy," the rabbi continued, "he could be a somebody in this world.  He could sing for a famous synagogue of which I know, near Kiev. Such a thing could bring money to your family."  

At this Gimpel Rochov stopped his labors, and stood facing the rabbi. "Money, you say, Honored Rabbi Nachum!"  The elder Rochov had eight children, four of each, sons and daughters. Too many gaping mouths demanding bread and vegetables, meat when it was available, a rare occurrence. "This money you speak of, how is it to be obtained?"

"I don't mean to be indelicate, Reb Gimpel, but you might wish to consider my taking the boy to Synagogue 'Rosha Choral Bolshaya.' There I could, in theory, meet with Rebbe Yakov Moishtovich, the chief and much revered rabbi leader of that fabled place! It is famous throughout Russia for its music, its singing. If things work out, The boy could then be...  well, how shall I put this...  fostered by the synagogue, in exchange for...  how shall I put this most delicately...  consideration! I believe the boy's talent could be nurtured. He might even be taught to play musical instruments. You are not a rich man, Reb Gimpel. I know you love your family, but one less mouth...  You understand? You and your wife could visit the boy on occasion, see how he's getting along."

Probably not the right synagogue...
but, who knows, it could be!...

"Kiev's a long way off, Rabbi," the elder Rochov said. "I shall discuss this with my wife, my Sofia. I mean... Asking a mother to give up a child. It's a big thing!"

"You'll make the right decision, of that I'm certain, Reb Gimpel. Explain to your dear Sofia the need... the boy's possible future, your own...  Meantime, I will have a discussion with Rebbe Yakov. As it happens, I am on my way even now to visit that sacred place. I'll tell him about your boy, the miracle of his gift. I can take the boy myself to the synagogue...  an interview, so to speak, a kind of audition...  I'm back in about a week. I'll come to see you then."

Another day passed. The boy, young Samuel Rochov, was given the news of his possible future. Gimpel and Sofia talked, argued. As head of the family, the father's decision prevailed. "What will become of our beloved child?" Sofia asked, her voice filled with worry and sadness.

"It's not forever, Sofia.  He'll come home for visits.  We can maybe journey to that place and see the boy. He'll make us proud. He'll be a somebody in this world! We'll be known as the parents of a famous cantor, perhaps. And, my dear wife, a bit of money will help a great deal. We have so little. Besides, the boy is slight, like a small twig, not a great deal of labor issues from the child..."

Moscow and Kiev are not that far
from one another.  Look!  A map!

"I don't like this," said Sofia. "I don't want my precious son taken from us. But, as you are the proclaimed 'tsar' of our household, your decision must prevail, and so I must bow to your wishes. I hope you know what you're asking of me, of our child. I worry we'll never see our sweet Samuel again! He doesn't want to leave us. He begs me not to send him away."  

In a short passage of time, Rabbi Nachum took Samuel to Synagogue Rosha Choral Bolshaya, and there the child remained for a decade or so. The boy was treated as chattel, an instrument into which music was fed then extracted, his extraordinary voice trained and cultivated. He was taught to play music as well. He learned flute and violin, having a natural gift for anything in the realm of music and song. There was no mother figure, only the stern Ryfka, who taught Samuel his lessons, and the rebbe, rabbinical students and the teachers of music. Days consisted of lessons, his training, meals, sleep, work and little else. Samuel never again saw his mother and father, his sisters and brothers. He never again returned to the shtetl and the home of his birth and childhood.

The synagogue and its musical traditions were famous throughout European Jewry. When he was 19 years old, then a highly trained musical prodigy, emerging as an established and important component of Rosha Bolshaya's choral ensemble and choir, Samuel accompanied the group on a lengthy tour of major European capitals. Eventually they arrived in Rome, having previously performed in Moscow, Prague, Warsaw, Budapest, Vienna and other great urban synagogues and concert centers.

