TBT: Last year at this time my Wisconsin book club was visiting my new home here in Arkansas. We had a wonderful time making new memories. FYI it's strawberry shortcake time again here...
Last night I joined a ZOOM call with 4 of the Happy Bookers as we discussed our upcoming trip to Croatia. Yes, Croatia.
I am truly blessed...
This transplanted Hungarian-Canadian now Texan biochemist, shared his story with a brief geography and history lesson of Hungary, interspersing his family's and Jewish community's fate as a result of the German and Russian tactics.
One of the occupation tactics was to move all the Jews into a 6 block radius, a Jewish ghetto, to be burned, but this was foiled with the arrival of the Russians.
We listened to what our speaker's Mom lived through as the youngest in her family having to move in and share a 2-bedroom apartment with 17 other family members. Then, when it was time for the family to evacuate and go to the train station where trains awaited to take them to the camps, his Mom, a secretary, ran into an acquaintance who invited her to lunch. This woman, living in the apartment was the maid of the apartment's owner, a Jewish doctor who been taken away. She offered false papers to help his Mom escape.
Andras, her 15-year-old son, had been left in an orphanage for a week and his Grandparents got him out. He and another boy contacted scarlet fever and were isolated. Surprisingly, when the soldiers opened the door where the 2 kids were being kept, didn't go inside since they didn't want to contact the disease. They were left there until they were transported to a military hospital, where they were given 3 hot meals/day. When the Russians were getting closer, the Germans left in a hurry. The 15-year-old boys awoke one morning to an empty hospital. The temps were 20 below, and they headed to the basement of a factory, hiding out there for a bit. They then found his childhood home's street and his home, where there was no electricity or wood.
The Russians took about 3 weeks to occupy the city in 1945.
Andras and his Mom were reunited.
700,000 Hungarian Jewish lives were taken. Dr. Lacko's family amazingly had a high survival rate of 80% even with some close calls. Dr. Lacko now lives in Dallas, but he immigrated to Canada from Hungary at age 17.
tUESDAY tUNES this week is another steamy one.
Take a listen to ARENA Y PROMESA (Sand & Promise)
by the Velvet label under Spanish Soul Blues. Short and poetic.
Who hasn't written in the sand at some time?
Sand and Promise...
"I wrote your name in the sand before the wave arrived
The words lasted seven seconds.
The promise remains whole.
The water erased what I said
the salt kept what I feel ..."
"Every tide brings your name written in another language of foam"
What the sea takes, the heart keeps..."
MONDAY MUSINGS: On Thursday about 5:30 am, the Atlanta crew pulled out of the driveway and left me with evidence they had been here...
These items can be returned, and the leftover foodstuff can be eaten, but there are a couple of other things. Things one can not buy, like the new family memories and a very undeniable 'quiet'...
This Bubbe is having withdrawal..
FOTO FRIDAY: RESTLESSness can occur at any time, but it's pretty obvious when you see this little guy all tangled up in his blankies that he is working hard in his sleep.
TBT: 2017 There was a new Kid on the block on this day in the End of the Rainbow Valley since this birth happened while I was on the phone with daughter Lori Sinapellido and her hubby Evan Lee, they got to choose the name. Drum roll, please: And the final answer is: Alex Tribek. ( I know, good luck to their Baby Tater Tot's eventual name.)
Chad Gad Yo... Looks like "an only kid" for Jacqueline.
Alex Trebek sure was cute...
MIDWEEK MUSINGS: Now that I have lived 7 decades, I am really seeing a correlation about life. Perhaps you also have heard it said that folks nearing death hold on until - a loved one can arrive/ a special occasion occurs.
Special occasions such as birthdays, weddings, anniversaries and holidays. For our extended family (machatunim- family of in-laws) we experienced it here this year in Little Rock. My brother married into this extended family and we have spent many holidays including special birthdays together.
Every stroke had been robbing him of his loves, first golf and then piano playing. Jerry was a man of many talents, although he couldn't read music, he composed and wrote songs. One made famous even by Jerry Vale! Those royalties went to the purchase of a car, another of his passions. He also followed the Trojans, our local basketball team and the state's Razorbacks. He coached Junior League Baseball and even one of his grandson's baseball teams.
Jerry sat at the Passover table, Thursday, celebrating what no one knew would be their last Passover seder together. He will be missed by many besides his wife, daughter, son, their spouses and an adoring set of grandchildren, who called him Pops, along with a community where he was a hypnotherapist, musically present, and even a voice in the paper's opinion page. We will miss him...
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