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Between You and Me

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'The Hangman and his Wife'

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

Driving along a residential street in what seemed from doorbell videos to be a white Prius, a man tossed a plastic bag on each lawn as he moved along. It might have been a newspaper delivery, but it wasn’t. It was a package of hateful flyers whose words were directed against Jews. The bags contained rice or pebbles to weigh them down and keep them from blowing away in the wind.

Police have been investigating the hate messages delivered to homes in Rockville Centre, Oceanside and Long Beach in Nassau County and have blamed an anti-Jewish group for the activity, which has also occurred in other cities in the country. Whether these groups are aligned through the internet has yet to be determined. But we do know that the internet has carried hateful messages throughout the world, a far cry from the original idea that digital connectivity could be only a positive platform for revealing despots’ brutality in far corners of the globe.

We now know the internet can be a powerful tool to radicalize otherwise ordinary people who might be susceptible to the hateful messages. But how do ordinary people become radicalized?

A book was just published that attempts to deal historically with that subject by focusing on Reinhard Heydrich, who became the head of the SD (the intelligence service) and the Gestapo as well as an architect of the Final Solution for the Third Reich. “The Hangman and His Wife,” by Nancy Dougherty, tells of a man without ideological roots, who was not a fervent believer and only joined the Nazi Party in 1931, two years after his future wife, Lina. Yet he began what the senior New York Times book reviewer, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, who wrote the forward to the book, described this way.

“One searches in vain for a rational explanation of Heydrich’s descent into evil. No single biological fragment satisfies.”

According to the book’s author, Heydrich evolved from a musically gifted, intelligent and lonely little boy into a monstrous, hyper-rational technocrat with a photographic memory and unmatched organizational abilities. How he was perceived may have been a starting point. He had “striking Aryan looks,” and for Heinrich Himmler, who first interviewed him, and who “was weak-chinned and squinted from behind thick glasses … a physically unimposing” figure, Heydrich fit the Nazi ideal. “For all their focus on Nordic physical perfection, the Nazi leaders were a bunch of misfits … Goering was fat and jowly; Goebbels was clubfooted.” Hitler himself did not match the paragon. Here was this tall, blond candidate for head of the SS, who would be a poster child of Aryan perfection in his new uniform. He must have loved that.

Further, a close relative had a Semitic-sounding last name, and “he was shadowed by rumors that there was Jewish blood in his family and mocked during his nine years in the navy; one former roommate attested that ‘everyone more or less took Heinrich for a Jew,’” according to author Dougherty.

And this from another bunkmate: “there is no doubt that ambition was his characteristic peculiarity … On all occasions, he wanted to be outstanding — in the service, in front of his superiors, with the comrades, in sportsmanship and in bars.” Put that together with “his Luciferian coldness, amorality and insatiable greed for power,” according to Dougherty, and he became head of the Gestapo until he died in his Mercedes convertible from an assassin’s grenade on May 27, 1942. He received a full-dress state funeral from Hitler.

So do those personal qualities plus opportunity explain the emergence of a hate monger? Could any of these bag-tossers today become deeply evil and potentially homicidal? Or are they merely practicing freedom of speech? Do they just wish to stand out and be seen? Is capacity for malignant behavior what Freud called the “death instinct?” Or, as the book reviewer, Daphne Merkin, suggests, is there an inherent perverse glamour in evil?

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By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

Sitting at a bistro table on the sidewalk in Port Jefferson village this morning, sipping my coffee and people-watching, it occurred to me I could be anywhere enjoying such a scene. I was lingering on after a breakfast business meeting, and now alone, I relaxed with this thought. I could be in the many shoreline villages strung along the New England coast or any of the Atlantic fishing ports of the United States, or for that matter, those on the Pacific or the Gulf of Mexico. I could even be in Paris or Rome, although those are not portside locations.

That’s what summer will do to you. The warmth of the sun and the caressing breeze encourage daydreaming.

I saw residents walking their dogs, who, in turn, seemed more interested in what I was eating than in getting exercise. I greeted people I know, but haven’t seen in too long due to COVID, as they strolled by. A friend rolled down his window and waved on his drive up the block, calling out to me from the far lane to ask how I was. Customers at the next table started chatting with me and showing off their young baby, their first. The waitress came out to check on me and asked, “Can I get you anything more or would you just like to enjoy the moment?” Smart young woman, she understood.

