Kendal View March - April 2023

All Inside Photos, Art Brady

Photo of Statue of Robert Burns

by Llyn Clague

KENDAL VIEW STAFF

Editor Pat Taylor

Managing Editor Llyn Clague

Editorial Staff

Doris Eder, Muriel Fox, Hubert B. Herring, Edith Litt, Norman Sissman

Photography Editors Arthur Brady, Caroline Persell, Richard Schneeman

Advertising

Peter McCuen, Director; Dianne Morris, Representative; Carolyn Klinger, Coordinator

Why I Came to America

Ursula Hahn

My earliest, vague memory of America is a Tom Mix film seen in Solingen (British occupation zone in Germany) about 1947 or ’48 .

In 1949, my family moved to Leonberg, a small town west of Stuttgart, founded in 1248, in the American occupation zone . This is where my “Americanization” began .

Without homegrown (i .e ., German) cultural offerings so soon after the war, our lives were shaped by a new public library stocked with books in English and in German translation, and American periodicals . We also got to see documentaries about the good life in America and so became acquainted with Mickey Mouse and other icons of American popular culture . (Many years later, I became aware that the documentaries might have showed a Black jazz musician but never mentioned segregation in any form, or urban and rural poverty .) In addition, the U . S . State Department sponsored tours by musicians, dancers and actors to ensure that we recognized America as a land of culture . In large cities, complete cultural centers called “Amerika-Häuser” were established .

That same year, 1949, I passed the examination to enter “high school” (fifth grade) and started English as the first foreign language, my favorite subject. In sixth grade, we avidly read German dime novels describing life in the Wild West . In a later grade, we studied perspective in art class and had to design a house . For assistance, I availed myself of Better Homes and Gardens and copied a very desirable ranch-style home complete with carport . Unfortunately, perspective was nowhere to be seen in my design, and I received a poor grade. (On the other hand, flat ranch-style houses were not built in Germany [except much earlier by Bauhaus architects], and my teacher probably recognized that the design had been copied .)

In 1954, my girlfriend spent six months with relatives in Marin County and returned with gifts of blue jeans, a leather belt painted with an American-Indian design, conch shell earrings, and slides of national parks she visited during her stay . I was in heaven!

The 7th U . S . Army, headquartered in Stuttgart, had a symphony orchestra . When it gave concerts in Leonberg, I was chosen to welcome the musicians and present a bouquet of flowers. It was disappointing afterward to find the latter lying on the ground outside, but this was the first time that I had heard live symphonic music.

While attending language school, I joined the German-American Metropolitan Club in Stuttgart, which afforded opportunities to speak English with American civilians and members of the military . Club members were invited by the USO ladies for dancing to live jazz music every Saturday night, and this is where I learned to dance .

My mother made life easy for my brother and me as she did everything for us: cooking, cleaning, sewing all my and some of my brother’s clothes; we took it all for granted and had no responsibilities . Through my work and social contact with Americans, I came to realize that racial segregation was ever present . Maybe to atone for my country’s past, I sometimes invited white and Black soldiers of my acquaintance to our home, not sensing my parents’ potential feelings of discomfort and that this practice was possibly considered unacceptable by our neighbors .

By 1960/61, life at home was often tense, and I realized it was time to strike out on my own, but I couldn’t imagine moving to another city, and the U.S. began to figure ever larger in my imagination . To emigrate was a big step into the unknown and took courage, but I was determined to make it work . I don’t recall the scene when I told my parents of my intention to leave, but it must have been pain- and tearful . In the meantime, a colleague had moved to New York City and worked at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where I knew a physician for whose family I had found a house when he served in the Medical Corps in Stuttgart .

In short order, I obtained my green card and landed at Idlewild on October 27, 1962, with all my possessions in an overseas trunk and big crate . A week later, I started work at Memorial Hospital and hardly ever looked back .

How I Became a Demographer

Alice Clague

It was my first day in college. I went to talk to my advisor. He asked me if I was musical and I said NO . Then he said, “You will never be a mathematician . ”

Somewhere his discouragement stuck in my brain . Several years later, after at least six semesters of math, I was in an analysis class where I was asked to prove that 1+1=2. “Look,” I said, holding up two fingers — but I was unable to work though the methodology required for the proof . That was the end of me being a math major .

