CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

CHRISTMAS LETTER 2009

     I began 2009 waiting for word about the New England Journal competition I had entered. The notification that someone else won extended my break from writing my novel.  I finally returned to writing, and have set up some writing goals for the first half of 2010.

     While stalled on the novel, I continued writing, as my blog’s many posts testify to.

     While Monte attended the wrestling matches in State College, I explored the town. The college library, where I wanted to do some research, was closed for student break. We visited the town library, and one morning we ate breakfast with the parents of a neighbor we had in Connellsville. That was interesting—this couple had no idea who we were before meeting us*.

     In June the entire family went to a Pittsburgh Pirates/Cleveland Indians baseball game. It turned out to be their most interesting game of the season—the Pirates won*. Four days later we attended a delightful play, Honus Wagner and Me. When I wrote the post on the play*.

     I was privileged to do the photography for a wedding in April. I don’t normally accept wedding photography, but since I’d done all the photography for this family, and we know each other quite well, the stress was less than that of a typical wedding assignment.

     In August, our cat Honey developed problems, and I was caught at the vet’s having to make a decision about her*. I called Monte, who was working on the house, and then I called Sandy, who was Honey’s previous “mother.” Together, we decided to let Honey go. I stayed with her, and later we had a small funeral. Jordan played the only song she remembered on the violin, Silent Night.

     In September we experienced a “staycation” day in Somerset County*, revisiting three landmarks: the Flight 93 crash site, the Flight 93 Chapel and the Quecreek Mine site. The memorabilia collections at the crash site had changed location. The Chapel had changed little: Portapotties installed on the edge of the property, with a sink for handwashing. At the Quecreek Mine site they are constructing a large building. Otherwise, it’s unchanged.

     One October day Monte and I watched a bear saunter through our driveway and up the path to Sandy and Michael’s house. Next there was an owl caught in our deer netting and it didn’t understand that Monte was cutting him free*. I stood nearby taking pictures, not daring to get too close for fear he would fly into me, injuring me, when he was loose. Meanwhile, we had a unique “in the face” view of each other.

     November and December were rough. I “caught” something (or it caught me), giving me a severe cough for three weeks, then kept relapsing for another five weeks. After being able to get my Halloween and Thanksgiving decorations out on time, we experienced delay in decorating our outdoors pine trees. However, we decorated our full-size Christmas tree this year, since Vince and Marcus are now old enough that we don’t have to be concerned about their “crawl” space. It helped that I rearranged the furniture, including removing a two-drawer file cabinet (a testament to the amount of paperwork I’ve eliminated this year). Fortunately, all family members are doing well.    

     My cough broke December 13. On December 15 Monte and I said farewell to Robert Mendler, a Holocaust survivor who entrusted me with his story—for a magazine, and for my blog. By then, the “bug” was visiting Monte. Hopefully he will recover quicker than I did.

     Next year I hope to find evidence proving a Lamoine, Maine, grave labeled “unknown Civil War Veteran” belongs to Charles F. Walker, a Lamoine, Maine Civil War veteran without a grave*.

     We look forward to celebrating Christmas with our family, and hold onto the hope for a better world, and the hope for peace between people, in families, in communities, in nations and around the globe.

 *Astericks refer to the posts below:

A Weekend in State College, Pennsylvania: Part 1

A Weekend in State College, Pennsylvania: Part 2

Take Me Out to the Ball Game…So Reluctantly I Go

Honus Wagner & Me

Honey’s Coming Home! Our cat must recuperate

Honey went home—She’s romping in animal heaven

Staycation Day Trip: Somerset County, PA

It’s Been an Animal Day

ROBERT MENDLER: IN MEMORY December 10, 2009

AN UNEXPECTED VISIT WITH BOB MENDLER ON DECEMBER 8, 2009

RIGHTING A CIVIL WAR WRONG: A Gravestone for a Civil War Veteran

CHRISTMAS READING:

Christmas. Whose Season Is It?

A BROKEN LEG FOR CHRISTMAS

The Christmas Stocking Legacy

How to Count the Gifts Given in the Twelve Days of Christmas

Christmas Memories

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

CHRISTMAS MEMORIES

Suzy, guest writer*

      It has to snow in time for Christmas in Wisconsin. It’s the law! And snow it did, & snow it does. Dry, blowing snow, dancing across streets & highways, swirling around stop signs & lamp posts. Heavy, wet snow, sticking to your mittens & catching in the neck of your jacket. Snow drifts, snow banks, snow plows, snow shovels, snow balls, snow forts, snow men, snow angels: you can’t have Christmas in Wisconsin without snow.

     But when you get to your grandparents’ home, for Christmas, after driving 4 hours in the cold & snow, with only the sound of your own voice or that of your mother & younger sisters for company, you find that your grandmother smells just the same – White Lilac is her fragrance – & that your grandfather has lit a fire in the family room fireplace in anticipation of your arrival.