We live in a wonderful place with many delightful offerings, but we probably don’t take the time to dwell on that fact. For example, even this past Thursday alone, we could have attended the opening night of the Stony Brook Film Festival, screening indie movies from throughout the world at the Staller Center on the campus of Stony Brook University. Or we might have tapped our feet and kept time with a performance at The Jazz Loft in Stony Brook village. The Huntington Summer Arts Festival has ongoing performances, this past Thursday featuring Lakecia Benjamin & Pursuance that started at 8 p.m. in Heckscher Park.

Also, on Thursday evening, there was the Smithtown Library concert, a lecture on the much-in-the-news sharks at the Whaling Museum in Cold Spring Harbor, a concert in the Show Mobile at Harborfront Park in the village of Port Jefferson, and in Northport Village Park the Northport Community Band continued its summer concert series. The Huntington Manor Fireman’s Fair, Long Island’s largest, started on Thursday at the Henry L. Stimson Middle School in Huntington Station.

And, as they say, so much more.

I’m not even mentioning the movie showings in the moonlight, the largesse of theaters, the art galleries, the farmers’ markets, the U-Pick opportunities, the wineries, the plethora of restaurants and opportunities for boutique shopping, and the glorious beaches to be enjoyed during the day and under the stars at night that are available at different times and days on our Island.

And try the local corn on the cob. This week it has been fabulous.

This may sound daffy to you, but when the weather becomes unbearably hot and humid, and I just want to get out on the water, I have even been known to ride the rear deck of the ferry to Bridgeport and back to Port Jefferson for a poor person’s afternoon cruise. And if you find yourself in need of a little exercise, walk the wooden pathway around Port Jefferson harbor, with or without your dog.

Next week is already August, and soon the summer will be gone, along with many of these attractions. While certainly others remain, we don’t have quite the leisure of mind to enjoy them that summer brings as the calendar turns.

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Russian nesting dolls

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

Incredibly, one man has altered the world. 

On Feb. 24, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin directed his troops into neighboring Ukraine, and the killing began. Ukrainians, Russian soldiers, mercenaries, sympathetic foreign fighters, civilians — all shot each other. Eastern Ukrainians were deported into Russia by the thousands, cities throughout Ukraine were destroyed, families were ripped apart, millions of Ukrainians fled to other countries, schools stopped, medical services halted, commerce and cultural activities were squelched, random bombings put lives in a lottery. Those are just some of the horrific consequences of Putin’s order against one country.

But the repercussions of that one act are being felt around the globe. Countries that depended on wheat and other agricultural supplies grown and shipped from Ukraine and Russia, are now frantically seeking alternate sources, if they can afford them. Oil and gas, primarily piped from Russia and Ukraine, have been cut off. Exports of hundreds of other products from these two countries have stopped. Oil and gas prices have skyrocketed, leading the way to global inflation. Nations have realigned geopolitically and militarily or strengthened their defense pacts by sending troops and weapons to allies. And other campaigns, to control climate change and suppress the coronavirus, have diminished as national budgets are modified.

What does Putin want?

There has been much speculation about his goals and his fears. They may have crystalized during these ensuing months, or Kremlin watchers may have caught on. One such scholar, who writes about Russia’s politics, foreign policy and, for a score of years, has studied Putin’s behavior, has put forth a cogent scenario in this past Tuesday’s The New York Times. Tatiana Stanovaya believes that Putin has a grand scheme whose goals are threefold.

The first is the most pragmatic: the securing of a land bridge through the Donbas region of the southeast to Crimea. Russian troops seem to have already captured Luhansk, which is part of the Donbas. Apparently, Putin believes the West will accept that Russian troops cannot be dislodged from there and will not cross any red lines to directly engage in such a military effort, eventually abandoning the idea and the territory to Russia.

The second goal is to force Kyiv and the Zelensky government to capitulate from exhaustion and demoralization after one or two years. Russia would then launch a “Russification” of the country, erasing Ukrainian culture and nationhood and imposing Russian language, culture and education. Thus Russia would have expanded its territory and stopped NATO from reaching Russia’s current borders.

The third goal is the most ambitious: Putin wants to build a new world order. “We are used to thinking that Mr. Putin views the West as a hostile force that aims to destroy Russia,” according to writer Stanovaya. “But I believe that for Mr. Putin there are two Wests: a bad one and a good one.”