During my sophomore year my parents moved to Japan . I was heartbroken that they were there and I was stuck in central Pennsylvania (i .e ., Penn State University) . My good news was that they met a political science professor who told them of a junior year abroad program at Kokusai Christokyu Daigaku (International Christian University, or ICU), a school just outside of Tokyo . I learned that I could spend a year at this wonderful school with an excellent language program as well as multilingual professors in social sciences, humanities and math . I took a lot of Japanese and several art history and sociology courses . It was a

wonderful year, and the entire experience helped me open my mind into ideas that I had not previously focused on .

Back to Penn State, however . In order to graduate on time, I switched my major to sociology . I graduated in 1963 with 19 credits of math and about the same number in sociology — which turned out to be an unexpectedly felicitous combination . Then I went job hunting in Washington, D .C .

First my papers were sent off to agencies that worked on topics where my math background would be welcomed . But I was not interested in what they were doing (e .g ., in wind tunnels) . So I contacted the Labor Dept , the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and even the CIA When someone suggested that I contact other offices in Health Education and Welfare, I went to the Public Health Service . A lovely woman in Human Resources greeted me with “Where have you been? We’ve been combing the country for people with your background . ”

Previously, people interviewing me said, “Oh, you’re a mathematician,” and I would reply, “No, a sociologist .” I had worked for a summer at the Bureau of the Census and vowed never to be a statistician . But when, at the National Center for Health Statistics, I spoke with Dr . Anders Lunde, a sociologist and demographer who led the Division of Vital Statistics and emphasized the research work undertaken by his Department, I ignored the “Statistics” in the title of NCHS .

In 1961, President John Kennedy had recruited Forrest Linder from the United Nations Statistical Office to come to Washington to form NCHS. It would consist of the Division of Vital Statistics, Health Examination Survey and the Health Interview Survey . In addition, it had an analytic branch and a data processing unit . After a time, it became clear that it was very difficult to recruit demographers and biostatisticians. So NCHS developed a training program for demographers and biostatisticians .

Twenty of us were hired into this program for a year . It consisted of three tours in substantive branches . Mine were fertility, health interview statistics and mortality statistics . Each week we spent a day participating in reviews of certain research . We also spent time with sections that performed data processing — a clever addition that led us to be much more empathetic to those performing those mind-numbing functions .

In 1966, Llyn and I moved to New York and eventually to Geneva . Upon our return I tried to work on a graduate degree and one fine day got a call from a man who would subsequently be my boss at the UN . Would I like to become the editor of the United Nations Demographic Yearbook? So for the subsequent 20 odd years I happily worked with other demographers in this role and in ways to help countries develop their capabilities in demographic and social statistics . I was sometimes heard to say that our role was to “make the world safe for Census Takers . ”

Robert Fulton

Peter R. Limburg

Robert Fulton, for whom Kendal’s Building #3 is named, was a man of many parts: artist, scientist, self-taught engineer, showman, social climber, and visionary . Despite popular myth, he was not the inventor of the steamboat . However, by combining the work of earlier thinkers and tinkerers, he created the first commercially successful steamboat, changing history .

Fulton was born on November 14, 1765, in Little Britain, Pennsylvania, to Irish Protestant immigrants . His father, a tailor who turned to farming, was unsuccessful; the family sank into poverty . When Robert was 6, his father died, and his widowed mother paid for his elementary education, which ended at about fourth grade .

Fulton probably spent time in the workshops of gunsmiths and other craftsmen, learning by observation . At 15, he was apprenticed to a silversmith in Philadelphia . In his late teens, he freed himself financially by paying off his indentures and set up as a painter of miniatures. At 19, a lung ailment sent him to the Warm Springs in Bath, Virginia, where he picked up the manners of the gentry, a class to which he aspired . Back in Philadelphia, Fulton realized he needed more training as an artist . Exploiting the charm he relied on all his life, he obtained a letter of introduction to Benjamin West, the expatriate American artist who had become official painter to King George III.

Arriving in England in 1787, Fulton so charmed the Wests that they treated him like a member of the family . West regularly critiqued Fulton’s work, offering his protégé useful contacts Still, life in London was hard for Fulton, who seems to have supported himself by borrowing money, which he raised to a science . By 1789 he was able to submit two paintings to the Royal Academy Schools .

After spending three months in France studying French masters, Fulton experienced a modicum of success: two pictures were hung at the Royal Academy and four at the Society of Artists . He found a patron in Lord William Courtenay, whose portrait he painted and through whom he met other noble patrons .

