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John Landy (right) with Roger Bannister in 2004. Photo from Wikipedia

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

These are difficult times, but we’re not going there. As President Joe Biden pointed out in his State of the Union Wednesday night, the war in Ukraine, inflation, Covid and climate change are some of the troubles before us. Further, for Pete’s sake, the owners and the players of major league baseball are so far apart in their negotiations that we don’t even have an opening day. And it seems that potholes on local roads multiply overnight. Let’s talk about other things.

Have you ever heard of John Landy? I had, but not by name. Many of us know who Roger Bannister was. It was breathtaking news when he broke the four-minute mile at 3:59.4 as a runner on May 6, 1954. Until that day, humans were not expected to run that fast. Bannister always gave credit to the guy behind him, and in the subsequent race billed as the Mile of the Century, on August 7, it was John Landy.

Landy, an Australian academic, was also a runner. Graduating from Melbourne University that famous year with a degree in agricultural science, Landy and Bannister, an Englishman and medical student at Oxford at the time, ran against each other on Aug. 7 at the British Empire Games in Vancouver, British Columbia. It was to be the first time two men would better four minutes in the same race. Landy had previously run on June 21, in Turku, Finland, scoring 3:57.9. (The current record, by the way, is 3:43.13, held by Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco.)  

They were the only two who had individually broken the four-minute mile record earlier that year, and their race generated huge excitement. Bannister finished first. Eight-tenths of one second separated the two. Bannister saluted Landy for offering the fierce competition that pushed him just a little bit harder to win. You might wonder how I know all this. Landy died last Thursday in Australia at the age of 91, and there was an appropriately in-depth obituary about him in Sunday’s The New York Times, so I attribute all this information to obit writers Frank Litsky and William McDonald.

“As expected, Landy led from the start, building a 15-yard lead. But Bannister … closed in on the last lap and Landy could sense him coming. Rounding the final turn, he peeked over his left shoulder to see where Bannister was. But Bannister was on his right, and as Landy’s head was turned, Bannister stormed by him, and won in 3:58.8. Landy came in second, in 3:59.6

“Only later was it learned that Landy had run the race with a wounded foot. By his account, he could not sleep the night before the race, so he got up and, barefoot, walked the streets — only to gash a foot on a photographer’s discarded flashbulb. He allowed a doctor to close the wound with four stitches, but only after the doctor swore that he would keep the incident quiet,” according to The NYT.

It was Dr. Roger Bannister, however, whose name “became synonymous with singular athletic achievement,” according to Wikipedia. He died in 2018, making Landy the winner in longevity.

A testament to Landy’s sportsmanship occurred in 1956 at the Australian track and field championships in Melbourne. (Bannister, by the way, retired from competitive running in 1954, to concentrate on medicine.) As Landy was running in the race, hoping to break the record again and participate in the coming Olympics there, a 19-yeaar-old competitor, Ron Clarke, was bumped and fell down ahead of him. When Landy leapt over his body, he inadvertently spiked his right shoulder. 

Landy stopped, ran back to Clarke, brushed cinders from Clarke’s knees and said, “Sorry.” “Keep going,” Clarke said. “I’m all right.” Clarke got up, and he and Landy started after the others, who by then were 60 yards ahead. Landy caught them and won in 4:04.2, according to The NYT.

Landy, in his own words, had “an extraordinarily interesting life.”  I hope you find his story uplifting in what is today a darker time.

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Pixabay photo

Over the course of the last month, local elected officials were speaking out against Gov. Kathy Hochul’s (D) plan to allow, potentially, accessory apartments to every home throughout the state. 

Members of Congress across Long Island bashed the idea, state senators and assembly members did, too. It even got to the hyper local level when Brookhaven and Huntington towns both held press conferences asking Hochul to reconsider the plan, saying that it would not fit into the landscape of Long Island. The Town of Smithtown strongly objected, too.