The “bad” one is the one currently in power and led by elites who are “narrow-minded slaves of their electoral cycles who overlook genuine national interests and are incapable of strategic thinking.” And the “good West”? He believes that “these are ordinary Europeans and Americans who want to have normal relations with Russia and businesses who are eager to profit from close cooperation with their Russian counterparts.”

Today, Putin is convinced, the bad West is declining while the good West is challenging the status quo with nationally oriented leaders like Viktor Orban in Hungary, Marine Le Pen in France, and Donald Trump, “ready to break with the old order and fashion a new one.” 

The war against Ukraine, with its undesirable consequences like high inflation and soaring energy prices, “will encourage the people to rise up and overthrow the traditional political establishment.” This fundamental shift will then bring about a more-friendly West that will meet the security demands of Russia.

If that has a familiar echo, it is not so different from the Communist expectation that the proletariat will rise up and embrace Marx and Lenin. We know how that turned out.

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Pixabay photo

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

It was an ominous sound. Behind the closed glass doors of our fireplace, there seemed to be a fluttering. It must be an odd gust of wind, I hoped. Deep down, I knew it wasn’t. On closer but timid examination, I could make out the frantic beating of the wings of a bird that had somehow fallen down the chimney and was struggling to escape.

What to do?

If I opened the fireplace doors and the door to the back deck, would the bird immediately fly through the living room and out of the house? I doubted that. It was probably dazed and disoriented and would buzz around the ceiling, wildly flapping its wings. How could I steer it in the right direction? Maybe with a broom? Would it think I was attacking and peck at me?

When in doubt about any of life’s challenges, I often consult the support system of my office staff. I called, explained the situation to our always patient receptionist, and was immediately transferred to the member of the art department who most often deals with suburban wildlife.

“Get a small towel, open the fireplace doors a crack and see if you can catch the bird in the towel as it tries to fly out. You can carry it to the outside door and let it loose,” she suggested. Then, because she is a wonderfully generous human being, she asked if I wanted her husband to stop by.

I declined the offer, thanked her and did as she directed, nervously opening the doors a little and peering inside. At this point, the bird was lying on its side, under a low brick that protruded from the back of the fireplace. I was afraid it was dead. But then, it stood up and again began to flutter its wings. The probability of catching it in the towel seemed remote. 

I closed the doors, went to the phone and called my friendly and helpful exterminator. “We don’t really do that kind of work,” he said with surprise. “But I can recommend a wildlife rescue person.” I’ll text you his phone number as soon as I can find it.” With that, he got off the phone, leaving me alone with a bird in my chimney.

I needed to mobilize. I called my neighbor, even though I knew she was terrified of birds in the house from a nasty experience she had as a child. Good soul that she is, she came right over and viewed the situation. The bird was definitely alive and fluttering. Poor thing. The count was now two nervous women and one nervous bird. Perhaps the most nervous was my friend.

I checked my texts, found the recommendation for the rescuer and immediately called. “I’ll be glad to help you out,” he said. “Where do you live?” When I told him, he assured me that he was nearby and could get there in just a few minutes. “My price is $150 for the visit and $100 to remove the bird,” he informed me. That gave me serious pause. “Um, I’ll call you back,” I said. “OK,” he replied and hung up.

I looked at my friend, who had heard the conversation, and who now looked back at me with a strange light in her eyes. “Are your plastic gloves still in the bottom drawer? she asked. Dashing into the kitchen, she reappeared, pulling on the gloves. To my surprise, she opened the doors, climbed into the fireplace, gently lifted the bird from under brick, ran across the room to the open door and put it down on the outside table. It stood still. We brought water and put the aluminum plate on the far side of the table. It still didn’t move, just watched us as we watched it. Then, as we started to move, it took off and flew away.

We cheered loudly, both for the bird and for my neighbor. She had managed to overcome her intense fear in order to preserve a life and also to save my purse.

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Stock photo

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

“Are you worried about what’s going to happen to our country?”

This question was posed to me by a younger person I know. He was clearly worried by current events, and with good reason. Our nation is facing a number of serious problems, and, in fact, so is most of the rest of the world.

His question made me think back to some of the chaotic times I remember. Polarization is a painful word being used to describe the United States today, but there were other times in my short lifetime when our country was seriously divided.