Samuel had made a decision, one that became a bold plan. He was poised to break free from Rosha Choral Bolshaya and the harsh and impersonal treatment his difficult and tedious life had become as "property" of an endlessly demanding synagogue. While it's true Samuel's gift of music was greatly enhanced in that crucible, its spiritual leaders and teachers had also burned anger and resentment into his young mind, like adding tongue scorching, bitter spice to a boiling stew. He rose from his bed in a Roman hostel in the middle of a moonless night, crept from the room and escaped into an enormous, complex and completely unfamiliar urban landscape.

Finding with time and effort the Jewish quarter in the vast city, he presented himself as a homeless youth, seeking and then finding menial jobs in shops and markets. His fertile mind a hungry vessel of knowledge, Samuel quickly acquired the Italian language as he wandered throughout Rome when opportunities allowed. His dark, curly hair and swarthy complexion allowed him to assimilate.  As he worked in the shops and market stalls, he spoke with native Romans, learned, asked questions of patrons and people in the streets, his ear constantly tuned to accent, inflection, words and idiom. The people for whom he worked provided rude shelter, a place to sleep and bathe, food from their shops, farm carts and markets. He continued to grow and thrive.

A year passed quickly and Samuel's age increased to 20 years. Two remarkable events would change his life and propel him into a future of which he could never have dreamed or thought possible, both unexpected and quite by chance and good fortune. On a rare day in which he was free of shop or market duties and on his own, he walked the streets of Rome, exploring the city's rich history, attractions and landmarks. On this particular day, one that was bathed in warmth and sunshine, he emerged from a park to cross a busy street alive with pedestrian and carriage traffic.  As he dodged and wove his way through the chaos and tangle of people, horses, wheeled carts and buggies, he happened upon a jewelry store that bore the proprietor's name, Harry Raccoli.

Samuel regarded the sighting as a kind of kismet. He decided to adopt the name as his own, perceiving it as a natural "Italianization" of Rochov, and a perfectly effective and useful change of identity. Samuel formally and legally became Harry Raccoli in 1909 in a federal courtroom in Baltimore, Maryland, where both he and his future father-in-law would also become naturalized American citizens.  

The second remarkable event...  While walking the streets of Rome -- not merely a favorite diversion but having become routine as his familiarity with the city increased -- Samuel happened upon a musical competition. He joined the queue to wait his turn, planning to sing an Italian operatic aria he had learned during his sojourn in the country's capital city. The queue was serpentine, and long! And so too was the waiting time. As people do in such circumstances, he struck up a conversation with a woman and her son, the pair waiting just in front of Samuel.

"You are a singer?" the woman asked, as they chatted somewhat aimlessly, his extraordinary speaking voice a clue to his "instrument" of choice.  
"Yes," said Samuel. "I was classically trained," he embellished, having no desire to divulge his full story, his "escape" narrative.  
"Your accent is unusual," the woman noted. "What is your name, please."
He paused before answering, "I am called Harry Raccoli. My family lived in Russia for a long period of time," Samuel responded. "I'm afraid my accent betrays my Russian, how shall I say, my sojourn in the Russian metropole, at times, the countryside as well." The woman made no further inquiry into his history and background.
"Would you, perhaps, sing something for us, that is, for my son and me?"
"You mean," Samuel replied, somewhat taken aback, "right here, right now, standing here in this endless queue?" She nodded. He sang an aria from Donizetti's L'Elisir d'amore in his rich tenor (that in time would deepen to baritone) -- quite possibly Una furtiva lagrima!.  

It may have been one of many he had already learned through, or perhaps the only piece that made its way into his musical mind and memory at the time. The woman and her son were astonished, mesmerized, as were many in that queue within earshot!

Able after a long moment to gather her thoughts and words, the woman said,"You are quite magnificent." Many others in the queue were equally affected by Samuel's voice, his talent, and quite stunned over this completely unexpected explosion of operatic singing. 

"I shall make you a bargain," the woman told Samuel, still wide-eyed with excitement and amazement. "I am a woman of some means.  If you should chance to win this competition, should we ever actually arrive at the head of this intolerable queue, I will, if you wish, become your patroness! If my son should win -- although I must confess," she added as a kind of aside, out of her son's hearing, "that your skill seems to eclipse anything, any voice I've ever heard. But if my son should win, I would still take you into my patronage and ask that you tutor my son in voice and music...  I trust you also play certain musical instruments?..." 

