David K. Farkas
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "david_k_farkas" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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05:14 am
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Unbuttoned and Unzipped
Free enterprise in Espresso land
Seattle now has many drive-through espresso shacks where you’re served by a pretty, half-dressed barista. I tried this recently at "Best Friend Espresso," which is near my home. The young woman wore a little white nightie with little red hearts. She called me "honey" about three times and recommended that I have a “fun evening.” I gave her a dollar tip—somehow that seemed appropriate. She was doing a very good business—all men—but that’s a lot of people.
This new competition must drive Starbucks crazy. Recently they let their mermaid logo show her breasts (for certain products), but they must know that's no competition against a little white nightie with little hearts. What’s a big corporation to do? Should they hire thousands of sexy baristas? Should they consider a joint venture with Playboy?
A student’s story: Meeting Jimmy Carter
My graduate student, Joan, told me that 20 years ago former president Jimmy Carter, with a small entourage, visited Seattle’s premier talk radio station to promote his new book on fly fishing and the outdoor life. Joan, was the prep person for the interview, and she welcomed Jimmy Carter and explained how the interview would be conducted.
Joan was struck by how shy Mr. Carter seemed to be. This was a man who dealt with heads of state and who’d been interviewed a great many times on much more challenging topics than fly fishing. Beyond shy, Mr. Carter was stammering.
Only later did Joan discover that the zipper on her slacks had somehow come open and that she had been displaying her red panties.
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11:29 pm
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Generosity: How I make my living
Wilt Chamberlain
Henry Aiken, who lives in my neighborhood, is 6 ft. 11 inches and had a brief career in the NBA. He told me this story many years ago as we watched our young daughters play club soccer.
It was early in his rookie season, and he was matched up against Wilt Chamberlain. Wilt was eating Henry alive. The first quarter wasn’t over, and Wilt had already blocked two of Henry’s shots. “Man, this is tough on a rookie,” Henry said to Wilt.
“I’ll tell you what,” Wilt answered. “Special one-time deal. I make my living in the lanes. I’ll give you every long shot you wanna take.”
As it happened, Henry had hot hands that night and sank a lot of long baskets. Wilt gave Henry his shot each time.
American Tourists in Amsterdam
The three older couples from a cruise ship were strolling through the city on a warm summer day. On the steps of a museum, a worn-out looking Dutch fellow, long-haired and bare-chested, was singing Dylan’s “Masters of War” and strumming a beat-up guitar. There was just a little interest from passers-by and just a little money in his hat.
Don knew the words to a lot of Dylan songs, and he could sing—even harmony. He’d been in bands back in high school and college. To the total surprise of his wife and friends, Don skipped lightly up the steps and finished the song with the Dutchman. They laughed together and did another Dylan song. The crowd actually grew, amused at the novelty of the situation.
After the third song, the Dutchman s picked up his hat and moved into the crowd to hustle up some tips. Before he’d gotten too far, Don took the hat. “Let me do some of this.” When Don got to his buddy, he said, “Put 20 Euros in the hat. Don’t argue with me. I’m good for it.” His friend complied. He got another 20 Euros from his other friend, who said something about him being crazy. When Don turned to his wife, she already had the money out. She understood and she was grinning.
Don climbed back up the steps. “I think we did pretty good.” The Dutchman, scooping up the Euros, was confident where the money was going, but he still glanced at Don's face. “You’re in the music business," said Don. "I make my living in real estate.”
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08:31 pm
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Aunt Anne
Anne Schneider, who died this week at age 102, was my spunky aunt. About 15 years ago, when my cousin Tammy, her husband Si, their kids, and some grandkids visited Israel, they did not leave Anne, Tammy’s mother, behind.
Anne wanted to see the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, but Tammy was horrified at the idea. So Anne snuck away, found herself an Arab cab driver, and engaged him for a long afternoon of seeing everything she wanted to see. Tammy was frightened at her mother's unexplained disappearance--and then furious. But maybe you get a bit of leeway when you reach your 80s.
With Anne’s death, the last of the Silberman sisters is gone. Aunt Anne, you were quite a lady. You will be missed.