     And your grandmother hasn’t forgotten to (to read the rest of this post, click on http://sldeitrich.wordpress.com/2009/12/13/christmas-memories/ )

     *Suzy is a fourth cousin, both of us being descendants of Louis and Mary Googins des Isles from Lamoine, Maine.

~~~ 

ADDITIONAL READING:

Christmas. Whose Season Is It?

A BROKEN LEG FOR CHRISTMAS

How to Count the Gifts Given in the Twelve Days of Christmas

Noel

CHRISTMAS LETTER 2008

CHRISTMAS LETTER 2006

THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS 2007-A

12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS 2007-B

THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS: 2008 STYLE

IN WINTERSCAPE…COMES THE SONG

SANTAS, MRS. SANTAS, ELVES & REINDEER WANTED: Please apply—Application #1

SANTAS, MRS. SANTAS, ELF and REINDEER WANTED: Application #2

DEER HEAD FOUND IN MAILBOX—A GIFT?

Dear SANTA from COCHRAN

(SANTA) SUED FOR NON-SUPPORT

SANTA IS DEAD!

12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS 2007-B

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

HOW TO COUNT THE GIFTS GIVEN IN THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

A Simple Question…Right?

      A teacher assigned a project to my Whipple Elementary School class: Who can cut the longest strip of paper from a sheet 8 ½ by 11 inches?

     Simple, I thought, and cut a strip 11 inches long before sitting back smugly.

     When the results were shown, I discovered my naivety. Some students knew to cut around and around the paper, making lengthy strips. It was an eye opener for thinking creatively and out of the box.

     I had the same sensation when I was reviewing information on the Twelve Days of Christmas for this year’s Christmas card/ornament. I came across a simple question: How many gifts would a person have to purchase if they bought every gift in the ditty’s list?

     Simple, I thought. There are two ways of counting. One gift for each  day, twelve total. Or, one gift the first day, two the second, three the third day, and so on.  Just add the total. It’s 364.

     Or, 376, if you count the pear tree separately from the first day’s gift, a partridge in a pear tree. But don’t forget the cows needed for the milking…did they need two cows, with the milking maids sharing, or did they each have their own cow? What about the piper’s pipes, the drummer’s drums? Does one count the eggs laid by the geese? It reaches ridiculosity when it is suggested that the count should include the microscopic life on both the animals and the people…

     I began to see this question was not as easy to answer as I thought it was. In fact, the further I looked, the more complex the problem was.

     Mathematicians have different methods of calculating the number of gifts in the Twelve Days of Christmas.  For instance, Pascal’s Triangle: an arithmetical triangle you can use for some neat things in mathematics. Here’s how you construct it:

                             1

                           1   1

                         1   2   1

                       1   3   3   1

                     1   4   6   4   1

                   1   5  10   10  5   1

                 1   6  15  20   15  6   1

               1   7  21  35   35  21  7   1

       Math has never been my high point, so I will abandon attempting how to use it. Except to say that one web site, http://dimacs.rutgers.edu/~judyann/LP/lessons/12.days.pascal.html, introduced me to the use of Pascal’s triangles to calculate the number of gifts in the Twelve Days of Christmas. (The diagrams are not being pasted into this site. If you want to see them you will have to click on the source site.)

The third (yellow) diagonal of Pascal’s triangle indicates the total number of gifts given.

  1 = 1 partridge in a pear tree
  4 = 2 turtle doves + 1 partridge in a pear tree
        + 1 partridge in a pear tree
10 = 3 French hens + 2 turtle doves + 1 partridge
        in a pear tree + 2 turtle doves + 1 partridge
        in a pear tree + 1 partridge in a pear tree
20 = 4 calling birds + 3 French hens + 2 turtle doves
        + 1 partridge in a pear tree + 3 French hens
        + 2 turtle doves + 1 partridge in a pear tree
        + 2 turtle doves + 1 partridge in a pear tree
        + 1 partridge in a pear tree

By the fourth day of Christmas you will have received a total of 20 gifts. At this point, the marked spots on Pascal’s triangle look like a Christmas stocking.

     At this point, the math is going Beyond my capabilities, so I will proceed on to another site:

http://www.squarecirclez.com/blog/the-twelve-days-of-christmas-how-many-presents/1686

Notice that on each day there is one partridge (so I will have 12 partridges by the 12th day), and each day from the second day onwards there are 2 doves (so I will have 22 doves), and from the 3rd there are 3 hens (total of 30 hens), and so on. Mathematically speaking, my true love is giving me 1 + 2 + 3 + … +n presents on the n-th day after Christmas.

The number of presents each day is 1 on the 1st, then 3 on the 2nd, then 6 on the 3rd, then 10 on the 4th. We call this set of numbers the triangular numbers, because they can be drawn in a dot pattern that forms triangles. (Again, the diagrams are not pasting in so check the source site for illustrations.) To get the total number of presents, we need to add those triangular numbers, like this:

1 on the first day + 3 on the 2nd day + 6 + 10 + …

Another way of writing this is:

On the first day, 1 present.
On the 2nd day, 1 + 3 = 4 presents
On the 3rd day, 1 + 3 + 6 = 10 presents
On the 4th day, 1 + 3 + 6 + 10 = 20 presents.

These partial sums are called tetrahedral numbers, because they can be drawn as 3-dimensional triangular pyramids (tetrahedrons).

So how many dots (representing presents) will there be in the 12th tetrahedron?

     Are you readers as confused as I am?

     Another site explained it this way: The number of gifts on day n is the nth triangular number. The total number of gifts up to and including day n is the sum of the first n triangular numbers, known as the nth tetrahedral number. In the image below, the total number of balls is the fifth tetrahedral number. The number of balls in each layer are triangular numbers.

    It doesn’t help. I’m satisfied with 12 or 364 gifts. How about you?

    Perhaps I should digress and return to making the card/ornament based on the golden rings, the fifth day gift in the song.