It was bipartisan. Members from both parties said that it would impact the way we live here, parking would be terrible, property values could decrease and the already concerning sewage issues we have on Long Island would worsen. It simply wouldn’t work. 

And just this week, it looks like all that kicking and screaming had an impact. Hochul decided to pull the plan from the state budget. 

So, what does this mean? 

The events that led up to her decision were important. All of those press conferences hosted by our elected officials were worth the time and effort. The stories that the media reported on got other people talking, thinking and writing. 

This shows how important it is to reach out to our local representatives. Tell them what you want and ask them to help make a change. That’s their job. 

Reach out to us, your local media and write letters to the editor. Voice your concerns and demand action. 

Some things cannot be changed or might take longer than desired. But there are other opportunities that can be fixed before they take flight. 

If it wasn’t for our local elected officials looking over the state budget and noticing the line about the apartments, some of us might not have known about the issue until it was too far along to be stopped. 

That’s when people begin to complain, but sometimes not much can be done. 

Stay vigilant and be proactive instead of reactive. Use what resources are available to us now to make continuous changes that will benefit us and our families.

We’re all in this together and the more we communicate, the better. But we should remember to say “thank you” to those who made it possible when you finally get your way. 

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Pixabay photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

Even before the pandemic, stand up comics, who took to the air to entertain the rest of us with their clever observations, often spent considerable time describing the absurdities of airline travel.

The process, as each airline and each airport appears to have somewhat different rules, has become even more bizarre.

Each airline has its own baggage limitations. For some larger planes, you can take one carry-on and one personal bag. For some smaller planes, however, especially if you’ve bought the cheapest seats on smaller flights, which we do as a rule, you can only bring one carry-on. You can’t even get a boarding pass unless someone comes and inspects the size of your bag.

Once you have your boarding pass, you head to security with your mask on.

The first screener who checks boarding passes and IDs has to have one of the harder jobs. Everyone is trying to catch a plane, which means that, even if they are early, they are still under time pressure. Many feel the need to share their sense of urgency with people who fly under the radar in our lives unless something goes wrong. When these security agents do their jobs well, we expect it, and when they don’t, we are outraged, frustrated, annoyed and irritable. It’s a bit like being a referee or an effective traffic cop.

Anyway, we shuffle up to the line with the largest possible bag that won’t require checking. When we get to the front, we hand our ID and ticket over, wait for the cue, and then lower our masks.

I like watching people lower their masks. Many feel the need to smile, as if the person is taking a picture of them. It’s ironic because the photo from a driver’s license or a passport looks much more like a 6 a.m. mug shot than a, “this-is-me, this-is-my-face, I’m-about-to-go-somewhere-awesome smile.”

Every so often, someone is selected for random additional screening. On a recent trip, they checked my wife’s phone on the way out and my phone on the way back.

During that trip, one of the conveyer belts that enables the screener to look at x-rays of our underwear was moving especially slowly. Each time a new person approached the conveyor belt, that person could and sometimes did push his or her huge suitcase ahead of the ones from the people who were ahead of them.

Fortunately for me, I travel with a small but powerful force of nature, also known as my wife. She doesn’t allow dysfunctional systems to slow us down, even if that involves shaming people who are trying to shove their suitcases ahead of the ones on the belt.

My wife was so effective that the system not only worked as it should for the few minutes we stood there, but a TSA agent jumped in to reinforce what my wife was doing.

Once we get on a plane, the battle for overhead space begins, with the special people getting first dibs on that space while the people in the last groups get the leftovers. It’s so Darwinian: people who spend extra money are the Alpha Fliers, while those who fly economy get the scraps, with flight attendants telling them to gate check their allowable luggage, which will hopefully be waiting for them on the jetway when we arrive.

People jockey for position at baggage check, where they want to stand directly on a line with the ramp that delivers their luggage magically from below. I’m sure that magic requires considerable lifting and hefting from the people we rarely see.