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11:40 pm
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Eva's Pathetic Plant
Eva, about 8 years old, saw the plant sticking out a dumpster. It was a sad looking indoor plant—some kind of palm—very long and stringy, with no leaves except a small, sickly cluster at the top. Although Eva was hardly a kid much concerned with plant life, this discarded thing struck a chord with her. “Get it for me, Daddy.” From the very beginning it had a name, “Eva’s Pathetic Plant.”
Because Eva’s Pathetic Plant couldn’t hold itself up, we leaned it in the corner of the landing where the steps from our basement rec room lead up to the entry-way on the main floor of our house. About 6 feet all, the plant nearly reached the bottom of the glass wall that frames our front door. If it could grow just another foot, those yellowish leaves would find some steady sunlight.
And it did grow to reach the bottom of the glass wall and then, exhausted or satisfied, it never grew another inch. For 25 years those few leaves—now a reasonable green—have been basking in that light. Still ugly and stringy, still a good candidate for a garbage can, Eva’s Pathetic Plant occupies its place on the landing and in our family life.
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10:25 pm
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A Raccoon('s) Story
The man and the woman were talking intently. This would be easy. Silently he climbed onto the picnic table and edged up close to steal the wedge of cheese.
But the woman saw him, and her startled reaction was to swat his snout with the back of her hand. He was surprised and pissed off. What? Did she think he was her cat? He considered biting her finger, but saw no need. So he just snatched the cheese and made his way back into the undergrowth.
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11:22 pm
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Spike, the Rabbit
Spike, whom I will presume to be male, was the pet of Eva’s 3rd grade class in Lake Forest Park Elementary School. He lived in some kind of cage, but was never left in the classroom over the weekend. Maybe Spike needed fresh food and water; maybe he just got lonely. Anyway, each kid took a turn bringing Spike home, and before long Eva got her turn.
Spike was clearly an experienced house guest. He was relaxed, affable, and ate whatever we offered him. He also set about methodically learning how to get around in our house. Treating the kitchen as “home base,” he made multiple excursions in all directions until he understood the entire floor plan (minus the stairs).
Later we learned his secret vice: he chewed the insulation right off several power cords, leaving bare copper wire. We threw away one or two extension cords and had to get a living room lamp re-wired. But at least Spike didn’t electrocute himself during his stay with the Farkases.
It was about 2:00 am, and I was working intently at my computer. Suddenly, I experienced a wonderful sensory pleasure as a soft, delicate, warmth settled over my toes. Spike had come by to pay me a late night visit. “Hello, Spike,” I said.
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04:09 pm
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Grove Street: Ben’s Gulf Station and Mary’s Store
At the corner of Chittenden and Grove was Ben’s Gulf Station and Mary’s Store. That’s just how the signs read. They’d been there for decades. Mary sold a little of this and a little of that. Us kids pulled up on our bicyles to buy soda, popsickles, and Hostess Cupcakes. Ben and Mary’s living quarters were in the back of the store. Ben had two gas pumps and a simple shack for tools and parts and to stay warm in. There was a trench for working under cars.
At one point, a modern gas station opened just two blocks further west on Grove, but my father’s loyalty was fixed. For nearly twenty years Ben gassed the Farkas family’s two cars and did the less complex repairs. For some reason Al held the strong conviction that there was no reason to change the oil in an automobile, but Ben, on occasion, did it anyway.
As it happened, the DeCamp commuter bus to Manhattan stopped right in front of Mary’s Store. Every day Mary and Ben watched well-dressed men and women get swooped up by the morning busses and let off in the late afternoon. Al once asked Ben what he thought of New York City. “Only been there once,” said Ben. “It was just tall buildings.”
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07:17 am
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Grove Street Then and Now
Many years ago Grove Street was a long thoroughfare winding through a section of Clifton that consisted largely of farmland. In the decades after World War II, the farms were replaced by housing developments, comfortable split-level tract homes. My parents bought at “Rolling Hills” in 1956.
Gregory Johnson was from the old Clifton. His house was on Grove Street, a few blocks east of my street, Chittenden Road. His house was taller than ours, a full three stories. But it was narrower and older and shabby.
Gregory had sallow skin and a hollow chest. He should have had orthodonture: his front teeth pushed forward at a bad angle. He couldn’t compete in school with us college-bound suburban kids. We looked down on him; he hated us. But I talked with Gregory sometimes. I knew, for example, that he hunted deer each fall with his father and uncle. In my world there was no hunting or fishing.
