Happy birthday Vicki

My Photograph of Daddy

I am not a photographer. My teen years were spent with a photographer, and an architect, it seems, as my dad also built the darkroom in the basement of our house. I was allowed to witness the magic of his artistry under the red illumination in the room. A projector burned an image into existence and the trays of chemicals finished the process. I understood darkroom artistry. I was often part of the excitement in that little room. But I am not a photographer.

I taught photography for 15 years. Every year, a small class of would-be photographers happily walked around the school campus taking photos of each other, selfies in reflections of windows, and images they were assigned to find. They learned how to use a camera, and more importantly how to carry and care for a camera in their 9-year-old not so careful hands. They discovered how to be a photographer when everyone, these days, carries a handy camera around in their back pockets. But I am not a photographer.

I was asked to Photoshop Santas into living rooms, absentee students into yearbook photos, and braces off smiling faces. I taught 4th graders how to use the Liquify tool in Photoshop to do what models are transformed into for magazine covers. My classes used those same tools to make spiky hair, stretched out noses, and third eyes, all in jest, but in a classroom setting that demonstrated a possible future for them as a commercial artist. I know my way around the tools of a photo-retouching program. But I am not a photographer.

Robert Fisher

My dad is a photographer. For many years it was how he filled his creative soul. His images were repeated, constructed as 3D forms, and hand colored with dyes. The artist in him was never satisfied with a simple mounted image. He would explore the creative possibilities of every image he captured in his viewfinder. His 90th birthday was a retrospective of his art in a photography showroom he helped to build years ago. He is a photographer.

Rick Fisher

My brother, Rick, became a photographer in his retirement. Although he claims the creative gene skipped over him in the family, he proves himself wrong with his creative hands over and over again. He was or is a stained glass artist, a kitchen artist, a beer crafting artist, and a photography genius. The light through the camera lens he experiments with captures the motion of a tiny hummingbird with uncanny brilliance. He is a proud member of a photography club that he started. My brother is a photographer.

Vicki Windman
"Wonder Wheel with Wonder Woman"

Our very good friend, Vicki, also became a photographer in her retirement. I think she always was one. She experimented with new equipment every summer, capturing the joy in the faces of hundreds of campers without that ever being part of her job description. Now she carries a camera around her neck with a lens that seems to be much larger than she is. She walks the streets of New York and the beaches on Coney Island shooting the simple joys of life. Her captions on Instagram are as creative as the shots of the people she captures. Vicki is a photographer and a literary genius at that.

We just spent the day with Vicki and seeing her was our beacon of light in a day of parking hassles and traffic. Walking down 2nd Avenue, thinking about the milestone of her upcoming birthday and all the images she will soon be sharing from her trip to London, reminded me of how thrilled I am that she found her love of art. I am going through a similar redefinition of my life in retirement so I understand the happiness and fulfillment she finds in her new obsession. As for me, I paint, I write, I cook almost as well as my kitchen artist friend, Buber, and I often take pictures of whatever I create. I am an artist but I don't define myself as a photographer. Vicki is a photographer and she is finding her voice through her art.

Happy Birthday to our very talented friend, Vicki. I hope this will be a year full of camera opportunities, fun artistic adventures, and interesting people wherever you travel.

A Norman Rockwell Day

A Ranney Landscape by second grader, Gianna E.

Nine Eleven, two odd numbers that will always be forged together in our memories. Nine Eleven, a day that happens every September, but in 2001, in a brand new millennium, it became a date for future students to memorize, numbers to associate with terrorism.

Just as people of my mom's generation will always remember what they were doing the day JFK was assassinated, our generation can't help but remember where we were when the first plane hit the first tower. I heard what happened over my car radio. It didn't take very long for me to run into Staples for some supplies and listen to the cashier rant on about how we were being attacked, for me to question her paranoia since at that moment it appeared to the broadcaster on the radio that it was just a freak plane accident, and for me to return to the car, turn on the news and be faced with reality. "You give us 22 minutes, and we'll give you the world," says 1010 Wins. They did.

Norman was a Dean in Wagner High School during that brand new school year. He should have been safely ensconced on Staten Island, away from the targets of the planes. That day, he was asked to travel into the city for a suspension hearing. Some folks trek into the city on a daily basis and shrug at all kinds of horrors and adventures in their travels. My husband picked quite a day to make that trip. He didn't hear the news over a car radio, he saw the plane hit the tower through the windows of New Jersey Transit. He spent the rest of the day frantically finding his brother downtown and racing with Peter to get out of the city.