One of these was Lord Stanhope, the prime mover of Britain’s canal boom . Through him, Fulton became interested in canal projects, his mind turning from painting to engineering . In 1793 he proposed to the Duke of Bridgewater a system of small canals to serve the remotest districts of England . He patented a system for raising canal boats by inclined planes . (Someone else had already patented such a system, but Fulton claimed his was such an improvement that it was a new invention .) Another proposal lifted the boat vertically in a sort of giant bathtub .

A statue of Robert Fulton in the Brooklyn Museum.

In 1794 Fulton moved to Manchester . There he shared a boarding house with the pioneering chemist John Dalton, the future social reformer Robert Owen, and the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, thus being exposed simultaneously to science, philosophy, and literature . While seeking portrait commissions, he patented a number of other inventions .

In 1793 he had begun thinking about steamboats, and he experimented on models utilizing different means of propulsion . In 1797, carrying a letter of introduction from Benjamin West to Joel Barlow, Fulton went to France . Barlow, who would become Fulton’s premier patron, had gone to France in 1789 to sell land in Ohio to nervous French aristocrats . This scheme failed, but Barlow escaped scandal, remaining in France, and making a fortune running the British naval blockade of French ports .

Wealthy, brilliant, and cultivated, Fulton and his wife, Ruth, were well connected with French politicians and intellectuals . Judging by Barlow’s letters, they lived happily as a ménage à trois for seven years . Biographers disagree about the sexual relationships among this “happy trinity,” but agree that all three loved one another deeply The Barlows called Fulton “Toot” because of his fascination with steam power .

Barlow tutored the younger man in French, German, and Italian literature and philosophy . Together they also studied physics, chemistry and mathematics .

In 1799 Fulton built a panorama in Paris, a 46-foot-wide circular building whose walls he covered with dramatic paintings. Instantly popular, it brought in a nice profit.

In December 1797, Fulton proposed a startling and significant innovation to the French Directory: a submarine that could destroy the British navy . His design used principles developed in 1775 by the American inventor David Bushnell, whose vessel, the American Turtle, proved underwater navigation to be possible .

Fulton’s proposed submarine’s purpose was to deliver bombs, or mines, to blow up ships . It was larger than Bushnell’s Turtle and horizontal, and was concealed by a wooden hull to make it look like a “common, dull sailboat .” Fulton was convinced that, once the mighty British navy was destroyed, all other maritime powers would abandon theirs, and that free maritime trade would bring universal peace and prosperity Apparently, he did not stop to consider that merchant vessels could be destroyed as easily as warships . The French rejected his proposal as “atrocious . ”

In 1800 a Marine minister advanced Fulton 10,000 francs (worth several million dollars today) to build a submarine . Fulton came up with a hollow cylinder of brass 1 inch thick, 21 feet long, and 6 feet in diameter . It housed the operator and two sailors to crank the propeller . Fulton demonstrated the boat on the Seine in Paris, in front of cheering crowds .

In a sea trial against the British fleet, Fulton’s submarine sailed adequately in good weather; submerged, however, it couldn’t make headway against the tide . By the time the tide turned, six and a half hours later, the British ships had disappeared .

Despite this fiasco, Fulton claimed success, for he had shown that his vessel could remain underwater for an extended period .

Fulton’s luck now turned: Britain and France signed a peace treaty, obviating any need for the submarine . But Fulton had other strings to his bow . In 1801 he met the retired Chancellor of the State of New York, Robert R . Livingston, who himself had steamboat ambitions . This wealthy, politically influential man entered into partnership with the inventor. Livingston would provide the money and Fulton the ideas . Still, the steamboat was slow to materialize .

Fulton carefully studied the plans and models of his predecessors . In 1802 he experimented with a clockwork-driven model on a stream at a French health resort, where he had gone with Ruth Barlow. He tried various methods of propulsion — a chain of paddles, a screw propeller, and paddle wheels . By 1804 his steamboat was ready to demonstrate on the Seine, but the night before the demonstration, vandals sank it . Undeterred, Fulton raised the boat and built a new hull . In front of a cheering crowd, he went up and down the river several times, towing two boats behind him, and turning with ease It was not quite fast enough to satisfy Livingston, however .

Steamboat plans were laid aside when Fulton was summoned to London . The shaky peace was broken, and Napoleon was assembling a huge fleet of invasion barges at Boulogne. Suddenly a submarine and torpedoes became desirable . A board of British savants, headed by the botanist Sir Joseph Banks, studied Fulton’s proposal . They concluded that the submarine was probably ineffective, but the mines, delivered by rowboats, showed promise . Prime Minister William Pitt invited the American to breakfast, on which occasion Fulton negotiated terms whereby he would receive a salary of £200 a month plus £7,000 for expenses . If the government decided to suppress his invention, Fulton would receive a kill fee of £40,000 .