~~~

Don’t forget to comment. The reader making the most comments during the month will receive a prize. For details click on: http://carolyncholland.wordpress.com/monthly-prize-for-comments/

~~~ 

ADDITIONAL READING:

Christmas. Whose Season Is It?

How to Count the Gifts Given in the Twelve Days of Christmas

Christmas Memories

Noel

IN WINTERSCAPE…COMES THE SONG

A BROKEN LEG FOR CHRISTMAS

CHRISTMAS LETTER 2008

CHRISTMAS LETTER 2006

THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS 2007-A

12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS 2007-B

THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS: 2008 STYLE

SANTAS, MRS. SANTAS, ELVES & REINDEER WANTED: Please apply—Application #1

SANTAS, MRS. SANTAS, ELF and REINDEER WANTED: Application #2

DEER HEAD FOUND IN MAILBOX—A GIFT?

Dear SANTA from COCHRAN

(SANTA) SUED FOR NON-SUPPORT

SANTA IS DEAD!

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

 CONTEST ANNOUNCEMENT! MAKE COMMENTS TO WIN!

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS is awarding a monthly prize to the reader who makes the most comments at www.carolyncholland.wordpress.com. To enter, comment on any post. The more comments you post, the greater chance you have of winning. For further details click on http://carolyncholland.wordpress.com/monthly-prize-for-comments/ or visit the page MONTHLY PRIZE FOR COMMENTS at the top of the column to the right. 

A BROKEN LEG FOR CHRISTMAS

     It was just before Christmas, 1983. My friend, Shirl, her husband Wayne and I were ushering at the Alliance Theater in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, for a production of The Music Man.

     We ushered at this theater regularly and at other smaller theaters occasionally. It was a way for the wife of a graduate student and mother of a preteen and teenager to afford theater tickets (price, free) while spending three years in that city.

     This December day I’d dressed for the holidays, including high heel shoes. I was yet to learn I had high foot arches that made for ankle instability.

     I’d seen the play—and the movie—several times before, but really enjoyed the story. The first part of the play was wonderful, as usual. At intermission the three of us joined the throng of theater goers descending the marble stairway leading to the lobby (we’d been assigned balcony positions). Shirl was behind me. I heard her say something and turned slightly to respond.

     All of a sudden, I was descending the next few steps much faster than I expected. My backside was plopped on a step and my left leg was tucked under it! My eyes began to water, but I gained sufficient control not to cry, either from pain or humiliation. Others passed by, watching me and wondering why an usher was sitting on the steps rather than descending.

     Needless to say, we never saw the second part of the production. I managed to get into the car after which Shirl and Wayne took me to one of the all day clinics, where they put a temporary cast on my leg and told me to get to an orthopedist the next day.

     My husband, Monte, took me to the orthopedist’s office the next afternoon. It hadn’t been difficult to decide what doctor to choose. I’d met the doc a few days previously at a Hanukkah event hosted by the parents of my daughter’s first girl friend in Atlanta. The patient waiting room was small, the seats almost full when we arrived. Monte and I sat across the room from each other.
     Being a new patient, I was given forms to fill out for the gorgeous, tall, red-headed physician. Upon reading one question, I slowly raised my eyes, glanced at Monte, then turned my eyes back to the form. I repeated this several times before catching his attention.
     “You need insurance papers,” he asked quietly, trying to maintain the ambience of the room. He began reaching for his wallet.
     “No,” I said, with a pregnant pause while feigning a questioning and puzzled expression.
     People in the room politely kept their heads down, trying not to be “nosey.”
     I looked up at Monte again.
     “But I don’t quite know how to answer a question,” I said quietly.
     He waited for me to tell him the question before asking, “What do you need to know?”
     Everyone was listening (they couldn’t do otherwise) as I hesitated a moment before looking Monte in the eye and answering.
     “Well, it says ‘sex’ here and I don’t know whether to say yes or no.”
     The room, after a moment of surprised silence, burst into laughter. People began suggesting answers, breaking the typical waiting room silence.
     “Perhaps yes.” “No way.” “In exchange for the bill?”
     As the party-like scene continued, the doctor poked his head out to see what was happening.
     Soon a young woman on crutches opened the door, poked her head in and then left. She returned a couple of minutes later saying she thought she was in the wrong office!
     Someone explained to her what happened to raise the waiting room patients out of their malaise.
     “Oh,” she said excitedly. “Have you seen the doctor? SAY YES!”
      We recorded her address and acquired the medical equipment necessary for my ten-week recovery. After we picked up the crutches she didn’t want returned, we never saw her again, but we were grateful for her response to our waiting-room humor.
     There was more humor in the office visit. In the room I was taken to, the nurse, as per usual during a doctor’s appointment, did a preliminary review of the problem and attempted to prepare my leg for the doctor’s examination.
     She was asking “What happened,” when I suddenly gave her a swift kick, almost knocking her teeth out.
     She looked startled.
     “You cannot touch the bottom of my foot,” I admonished. “I have a reflex action for that!”
     She backed off a little, allowing me to tell her what happened. I mentioned how embarrassed I’d been, sitting on the marble steps of the theater wearing my usher badge!
     The doctor entered with a smile. The nurse didn’t have time to warn him before he touched the bottom of my foot. He too was given a swift kick, before he proceeded with caution while listening to my tale of woe about missing the second half of The Music Man.
     “It’s a dumb and embarrassing story,” I said. “Can you suggest a better one?”
     “Tell people this,” he suggested. “Tell them you were having a torrid love affair with your doctor during which you accompanied him to a medical conference in Switzerland…”

     The doctor had my attention…every woman’s dream to have a torrid love affair with a gorgeous doctor! The ski patient in the waiting room was right—this man was a drop-dead gorgeous tall redhead.

     The doctor continued creating a story for me.

     “While you were in a fantastic Swiss chalet, you had the misfortune to fall off the balcony into a hillside slide of melted chocolate. It was oh, so delicious, but what a break you received from it’s slickness!”
Who claims doctors don’t have vivid imaginations?

     The amazing thing about repeating this story over the next ten weeks (while on crutches) was the number of people that seemed to actually believe it! A few hearers gave me a scathing look when I mentioned the “torrid love affair.” Other hearers dutifully sympathized, looked a little shocked, then laughed when the light bulb lit up as I talked about the chocolate slide. Many swallowed the story like taking a drink of fine wine.

      This ski accident patient was called into a patient’s room a few minutes after I was. She overheard the doctor tell me I would need crutches.
     “Call me,” she yelled across the hall. “I have crutches you can have. And a walker.”
     This, in Atlanta, a city that reached two million residents while we were there!

    As I shared the story, it brought humor to a rough Christmas holiday experience, and smiles to the face of the doctor and his staff as I told them about people’s responses.

     My final recommendation for December: do not break a leg during a holiday season (or any other time, either). It’s no fun. But if you do, ask your doctor to create a story for you.

