Fairly Odd Parents-Past / 20.06.2004

I wasn't impressed with Ronald Reagan's death. I didn't remember holding him or his values in high esteem when he was first governor and then President. Yet, why was everyone talking so sweetly about the man's legacy? Young bloggers with beautiful design skills spoke highly of him --too young to remember Iran-Contra and Central American death squads. Old media salts who had jousted with him during his tenure waxed poetic remembrances of his accomplishments.

Imperceptibly, I started walking hand-in-hand with them. Right to the edge. Just as I was about to admonish myself for forgetting how much I truly loved him, I staggered to a stop. My toes wiggled freely over that precipice. It was so inviting. The warm fatherly adoration encased me. It was a very old feeling. Beyond politics.

Wait, that wasn't it at all. We were suffering from historical Alzheimer's.

I waved off the chance to see President Reagan's coffin. But last Friday night I was mesmerized by his return to California. That's when I really started to remember.

Fairly Odd Parents-Past, News Outta My Control / 29.05.2004

Sailors: vintage and contemporary at the World War II Memorial, Washington, DC Ten years ago, during my father's final visit to DC, we were walking towards the Treasury Building to see how money is made. As we passed the Holocaust Museum, without warning, he said to me: "You know Jeffrey, I don't think I ever told you this but I was one of the first to liberate Dachau. No, he hadn't. And he never mentioned it again. He was not one to elaborate. In my earlier years I admonished him for his silence. For a moment I was shocked by his words....

Artistic Tendencies, Fairly Odd Parents-Past, Idiosyncratic Celebrations / 02.11.2003

We're having Indian Summer in our nation's capital. Yesterday the temperature rose to 80 degrees (27 C). Today will be the same. It is a day when not riding your bike in padded Lycra® bicycle shorts should be a capital crime. I'm in a warm mood.

This is perfect timing. It coincides with one of my favorite days of the year, El Día de los Muertos, The Day of the Dead. While death is more of a taboo subject in this country, it's treated much differently in Mexico.

Right after graduate school I took my first job in East Los Angeles as part of the Barrio Mobile Art Studio. BMAS was part of a larger community arts program, Self-Help Graphics. Using a van, four artists went to schools and adult centers in the area where we conducted workshops in painting, sculpture, puppetry and photography. Using the inside of the vehicle as a darkroom I taught children and seniors photography. I was also the only Anglo in the program.

In a way, the community felt very comfortable to me. In the 30s and 40s East LA was a mixture of Jews, Latinos, and African Americans. My mother grew up there. And in the 60s I lived in Pacoima, in the East San Fernando Valley. Home to Ritchie Valens, Latino culture was prominent in Pacoima back then.

Fairly Odd Parents-Past, Fairly Odd Parents-Present / 24.08.2002

The overture to our 2002 annual summer vacation conjures up recollections of preparations of years past. As a boy my memories are decidedly child-oriented: the anticipation of getting up before the dawn (what was special then has become a daily occurrence now) and going to unchartered places beyond my normal parent-defined neighborhood boundaries ("Don't go past the Nichol's house!"). Now, it's off to AAA for maps, arrange for someone to feed the cat, and pack, not just for myself but for the girls as well. To say that I was clueless as a child to all the preparations that went...

Fairly Odd Parents-Past, Idiosyncratic Celebrations / 04.08.2002

Forty years ago I became a man. In the Jewish sense. August 4th, 1962 I was bar mitzvahed. It was actually the 4th of Av, 5722 on the Jewish calendar. And that day actually fell on July 13 this year. But I, being the assimilated Jew that I am, decided to commemorate this event by going to temple yesterday, a place not normally a part of my Saturday schedule. Since I live far from where I grew up I went in search of a synagogue. A coworker recommended a couple shuls nearby, one Reform and one Conservative. I grew up in...

Fairly Odd Parents-Past, Idiosyncratic Celebrations / 01.05.2002

My name was Chaim Shmuel Guyetsky. My friends call me Jeff. My father calls me Chaim Shmo when he teases me and Jeffrey when he's about to invoke his fatherly rights of advice. I'm a Jewish boy in a gentile's body (well, almost). Like a family heirloom, the original importance of which is now lost, my spirit has been handed down from the shtetls of the Ukraine. Yet, like the game of Telephone, where a string of people quickly whisper messages from ear to ear, by the time it's gotten to me I can't understand a word of it. I...

Fairly Odd Parents-Past / 31.12.2001

New Year's Eve, 1972: it was one of those, uh, lonely New Year's Eves. No hot date and no hot party to go to. I was alone. So how to make the best out of it? Dad and his wife, Vera, were vacationing in Hawaii (sounds like they were "jetsetters" but this was an anomoly—they never traveled much). And they were returning at 11:59 PM, 29 years ago tonight! I decided to surprise them and meet their plane at the airport! Well, at least it gave me something to do. I always liked to surprise my father, afterall, he had liked to...

Fairly Odd Parents-Past / 29.11.2001

Today is the 30th anniversary of my mother's death. It's amazing to think it's been that long and I'm now older than she ever was. I often think about how Mom would feel if she suddenly came back and saw how life had changed during her absence. She'd wonder what that "TV" was doing on my (and everyone else's) desk. When I'd tell her what I do with it and that my daughters have never heard of a typewriter she'd be amazed. The early days of television were to her as wonderous as the early days of the net were...

Fairly Odd Parents-Past / 03.07.2001

I found it! The episode of the television show It Could Be You my mother was on in the 50s. I've been combing the NBC Master Broadcast Reports at the Library of Congress since March. Every other Monday I'd go there on my day off and look through transcripts of the show on microfilm. It was a daunting task and required every methodical brain cell I had to systematically scroll through each year. Ultimately, though, I relied on vague memories of how old I might have been and when in the year it might have aired. I remembered being in the...

Fairly Odd Parents-Past, Fairly Odd Parents-Present / 17.06.2001

My wife turned over in bed and said "Happy Father's Day, honey! Would you like breakfast in bed?" "No thanks," I replied. "But some early morning 'p and q' [peace and quiet] would really be nice." One of my most favorite times in the day is early, early morning, before the kids get up. I often wait for the newspaper to be delivered at 5:30 am just to sit and read, uninterrupted for 30 minutes before getting ready for work. My quiet time is worth so much to me I gladly go to bed at the ungodly hour of 9:30...