I have an early memory of signs hanging in our apartment house elevator. “Impeach Truman,” they urged. I don’t think I knew what they meant, but people on the streets were heatedly saying the same thing. I knew Truman was president, but I certainly did not know anything about impeachment, and I had never before heard of Douglas McArthur, who had been relieved of his command in the Far East for disagreeing with Truman over Korean War tactics. That was a time of polarization, and tensions were high, even in my neighborhood of New York City. The Chicago Tribune editorialized, “The American nation has never been in greater danger.”

Our country moved on.

Everyone who was alive in the 60s well remembers the torments of that decade. Both Kennedy and Martin Luther King were assassinated, civil rights legislation drove friends apart, the Vietnam War caused endless demonstrations and riots, and the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968 was a frightful militarized spectacle epitomizing the nation’s divisions and chaos. It seemed our nation was being torn apart. People wondered if the country would survive.

Our country moved on.

There was Watergate in the 70s and a president of the United States was forced to resign. There were long lines at the gas pumps and wild inflation with stagnation and American hostages in Iran.

Our country moved on.

You get the point. Severe problems have always periodically challenged America, our stability and our way of life. There have been those with evil intent and there have been true heroes. We have been challenged regularly, we have come together and we have moved on.

July 4th, we celebrated our independence, and the flag that belongs to all of us. In our small town America, up and down the Island, we paraded together, fire departments and police departments, conservatives and liberals, Blacks and whites and Latinos and Asians, gay and straight, lifers and choicers. We did so as Americans, proud of our nation despite its many faults, recognizing that we can make our country better even as we cheer the exceptionalism that makes immigrants risk and sometimes lose their lives to get here.

If you read through the Declaration of Independence, as I did this past weekend, you will see the values that bind us together. We must not lose, in the struggles to find our way forward today, the respect in the ending sentence:

“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

Let us then start our healing not by putting power over country but by pledging to each other our sacred Honor. That will help unite us, to truly hear each other, and together we can move on. We always have, and together, we always will.

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METRO photo

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

Women need some good news right about now, after the Roe decision, and here it is: Women are more likely to live past 90. But there is a caveat. We have to be optimistic. Now, don’t poo poo this statement. It comes from a large study by researchers at Harvard University and was published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

Entitled, “Optimism, Lifestyle and Longevity in a Racially Diverse Cohort of Women,” the study deals with 26 years of data from almost 160,000 women between the ages of 50 and 79. All the participants were selected for their optimism with quantitative measures of testing. Researchers found that the top quarter of the women in the study with the most positive outlook would probably live 5.4% longer than the least optimistic 25% of participants. Further, the more optimistic women were 10% more likely to live past the age of 90 than the least optimistic cohort.

The link between optimism and longer lifespan could be seen across racial and ethnic groups. “Optimism may be an important asset to consider for promoting health and longevity in diverse populations,” states the article. Non-Hispanic White, Black, Hispanic/Latina and Asian, American Indian and Alaskan native women were in the group. 

“A high proportion (53%) of the women [in the optimism group] achieved exceptional longevity,” according to the study. “Higher optimism was associated with longer lifespan and a greater likelihood of achieving exceptional longevity overall and across racial and ethnic groups. The contribution of lifestyle to these associations was modest. Optimism may promote health and longevity in diverse ethnic and racial groups. Future research should investigate these associations in less long-lived populations,” concludes the Journal. Francine Grodstein, ScD and Laura D. Kubzansky, PhD, were the principal researchers of the study.

Interestingly, of those tested, women with higher optimism levels were more frequently non-Hispanic White with higher education levels.

This study also suggests that optimism is “just as important as exercise when it comes to longevity.” The researchers found this to be true even when other factors like depression, chronic health conditions and racial, social and economic background were taken into account. So a positive outlook on life may be just as important as fitness—or so lazy optimists would like to believe, and based on this large study, they may be right.

Stress, on the other hand, can take a toll on mental and physical health. According to an article in this past Tuesday’s New York Times, “certain types of stress can even age your immune system.”  In a study involving 5700 adults aged 50 and over, stresses like job strain, stressful life events, every day or lifetime discrimination (including sexism or ageism) and traumatic life events were cross referenced with immune cell counts from participants’ blood. Simple aging is also a stress on the immune system.