I began teaching at Ranney one year after the attacks. Nine Eleven worked its way into my art lessons on many levels. We were still living the terror of al-Qaeda, we were still writing that event in the history books. And Nine Eleven defined how I taught art. Second graders, my seven-year-old artists, understood what Nine Eleven meant. We learned about architecture for a Norman Rockwell inspired landscape and we talked about the construction of the buildings at Ranney School. In quite a few years following 2001, we still discussed how safe we felt in our classrooms and in our school. When Ranney changed the landscape of its campus, the memories of those tall towers falling were beginning to fade and we all got to watch a new school building rise from the ground. Our new Lower School building had thick steel pillars holding the roof of Panther Hall proudly up to the sky. My seven-year-old artists had a first-hand glimpse of how to draw a building, not just as a rectangle with a triangle up on top, but as a sturdy structure that kept them safe.

Norman Rockwell, "Freedom from Fear"

The attacks on Nine Eleven were 17 years ago. Some of my early students, now college graduates, still remember 2001 and the art lessons from their second-grade year. But students entering second grade this year were born in 2011, ten years after that fateful day. Unless their families were personally affected or they make a trip into the city to see the living memorial to the 3,000 who lost their lives, Nine Eleven will be just another set of numbers to memorize in a history lesson.

The other day, I wrote about a dear friend from our camp, Mikhl Baran. As a Holocaust survivor, he makes it his mission to tell his stories to every new generation of campers so that his legacy is not forgotten. Yet there are those in this world who question if the Holocaust ever happened. It was too long ago for some to fathom the breadth of those the horrors. Even 17 years as the anniversary of Nine Eleven is a long time. These days, we walk around, shaking our heads in confusion under the leadership of this country, but we go about our immediate business, hoping just to survive another rainy day or the threat of another hurricane.

Today, of all days, Norman and I are going into the city to visit our friend, Vicki. It is just another day in a city that never sleeps. There's always lots going on. But it is the anniversary of September 11th and this is quite a day to drive into lower Manhattan. We will not be able to forget 2001.

I have a wish for the next generation and for my future grandchildren. I hope my sweet little nieces, Lillie and Emma, will not have to live through the horrors of history in the making as we did. I hope they can dance through life and only know fear as something unimaginable in a history book.

Soup's On!

A page from my mom's handwritten recipe journal

Sunday is the first night of Rosh Hashanah. This dinner marks the beginning of the Jewish New Year and brings with it the beautiful weather of Autumn. After a string of hundred degree days, we can finally take a nice long walk. Murray and I love piles of colorful leaves and not much bothers us. Even the bugs go into hibernation. Unless we get snow before Halloween, which has happened in New Jersey, I look forward to a long and delightful walking season.

Also known as football season to the guys in my house, fall is perfect for Papa's chili and any kind of soup, my favorite bowl of all. There is nothing like delicious soup to make everything better. Soup cures it all, from the sniffles to a cut on your finger. A big, hearty bowl with a piece of crusty bread is dinner. Nothing else needed for pure culinary bliss.

In January it's so nice,
While slippin' on the slidin' ice
To sip hot chicken soup with rice
Sippin' once, sippin' twice
Sippin' chicken soup with rice

In February it will be
My snowman's anniversary
With cake for him and soup for me!
Happy once, happy twice
Happy chicken soup with rice

- Songwriters: Carole King / Maurice Sendak

I have many recipes for chicken soup and some of them will be on my Rosh Hashanah table. Most of the family will be enjoying traditional soup as both Ina Garten and my mom suggested. They would put a whole chicken in a pot of water with an onion, carrots, celery and whatever else lurks in the refrigerator. They let the huge pot bubble away on the stove all day for the most wonderful, heartwarming, homemade stock. Ina keeps containers of her stock in the freezer, just in case. Such a good cook that Ina.

Then there are also my recipes for matzah balls, both traditional and gluten-free. For the only vegan in the house, I will be having GF/V matzah balls also known as fake matzah balls in vegetable broth, no dead chicken or her eggs required. To me, it is all delicious and worthy of a holiday. Sam even wrote a song about how to roll a matzah ball. This you can find on Youtube.