~~~ 

ADDITIONAL READING:

Christmas. Whose Season Is It?

How to Count the Gifts Given in the Twelve Days of Christmas

Christmas Memories

Noel

IN WINTERSCAPE…COMES THE SONG

CHRISTMAS LETTER 2008

CHRISTMAS LETTER 2006

THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS 2007-A

12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS 2007-B

THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS: 2008 STYLE

SANTAS, MRS. SANTAS, ELVES & REINDEER WANTED: Please apply—Application #1

SANTAS, MRS. SANTAS, ELF and REINDEER WANTED: Application #2

DEER HEAD FOUND IN MAILBOX—A GIFT?

Dear SANTA from COCHRAN

(SANTA) SUED FOR NON-SUPPORT

SANTA IS DEAD!

My husband and I attended Robert Mendler’s funeral today. Return later for a journal page.

CAROLYN’S COMMENTS

AN UNEXPECTED VISIT WITH BOB MENDLER ON DECEMBER 8, 2009

Robert Mendler’s funeral will be held on Tuesday, December 15. For details, click on: ROBERT MENDLER: IN MEMORY December 10, 2009 or

http://carolyncholland.wordpress.com/2009/12/11/robert-mendler-in-memory-december-10-2009/

     On Tuesday, December 8, my husband Monte and I had an unexpected visit with Bob Mendler. The opportunity arose following a comment on the Bob’s story, which was posted in installments on my writing site, www.carolyncholland.wordpress.com*:

     “I and my family are from Nowy Targ. My father’s name was Alojzy Singer. I was a hidden child. I and my father survived. The rest of the family did not. The Singers had a large hardware store on the Rynek. I would love to be in touch with anyone from that town. I am sure that my father and Mr. Mendler knew each other.”

     I knew I had to get this comment to Bob, who lives in an adjacent town. Fortunately, I had a mid-morning doctor’s appointment in Latrobe, after which we were going to a Greensburg funeral home for a viewing. Even if there was an extended wait at the doctor’s office, there was time to contact Bob and stop by his home to deliver this very important message—a contact from his childhood, his home in Nowy-Targ,Poland, before the Holocaust events.

     We called Bob from the doctor’s office and he told us to stop by. Monte waited in the car while I took the computer printout to Bob.

     He greeted me his winning smile. After realizing the meaning of the computer comment, he was all excited—yes, he knew Janet Singer. He remembered her birth—she was perhaps ten years younger than she was. Her family’s hardware store was across the street from his mother’s company, which produced items like soda pop. He recalled seeing Janet’s “father and uncle” shot as they ran from the police. He knew she was placed with a (Christian?) family to be hidden, to be safe. Yes, he was going to contact her.