“My house was built by Sears in 1927. It’s solid stone, and it will be standing when all your houses are gone.”
I didn’t reply. I had never thought about stone vs. frame construction, and this wasn’t an issue I needed to contest with him.
I have no idea what happened to Gregory Johnson, but I hope he’s been back to Grove Street. His old home is now a meticulously restored showpiece, more stylish and more expensive than the tract homes in Rolling Hills, Clifton Estates, and the other suburban developments.
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09:24 pm
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Al and the American Flag
Al, my father, took the flag very seriously. He stood proudly and saluted at ball games, and you didn’t talk while the national anthem was playing. He remembered during World War I when his mother and the other mothers were given the flags that had draped the coffins of their sons. He remembered the islands in the South Pacific when they played taps for guys who hadn’t returned that day.
Al loved the flag like he loved the Statue of Liberty. Like he loved the Constitution. Like he loved Abraham Lincoln, whose writings he knew well. Al had no concept of the American flag as a partisan symbol, the redneck’s “Love it or leave it.”
When I see all the faded, badly frayed flags that (mostly) hard-core Republicans hang in their front yards, I think of my father. He’d be surprised and dismayed. If you want to show the flag, you raise it and you lower it each day. When you lower it, you fold it carefully. No protester has desecrated an American flag in recent decades, but patriotic homeowners desecrate it through lazy neglect all the time. George Bush never desecrated a flag, but he desecrated much of what my father’s American flag stood for.
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10:19 pm
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Sally Farkas, 1914-2009
My mother was a complex person, a person of many contradictions. I won't try to characterize her, at least not now. Instead, I'll just tell three brief stories about Sally. Many of us have stories about Sally, and I'm sure we've been sharing them today. I hope we keep doing so. That's a very good way to remember someone.
A few years back when I was visiting Sally in Princeton, she surprised me with a question, "Do you have a plain white shirt for my funeral?"
"Why are we talking about your funeral?"
"I asked you a question: Do you have a plain white shirt?"
"I have a blue one, I think."
"When you get back to Seattle, you buy a plain white shirt for my funeral. You can't be an embarrassment."
Well, Sally, I did what you said. Here's the plain white shirt.
Sally was very preoccupied with propriety and appearances, but not always. A long time ago, in Clifton, we had a cleaning lady, Cleo, who worked for our family for many years. Sally and Cleo spent a lot of time together, and I think Cleo was one of Sally's closest friends.
It got to bother Sally that Cleo didn't have Social Security. Cleaning ladies were supposed to be enrolled, but in practice they were not. Sally thought about the other cleaning ladies as well. She began to talk to the housewives in Rolling Hills. Those women were not crazy about having to pay more money each week to cover Social Security, and Sally was never inclined to rock the boat and create problems with her neighbors and friends. But this needed to be done, and Cleo and the other women who got off the bus from Paterson to clean houses in Rolling Hills were enrolled in Social Security.
I was visiting in Florida about a year before Al died. Al was bored by his routine in Buttonwood, and I thought that he might like fishing in the local lakes. Al was interested, so we went to a tackle shop and I picked out a rod, reel, tackle box, and everything else—including a dozen nightcrawlers. We did a little fishing and it worked out well.
When we got back to the house, I realized we had a big problem. I explained to Sally that the only way the nightcrawlers would stay alive was in the refrigerator. Sally looked at the cardboard container—the ones you get with take-out from Chinese restaurants. She could see the brown peat moss pushing against the the holes poked through the sides. Although it doesn't happen, for all Sally knew the nightcrawlers could have gotten out. Sally didn't say a word. She loved Al totally. And it took a lot of love to permit nightcrawlers to live in her refrigerator. So, those are my three brief pictures of Sally.
Mt. Ararat Cemetery
Farmingdale, Long Island
February 18, 2009
OBITUARY IN THE TRENTON TIMES
Sally Farkas, of Princeton, died Monday, February 16, 2009 at the Acorn Glen Assisted Living Residence. Sally was born in 1914 to Solomon and Eva Silberman, immigrants from Ukraine. Sally and her three sisters were educated in New York City public schools and held office jobs prior to their marriages. Sally married Alfred Farkas, just back from World War II. Sally was a beautiful woman and Al proposed on their first date.
