On our last trip to Paris we planned to spend an evening catching up with our friend Jane. An artist and writer, she had gone to Paris to live and work a dozen years earlier. Jane met us in the elegant dining room of our hotel and we were having drinks when my cell phone rang. “Hello, this is Rabbi Zeller replying to your message.” said an unfamiliar voice. “I’m sorry I didn’t call back sooner, but the factory was closed for Passover. How can I help you?” Then I...
Like everyone of my generation I had a favorite Beatle, and about a year ago we actually met. My husband and I were having lunch at Lexington Candy Shop on Lex @ 83rd, a favorite local coffee shop. The place prides itself on its celebrity patronage with signed photos on the walls of Woody Allen and others, and stills from a scene in Three Days of the Condor that was actually filmed there. At lunchtime it’s usually crowded and we were lucky to get two stools at the counter. Then my...
I met Renee 25 years ago when we were both working as librarians in the Bronx – she at New York Public Library, and I at Jane Addams High School. Renee had been trained as a book discussion leader, and as part of NYPL’s outreach to schools she came to the neighboring Lehman High School to run an after-school faculty book club. Luckily for me, I knew Paula, the Lehman HS librarian, and she invited me to join the club. Renee was a superb, very well-prepared facilitator...
When I was a child my grandmother owned a small hotel in the Catskills where my family spent idyllic summers. Sadly when I was 11 she was no longer able to run it and it was sold. But when I think about the hotel it seems only yesterday we were all there together. (See My Heart Remembers My Grandmother’s Hotel, Hotel Kittens – for Grandma Esther, and Our Special Guests) My father worked in the city during the week, and drove up to join us on weekends. On Friday...
My parents named me Dana after two relatives they never knew – my father’s grandmother Dena who perished in czarist Russia, and my mother’s uncle David who drowned as a teenager in the Rockaways. I like my name and never minded that it’s a bit uncommon, but it’s always disconcerting when people spell it wrong or mispronounce it. And because Dana can be a masculine name as well, I certainly wasn’t happy when as a high school senior I got mail from armed forces...
Welcome to my blog World Thru Brown Eyes! Enjoy the read and please leave a comment and tell me how this old world looks thru YOUR eyes!