An armada of mines was hastily built, and three attempts were made to sink some of the French invasion fleet. All miscarried. Fulton then blew up a captured Danish brig in an English harbor . Government interest was rekindled . At this point, news came of Admiral Horatio Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar, which destroyed the French and Spanish fleets. Since Fulton had not sunk any enemy ships, the British were reluctant to pay him . Months of arbitration ensued before the matter was settled in fall 1806, when Fulton left for the United States to take up work on the steamboat . (See Kendal View, Nov .-Dec . 2022 .)

The steamboat’s success led to more river steamers, larger, more powerful, and more elegant, as well as steam-powered ferries . By 1812 Fulton boasted 12 steamboats plying the waters of the Hudson, as well as one that ran between New Orleans and Natchez, having come down the Ohio River to the Mississippi over fearsome rapids — even surviving the great earthquake of 1811 .

However, success also bred competition and lawsuits . The monopoly and patents were challenged repeatedly . In 1811 a Hudson River sailboat captain built two steamboats, the Hope and the Perseverence [sic], for the New York-Albany run. He challenged the North

River to a race . The North River fell behind at the start, strove to catch up, and tried to pass its rival and instead collided with it. Thus ended the world’s first steamboat race.

The outbreak of the War of 1812 roused Fulton’s patriotic fervor. He designed a huge floating fortress, which he called the Demologos, to defend New York Harbor . Double-hulled, its wooden sides were five feet thick, proof against any cannon. Its armament included two giant cannons and a steam hose to sweep enemy decks . It was still incomplete when Fulton died .

In 1813 Fulton suffered a double loss: his partner and patron, Robert Livingston, died of a stroke . On the same day that Fulton learned this, news arrived that Joel Barlow had died on Christmas Day, 1812, while accompanying Napoleon’s army on its retreat from Moscow (He had been sent by President Madison on a diplomatic mission .)

Fulton himself died in 1815 . On a frigid February morning he and his attorney, returning from a lengthy hearing in Trenton, N . J ., stopped to inspect his new boatyard in Jersey City . While there, the Hudson froze over, preventing the ferries from reaching the Jersey shore . The men decided to walk over the ice . The corpulent attorney fell through, and Fulton pulled him up . Already suffering from a bad cold, Fulton became thoroughly soaked and chilled . He apparently developed pneumonia and, within a few weeks, he was dead .

Who Was Rabbie Burns?

Nick Robinson

Scotland’s unique artist – poet, nature lover, satirist, ethnomusicologist – Robert Burns was born in Ayshire in 1759 and died at age 37 in Dumfries . He never left his native land . The eldest of seven children, he spent his youth laboring on hardscrabble farms, though his father valued education and hired tutors to teach his children the classics and penmanship . He wrote his first poem at age fourteen. His complete works have always been in print.

Today, local Burns Clubs are scattered across the world, and “Auld Lang Syne” is sung everywhere on New Year’s Eve . His works embrace a wide range of themes, such as nature, love (both passionate and platonic), human foibles, and aging, as well as the politics, cuisine, drink, and folk tales of Scotland . A poem, “The Slave’s Lament,” excoriated the slave trade, and he risked charges of treason with his “Ode to General George Washington’s Birthday .” He satirized the pompous and celebrated the integrity of the poor .

Robert Burns was greatly admired by such American writers as Maya Angelou, the naturalist John Muir, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, in addition to a statesman like Abraham Lincoln and modern-day folk singer Bob Dylan . Two American authors found titles for their most famous books in Robert Burns: J .D . Salinger in “Catcher in the Rye” and John Steinbeck in “Of Mice and Men .” A local writer, one Washington Irving, was also a fan of Rabbie Burns .

On the Bonny Banks of the Hudson

Pat Taylor

Barely had the strains of “Auld Lang Syne” faded when Kendal was ready for another party . Fortunately, resident Nick Robinson was ready with an idea: a celebration on January 25 of the birthday of Robert Burns . As shown below in photos taken by Arthur Brady, it was a special evening for Scots and others . Photo #1 depicts our host, Nick, in his kilt . Music (#2) was provided by Shelley Robinson (harp), Linda Mahoney (piano), Bert Pepper (violin), and Donn Williams (mandolin) . Poems were read by several residents, including Norman Sissman (#3) . And beforehand, there were dinner parties (#4) in the FDR, complete with a vegan version of haggis .

