FAMILY STORIES

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our Family Stories

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Charles, Iris, & Joseph Young

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chuck Young

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Birth

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was born around noon on June 9th, 1945 at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Jacksonville, Florida. It was a natural delivery and I was told that my mother struggled to deliver me. Her sister, Salome and my dad, Joseph, waited for the doctor to come out to tell the progress. Men were sheltered from the childbirth experience and not allowed in the room.

 

 

The doctor came out and asked my dad, “do you want a little boy?” “Do I ? “. He replied. I always assumed that he meant yes.

 

They jointly agreed to name me Charles after my father’s brother, an army doctor that had died in a Army training air crash in Georgia.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What was your Dad like when you were a child?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My father seemed distant understood that when I was everything with us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

to me as a child. Only later I younger that my mother did

 

 

When my Mom died at an early age, I was twelve years old. He had to learn to parent as he actually had no idea what we ate or wore, or who our friends were. My father never spanked me that I can remember but may have threatened to do so.

 

During holidays he got off work early, slept on the couch and snored heavily. I don’t remember him using cologne or deodorant. He always carried some type of watch and handkerchief with his initials on it.

 

 

He liked to hug and kiss me. I still miss that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is your favorite

 

children's story?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hans Christian Anderson's

 

Big Claus and Little Claus

 

http://hca.gilead.org.il/li_claus.html

 

I think it is funny and sad with a solid ending that justice will prevail.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Where did you go on vacations as a child?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We were too poor to go on vacations. One day my Mom made my Dad take us to St Augustine. However he was so tired because he worked seven days a week that he ran into a tourist who was parked on the side of the road. The tourist had stopped at a Deli with his wife and three chubby boys to get a sandwich. He ran out of the Deli made and shouted, "Why did you do that!" Which really is a stupid question. My dad jammed his knee into the car key that was sticking out of the dash so he was bleeding like a pig when the police arrived. I was not hurt as I was asleep on the floor in back.

 

 

This was the first car accident I had been in so I thought it was a wonderful time. My Dad got a ticket. My Mom was upset as we spent the hot afternoon in a shop waiting on the car to be fixed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta

 

I remember that accident…we wound up walking all the way home from San Marco with Daddy carrying you. It was awful. Daddy was so upset he had to go to a doctor about his knee. Our mother was really sometimes a piece of work. She was always unhappy about the life she had to live. I think she married Daddy because she was getting old and everyone else was already married and having families. Since both she and Daddy were the oldest in their families, they had the burden of helping to provide for their siblings and parents.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How did you choose your children's names?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After I grew up and came back from the Army, I got to spend time with my father on a friendship basis as we were both adults. I got an offer to work with Ross Perot's group but put it on hold as my father was diagnosed with cancer. I chose to stay in Jacksonville and take care of him. It was the best life decision I made. Ten years after he died it was easy choosing a name for my son.

 

 

One day we walked to Winn-Dixie to buy groceries. When we got home my father realized the cashier gave him an extra dollar bill. We had to walk back to the store to return it. That's the kind of person I wanted my son named after, and the kind of person he would grow up to become.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My First Boss

 

 

 

 

It seems like I have been bossed around all my life including by parents, teachers, and my sister ~ so I am not sure where to begin.

 

 

 

Let me start with Sam Simon who ran Simon’s Grocery at Melson and Commonwealth Avenue. I begged my dad to let me work at age 14 because I wanted some money to spend on personal things. My dad had to be careful because it was illegal to hire minors in 1959. However, he had this friend, Mr. Simon, who agreed that my Dad could drop me off on his way to work and pick me up afterwards. This was to be a short summer job working in his grocery store.

 

 

Mr. Simon weighed about 500 pounds and spent the day sitting behind the counter next to the cash register. He employed his wife, an alcoholic part-time railroad worker. Occasionally his daughter Frieda wandered in when she wasn’t hot rolling her hair.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was Mr. Simon’s legs and therefore if he wanted something, I would run to get it. I was also the bag boy spending my time pushing grocery carts down the street to some of the houses delivering food and retrieving other carts out of the ditch. I found a wet muddy bike once, basketballs, and other toys that I insisted my Dad take home with me after work.

 

 

I weighed approximately 60 pounds at the time and was about four feet tall. Part of my compensation was that Mr. Simon would feed me lunch. This meant going to restaurants with him to which he sold groceries. It also meant going home with him. Mr. Simon had a cook, not a maid, who worked at his home. A typical lunch would be salad, duck, spaghetti, toasted bread, and cake. He also introduced me to very dark and very, very sweet southern iced tea.

 

 

When we got back to work, Mr. Simon would spend a large part of the day in the bathroom, which meant I “had to hold it” or go looking for baskets in the creek. Of course a man of his size was always clogging up the plumbing. Occasionally Jimmy, the part-time railroad worker, would call me to look in the toilet where the world’s largest turd was coolly floating. This was truly an awesome experience.