The final competitive positioning occurs at the curb, where the faces of tired fliers often look much more like the pictures from their IDs than the faces they make at the beginning of their trips. The tired fliers stare at approaching vehicles, looking for their Ubers, family members, or buses to bring them back to their world.

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Pixabay photo

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

In an attempt to make Ukraine more real for all of us, this country on the far side of Europe, I am including the information below that was taken from Wikipedia on the internet. I hope it helps us visualize what the situation is there. 

Ukraine is an important agricultural country and can meet the food needs of 600 million people.

• 1st in Europe in terms of arable land area;

• 3rd place in the world by the area of black soil (25% of world’s volume);

• 1st place in the world in exports of sunflower and sunflower oil;

• 2nd place in the world in barley production and 4th place in barley exports;

• 3rd largest producer and 4th largest exporter of corn in the world;

• 4th largest producer of potatoes in the world;

• 5th largest rye producer in the world;

• 5th place in the world in bee production (75,000 tons);

• 8th place in the world in wheat exports;

• 9th place in the world in the production of chicken eggs;

• 16th place in the world in cheese exports.

It is the second-largest country by area in Europe and has a population of over 40 million — more than Poland.

Ukraine ranks:

• 1st in Europe in proven recoverable reserves of uranium ores;

• 2nd place in Europe and 10th place in the world in terms of titanium ore reserves;

• 2nd place in the world in terms of explored reserves of manganese ores (2.3 billion tons, or 12% of the world’s reserves);

• 2nd largest iron ore reserves in the world (30 billion tons);

• 2nd place in Europe in terms of mercury ore reserves;

• 3rd place in Europe (13th place in the world) in shale gas reserves (22 trillion cubic meters)

• 4th in the world by the total value of natural resources;

• 7th place in the world in coal reserves (33.9 billion tons)

Ukraine is an important industrialized country and ranks

• 1st in Europe in ammonia production; Europe’s 2nd’s and the world’s 4th largest natural gas pipeline system;

• 3rd largest in Europe and 8th largest in the world in terms of installed capacity of nuclear power plants;

• 3rd in Europe and 11th in the world in terms of rail network length (21,700 km);

• 3rd in the world (after the U.S. and France) in production of locators and locating equipment;

• 3rd largest iron exporter in the world

• 4th largest exporter of turbines for nuclear power plants in the world;

• 4th largest manufacturer of rocket launchers, in clay exports and in titanium exports

• 8th in exports of ores and concentrates;

• 9th in exports of defense industry products;

• 10th largest steel producer in the world (32.4 million tons).

Ukraine matters.

These are some reasons why its independence is important to the rest of the world.

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U.S. Congressman Tom Suozzi at a press conference on Feb. 10. Photo by Julianne Mosher

When Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) talked about increasing affordable housing options across New York during her recent State of the State address, it was something that most residents could agree with. Then the State of the State book came out with more details.

Local legislators paused when they saw that a proposed plan would allow residents to build an accessory dwelling unit without seeking approval from their local zoning board, essentially eliminating single-family zoning laws. While most Long Island elected officials believe that our area needs more affordable housing, the majority are not on board with Hochul’s proposed plan.

It seems as if she has good intentions. Such a plan would enable a homeowner to create an apartment. One hope is that grown children can live at home longer and have more time to save for their own house. Or, it could provide a space for aging parents who can’t afford the cost of living in New York or keep up with all the things that a household needs. Being able to transform a basement, attic or garage into an apartment sounds better than families flying back and forth to another state to see their parents or children.

As it becomes more and more challenging to buy a home, living with one’s parents longer sometimes is the more affordable option. And while there was a time that people lived at home longer simply by sleeping in their childhood bedrooms, now with more teenagers going away to college, when they come back home, they crave their own space and don’t want to explain to mom and dad why they are just leaving the house at 10 p.m. to meet up with friends. They would like to have company over and not worry about their parents coming into the living room and joining the conversation or embarrassing them.