Samuel won the competition! The woman kept her bargain. The newly "self-named" Harry Raccoli remained in Rome for a few more years, studying, teaching, learning, with the patronage and unwavering encouragement of Sigorna Marchesi. And her son benefitted as well, in time earning a minor role with an Italian opera company.

Harry Raccoli, formerly Samuel
Rochov, circled.  He taught voice
at a Chicago conservatory of music
at one point in his career!

Ambition and a yearning for financial success eventually led Samuel to leave Rome and Signora Marchesi. She and her son had also provided useful tutoring for young Samuel. Among other skills, he learned to speak English, enabling him to correspond with certain American opera companies. The selfless signora made no objection, no insistence that Samuel remain with her in Rome. He was invited to the United States, to Maryland and the Baltimore Opera Company to audition. Samuel arrived at Ellis Island in the late 1890s, a letter from the opera company facilitating his admission into the United States. His talent won him a place with the company, and an introduction to Slava (Viachislav) Tucker, a Russian emigre, a patron of the opera and the father of Rebecca who would become Samuel's wife.   

Having then permanently adopted the name Harry Raccoli, he traveled to Germany (circa 1903) to study at the Royal Academy of Music in Berlin, returning to Baltimore with a newly acquired catalog of operatic knowledge and arias with which he entertained audiences for many years to follow. He and Rebecca moved to Chicago and then to Milwaukee, Wisconsin where Harry Raccoli and his family lived for most of the balance of his life.   He ultimately fathered four children, Arthur, Theodore, Genevieve (Helen) and Elizabeth. Harry won fame and widespread recognition as a singer and performer of opera, and later as a teacher of voice, violin and piano. Sadly, his career was cut short, his fortunes greatly diminished by the onset of Parkinson's Disease that claimed his life at age 73 following a long and debilitating illness. 

There's no clear evidence as to when, but Harry abandoned any practice of Judaism, probably when he was still quite young and as a by-product of his early life experiences. (Interestingly, his wife, my grandmother, Rebecca, also eventually left the practice of Jewish religious service. She flirted with various spiritual traditions, including Christian Science!) Harry Raccoli's legacy endures, and includes the many students he taught and mentored -- including one of his own sons -- most of whom made performing and teaching music their lifelong careers, sharing their knowledge and talents with successive generations. 

It is, I think, unfortunate that so many, perhaps most of us, learn little or nothing of our ancestors, our family heritage, and sometimes only when advanced age and wonder compel us to explore the lives and times of our antecedents. And then it's often too late to mine the resources of older, surviving relatives who may have little or no recollections, who may be victims of dementia or Alzheimer's, or are among the "dear departed." The dead among our ancestors can tell us little, unless they left accounts of their lives, careers and adventures via writing, journals, annotated photographs... Sadly, such records are rare in most families!

My own mother made 8mm movies of her world travels, thereby documenting at least that portion of her rich life. I believe my sister transferred those films onto DVDs, the existence or whereabouts of which are a mystery. Both women are no longer with us.  

There's little doubt my maternal grandfather's life became the stuff of an "oral tradition" or family history, his legend passed along through the generations, likely because his was such a remarkably colorful and interesting life, a kind of storybook journey from peasantry and poverty in Russia to great success and fame through his gift of music. Given the time in which he lived and worked, unfortunately there are no recordings of his singing or his instrumental performances, at least of which his surviving progeny are aware!

Next time, I'll return to less serious subject matter. But just so this episode is not entirely devoid of amusement and silliness, I've added a photo of myself as "makeshift bench," and Granddaughter, Phia, enabling her to climb a tree! (Half of Grandson, Seany, is at right!...  He's actually an entire person; the photographer was apparently engaged in a form of semi-artistic expression!)  Thank you!

Humbly Submitted, 05-19-17 -- Joel K.