The Music Committee Makes Us Unique

Muriel Fox

“We’re so lucky to be living here!” I hear that comment often during Kendal concert intermissions . I reply with this comment: “We’re like nobility in the old days, with great musicians coming to play for us in our home . ”

Thanks to the KoH Music Committee, we enjoy an average of two world-class concerts in our Gathering Room every month . They vary from classic chamber music featuring trios, quartets, and quintets to pianists, jazz ensembles, Broadway cabaret, and steel drum bands .

While some musicians return year after year, the committee seeks to host new groups each season, such as the New Camerata Opera and the New York String Quartet, who were introduced in February and March of 2023 .

Most programs are offered on Sundays at 3 p .m . But occasionally the schedule might vary to meet the needs of an especially desirable performer or group . Concerts are generally followed by a tasty reception arranged by Luis and Jorge This gives our community an hour of companionship with the musicians .

Bert Pepper and Fran Kelly have served on the committee for many years; they were co-chairs until Bert’s “retirement” in 2020 . Fran is now the chair of this hard-working committee, which meets monthly to select performers . Nowadays it’s easy to “audition” musicians because most of them have websites and can be heard on YouTube .

How can KoH afford these top-drawer concerts? Donations from grateful residents . KoH resident Peter Cohn underwrote early programs . Then, in his 2010 bequest, he left a generous donation to the Residents Association for “concerts, cultural courses and activities, and social gatherings and receptions .”

In addition, other residents have donated funds to underwrite concerts that especially interest them . And some resident-sponsored concerts have served as memorials to deceased relatives .

You are welcome to contact Fran or Bert if you’d like to underwrite a concert or if you have an idea for future performers . For instance, Gene DuBow suggested a delightful program of Mountain Music in 2022 that was much appreciated by the audience And Peter McCuen put us in touch with David Shenton, whose Empire Trio has performed twice and will return on May 7 for another program of popular music .

A Jan. 29 concert featuring Thomas Mesa, cello, and Ilya Yakushev, piano.

Musicians say they love playing for KoH audiences, who are “warm, knowledgeable, sophisticated and welcoming .” (Bert estimates that 75% of us had some form of music education when we were children .) Also, our 100-year-old Steinway piano attracts special compliments . It was bequeathed by Clara Loomanitz and is meticulously maintained by the Music Committee .

Since its inception in 2007, our Music Committee has presented more than 260 concerts featuring over 1,000 musicians. The first committee chair was Henry Marasse. You may not know this, but Henry enabled our first New Year’s Eve show in 2010 with committee money for an accompanist, before donations could make the programs self-funding .

Committee members include Art Brady, Sheila Darnborough, Gene DuBow, Naomi Gross, Ed Hanin, Linda Mahoney, Michael Rapaport, Uriel Schlair, Janet Schloat, Bob Singleton, and Jody Spellun . They have diverse tastes and experiences . For instance, the newest member, Naomi Gross, is a cantor .

In 2019, the committee created an annual scholarship given to a Sleepy Hollow High School senior planning to pursue a career in music . To date, eight students have shared over $3,000 in awards .

Bert Pepper points out another KoH exclusive: We’re the only CCRC with its own harpsichord . A group of musical residents rehearse every Thursday evening with chamber music they dub “MOB,” or “Music on the Balcony .” This instrument (plus a personal contact by Janet Schloat) enabled us to attract world-renowned harpsichordist Anthony Newman, who has concertized several times in our Gathering Room .

Committees run by and for our residents are a unique phenomenon at Kendal on Hudson . The Music Committee is a proud example of neighbors joining with neighbors for a shared communal experience .

Magical, Wonderful, Awful, Different –India… Late Sixties

Edith Litt

My husband, Arthur, and I had long wanted to visit our friends in India . In the middle of November one year in the late sixties, we both realized that we could take three weeks off, starting in mid-December . We had passports, rushed the necessary shots and visas and airline tickets, and off we went .

We had been reading for years about India — Hinduism, the Raj, Gandhi, the caste system, the art, the history, current events, everything — but we had no plans or reservations beyond our first stop, no time to make contacts, reservations, even think about what we’d do when we got there .