And older parents crave their freedom, too. Gone are the days when grandma and grandpa would come to live with the family and sleep in the guest room. As houses have become larger in the last few decades, people have become accustomed to having a good amount of personal space.

It should also be noted that in Brookhaven and Huntington, the towns allow accessory apartments on premises with specific regulations, including that the owner of the lot upon which the accessory apartment is located must reside within the dwelling that contains the ADU, and only one accessory apartment is permitted on the premises. Smithtown has limited exceptions.

Of course, we understand why many elected officials are dubious. This proposed Hochul plan has to be thought out thoroughly. Many areas of Long Island are overpopulated or are becoming so. While keeping our parents and children close to us is nice, it can be aggravating when cars are parked all over our streets and roadways are congested. We know not everyone will build an apartment for family members to have more affordable living conditions, but many will. And some will add them to their homes, not to help out family members but to collect rent from strangers.

Our infrastructure is not able to attract or keep people on the Island even though we want our children and parents to stay here.

Our planning and zoning boards work together to decide on what’s best for our areas and allow residents to speak up and express their concerns. To increase affordable housing units along the North Shore, elected officials will need to come together to brainstorm and identify the best areas to create less expensive housing options, such as being near train stations and major roadways. Options like these can keep additional cars off our local streets, so a quick run to the grocery store doesn’t turn into an hour-long ordeal.

Change can be good, but putting the responsibility of increasing affordable housing in the hands of residents who may not be experts on density and infrastructure is not a wise decision. 

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METRO photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

A friend who is the same age as I am recently and suddenly died, leaving behind a wife and two daughters in college who are the same age I was when my father died.

I feel like I’m at the center of a prism, with light bouncing out in so many directions that it’s difficult to track each path.

I am devastated for my friend. I know he will miss many of the same things my father never got to experience. He won’t see his daughters graduate from college, develop their careers, and enjoy learning about themselves through relationships.

He also won’t get to wake up another morning and see his wife’s smile, make plans for the day, and make the kinds of decisions we take for granted, like where to go on vacation, whom to see over the weekend, what friend to call and visit, or how to brighten someone else’s day.

I knew him as a dedicated father, who beamed when he spoke of his twin daughters. Unlike so many other parents whose children play sports, he didn’t need his daughters to be superstars. His joy mirrored theirs. 

I’m sorry for his wife, too, who shared two decades of experience with him and their two children. She went from being in an empty nest to being in an empty house in 18 months. Everywhere she looks, she will see reminders of her husband and the life they shared.

I relate to his daughters. I know how strange it is to be in college, surrounded by friends who suddenly don’t know what to say to them. If friends ask the girls how they are doing, will they tell them, leaving many of their friends without the tools, experience or words to respond?

Death leaves a hole in our lives. The friends they have in college, like mine decades ago, may not know about that hole and may not have even met the man missing from the center of their lives.

A week after I buried my father, I was back at school, finding it difficult to concentrate or even to care about upcoming exams or responsibilities. 

When I told a math professor about my loss, he went out of his way to tutor me, to ask me how I was, and to be patient, waiting for me to tell him when I was ready to take a midterm. He arranged for me to take an exam on my own. He made a point of looking for me after each lecture. I appreciated the support and, yet, I felt so weak and angry that I needed it.

I remember the first horrifying moment I didn’t feel the weight of the loss of my father. I was wracked with guilt. What kind of son was I that I had, even for a moment, neglected to mourn?

I also recall the first person I met in those turbulent few weeks who didn’t know my story, who treated me like everyone else and who didn’t say she was sorry for my loss. We had the closest thing to a normal evening, which, at that time, was extraordinary.

In the weeks, months and years ahead, my friend’s daughters will remember the great moments with their father. They will look back at their idyllic childhoods and remember the mom and dad who made that possible.