After a decade living in Stuyvesantown in Manhattan, Sally, Al, and their two sons moved to Clifton, New Jersey. Sally was active in Jewish organizations, and she enjoyed bridge, golf, Broadway plays, and the art museums in New York. After a long and successful career with the Colony Furniture Company, Al retired in 1975, and the couple moved to Lake Worth, Florida, where Al died in 1982. In 1999, Sally moved to the Windrows, in Princeton, to be close to her son Mitchell, his wife Gail, and their three children Andrew, Steven, and Amy. Sally’s other son, David, lives in Seattle with his wife Jean and daughter Eva. Ann Schneider, of White Plains, now 102, is the last surviving Silberman sister.
Sally Silberman Farkas, after 27 years, joined her husband in Mt Ararat Cemetery, Farmingdale, NY, on February 18, her 95th birthday.
Arrangements were under the direction of the Kimble Funeral Home, One Hamilton Avenue, Princeton, NJ 08542.
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08:19 pm
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Grove Street: The Montclair Beach Club
At the bottom of Chittenden Road, my old street, where it meets Grove Street, was the Montclair Beach Club. It’s a 3-hour drive from any beach, but there’s an Olympic swimming pool, a clubhouse, and nice landscaping. It was generally known that Jews could not be accepted as members. I didn’t think much about this. Anti-Semitism was not a big issue during my childhood.
When I was about 13, Bobby Allen was one of my two best friends. Bobby was sleek and powerful, a stand-out swimmer on the Clubs’s Junior Olympics swim team. His bedroom was full of trophies and medals. One day Bobby invited me to the Club as his guest. I think he paid 3 dollars for my guest pass as we walked in.
As we strolled around, Bobby stopped and pointed to Mr. Cole, the owner. He was about 70; he was playing shuffleboard. Bobby whispered: “If he knew you were Jewish, he’d kick you out right now.” I looked hard at Mr. Cole. He noticed me and stared back. Bobby and I walked on. I could tell that Bobby was thinking he’d said the wrong thing. He never invited me again.
Each summer, for years before and for years afterward, I could hear music from the dances and cheering from the swim meets from my bedroom. Those sounds never bothered me until my day as a guest.
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11:25 pm
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Ricky Resnick, Midnight, Grove Street
I was 16 years old and a junior at Clifton High School in Northern New Jersey. I was friends—sort of—with Ricky Resnick. Ricky was 17 and he had a brand new red Corvette. He was a problem kid. He'd been expelled from Clifton High School, and he was now in an expensive private high school that took kids who were discipline problems.
Ricky and I had driven back to Clifton from a dance in Passaic, but instead of turning up Chittenden Road to drop me off, Ricky was heading down Grove Street, a semi-rural road that snaked through the west end of Clifton. You would normally do about 40 mph on Grove Street; we were doing 70. It was a warm spring night, and Ricky had the top down. I loved it. Although I’ve always been afraid of heights, back then at least, I had absolutely no nervousness about speed.
Ricky, yelling to be heard, justified his driving, “There are old jerks who drive down Grove Street at 15 miles per hour. They’re just as likely to cause an accident as me.” I was raised on logical argument, but I saw no point in saying anything about a happy medium between 15 and 70 mph. Ricky told me that he drove this way with girls, and by the time he parked, he could do anything he wanted with them. But I had my doubts. At the dance, he’d been just as shy as me. He also told me that he dated the “Spic girls” who worked at his father’s factory. I had my doubts about that as well.
Suddenly a cat darted into the road and got clipped by our right front tire. It was probably because of our speed that the cat misjudged how quickly we’d reach him. Ricky braked and pulled over. We walked toward the cat, which just stared at us calmly. His entire hind quarters were crushed. Even Ricky was unnerved. “Fuck!” is all he said.
I followed him back to the car. He turned around in a side street and drove back toward the cat. He crossed lanes and we could see the cat's two yellow eyes fixed on us as we headed for him. I’ll say this for Ricky Resnick: he could handle that car. I felt two quick bumps as both left wheels went over the cat. We roared on into the night.