One way to prevent or minimize immune cell aging may be to minimize or do away with unhealthy habits like smoking and drinking. But all kinds of stress, we intuitively know, can effect physical health.

How do we help ourselves further reduce stress?

Taking stock of our emotions is a good place to start. Knowing and acting on what brings us joy and where we can find social support can help. “That may mean pursuing hobbies, spending time with loved ones, or unplugging from work or social media when you can,” suggests Hannah Seo, writing for the NYT. “Mindfulness practices, exercise and healthy eating habits can also help you feel good physically, which in turn can make you feel good mentally,” according to Renee Eddy, a New York City psychotherapist, quoted in the NYT.

My best defense against stress is having social support from family and friends. My son, daughter-in-law and grandson recently visited for four days, and just interacting with them was a joy. My friends call and just chatting leaves me feeling happy, not to mention more informed. 

Stresses can negatively affect longevity. Joy and optimism, we are told by current research, can increase lifespan.

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Pexels photo

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

Ah! It’s summer. 

Yes, there are miserable things happening that we are accosted with in the daily news briefs: congressional hearings, COVID numbers, climate change, warfare, inflation, gasoline price spikes, and so forth. But there is something magical about summer. Maybe it’s a carryover from our school days, when classes and homework ended and we could think about a trip to the beach or lounging in bed in the mornings, that make us feel the specialness of the season.

Come with me, then, as we do some time travel to my elementary school years, and I tell you what summers were like for me.

From first to fifth grades, my mother would visit my teachers in mid-May and get their lesson plans for the rest of the semester and the beginning of the next. She would then take me out of school, and I would not return until mid-September. We would travel to some rustic shack in the Catskill Mountains, a different one each year, where we would spend sixteen weeks in “the fresh air.”

My parents, you see, did not appreciate urban living in the summer, when I recall it used to get hotter than now. Air conditioning only existed in movie theaters, ice cream could only be purchased in bulk from drug stores with freezers, and to get a breeze, one would have to drive really fast along Manhattan’s East Side Highway with all the windows open—that is if one were lucky enough to get a ride in a car. 

My dad grew up in the mountains, my mom in Corona, Queens, which she said was so countrified that there were cows on the road when she walked to public school. They keenly felt the inevitable pollution in the summer air and planned the escape for us children and my mom.

It was lonely for me, fresh air not withstanding I would read a lot. Generally, there would be a farm or two within walking distance, and only occasionally was there a child to play with, only my sister, who was two years younger and had Down Syndrome. But my dad and sometimes my much older brother would come up and stay with us on the weekends, and then the pace of life would pick up.

My dad and I would traipse across meadows and climb hills, for the exercise and just for the fun. Sometimes we would see cows grazing, and they would look at us lazily as we went by. My dad always reminded me to stay alert for the presence of a bull and also to watch out for any snakes that might be sunning themselves at the base of the low stone walls that separated the meadows. Should we see a bull in the distance, we should look to climb a nearby tree.

Often we would find wild blueberry bushes, and we carried containers to bring some back to the rest of the family. We picked the berries in the classical way: one for the pot, two for the mouth, one for the pot, two for the mouth. As we moved around each bush, I enjoyed the warm sun on my back and the smell of wheat and grass carried by the soft breezes that caressed us on their way past. 

When it was time to return, I would wait for his suggestion that I lead the way, and it always came. My dad hoped I would develop a good sense of direction, especially when the terrain looked the same all around us. He would show me nature’s clues, like moss growing on the north side of tree trunks, as a help to finding my way.

One time I remember getting up early enough to watch the sun rise from the top of the nearby hill. I had never seen the sun rise before then, but the real treat was just being with my dad.

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METRO photo

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

“I’m sorry to tell you this, but I tested positive last night for COVID,” was the text message from one of our staff in Wednesday’s morning mail. “My sister tested positive, and I was not feeling good so I tested. I am figuring I will work from home the rest of the week and should be OK to return Monday … I just have a headache and a really bad sore throat. No cough. [Not to worry] I wore my mask [this past] Monday and Tuesday at work because I was not feeling good.” 

These are the two ways the landscape for businesses has changed. 

First, at any moment, COVID can alter the day’s lineup. The wildly contagious coronavirus can attack anyone, even those who have been vaccinated, those who have also been boosted and those who have already suffered with a previous bout of the disease. No one is safe, unless they have stayed in a cave alone for over two years, and hence no establishment or sports team or orchestra is immune from shake up on a daily basis.