In the days ahead, however, they will feel a flood of emotions and have a range of thoughts. I hope that they find the kind of peace that comes from appreciating what they had and knowing that, no matter how much they might feel this way, they are not alone and that others share their experiences and care for them.

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Pixabay photo

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

If it was President Vladimir Putin’s intention to be the center of global attention, he has certainly succeeded. Not much can push the latest COVID news off the top spot. Maybe inflation and how it is affecting the average resident can, but that’s nothing compared to the dominance of the situation in Ukraine and the speculation about what Putin’s next move will be. There seem to be numerous Putin specialists who profess to have studied the Russian dictator’s every move for many years and know what his plan is. Or, does he have a plan? Is this a story that he is writing as he goes along? This makes for lots of rhetoric among the pundits. 

One thing is sure. The serious possibility of Russian aggression has caused North Atlantic Treaty Organization members to stand together and reaffirm their alliance. Perhaps this was Putin’s test. There was little reaction when the Russians invaded and took over Crimea in 2014. Would anyone really care if they took over all of the Ukraine?

Well, the answer to that question is decidedly YES. And the United States has stepped forward to reaffirm it alliance with and leadership of NATO by organizing the threat of severe economic sanctions against Russia, sending military equipment to Ukraine and finally sending a symbolic number of troops to NATO countries that border on Ukraine, namely Poland and Romania. A small number of soldiers also went to Germany, perhaps to bolster the resolve of the newly elected German leader, Chancellor Olaf Scholz, to honor its alliance. 

Germany has the most to lose as far as its energy supply goes. Some 38% of the European Union’s natural gas comes from Russia, according to Eurostat, the EU’s statistics office. Much of it is imported by Germany to heat homes in winter and enable factories to operate. The loss of that source of energy would certainly cause economic pain to Germans and other European residents, who would have to pay more for significantly less supply. And of course, that furthers the impact of inflation.

Russia’s overt demands include halting NATO’s expansion and reducing its military exercises and presence in Eastern Europe. Specifically, Putin wants guarantees that Ukraine will not be allowed to join NATO, which its current leadership has indicated it would want to do in the future. However, noted globalist and New York Times columnist, Thomas L. Friedman, suggested in the issue of February 16, that Putin’s fear is that “Ukraine becomes Westernized. He fears that one day Ukraine will be admitted to the European Union.” If  such an event were to happen, which Friedman believes young Ukrainians dream about, they feel it could “lock in their frail democracy and lock out corruption and Putinism.”

Friedman goes on to point out that “Putin seized Crimea and first invaded part of Eastern Ukraine in February-March 2014. What else was happening then? The European Union’s 28 member states were forging a new E.U.-Ukraine Association Agreement to foster closer political and economic ties, signed on March 21, 2014.” Putin’s greatest fear, according to Friedman, “is the expansion of the E.U.’s sphere of influence and the prospect that it would midwife a decent, democratic, free-market Ukraine that would every day say to the Russian people, ‘This is what you could be without Putin.’” 

Meanwhile, Putin is deciding, according to Friedman, “If  I go ahead with a full scale invasion and it goes bad — wrecking Russia’s economy and resulting in Russian soldiers returning home in body bags from a war with fellow Slavs —could it lead to my own downfall?”

Whatever Putin’s thoughts are, he has used the threat of military force to bring the Western leaders to the table for extensive talks. Perhaps the diplomats will remake the Eastern European map without resorting to war. 

Until there is some sort of resolution to this stand off, what can we, here in America, expect? We will have to deal with the possibility of growing shortages and accompanying inflation, which in fact we are already experiencing at the gas pumps. 

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METRO photo

When people look back to spring 2020, they remember how the COVID-19 pandemic shut things down. Zoom became a regular form of communication, visits to grandparents were done in a drive-thru fashion and many people anxiously awaited their stimulus checks.

While those checks from the U.S. government were sent, some people needed the money more than others. 