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08:31 am
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Why I don't wear a coat
I generally do not wear a coat. This causes some notice during the winter months. At my bus stop, people have asked “Were you mugged?”—assuming the mugger had taken my coat. Jean doesn’t much like my habit and sometimes demands that I put on a coat when we go out socially. Many years ago my mother phoned in to the Radio Doctor and asked whether it was OK for me to go through the winter without wearing a coat. The Radio Doctor asked, “Well, is he healthy?” My mother replied, “Yes, I think so.” “In that case,” said the Radio Doctor, “it’s OK.” I certainly am healthy: I haven’t missed a day due to illness in my 25 years at the University of Washington.
I stopped wearing a coat because of Mary Pierce, a student in my English 101 course when I was a graduate student at the University of Minnesota. Mary’s life revolved around organic food. That’s all she wanted to talk or write about. She believed that grocery store food contains chemicals that undermine our health. The big food companies hide this by paying for biased research. Raised on Wonder Bread and Frosted Flakes, I was skeptical.
Mary decided to demonstrate the benefits of her diet. She showed up an hour early for our weekly conference, opened my office window, and stepped out onto the snow that covered the building’s flat roof. Mary was wearing sneakers, jeans, and a T-shirt. When she stepped back inside for her conference, she was a bit pinkish, but in a vibrant kind of way. She was, in fact, a beautiful woman. Unfortunately, Mary’s organic diet did nothing for her writing skills, and I had to give her a C for the course. Later Mary moved to rural Minnesota to grow her own organic food—the stuff in the organic food stores wasn’t quite pure enough.
Pondering Mary Pierce, I began leaving my coat at home on all but the coldest days. Soon it felt very good. I concluded that our perception of “being cold” is largely cultural. The unwillingness to let your skin feel the chilled air is a harmful legacy passed down from one generation to the next.
“You took her out today?”
“Sure.”
“It doesn’t’ look like you touched the snow suit. You did put it on her?”
“Sure.”
Eva rode on my shoulders in her diaper and a T-shirt on long walks through our South Minneapolis neighborhood. Jean should have guessed I wasn't going to try to get a squirmy baby into a snow suit. Women did yell at me, but Eva loved our walks. She laughed and made baby noises.
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11:06 pm
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The Sea Has the Last Word
Vlieland is one of the Wadden Islands in the Dutch North Sea. Like the other Waddens, it is a busy vacation spot during the summer but quiet during the cold months. Three years back, Jean and I joined our dear friends Jeroen and Thea, and their son Allert, on Vlieland for a Christmas-week vacation. We walked along the sand dunes and wetlands, bicyled through Vlieland’s one village, and talked about every possible topic during the evenings in our cozy rented cottage.
Vlieland is just a narrow strip of land that barely keeps itself above the waves of the North Sea. There was once a second village on the island, but it disappeared in 1736. Now, in the 21st century, it is not hard to see that Vlieland is being overtaken by the slow but inexorable rise of the ocean. Alas, we must fear for the Netherlands itself.
We saved one day of our vacation for Vlieland’s sole tourist outing, a ride on a converted Dutch military vehicle through a nature preserve to the far end of the island. It was cold, wet, and very windy, but our jovial tour guide led us in song (mostly in Dutch) as we rolled over the low dunes. The vehicle has large tires with a special feature: letters of the alphabet are incorporated into the tire tread of the rear tires so that the tires repeatedly emboss a short—and very temporary—message into the wet sand. Each year the tour operator replaces the tires and a national contest is held to choose the next year’s message. The message we saw, taken from a well-known Dutch poem, is apt indeed: “The sea has the last word.”
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11:59 am
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Ruth Blank, 1913-2008
When Ruth Blank—Jean’s mother—was 52 years old, she was an occasional substitute teacher in the local schools in Rockland County, New York. One morning North Rockland High School called her. It was a class of “retarded” students with significant behavior problems. Their teacher had suddenly quit. Ruth filled in
Weeks passed, and the District had not found a permanent replacement. The principal, however, noticed that Ruth seemed to be doing well, and so they offered her the position; she stayed 15 years.