The second change is made possible by the ability to work remotely. Not every worker can do so. Conductors cannot drive trains remotely, sanitation workers cannot clean remotely and surgeons cannot remove an appendix remotely. At least not yet. But many jobs do lend themselves to being discharged from afar. And this has led to some unintended consequences.

Workers have discovered that they sometimes enjoy doing their jobs from home. Yes, they might miss the socializing that is a part of the office scene. And they might feel like they can come up with new ideas better in an in-person gathering. But they really like working on their own timetable, with time out for a walk or to throw in a wash. Of course, the typical work schedule is altered. They can sit at the computer well into the night, with no separation between work time and free time. And they can be with their families more, for better and worse. 

So some in my office, who can perform their jobs from home, are asking to do that. In fact, they are requesting and getting software that enables access to their desk computers at work. They can then tap into the key items they need to complete their tasks. That also suggests they are still there. Which reminds me of the early days, when I worked at a large corporation, and we might leave a few minutes early but hung our sweaters on the back of the desk chairs to give the impression we were returning. 

One staffer even asked if she could borrow a desk chair from the office. She says it makes her feel totally comfortable when working in her house. It used to be that workers tried to transform their office space into reminders of home, with photos, pillows, plants and the like. Now we have the opposite. Employees are transforming their home workspace into their offices.

As you can tell from the text I quoted, we have no expectation of sick days. We assume that if we are conscious, we can still produce whatever we are responsible for producing. Where before we might have had food trays brought to us in bed, now we have our laptops perched across our midriffs if we remain horizontal.

What will happen next?

For some, working remotely is a dream come true. My oldest grandson has a terrific job that can only be done remotely, and he feels immense freedom to live anywhere he chooses. That’s not so different from when I had just graduated from college and decided where I wanted to live, knowing that wherever I moved, I would be able to find a job because there were more jobs than people to fill them in the 1960s. For others, a hybrid work week seems ideal: the best of the office for two or three days, and no commuting the rest of the week. Only those with no choice may be peeved.

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Pixabay photo

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

Medical scientists released fantastic news Sunday that made me think of my father and weep. In a small trial of 18 patients with rectal cancer, who took a particular drug, the cancer totally vanished. My dad died of rectal cancer in 1975.

Dr. Luis A. Diaz Jr of Memorial Sloan Cancer Center was an author of the paper published in The New England Journal of Medicine explaining the results, according to The New York Times. He said he knew of no other study in which a treatment completely obliterated a cancer in every patient.

“I believe this is the first time this has happened in the history of cancer,” the NYT quotes Diaz as saying. The trial was sponsored by the drug company GlaxoSmithKline. My dad and all these other patients faced chemotherapy, radiation and surgery with possible colostomy bags as treatment for their cancer. Unlike my dad, with the benefit of the new drug, dostarlimab, 47 years later, they all seem to be cured, although only time will tell. So far, it has been three years. And none of the patients had “clinically significant complications.” The medicine was taken every three weeks for six months and cost $11,000 per dose.

“It unmasks cancer cells, allowing the immune system to identify and destroy them,” according to the NYT.

I guess we are thinking of our dads this month in particular since Father’s Day is coming quickly, and we need a gift for the occasion. This incredible breakthrough seems like the ultimate present for any fathers suffering from this disease, and of course for anyone else, too. But it has come too late for my adored dad.

My father, born in 1904, came to the City from the family’s Catskill dairy farm when he was 13. One of 9 children, “the middle child,” he would like to distinguish himself by saying he was sent off by his father to build his life since he was now considered an adult. He liked to tell us stories about his total ignorance of urban life.

A favorite concerned the boarding house in which he first rented a room. It was in a brownstone a block away from where his next older brother lived in Brooklyn. He had only shortly before arrived, had dutifully sat down to write a letter home explaining his new circumstances and had gone out as instructed by his landlady to mail the letter in the mailbox on the corner. Deed done, he turned around to return, only to discover that each building looked the same. He had no idea which held his room. Ultimately someone came out to find him.

