Potpourri

I opened my eyes this morning, looked at my bedside clock and jumped out of bed, got dressed and followed the smell coming out of the kitchen.

Danny was frying eggs.

“Can you scramble my eggs this morning?”

“Too late,” he said, “tomorrow.”

I ate at the table facing the TV set. I turned on CNN to get the news. 

Our president was speaking.

Finally, he got his head out of the sand and recognized the danger the world is facing by infection by the dangerous highly infectious coronavirus.

I lived through the 1918 influenza epidemic, my older brother did not. My mother expected to also lose me. I had a temperature of 104 degrees but survived.

Every news broadcast, like a baseball score, shows how many people were infected and how many people died. Sad, sad, sad.

***

Living a long span of years, I made many friends, some remained close, some faded away with the years.

A couple we met at a leftist political meeting (Jane and Frank) I often think about. Now long gone from our lives but not from my thoughts.

Janie was a model, a statuesque blonde “stunner.” She showed up at our apartment at Avenel very distraught.

“Frank is a sex fiend,” she said. “I can never satisfy him. Morrie, please talk to him, he respects you.”

“Janie, I can’t do that,” I said. “If he is harassing you, go to the police.” 

“I’ve been to the police and they said that unless Frank physically harms me, there is nothing they can do.”

Janie, after being consoled by Betty, hugged us, picked up her purse and left, still crying.

We moved to San Francisco so I could take the position as manager at a store opened up by Sun Vacuum Stores. We never saw Janie or Frank again.

Two wonderful people. I can only hope they worked out their problems amicably.

***

A mind is a remarkable instrument. I had just finished a delicious dish of diced potatoes and onions that Chorito, a most innovative cook, had served me for lunch.

Suddenly a fly landed on my plate. I shooed him away.

One fly can cause a lot of trouble and strangely in one case it saved me from having my right toe amputated.

A fly itself is not repulsive, but the worm-like larvae of the fly is … ugh.

Flies, cockroaches, rats and lice. I lived with these in the New York tenements until the age of 14.

(July 29, 2020)