Ruth was always calm and gentle, and even the roughest kids responded to this. She was surprisingly unfazed by such incidents as a kid throwing a chair. She became a skillful instructor for these students, in part because she began taking courses in teaching Special Education. Eventually, she earned her masters degree.
Although she was usually timid and deferential, Ruth became a tough and persistent advocate for her students. Because of her efforts, Special Education students became eligible for vocational education classes. Ruth realized that the prospect of “graduating” high school would be a powerful motivator for her students, and she fought for years until they were allowed to participate in the graduation ceremony and receive a completion certificate. For many years she received occasional letters and yearly Christmas cards from former students who remembered her with affection and gratitude.
Although raised in a Republican family, Ruth was a Liberal Democrat and supported her teacher’s union—even as she fretted privately that she was earning too much money. When she joined us in Seattle, she saw no reason why Gay people should not be wed at our synogogue.
Yesterday Ruth Blank died peacefully at age 95, full of love for those around her and deep concern for every form of human suffering. Almost to the end of her life, she regularly made donations to the long roster of charities that sent her solicitations.
Ruth was a strong supporter of Barack Obama from the very beginning. During the primary campaign, she asked me to take her to her local Democratic caucus. She had to make her way up a long walkway and into a chaotic high school gymnasium and then get her legs over a picnic table bench. I rarely take photographs, but I brought a camera for this.
Ruth's obituary in the Rockland Journal News
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01:57 am
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Lost and Found
One summer day, many years ago, a sparrow got into our house and flew wildly around our living room. Trying to get out, it crashed repeatedly against the three large glass windows that define two of the walls. Finally, chest heaving, it rested on our coffee table, thoroughly baffled. I moved very slowly toward the sparrow. It was terrified of me but had given up on getting out of the room. Slowly and gently, I clasped my hands around the bird. I felt it pulsing and quivering as I stepped through the open doorway and out onto our deck. I bent down low, straightened quickly, and tossed the bird into the air. It took off for the horizon like a cannon shot.
I was driving a back road in West Virginia, late on a foggy night. Suddenly a horse appeared in my headlights dragging 6 feet of rope from around his neck. I slowed the car. The horse trotted ahead of me, frightened but somehow unwilling to leave the glare of my headlights. I pulled the car over and walked toward him talking softly. He kept moving away unsure whether to trust me. Finally, I could stroke his head and neck. I took the rope, led him a short distance from the road, and tied him firmly to a fence post. He was calm. He knew someone would get him in the morning.
I have a mental deficit in wayfinding. I can get hopelessly lost almost anywhere, in my car or on foot. If I decide to go hiking on my own, I’m very wary of trips with intersecting trails. A few days ago, I needed to park my car in an unfamiliar neighborhood and take a different bus to work. Heading home, I got off the bus and went to find my car. I somehow missed the street where I’d parked. I got so lost!
I could not tell north from south. Street numbers made no sense to me. I knew that some of the streets were familiar, but I couldn’t piece anything together.
I phoned Jean: “Babe, I am so lost. I will never find my car. Please come get me.” I gave her the cross streets, pulled out something to read, and waited. I thought about Jean’s cousin Myron who now has Alzheimers and can’t go anywhere alone. I thought about the sparrow. I thought about the horse.
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09:43 pm
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Crazy People on the Bus
Socially impaired people often choose the first seat on the aisle-facing bench at the very front of the bus. Because they’re sitting directly across from the driver, the driver becomes a captive audience—like a bartender, but even more captive. By and large, the drivers are wonderfully patient, especially during slack hours. Surely they ease some of the loneliness in the world.
Often the talkers enthuse about the Seattle sports teams—an easy topic.
When they know that their homelessness is visible to all, they will half lie, half fantasize about the friend who has a job waiting or the daughter they’re going to visit. You hear many other unlikely stories from the crazy people on the bus.
It’s mid-day on the 372 heading south
A 40-year-old man, sitting across from the driver, speaks with a booming voice and third-grade syntax.
My assistant likes cappuccinos, red capuccinos. She brings me
cappuccinos.
She brings me cappuccinos in Palm Springs, too.
Where I live. I have a house there. I go to Palm Springs in the
winter.
Students snicker
Driver: Palm Springs is nice. Especially in the winter.
Yes, I like Palm Springs. I like living there.