     Meanwhile, he shared with me a medal he was given when he visited Nowy-Targ, Poland, as a survivor. To view photo, click on:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/beanerywriters/4179880179/in/photostream/  The town honored him, gave him a medal and a key to the city. He also shared with me a glass bowl he given in 2008 when he received the Westmoreland County Historical Society’s St. Clair award for his historical work on Holocaust education.

     He also shared with me his loneliness following the death of his wife, Joan, last April—and the discomfort from the knee surgery he’d had for rheumatoid arthritis.

     Bob told me he was preparing to go to the lobby of Latrobe Hospital to have his picture taken with other Beth Israel Synagogue (Latrobe, PA) volunteers who would work at Latrobe Hospital on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, freeing Christians to celebrate Christmas with their families.

     “It’s not my holiday,” he noted.

     Knowing I had my camera with me, he suggested that I go to the hospital to take pictures, too.

     When we arrived at 12:50 p.m., he was already there. After we chatted for a few moments, he called someone, who told him he had the time wrong: the appointment was for 1:30. We decided to stay, and he and Monte visited while I took notes.

    At one point, I told him that in all the times we met, I’d never had my picture taken with him. Monte took one snapshot when Ed Kelemen, a friend and fellow writer, entered the lobby. I pulled him over and said “Have a picture with us.” He complied, but wasn’t familiar with Bob and his story. I told him I would update him later. (To view photo, click on: http://www.flickr.com/photos/beanerywriters/4179806221/ )

     Bob said that he and Joan had been volunteering during the Christmas season for, oh, about twenty-five—perhaps thirty—years. He had come one Christmas Day with his wife to visit a patient, and there was no staff paying attention to their friend. He and Joan did some care, and decided the hospital needed volunteers on the holiday. After that, he and Joan came every year. Now the program is all over the country, he said, and they started the whole thing. It began small, about eight to ten volunteers.

     He  always volunteers at the front desk, opening it up at  7:30 and working until 11:00 a.m. The volunteering is mitzwa: the Hebrew word for “good deed.”

     His wife loved the volunteering she did at the hospital for fifty-five years.

     He told us that he is “not the same person” anymore, since Joan is not here. He is depressed. He ran away to Israel this fall.

     “I don’t know why God doesn’t take me,” he said.

     “We became God’s chosen people who accepted the commandments. I cannot swallow, understand (the Holocaust). Anti-Semitism is growing all over the world. I don’t know why. I’d pay the price if I knew. I’m paying the price but I don’t know. You would think the world would learn its lesson. Christians, gypsies, were also not human (during the Holocaust)—just like us.”

     People were initially killed from truck exhaust, which took a long time. Something was needed to kill them faster. A new gas was developed by the Bayer Company, which could kill two thousand persons in fifteen minutes.

     He told how Dachau has been made into a park, with concrete benches. He said that to see real concentration camps, the way it was, you need to visit Auschwitz, where there were three camps. He was assigned to Birkenau.

    Bob recalled that at Auschwitz mothers, with babes in their arms, were stripped naked and sent to the showers.

     “Two thousand persons who were in the showers—(where) they used the ‘new’ gas. In fifteen minutes they were all gone. I saw sixty thousand a day die in Auschwitz. I knew what they were doing. If I told I’d be killed. I sorted their clothes. They were sent to the Germans.”

     At this point, the other volunteers began arriving, and Bob introduced me to them as his “friend,” a position I favor. After the picture was taken, Monte and I left to go to Greensburg while the volunteers became engrossed with learning the ropes for their holiday task.

     Bob recently spent time in Israel, at a hotel on the banks of a lake . He was seeking, as always, a remnant of his family that might have escaped the Holocaust alive.

     “For me, the most important thing is to find that some family members survived.”

     Perhaps the closest thing to family members who survived is neighbors who survived. Bob managed to E-mail Janet Singer, to tell her he would call her. The opportunity never came. Bob died on the evening of December 10, 2009.

*THE HOLOCAUST STORY OF A TEENAGE VICTIM (Part 1) 

or http://carolyncholland.wordpress.com/2008/04/22/the-holocaust-story-of-a-teenage-victim-part-1/

My neighbor Betty Lou just called me with the sad news that Robert Mendler died last evening. The 84-year old was born July 6, 1925, in Nowy-Targ, Poland.

Bob was the only surviving Holocaust survivor in Latrobe, PA. We will all miss this heroic man whom my husband, Monte and I, had the privilege of visiting on December 8. He spoke of his plans to cover the desk at Latrobe Hospital on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, something he had done for twenty-five years. He and his wife wanted Christians to have the day to celebrate with their families. 

To view photos, click on: http://www.flickr.com/photos/beanerywriters/4176070939/in/photostream/ & http://www.flickr.com/photos/beanerywriters/4176070939/in/photostream/

His story is posted in the HOLOCAUST folder on this site, with the first installment at 

THE HOLOCAUST STORY OF A TEENAGE VICTIM (Part 1) 

or http://carolyncholland.wordpress.com/2008/04/22/the-holocaust-story-of-a-teenage-victim-part-1/

Bob is survived by two sons, Michael (wife Stacy) Mendler Stacy of McClean of VA, and Mark (fiancee Shelly Piper) Mendler of Greensburg, PA. Other survivors include family members of his late wife, Joan.