He quickly found a job delivering packages to various parts of the city. But that proved a puzzle. He had a map and was able to figure out his destination for each delivery. He rode the buses so as not to lose his sense of navigation. But he could not understand why one time the bus would go where he wanted but other times would turn off and head in a different direction. So to be sure of winding up where he needed to go, he ran. He ran all over the city until he was fired. He was deemed to be too slow.

Another early instance of having arrived in an alien world happened when he followed his brother into a tiny room in a tall building. Surprised when the doors slid closed behind, he could feel the floor drop beneath his feet. Bending into a crouch, he prepared to cushion the shock of the landing when he realized the others in the space were staring at him. He was in his first encounter with an elevator.

Of course, he was the constant victim of teasing in the next office in which he worked. He still remembered when the office manager gave him a folder to bring to the stationery store down the block. Wise now, he retorted, “I’m surprised you would try to trick me, Miss Murphy. I know every store is stationary.”

My dad went on to become a successful businessman in Manhattan. But that’s a story for a different day.

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'Undelivered'

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

“What if,” is always an intriguing question. This is true for our personal lives, as well as for history. And one way to consider many historic “what ifs” is through a newly published book by Jeffrey Nussbaum, one of President Biden’s speechwriters, called, “Undelivered.” This is a compilation of speeches, never given, by historical figures, whose words Nussbaum tracked down over 20 years.

These speeches include, among others, the draft of apology that was prepared for General Dwight Eisenhower, had D-Day ended in failure, and Hillary Clinton’s victory speech. 

Civil rights leader John Lewis’ original speech for the March on Washington, August 28, 1963, in which Martin Luther King Jr. spoke his iconic “I’ve got a dream” words, is also revealing of the tension among the civil rights leadership. PBS, the television news hour, interviewed Nussbaum this past Monday, and he said that Lewis had originally intended to declare, “We will march through the South, through the heart of Dixie, the way Sherman did. We shall pursue our own scorched-earth policy and burn Jim Crow to the ground — non-violently” but was dissuaded from those words. The sponsors of the March, who feared looking too extreme and harming the chances of passing the civil rights bill, begged him to withdraw that particular rhetoric Lewis, with his back to the wall, most reluctantly changed his words that night, writing and rewriting his draft at the base of the Lincoln Memorial until it was acceptable, but the earlier text is in the book.

One of the most fascinating speeches never given was the one awaiting the arrival of President John F. Kennedy on the lectern in Dallas on November 22, 1963.  In that text was Kennedy’s warning of the existence of “a rise in the far-right wing camp of voices preaching doctrines wholly unrelated to reality.” He would have said that “we are the watchmen on the wall of world freedom looking outside and INSIDE. [Capital letters are mine.]”

The subtitle of Nussbaum’s book reads, “The never-heard speeches that would have rewritten history,” suggests that had Kennedy’s words been heard, history might indeed have been altered. As it is, people who read it after the assassination just regarded that speech as generally one of foreign policy.

These speeches demonstrate how outcomes rest on the razor’s edge of history.  Fascinating are “those warnings made in their moment of time,” according to Nussbaum, “that resonate even more clearly today.”

Another historic instance mentioned by Nussbaum was of the three speeches written for Al Gore in the 2000 election. Gore was to give none of them that night. One was a victory speech, the second was a concession, and the third was in the event Gore won the Electoral College but lost the popular vote — prescient of the 2016 election. Nussbaum was one of those speechwriters, and that experience inspired him to write the book about other undelivered speeches. 

Not all the speeches included in the book are about politicians and policy. There is the one by Barry Jenkins, the director behind the 2017 award-winning movie, “Moonlight.” Some of you may remember the flub that night, in which the wrong picture was initially announced as the winner and the wrong cast mounted the stage at the Academy Awards before the correction was made. In the chaos, Jenkins never got to say what winning that award meant for him.  But here, in Nussbaum’s book, he does get to tell what he would have said.

“They were filming in Liberty City, Miami,” explained Nussbaum, “and as in many poorer neighborhoods, there wasn’t sufficient lighting. They had to bring in lights, which attracted children to the set. At one point during the filming, [Jenkins] looks over to Video Village, where all the monitors and editing equipment were, and he sees a young man wearing his [Jenkins’] headset who’s just planted himself in [Jenkins’] chair.” 

“And in that moment, I saw in this child the possibility which I hadn’t believed I could ever see for myself,” Jenkins, who is Black, would have read. How poignant. And missed. 

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