Today is Monday so I’m not working. I don’t work Mondays.
He gets up as the bus pulls over for the stop at 125th Street and Lake City Way
See you tomorrow, Lisa.
Driver: OK. Have a good day.
You too, Lisa. See you tomorrow.
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09:26 pm
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Warren Crawford, Jr.
Sixteen months ago I bought my first cell phone. Immediately I began receiving calls for Warren Crawford Jr. Warren, I soon learned, is a bad dude from Philadelphia.
I got calls from attorneys, detectives, and social service agencies—there’s an element of guesswork here. I got both live and computerized debt collection calls—the computer calls start early in the morning: “This is an important message for . . . Warren Crawford Jr. Please call the following number immediately.” There were also personal calls from black men and women. Some of the women seemed stressed. I told them all that this was no longer Warren’s cell phone number. Some people hung up. Some asked more questions to make sure. Some, when they were satisfied that I am David K. Farkas, living in Seattle, said things like, “I’m sorry, I’ll delete this number from our system.”
After a month or so of this, I called T-Mobile and complained. They gave me some free minutes but said there was nothing they could do but issue me a new phone number. But I’d given this number to friends and family, and I figured that pretty soon the Warren calls would stop. Warren, however, is a tricky fellow and he continues to give my number to people who he does not want to hear from.
I’ve gotten increasingly curious about Warren. In fact, I like getting Warren calls now, especially since the debt collection calls have almost ceased. (I guess in these hard times no one is giving him credit.) I think I spoke recently to his mother or an aunt. I’ve considered trying to learn more about Warren: “No, he’s not here. Actually, I haven’t seen him in a while. How’s Warren doing?” But Warren Crawford Jr. (not his real name) is a bad dude with an inventive turn of mind. Maybe I don’t need to mess with him.
It's mid-June, 2009, and I'm still getting about one call a week from someone trying to contact Warren. Some of these folks were talkative and would have told me about him, but so far I've resisted the tempatation to ask.
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06:34 pm
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Election Eve 2008
My father died in 1982. He’d be astonished and overjoyed to know that a quarter-century later a black man could be elected President of the United States. If you had asked Al, he’d have said it would take a hundred years.
My dear cousin Celia tells me she has exchanged messages with Al from the Other Side. Celia, Celia, get on the stick. Give him the news!
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05:41 am
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Ghost Story
The bride and groom with about ten close friends stepped through the front door of the small seaside hotel, crossed the quiet road, and strolled down to the water to take some wedding photos. Several of the guests snapped away as the bride and groom assumed various poses.
They were surprised to see a woman join the group. She was about 30, wearing jeans and a colorful blouse. She began taking pictures of the bride and groom with a grand old Hasselbad large-format camera.
“I love to take photographs when there’s a wedding on the Island,” she explained. “Well, welcome,” said the groom. But the woman soon moved to the front and center of the group and repeatedly called out instructions, “Turn a bit. Yes, that’s it.” “Now, step a few feet back. Good.” There was an intensity in her manner that seemed very out of place. Folks were irritated. Someone spoke in an audible whisper, “She’s freelancing. We don’t need this.” Someone else caught the groom’s ear, “She’ll be contacting you to sell her pictures.”
The wedding party began strolling back to the hotel, where the ceremony would take place in about an hour. The groom gave the woman a nod and a good-bye smile. The woman stood silently for a few moments and then waived her hand and wished the couple long life and much happiness.
Passing by the reception desk, some of the guests complained about the inappropriate intrusion. The groom, however, wanted to avoid negative vibes: “She was OK, just a little pushy. She didn’t give anyone a business card, and I don’t know how she’d get my email. Anyway, if she’s hoping to sell her photographs, she probably wasted her time. I think we got lots of great pictures.”
No one saw the play of strong emotions on the face of the woman at the reception desk. She stepped forward, stopped, and then approached the groom. “I think I know who you’re talking about. Elizabeth Darden was born in the Island. She and her husband drove off North Pier on their wedding night 15 years ago. It was September 27, like tonight. They had the wedding right here at the Inn, down by the water, at sunset. People have seen her by the water on her anniversary. When there’s a wedding ceremony, she joins the guests. When the bride and groom are taking pictures, she shows up with a camera.”
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