It was a 23-hour trip, tourist class from JFK to Hamburg, changed planes to Delhi, and changed planes to Pune, a “hill town” of a few million people southeast of Mumbai . We were met at the airport at seven in the morning by Philly Karani, our friend, and his parents and sister Zareen, all overflowing with hospitality. They came in two cars, one for each of us . Going from the airport to their compound, exhausted and exhilarated, I was aware that the early-morning air was different, smelling of dust perfumed with spices . The roads were curbless, overflowing with rickshaws, bullock carts, bicycles, elephants, cows, people. The few cars, including ours, were all Ambassadors, the Indian car . The women wore brightly colored saris with bare midriffs but no leg showing, the men, a variety of clothing from loincloths to jeans, but no suits . We were not in the West . Everything was different . It was magical, like Oz . (Two of Llyn Clague’s poems about India, one more auditory, the other more visual, capture the excitement . See p . 15 .)

When we got to the Karani home, they gave us a full English breakfast, instructions, and put us to bed in a large, lovely ground-floor room. The instructions included the following: keep your belongings in your luggage, and keep your luggage locked whenever you leave the room. If so much as a pin drops on the floor, return it to the locked luggage. Do not drink water from the tap, do not brush your teeth with water from the tap . The only potable water is in the refrigerator, having been boiled and strained and purified several times.

The Karani establishment was a compound surrounded by a brick wall . The family lived in the main house — General Karani and his wife, Philly and his wife, Yasmin and their two children, and Philly’s divorced sister Zareen and her son — all lived in four bedrooms on the second floor. At the back of the compound were one- or two-room homes for the servants and their families .

The Karanis were Zoroastrians, Parsis, a group that migrated from Persia/Iran in the sixth to eighth centuries . They considered themselves “the Jews of India” because, despite their meager numbers, they were prominent in every aspect of India’s government, economy, and cultural life .

Zareen, a psychologist trained in the U . S ., had returned to Pune to set up a practice in one of the small houses on the property . The Zoroastrian ceremony to bless her practice had been arranged for the evening of our arrival I don’t remember much of it, being disoriented from the flight and the time change (13.5 hours). But I remember a small fire on the floor, centerpiece of the ceremony, and much chanting . The priest conducting the ceremony waved his hands over the fire many times.

We went to bed that night knowing that we were in a different world .

General Karani, Philly’s father, was the retired Surgeon-General of the Indian Army . Philly, also a doctor/surgeon, invited us to see his office/surgery. As we walked toward the surgery on a downtown street, a beggar propped against a building called out to us . She was hideously deformed with thick flaps of skin covering her features. Philly told us that she had elephantiasis (this was before there was a cure) and that he had offered to remove the flaps free of charge but that she had refused the surgery — it would have destroyed her livelihood. She was a Dalit (Untouchable), born to beg . If she was a successful beggar, her next life would be better . If she was not good at begging (even if successful in some other career), she might be reborn as some lowly animal or bug . Deformed beggars were the most successful . At tourist locations throughout the trip, we saw mutilated beggars .

We had been prepared for the poverty, the beggars, the caste system and understood that NOTHING that we could do could change it . (Even Gandhi couldn’t eradicate it, and he tried hard .) But the impact was so strong that I remember this poor lady far more vividly than the many famous monuments we saw .

December 25th arrived, and we joined the Karani Christmas party . There was a wonderful variety of little kids — not only Zoroastrian, but Hindu, Jain, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, and probably others . Santa Claus (aka Philly) arrived, red-coated and white bearded, pillowstomached, precisely as he ought to look, and distributed presents and sweets to the assembled little ones I stepped onto the driveway to take a picture of this marvelously diverse group of youngsters and there, at the far end of the driveway, were the servants’ children, somberly watching the festivities . The Dalits . Not invited to the party .

Being Parsis, the Karanis were not in the caste system, nor did they believe in it . The staff, probably all Dalits, lived on their property . But it never occurred to the Karanis to invite the little Dalit kids . Only the rich upper-caste kids . But what I remember most about the party was those little kids at the end of the driveway . I hurt for them .

General Karani arranged the rest of the trip for us . Our next stop was Ajanta and Ellora, the famous caves of India (cf E .M . Forster’s A Passage to India) . After dinner, the Karanis dropped us off with our luggage at a Bollywood film (not in English, but dreadful in any language). When the film was over, across the street was an overnight bus for Maharashtra. We were almost the only passengers, and normally could have stretched out and slept across the seats . But between each seat was an immovable, ornamental metal armrest . And the seats were narrow . So we sat up all night and arrived at our hotel stiff and achy just in time to drop off our luggage and take the tourist bus to the caves .