Many people lost their jobs, their businesses and their livelihoods. In fact, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, in February 2020 — just before the pandemic hit the States — unemployment was at 3.5%. Just two months later, as the virus began to spread rapidly, unemployment rates skyrocketed to nearly 15%.

But what many people might not realize is how impacted the local arts were during this time. 

We as a society leaned on our first responders out in the trenches. We listened to our elected officials on the news every day hoping to hear something good. We shopped locally to help our business-owning neighbors. 

However, something that we all enjoy one way or another — the arts — was shattered and not much was being done to help our local artists, performers and creators. 

According to Johns Hopkins University research, as of December 2021, the percentage of job losses at nonprofit arts organizations remained more than three times worse than the average of all nonprofits. 

Artists/creatives were — and remain — among the most severely affected segment of the nation’s workforce. The arts are a formidable industry in the U.S. — $919.7 billion (pre-COVID) that supported 5.2 million jobs and represented 4.3% of the nation’s economy.

And now, nearing two years since the 2020 shutdowns, artists on Long Island are voicing how it felt. Many believe that significant relief funding was not given to the arts and related nonprofits despite the impact they have on Long Island’s economy.

Think about it. How many of us love to see a show at the local theater? How many of us hang artwork from nearby artists on our walls? How many of us enjoy live music as we dine at our favorite eateries? 

Those people had jobs, too. 

Sometimes we forget that the people working after a typical 9-to-5 shift are working, too. What some may call a hobby is a way of life for thousands of people.

We still have a way to go, and unfortunately COVID will haunt us for a very long time in more ways than one. But the next time you’re out to dinner with a friend, drop a tip in the guitar player’s case. Splurge on a drawing from a local artist and support your neighborhood theater. 

The arts helped us during the pandemic. We found solace in other people’s creations. Now it’s time to pay back the artists and show them how much they are needed, wanted and loved.

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Pixabay photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

At the same time that TV advertisements often frustrate me because I’d like to find out what happens next in the show I’m watching, I appreciate the messages people are trying to send.

Sometimes, the ad is such a loss for me that I figure I couldn’t possibly be the target audience.

There’s that ad for a chocolate bar that makes a woman float in a store. Right, because eating that specific type of chocolate creates such a trippy, LSD-type experience that she not only feels incredible and floats above everyone else in the store, but the other customers see her floating.

“Look, up in the sky. It’s a bird. It’s a plane. Nope, it’s just another person who ate the trippy chocolate bar that lets them float to the ceiling!”

Then there are all the ads for medical products that could cure something, but that have such severe side effects that the risks may not be worth the cure.

“We might cure your hiccups,” the ad suggests, “or we might cause you to have such trouble breathing that you should stop taking our medicine and see a doctor.”

That brings me to the ad for Truist.

Have you seen their ads, with the pile of soft stuff that looks like an old collection of the stuffed animals my children used to win at boardwalk games or receive for birthday presents?

This pile of soft things rolls along, helping people by recovering hats that blow off at the beach, bringing a spare tire to a man stuck on the side of the road, or delivering a flower to a girl waiting on a bench with her mother.

Being the OCD parent that I am, I would probably say to my daughter, “Don’t take anything from a blob that’s been rolling on the filthy street!”

I imagine the idea for the rolling blob that cares could have originated in a number
of ways.

“George” might have forgotten that he needed to come up with an ad while he was racing to wake his daughter for school. Seeing the pile of stuffed animals he was supposed to help clean up in her room, he thought, “Hmmm, if I throw this in my car, it’ll look like I cleaned up and maybe I can use it as a part of my work.”

Once he arrived at the office, he threw the stuffed animals on the table, hoping he wouldn’t get fired and, just as importantly, that he didn’t lose any of her treasured toys.

Or, perhaps, “Andrea” couldn’t sleep the night before she had to present an idea. At 3:21 a.m. she watched an old western. There, in between the John Wayne dialog and the crescendo to a gunfight, she found inspiration. Rolling across the screen was the ubiquitous tumbleweed.