He was preceded in death by 89 family members who died in the Holocaust, and his wife Joan Pretter Mendler, who died April 6, 1009.

Robert Reibeisen Mendler’s funeral is scheduled on Tuesday, December 15, 2009 in Beth Israel Synagogue*. Visitation time is 10:00 until noon, the time of the funeral. Interment at B’nai Israel Cemetery** will follow the funeral.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the following:

Beth Israel Synagogue*

The National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education***

I would invite any of you who would like to remember Bob to do so by clicking the Leave a Comment link  below and filling in the comment box. Your E-mail address will not be publicized.

I will forward any comments to Bob Mendler’s family.

Carolyn C. Holland

*Beth Israel Synagogue is located at 414 Weldon St., Patrobe, PA., 15650

**B’nai Israel Cemetery is in Hempfield Township.

***The National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education, Attention Sr. Lois Sculeo—Seton Hill University, Seton Hill Drive, Greensburg, PA, 15601

ADDITONAL READING: AN UNEXPECTED VISIT WITH BOB MENDLER ON DECEMBER 8, 2009 or http://carolyncholland.wordpress.com/2009/12/13/an-unexpected-visit-with-bob-mendler-on-december-8-2009/

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

CAROLYN

Rustie Earle

Today, December 10, is my birthday—I won’t say which one, but I’m well over 18 years old. Rustie, a blind poet who composes on a tape recorder  wrote an acrostic poem about me, titled simply CAROLYN, to celebrate my birthday one year. (a link to another of Rustie’s posts is included in the ADDITIONAL READING list below)

C is for character, no matter how you mean it.

A is for ability, I know because I’ve seen it.

R is really different, but I like her just that way.

O is only one of her, and that I’m glad to say.

L is for loyalty, to each one of her friends.

Y is for the years of time, I hope it never ends.

N is for nutty, in a friendly kind of way.

I’ll always be grateful, this woman passed my way.

To view photos, click on: http://www.flickr.com/photos/beanerywriters/4163473954/ & http://www.flickr.com/photos/beanerywriters/4162715795/in/photostream/

DON’T IGNORE THIS SITE’S MONTHLY CONTEST!