The hotel was AWFUL!! Our room had filthy grayish sheets. The bathroom floor was flooded, disgusting. No toilet, just a messy hole in the floor. (The room cost $3.50 a night.) I told Arthur that I wasn’t going to touch anything there and would stand up all night rather than lie down on the bed . I was panic-stricken . On the way to the caves we picked up other tourists at the most beautiful hotel I thought I had ever seen in my life — modern, even elegant, certainly clean .

The caves? I remember little of them, though they were most impressive . I was exhausted and worried about the coming night . On the return trip, I jumped off the bus at that gorgeous hotel while Arthur collected our luggage from the dump . We didn’t know if we could get a room, but figured we’d bribe them to let us sit in their lobby chairs all night if necessary. We did get a room, a wonderful clean room with a toilet, a shower, a real bed .

We went to Khajuraho, where there is a group of Hindu temples unlike anything that could exist in the U . S . (It’s a World Heritage Site .) Astonishing to us Americans is their exuberant approach to and appreciation of sex . Extraordinarily rounded women and well-equipped men (porno stars would be jealous) engaged in athletic sex — yet the detailed statues are not pornographic . And the visitors were not smirking or embarrassed . Gods and goddesses are often exaggerations of normal people — think Zeus and Hera and their philandering. Sure, the Hindu gods had sex — and thoroughly enjoyed it.

We had a few hours to kill in Khajuraho and decided to take a walk . As a city planner, I love to just walk in cities, see how people live, get away from the “sights ” L eaving our hotel, there was a lineup of Indian cabs, i.e., rickshaws. For a few dollars, we could have one all day — but we wanted to walk . Unheard of . But we did . And maybe half a mile from our hotel was a bridge over the railroad station . We stood there for hours, watching . Families camped out on the train platforms . A crippled man (no, not “handicapped,“ severely crippled) crossing the actual tracks His legs were useless, skinny, twisted; he “walked” on his hands, his butt high in the air . Only one train came, severely overcrowded, but the families on the platform piled in .

We also took a walk In Madras, now Chennai . Walking down a path in a small park I spotted some rupees on the ground and picked them up . There was nobody near us, nobody had just passed us . I showed them to Arthur, hidden in my hand . Immediately, a crowd of men gathered, shouting it’s mine, it’s mine, no it’s mine . Arthur asked them how much money it was — all kinds of wild guesses. Gradually, the crowd thinned to a group of about half a dozen young men . When Arthur suggested we go to the police station to let them sort it out, the last of them disappeared . There were 35 rupees in my hand, worth a few pennies in America . We carried them with us until we reached Delhi and gave them to our friends to give to charity . Somehow it seemed wrong to spend them . They might have bought some poor soul a meal .

A rupee was worth only a fraction of a penny, but we had to think of its purchasing power as $1 . We had been told always to bargain, except in government-run shops . A woman was selling bananas on the street in Madras (not Chennai) . Arthur was hungry . She wanted 10 rupees and Arthur started bargaining, partly to hone his deficient skills. I finally had to remind him that he was getting worked up over a penny .

It was a strange world . Many times, in the cities or larger villages, we’d just stand on a corner, watching the incredible sights (and listening to the horns blaring) It was strange, awful, beautiful .

Two India Poems

Llyn Clague

Prologue

Beep! Beep-beep! Bee-bee-beeeeeep!

Pizzicata tinkle of a bicycle bell, 2-tone blare of a large car, 4-tone 5-step DOWN-down-down-down-UP scream of a sleek white tourist bus, bass bellow of a heavy truck.

Screech bleat scream honk blare bellow –motorbike, moped, tuk-tuk*, city bus, limousine, big sedan, little sedan, tiny sedan, pick-up, bigger truck, ten-ton truck, determined, purposeful, full of will –the scream of self.

Make way!

Look out for me! Me! Me! Me! Let me in move over! Move-move-move!

Music of the road, cacophonic, atonal –discordant, insistent, repetitive, clashing, grating, fractured, like shattered glass.

The fight for place. The urge of self. The will to live.

* 3-wheel motorized rickshaw

The First Day

Everything is so new, look, look!

Images tumble past –confetti in a kaleidoscope!

Hour after hour as we ride out of Delhi, through the thick bus glass –

Dad, Mom, tyke on a motorbike –a pair of men or a couple, two-on-a-bike –

3-wheelers with flat board beds and no sides, one empty, another with chickens in cages –

Jeep, 12 to 15 bodies in and on top, 6 on the roof alone –

Pale blue tuk-tuk, bright yellow stripe –

A red STOP! triangle . . . atop a truck cab –

The trucks! Pick-up to ten-ton, ancient to modern –everything is so new –I am filled with wonder –at a load high above the cab, another wider than the body, a third orange like a turban!