We've come a long way from standing in the kitchen with our grandmothers and learning their ways. They stirred a pot without a recipe and without measuring things. My grandmother, Baboo, made tomato soup with rice for our holiday meals. My mom wrote it down in her recipe file so we would always remember it. Baboo called for a half a pot of water. I don't have the same white enamel pot as we used to have, but somehow my soup pot and my pinch of salt work just as well. The taste brings back memories of Baboo. Her recipe is one filled with tradition and love.

I donated most of my cookbooks to make room for my newest cooking obsession, my Instant Pot, perfect for a big serving of winter soup. It is so easy these days to just Google any ingredient for a recipe of your choice or you can scroll through videos on Youtube. I can now cook along with someone on my iPad, a modern adaption of how I cooked with Baboo. I will spend this afternoon in my kitchen with my iPad, a pot of soup on the stove, and a brisket in the oven. And my family will gather around the table and welcome in the old traditions of a Jewish New Year. Maybe we'll even take a walk after we eat. 

L' Shana Tovah to our friends and family!

(Here is the link to Sam's Matzah Ball song... Bagels on the Wall)

Babs, the Downward Facing Dog

Babs doing Downward Dog?

This is a true story.
I was out very early one day, years ago, walking my dogs along the shore of Sylvan Lake in Hopewell Junction. Older ladies also enjoying the quiet of the dawn were either exercising or meditating. I wasn't quite sure which. They were silent in their activity and so graceful in their pose that they barely moved at all. The leader, a woman in a billowing white dress with movements as peaceful as the breeze, glanced my way and pointed to my dogs.

"Doga," she said in a whisper.

"No, Shih Tzu," I said.

"Doga," she repeated.

"No really, Shih Tzu," I replied a bit more earnestly. 

She finally gave up her act as the quiet yoga teacher and woke the rest of the guests staying lakeside in Circle Lodge.

"No, DOGA," she repeated loudly. "Yoga for Dogs. Doga!"

"Ah," I replied with amusement. 

I forgot about that conversation until just this week when Clinton Kelly from "The Chew" posted a picture of his dog, Mary, doing a yoga pose and called it Doga! Is that really a thing? Dogs can hold a pose?

Babs and Hannah in their favorite pose, sleeping together on a pillow

I don't think any of my dogs would have enjoyed yoga. I tried a yoga class last year with my daughter. The super slow movements and the quiet voices gave me the conniptions. I had little patience to listen to the breathing of the others and I couldn't seem to hold a pose that stretched my muscles in unnatural ways. It also didn't help that I couldn't get my body off the floor when it was over. At school, John offered a meditation and sound bath session for the teachers. This I did enjoy. I guess it all depends on the instructor. John Doyle, as the drama teacher, has a beautiful voice and I could listen to him all day. But I am still wary of gyms and exercise classes. I think it simply comes down to the fact that I am not an athlete. I paint and I type. I occasionally take a walk and try not to fall. That's about it. 

My dogs enjoy walking as all dogs do. Joyce, our neighbor at home and one of our best friends from our years at camp, said that every time dogs sniff a tree to discover what other furry friends might have passed by, they are actually checking their email! Now that's funny. I like walking the dog jokes. I can relate.

Babs and Hannah were not supposed to be on the grounds of our camp, but they really did not bother anyone. They were tiny dogs, they hardly barked and I walked them very early in the morning or after dark so as not to bother any of the campers. One night, I was walking them in another area of the camp, called the Maples. In my usual impatient ways, I looked down at Hannah with her fluffy white tail and told her to hurry up and do her business. I did not realize that Hannah walked the other way and I was actually talking to a skunk. In the dark, it was the same white fluffy tail. I was standing a foot away from a skunk, telling her to do her business. That's as silly as telling a skunk to do a downward facing dog. And just as silly as telling me to transition into a headstand.

My new Shih Tzu, Murray, who checks his email on every long walk would have a good laugh over that one.

It's a New World out There for a Retiree

Here we sit on a quiet beach with all the other retirees in Ocean Grove

My friend Connie retired from Ranney along with me. She texted me on Tuesday, the night before the first day of school. We should have been getting our outfits ready and everything else packed to take with us on the first day. Instead, I spent the night before school with my family and went to bed later than usual, certainly later than a school night suggests. I did not set my phone alarm to wake me at 5:15. I did not set my other alarm at 5:20 in case the first one didn't go off. Honestly, neither alarm would have been necessary because my internal alarm clock, powered by nerves, would have gotten me up at four in the morning.