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS is awarding a monthly prize to the reader who makes the most comments at www.carolyncholland.wordpress.com. To enter, comment on any post. The more comments you post, the greater chance you have of winning. For further details click on http://carolyncholland.wordpress.com/monthly-prize-for-comments/ or visit the page MONTHLY PRIZE FOR COMMENTS at the top of the column to the right.

~~~ 

ADDITIONAL READING:

My December Birthday: Reflections on Fifty Years of Bonus Life

Post by Rustie Earle—

(SANTA) SUED FOR NON-SUPPORT

RUSS’S ASSIGNMENT: WRITE CAROLYN’S EULOGY Lent Devotion

Christmas readings:

CHRISTMAS LETTER 2008

Christmas. Whose Season Is It?

THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS 2007-A

12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS 2007-B

THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS: 2008 STYLE

SANTAS, MRS. SANTAS, ELVES & REINDEER WANTED: Please apply—Application #1

SANTAS, MRS. SANTAS, ELF and REINDEER WANTED: Application #2

DEER HEAD FOUND IN MAILBOX—A GIFT?

Dear SANTA from COCHRAN

(SANTA) SUED FOR NON-SUPPORT

SANTA IS DEAD!

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

PEARL HARBOR : A 1942 RADIO BROADCAST SCRIPT

My files on my grandfather, Albert C. Briskay*, include a script from an NBC radio broadcast that contained interviews from non-military personnel, including my grandfather, at the Navy Yard in Pearl Harbor. Below is the text of Briskay’s part of the interview.

View photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/carolyncholland/3899210556/in/photostream/

NAVY YARD BROADCAST

KGU to NBC

1100-1115 – Wednesday, March 18, 1942

WAHL: Remember Pearl Harbor? This broadcast comes to you from the pulsating heart of that gigantic mid-Pacific naval base, 2200 miles west and south of San Francisco. Until three months ago, Pearl Harbor was just a name! Today it is a legend…..the place where our war began.  Here are all the complex activities that comprise a naval base.

And there are men – thousands of them – civilian workers – who ready the ships for new jobs at sea when they come in from scouring the seventy million square miles of this Pacific battle front. For every man at sea there must be many ashore – just as every plane in the air needs ground crews to service it.

Today we are speaking to you from one of Pearl Harbor’s biggest servicing centers – from the edge of one of the great drydocks. Listen a minute to the sound and the fury of Pearl Harbor at work!

SOUND: UP AND HOLD FIVE TO TEN SECONDS

WAHL: This is Jim Wahl, speaking for KGU and the National Broadcasting Company. Today we’re going to try and give you a brief picture of some of the men at Pearl Harbor and of the jobs they do. We’re fortunate in having as our guide, Captain Charles D. Swain, production officer of this Navy Yard…

(omitted are several pages of Swain’s interview, to be posted next December…)

WAHL: Well, since we can’t cover all thousand acres (of the naval reservation), I’ll compromise for interviews with a few of your men. Fair enough?

SWAIN:  Absolutely! Here comes a fellow now who’s typical of the men in this yard. In the last war he served on one of our submarines, and he’s been working with submarines ever since.

WAHL: I’d like to meet him.

SWAIN: He came here not long ago from the Portsmouth Navy Yard in New Hampshire. Name’s Albert Briskay. Oh, Briskay, step over here a minute, will you?

BRISKAY: Glad to know you.

WAHL: It’s mutual. By the way, what’s your job here at Pearl Harbor?

View photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/carolyncholland/3898437623/

BRISKAY: Why, I hold the rating of a quarterman machinist specializing in submarine work.

WAHL: I SEE…..and your age, I’d guess, is about—-43?

BRISKAY: Thanks, but 48 would be closer.

WAHL: Since you know this submarine business fore and aft, how would you compare the submarines of this war with those of the last world war?

BRISKAY: Well, they’re bigger – specially here in this Pacific where distances are greater. Naturally they’re going more modern, but essentially their job is the same—and that’s to sink more tonnage than the other fellow.

WAHL: Alright, here’s another one I’d like to put to you. How about comparing our subs and submarines, with those of Japan and Germany.

BRISKAY: That’s not easy! Submariners are generally the pick of any Navy. There are no flies on the Jap sub crews, but I think our subs are better and our men are better trained.

WAHL: Sub warfare in the Pacific to date bears you out on that, Mr. Briskay. By the way, are you a married man?

BRISKAY: Yes. My wife and two children, a girl 20 and a boy 15, live in Portsmouth.

WAHL: I’ll bet that boy of yours can hardly wait to follow his dad’s footsteps into the Navy.

BRISKAY: No, I don’t think so.

WAHL: Wait a minute now. Why not?

BRISKAY:  Well, Jack’s quite a horseman, and there aren’t any horses in the Navy.

WAHL: I get it. (laughing)

BRISKAY: Say, I’d like to ask you a question.

WAHL: Alright…..shoot. But make it easy.

BRISKAY: Could you tell me how Pearl Harbor got it’s name? I’ve been wondering about it for a long time.

WAHL: It’s a good question. Well, Mr. Briskay, I’ve been told that the old Hawaiians sometimes found Pearls here in oysters. They say that more than a hundred years ago, in the days of Hawaii’s great conquerer, Kamehameha, many native divers worked Pearl Harbor regularly for Pearls. In fact, legend says a famed Hawaiian chief cut out the first channel from the sea some 27 generations ago to get at the loot.

SWAIN: And just before the last war, Jim, the harbor was dredged and the channel deepened again. The first warship entered the harbor only three years before World War One began. It was quite an occasion. The last Queen of Hawaii….Lilluikalani, was among the honored guests to welcome the ship.

WAHL: That’s something I didn’t know, Captain, and I’ve lived here a long time. Well, Mr. Briskay, time’s flying and we want to meet some of your fellow workers. Meantime, we certainly hope your family heard your voice today from out here in Pearl Harbor.

BRISKAY: Thank you. I hope so, too.

SWAIN: Jim, I might say, just in case Briskay’s wife IS listening–her husband is one of the top men we have here in the general overhaul and maintenance work.

WAHL: Mrs. Briskay, take note.

(The radio interview continued with Mr. William D. Graves, Tom Milsop—to be posted next December 7.)

*My grandfather was born in Lithuania, and migrated to Minersville (Schuylkill County), Pennsylvania 1n 1895 when he was about two years old. His father and three uncles were coal miners. Sometime between my grandfather’s World War I Navy service (including a 1914 European cruise on the U. S. S. Delaware, and his 1920 marriage to May Isabelle Walker, he changed his name from Adam C. Borinsky to Albert Adam Charles Briskay.