“That’s it!” she thought, as she imagined Tumbleweed 2.0, the modern version of an iconic image of the Old West. Instead of a collection of dried out grass, the modern Truist Tumbleweed (at that hour, alliteration is awesome!) is composed of soft, plush stuffed animals. And, instead of being indifferent to the plight of the people it passes, the Truist Tumbleweed cares, lending a stuffed animal hand.

“George” and “Andrea” may have moved on to other jobs. Or, thinking outside the box, they may have gotten a promotion. They could use some of that extra money to buy risky remedies or trippy chocolate. And, hey, if they have any problems, the Truist Tumbleweed is ready to show it cares.

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Pixabay photo

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

Maybe it is a Hallmark holiday, but with St. Valentine’s Day approaching, love is definitely in the air. Perhaps Chaucer started it with his poetry about Valentine’s Day in the 14th century. There have been many iterations since. At the least, it’s a time to reflect on the loves in our lives. And there are many. Let us count them together.

Saint Valentine’s Day has traditionally been associated with romantic love, as people—give each other material declarations of their affections. These start with cards, some of them originally composed and handwritten, others store bought and ceremoniously delivered. Red roses are the usual accompaniment and perhaps even generous amounts of chocolate. All of that helps to endure a cold winter’s day and night. It certainly helps the local economy.

So many other loves exist, some of them deeply in our hearts. The love we bear for our children makes for family bonding. It has been said that if children loved their parents as much as parents love their children, the human race would end because the children would never leave their homes. From the marvel at first sight of those tiny fingers and toes to the day we walk them down the aisle to start their own families, we love them, disregarding all the aggravations that happen in between. For most, this is an indissoluble love.

And yes, most of us truly love our parents, the mother who taught us to read, the father who taught us to swim. We go from thinking they are all-knowing demigods to wondering if they are the stupidest humans on earth, and ultimately to respecting them for all they have given us despite their various shortcomings. We are awed by their indestructible love for us and at the same time acknowledge that they are but human. 

We have been impressed with the number of entries for our Love My Pet section that is running in the newspapers and on the website and social media this week. We certainly love our pets, maybe because they can’t talk. And they are unfailingly loyal and forgiving. Well, dogs, are. I’m not so sure about cats. In some cases, we regard them almost as our children. 

A carpenter of undetermined ethnicity, who was doing some work in our house, once pointed to our golden retriever and proclaimed, “In my next life, I want to come back as an American dog.” 

We love our true friends, those who are there to prop us up when we fall as well as those who share our good times. We can also genuinely love our teachers. A caring teacher can make a profound difference in the direction of a child’s life. For example, my sixth grade teacher, in an unexceptional neighborhood elementary school in New York City, stayed after hours, for a few weeks, to coach half-a-dozen of us so that we might pass a citywide test for an exceptional junior high school. Two of us did, and to this day I love that woman, though after that year, I never saw her again.

We can love members of our clergy, who are predictably there for us with advice at critical times and with solace at times of deep loss. Yes, that is their job, but some do their jobs beyond measure. We can love our doctors, who take an oath to watch over our health, but again, some are deeply caring. For these people, we are more than grateful. They love us, and we love them back.

We can love the natural world around us, a world that is filled with songbirds and butterflies, squirrels and foxes, wild turkeys and seagulls to delight the senses. We love the first sight of crocuses announcing the beginning of spring and the early flowering magnolia trees. 

If we are lucky, we can truly love our jobs. For us, they are more than a source of livelihood, more even than a career. They are a calling. They propel us out of bed in the morning and often are the subject of our last thoughts as we go to sleep at night. They coax out the best in us and provide us with unique satisfaction.

Finally, we need to love our lives. Sometimes to do so takes re-contexting and perhaps re-adjustment. That love seems like a worthy goal. 

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