A beautiful day for lunch on the beach

My friend Connie and I texted each other from the beach on the first day of school. She enjoyed breakfast on the boardwalk with her husband. I enjoyed lunch on the beach with my husband. We both said that it was the most relaxing first day of school in years. I hope our husbands remember why they married us and still enjoy our company. They are going to be tired of staring at our faces this year.

We are both still receiving emails from school about new procedures and meetings to learn about new procedures. This all confirms our suspicion that we were both ready to stop teaching. New procedures were never welcome at the beginning of a new school year, especially for teachers tired of learning new procedures. On this, Connie and I agree.

Back in the 1980's, I was considered a tech guru among my friends. I got a kick out of new machines and loved to figure out which plugs went where. Ask any of my friends from back in the day. I was the one they all called to hook up their VCR. I had an Apple computer before there was a world wide web. I taught myself the software on my early, easy-to-use Apple when Zach was just a baby. I liked figuring stuff out.

I'm older now with less mental clarity, but I still know my way around a computer. I can retouch a photo on Photoshop like a pro. Anyone want to look a few pounds lighter in a photo? Call me. But somewhere through the years, hooking up machines stopped being user-friendly. As Apple reinvented everything in a simple, sleek all-white showroom, banning all messy wires, I found it harder to get things to work. I prefer using a cord. I hate Bluetooth technology and taxing my ancient brain to remember things like WiFi passwords. How about all those other passwords? I have books filled with them, passwords that I cross out and then scribble in new versions whenever a website demands I come up with a new one. Create a new password, it would say, but make sure it includes a capital, a lower case letter, a number, a special symbol, and a code they send you on another device, that for the life of you, you can't find. Now you have to locate your cell phone by calling it from the house phone, that is if you still have a landline. And that only works if you did not silence the thing the last time you went to the movies. After all that, you usually get distracted and really can't remember the website you were trying to register for or the password you dreamed up this time. Oh, and for heaven's sakes, they say to never use your pet's name. I happen to like 1234. Great password and easy to remember. Don't use that one either.

My niece, Erin, just had her identity stolen on the web along with thousands of dollars from her checking account. All it takes is some creepy guy who knows his way around the cloud and you are robbed blind. Thank goodness, my niece is tech-savvy and can even code her own cloud-based account. She was able to put her life back in order, more secure than ever before. Not only is it getting harder to figure things out, I feel like we are all entering unchartered territory. On this, the second day of classes, I miss school. School was a safe haven. School had Tyler, a tech guru who looked out for us and made it easy for us to do our jobs. Retirement threw Connie and me into a world without a support team, a place where the meaning of security changes by the minute. I didn't realize how much I appreciated Tyler.

An Instagram message just popped up on my phone from someone I don't know, with the handle of John_cool. He says I have a beautiful smile. Ugh!!!! Creepy!!! Who is that? Not cool. Not cool at all. Give me a not-so-smart TV with a VCR so I don't have to try to figure out Netflix, and maybe a cute pink princess phone with a curly cord that never gets lost because it doesn't come off the wall. I think I'll rewind "Back to the Future" and go pop some popcorn in my cast iron skillet.

Mikhl Baran

My portrait of Mikhl Baran for his 90th birthday (painted 6 years ago)

Yesterday, I wrote about wearing white as a summer color. It is not just for doctors, tennis players or brides. Anyone with any style might choose to wear white between the holidays of Memorial Day and Labor Day. For our family, choosing white also meant the beginning of Camp and the many days we spent shopping for white shorts for the kids. It was an important item to pack and sometimes very hard to find.

We began working at Camp KR in 1993, where white clothing was much more than just a metaphor for proper summer etiquette. On a hot Friday night, a camp director might look like the Good Humor Man in his long white pants and white shirt, but the rest of us would gather around the flagpole in white T's and white shorts to listen to the words of Mikhl Baran. Girl's side often sang and danced in cute white summer dresses, and Boys' side usually wore the same stained white undershirts for eight weeks in a row. But everyone showed their respect for a night of Shtiller by wearing white.