ADDITIONAL READING:

RIGHTING A CIVIL WAR WRONG: A Gravestone for a Civil War Veteran

Decades: An Autobiographical Sketch

The French military in America during the American Revolution Part 1

The French military in America during the American Revolution: Part II

YOU MEAN THIS NEW ENGLANDER IS A WESTSYLVANIAN?

From the Bastille to Cinderella

www.carolyncholland.wordpress.com

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

HELP ME CELEBRATE MY DECEMBER BIRTHDAY!

Wonder how you can help me celebrate my birthday? Visit Carolyn’s Compositions daily—or more—, read as many posts as you choose to (check the index pages on the upper right hand side of the site to locate articles that most interest you), and add as many comments as you dare to on the posts. The person making the most comments on Sunday and through December 10 will receive a special gift.

ENTER THE DECEMBER COMMENT CONTEST

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS is awarding a monthly prize to the reader who makes the most comments at www.carolyncholland.wordpress.com. To enter, comment on any post. The more comments you post, the greater chance you have of winning. For further details click on http://carolyncholland.wordpress.com/monthly-prize-for-comments/ or visit the page MONTHLY PRIZE FOR COMMENTS at the top of the column to the right.

November winner: Kim Mabee

MY DECEMBER BIRTHDAY: REFLECTIONS ON FIFTY YEARS OF “BONUS LIFE”

“Appendicitis gives Councilor Lown the sign he was seeking.”

     The newspaper headline came from the Portsmouth Herald (N.H.) newspaper, September 12, 2003. I was cleaning out my files from the three month New England vacation my husband, Monte, and I had taken (OK, so it’s 2009—and the files were stuck in a box, in a corner, like so many papers are in this house!). Portsmouth (N. H.) Councilman Brad Lown was pondering on whether or not to run for another term as councilman when his appendix provided the answer—no.

     It is likely Lown’s appendix was removed at Portsmouth Regional Hospital, the same hospital where mine was removed.

     I don’t recall the fateful day when I entered that hospital with acute appendicitis. I do recall being very ill and tossing my cookies in a linen closet while on my way to the proper upchucking place.

     My appendicitis attack came on the heels of a case of the flu. By the time I entered the hospital, my appendix had been ruptured for three days. The situation was so dire that the doctors wouldn’t give a nickel for my life. I was rushed into surgery with the expectation that I wouldn’t come out of it alive. But I survived.

     It’s the month of my birth—December. A time to reflect on the fact that I’ve celebrated close to fifty more birthdays than the doctors expected me to have on that fateful day.

     I remember little of the experience. I recall sitting at a table coloring. Looking out the window and waving at my big sister, Nancy Lee, and a couple of other family members. The gut-wrenching screams I emitted when the doctors removed the cat-gut stitches from my abdomen. And my grandmother, reading with me as I recuperated at home.

     Lown was “waiting for some kind of a sign” to help him decide if he should run for another term on the Portsmouth City Council when “all of a sudden I had to have my appendix out.”

     Although it is doubtful that my bout with appendicitis provided me with a “sign (I) was seeking—” what child, at age seven, is seeking a sign?—it had a profound effect on my life.

     Physically, the surgery left me with serious scar tissue. I’ve experienced numerous low-grade physical symptoms, many causing me not to feel well. My response to being considered a “hypochondriac” was to keep quiet and “suck it up.” I always considered myself physically “weak.”

     Most likely the surgery caused my infertility. It was painful to realize that I probably would never experience bringing life into the world—a desire natural to most women. Somehow, however, I wasn’t denied that experience. My son was the result of my only pregnancy.

     There were benefits to the surgery. I learned to continue on with life in spite of feeling under the weather. I developed a stamina that allowed me to confront difficult situations without giving up. I learned—only recently—that I was not a physically weak person. After all, I must have been pretty strong to have survived a three-day-old ruptured appendix.

     But most of all, I learned to value life—not so much during my childhood, but as I grew, matured and, hopefully, gained wisdom. I learned that there is a privilege in “being,” and with that privilege comes a responsibility, a responsibility to give back. The giving is most important if it is done at the being level rather than the materialistic level.

     As I approach the fiftieth year of my bonus life, it is good to reflect on ways in which I have fulfilled that responsibility. The times I faltered, the times I took off running. Hopefully, as life continues, I will be able to continue to live life responsibly—no matter what my situation.

View photos:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/beanerywriters/4162715795/in/photostream/

 http://www.flickr.com/photos/beanerywriters/4162717463/

     This birthday is a landmark, the ending of a half-century of life that by all rights I shouldn’t have had. It’s time for me seek “some kind of a sign” to determine the meaning of and my purpose during the next phase of my life.

     This birthday is also a fourth year celebration. In August, 2005, I cheated death a second time. I had a stent placed in my lateral descending artery within days of having “the big one,” a heart attack that would have been fatal or would have left me much more physically “handicapped” than I am now. I know, because my sister Jane had the heart attack due to the same blockage when she was only forty-two years old. Another sister, my “big sis,” recently had a stroke followed by a quadruple heart bypass. I hear of their difficulties and realize how lucky I am.

     Meanwhile, I’ve told my daughter. Sandy, that I want to celebrate at the Eastwood Inn in Ligonier, where I expect to order their lamb chops. After all, a half-century of bonus years is something to celebrate!

View photo:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/beanerywriters/4163473954/in/photostream/

Revisit this site on December 10 to read a birthday poem written for me by Rustie Earle.

~~~ 

ADDITIONAL READING:

THE OLIVE GREEN DRESS

 Take Me Out to the Ball Game…So Reluctantly I Go

 WISDOM FROM A CHILD TO A GRANDPARENT

AN ADOPTION EXPERIENCE

The “Meow” Chorus: A cat symphony on a Greyhound Bus

CHILDISH IMMATURITY

Two Photographers Named Cornell

DRUNK DRIVER—OR NOT? Passing a Sobriety Test

YOU MEAN THIS NEW ENGLANDER IS A WESTSYLVANIAN?

LIZZIE BORDEN—A REENACTMENT

 KILLED STRANGELY: A NEW ENGLAND MURDER STORY