And trash . Appalling piles .

Strewn everywhere . Down each gully, in open drains, on any empty ground .

A Troubled Life

Hubert B. Herring

About 10 years ago, I stood with other relatives and watched, teary-eyed, as my half-sister Atossa — lying in a cardboard box, looking smaller in death than in life — was slid into the cremation oven . Her granddaughter Emily wept at the sight . It was a powerful moment for us all, and the end of a long, rich, generous, but deeply troubled life .

One day some 75 years ago, Atossa was at a lake in Michigan with her husband and her daughters, age 2 and 5 . Everyone thought that someone else was watching the 2-year-old, Connie, in the water . No one was, and Connie drowned . For the rest of her life, Atossa (named, for some reason, after a Persian princess) had to live with that memory . And she also had to live with the fact that though she was married and had had five children, she was attracted to women, not men .

Thirty years older than me, Atossa was only rarely part of my life when I was growing up . And for many years she and her husband, David, lived abroad . But after I had children, we visited her often at their place in New Hampshire . Our son, Nick, never wanted to go to camp, but for about six years, from about age 8 to 14, he spent a week with them every summer . He loved riding the tractor around the tree farm and doing projects with David, a tireless project-doer .

Atossa was a big, generous-hearted woman, always welcoming — one of the essential rocks of my life . Though we were a generation apart, we did share a father, which was a topic of occasional banter between us . “Our fodder,” she would say jokingly, sometimes adding, “who art in heaven .” But for all her warmth and good spirits, her existence was surely haunted by those two crucial facts . The daughter she lost would have been exactly my age . As their other daughter (the oldest of their four surviving children) told me later, there seemed to be no grieving . They all just packed up and went on with their lives . But that daughter, then only five, surely had little inkling of whatever grieving took place. So Atossa, who lived to 99, lived for years with that memory .

I can’t imagine how painful that must have been. But the complicating factor — equally painful, in a different way — was her sexuality. Many of us in the family always suspected that she might be gay, and sure enough, after she died, she left a diary detailing her infatuation with a woman friend . And here’s where the two painful parts of her life intersect . Her surviving daughter, also named Atossa, suspects — and she may have been basing this on conversations later with people who’d been there — that when Connie drowned, Atossa had been distracted by thinking about a woman . So piled on top of the pain of her daughter’s loss could have been the far more painful thought that she might have been partly responsible .

Dentistry, as with other health services, is rapidly changing. Technology is constantly improving, allowing us to deliver quality care in less time and with less stress. Most importantly though, dentistry is still an art as well as a science. As a health service, the patient care is provided not only by the doctor, but by the entire office staff. Dentistry as a health service means properly placed restorations and courteously answered phones. Rapidly changing technology will not change this philosophy of service.

Kevin Jong, DMD & Peter Zegarelli, DDS

87 North Broadway • Tarrytown, NY 10591 • 914-631-1800

Website: www.drzegarelli.com • Email: info@drzegarelli.com

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Owner: Jean Mayer, EA

jeanmayertax@gmail.com

The Zegarelli dental office has been located in Tarrytown since 1982. We have been serving KoH residents since the Kendal opening day in 2005.

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Enrico Hair Care, Inc.

Enrico Hair Care, Inc.

Tuesday

Yolanda is available for pedicure by appointment

MondaysEnrico cuts and styles and Tatiana consults on color

Wednesday

Kim does hair color/cut and styling

Wednesdays

Hairstyling by Kim

Friday

Wednesdays through FridaysMaria does manicures

Maria does manicure and waxing

Sandra does hair color/cut and styling

Thursday and FridaysHairstyling by Toni

Saturday

Fridays -

Enrico does hair color/cut and styling

Christina does pedicures, manicures and hair.

Call for appointments 523-6382 or 922-1057

Call for appointments 914-523-6382 or 914-922-1057

Your partner in health and wellness

Vitality at Phelps Hospital offers a variety of free programs and services to help you stay active and engaged as you age. We provide educational healthrelated classes, events, support programs, and expert care to enhance your well-being. We invite you to enjoy our activities and social gatherings to keep you connected to your health and wellness, while having fun with your peers.

For more information and any questions, please email vitality@northwell.edu. To see all of our upcoming free events, please visit the events page on the Phelps website at: phelps.northwell.edu/events