Shtiller, Yiddish for "quiet," is a tradition we held at our camp to welcome Shabbos every Friday evening. Mikhl Baran and his wife of over 70 years, Millie, are survivors of the Holocaust. It continues to be his mission to tell his stories to each new generation so that the legacy of their lives will always be remembered. Campers love to greet Mikhl and not just on a Friday night. They would be so excited to see him on the grounds of Sylvan Lake and would always show him the reverence and respect not many elders get from kids these days.

KR is not a place, although the grounds where we met each summer are beautiful. Our Camp is defined by the people who came together for each other as adults and as children. The treasured friends we made from all over the world touched our lives and deeply changed us as people. Joel and Vicki along with Mikhl were just a few of the special ones and they became our friends for life. "Mikhl is the wisest man I ever had the honor of meeting," said my daughter, Katie. In his presence, she only wanted to sit and listen. She would not say a word. She would just sit quietly and absorb his mastery of Yiddish stories and the history of Jewish culture. Zach called Mikhl during a school year when he needed help with a Holocaust project for college. The stories were not only inspirational to his college essay but to him personally, as my son is now a teacher of history and English. Zach loves to relate that Mikhl (Yiddish for Michael) learned how to speak English by listening to the Brooklyn Dodger games!

Mikhl and Millie with Whoppie Goldberg when she came to visit camp this summer

Many campers learned sportsmanship and fair play from camp. Many learned the art of lanyard or how to tie-dye a T. And others found their performing voices on the stage of the Social Hall. Our son, Sam, sang with Mikhl's daughter, Ruth, and learned to love Jewish music from the very best. Sam now teaches Jewish songs to his students with Ruth's guiding voice filling his heart every day.

Norman and I did not raise our children with a strong sense of religion. Yes, they know they are Jewish. The matzoh ball soup I will serve Sunday night will remind them of that. But Camp Kinder Ring, a Workman's Circle Camp that began back in 1927, immersed many generations of children into the rich world of the Jewish culture and the core of those childhood lessons came from a man named Mikhl. As I embark on a new career of painting dogs and other assorted sundries, I have to look back on my painting of our beloved friend and be reminded of how honored I was to be asked to paint his portrait.

What's on your list?

The beginning of a new school year for Sam

I like lists. I always have. Writing out a list helps me feel as if I am in control of my destiny, at least for the day. The feeling I have crossing something off my list pumps up my sense of accomplishment and self worth like no other. Lists help me remember stuff and they help me feel important. I have important things to do in this life.

Today Sam woke early, packed up some instruments, and made himself a salad to bring for lunch. He is ready to teach a new year of classes with bright new ideas for songs, activities, and concerts. His list for his year is very long. With my son's amazing ability to remember things, his list is most likely a mental thing that works better and is probably more organized than all the post-it note reminders stuck to all the surfaces in my kitchen. Today, I should have gotten up at a crazy hour, dressed for teaching art and made myself a salad to bring for lunch. I should have been off to teach a new year of classes with bright new ideas for projects, activities, and exhibits. I would have carried a new planner in my bag because I could never remember things like my son can.

Lists for school were very different kinds of lists than the ones I write at home, but just as helpful to my sanity. A teacher is expected to teach her classes and do all the other things that always come up. My lists helped me remember forms that had to be handed in, meetings with the principal or the art department, dates of art exhibits, that sort of thing. And when life got a bit hectic, listing my upcoming classes kept me grounded and gave me the confidence that I could handle another week of a career that was getting the better of my sanity.

Now that Labor Day is over and everyone put away their white clothes, today officially marks the first day of my retired life. I have been waiting for this day with trepidation since the last day of the last school year. Instead of getting up early to pack a bag with lunch and a brand new planner, I took my time this morning. I am off to the bank for new checks, to the car dealership to update my billing contract, and to Staples for business cards and flyers. I even have a list of appointments to make now that I have days during the week to see the doctors who wear white beyond Labor Day and who help me feel well enough to complete a list.

"Your teeth are so yellow, I can't believe it's not butter!"

Norman wears white all year. Tennis players, like doctors, have their own set of rules. I don't have much white to pack away. I wore cream and not white at my own wedding, not because it was the winter, but because I thought a white dress would make my teeth look yellow. Today, I am smiling with my 'winter white' teeth. Labor Day announced the end of summer break and I find that crazy because it feels just as hot and as lazy as a day in August. I think I'll put on a pair of winter white shorts and go make a list.