 

 

Mr. Simon illegally sold fireworks, bullets, and stolen hamburger patties. I only came to understand this after the FBI showed up

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

to chase down a trucker who ran away with his load of meat, rather than delivering it to the intended purchaser.

 

The butcher let me rake the saw dust behind the counter and eat slices of ham, cheese, headcheese, bologna, and cracker spread. He explained that the saw dust would soak up the blood that would gush forth from the beef he was sawing on the wooden table.

 

 

Mr. Simon sold condoms, dipping snuff, and special gum that would hold false teeth in place. Many of the customers in the neighborhood worked for the railroad which had a large train yard a few miles away. The women were all southern aproned housewives and I don’t think I met a working women. Blacks waited their turn to check out at the cash register and even stepped aside when a white child got in line.

 

 

Mr. Simon kept a journal of purchases because few customers had ready cash. Typically a maid or child would come into the store for an ingredient that the wife had run out of while cooking the evening meal. Mr. Simon would write down the date, purchase, and amount. The father would come into the store on pay day and settle the account. A lot of gum, candy, and cigarettes were also bought by the runners and added to the account. I never witnessed anyone requesting to look at their account. It was just the southern credit system.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was at Mr. Simon’s house for lunch one day when I saw a photograph on a doily covered table. It was a black and white photo of a man at a piano next to a band and singer. Mr. Simon said he was the 100 pound piano player and the singer was his wife, Bessie. That is how they met.

 

 

I tried visualizing the old store with limited parking in front and on one side of the building. I just don’t remember any frozen food, none. Perhaps the customers in 1958 felt lucky that they could finance a refrigerator at Sears, Kresses, or Montgomery Ward.

 

 

At the end of the summer, my Dad looked at me and said that it appeared I had gained 50 pounds from lifting sacks of rice, sugar, and grits. I believe it was the food.

 

 

 

Esta

 

I remember Sam Simon. He was huge but he was so good to you. Of course, you realize Sam wanted you to eventually marry the daughter, Frieda and take over his business. I loved this story and am so sorry that you had such a hard childhood. Estie

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chuck

 

Hard childhood? I have enjoyed every minute of my life as it made me what I am today. (what am I?)

 

Frieda was two years older than me. I don’t think marriage was thought of. Sam and Bessie wanted you to invite her to join Bnai Brith Girls as she went to Paxon High School and was somewhat timid around the witches of Landon High. She did get married, worked in the Clerk of Courts office for many years and saw me each time I recorded a foreclosure notice.

 

The grocery store is gone. After working with my father at “Young’s Fancy Fruits”, I don’t think that was a career option. Incidentally, I have 100’s of stories about that store including the time I saved the Bentley’s dog from getting run over. He had run away and I recognized him, or he recognized me.

 

 

 

 

 

What was your Mom like when you were a kid?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My mom passed away over 50 years ago when I was turning thirteen. I sometimes have stunning dreams of her but I realize my memory is glazed by old photographs and stories about her so I don't think I can separate the memories from reality.

 

I know she was frustrated that she had to live in Jacksonville. All of her sisters married and left home. She must of had that genetic wanderlust too but stayed to take care of my grandmother and her younger siblings.

 

 

She liked to sing. She sang in the choir at the Jacksonville Jewish Center at 3rd and Silver Streets. I still have her Union Hymnal that Cantor Martin gave everyone in choir so they could practice the Friday night prayers. When I pick it up, I try to imagine her holding it and softly singing the opening: "May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable to thee..."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am pretty sure I can still hear her voice in the back of my mind.

 

Our windows were always open so I could hear the ice cream truck circling around the neighborhood playing the calliope music. "Mom! Can I have a quarter for ice cream?" I would ask impatiently while all the children on Planters Road lined up at the side of the truck, hoping it wouldn't pull away before I got outside.

 

 

My mother would reach into her battered black vinyl pocketbook and take a quarter out of her small cloth change purse and hand it to me. She would stroke my head and I would see a tear in her eye. I never realized how tight money was when I was growing up.

 

 

The other day I found a new pair of shoes in the closet that I never wore so I threw them away. Then I thought, "Those shoes were 300 of my mother's tears."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What did you hide from your parents as a child?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I never hid anything from my parents.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is the most memorable camping trip you've been on?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the summer of 1955 I was sent to live with Aunt Emma and Uncle Nathan Dwoskin. They were friends with a family named the Cohen who had two boys, Stanley was the younger one and there was an older one. I spent days at their house. Stanley introduced me to Bill Haley and the Comets, my first rock and roll band.

 

 

We grew up and Stanly had two sons Lance and Brian. Fifty years later Lance and Brian would go camping with Joseph and me in North Carolina. We had to sleep on the ground and stand in hot showers to warm up.

 

 

The purpose of the trip was to go whitewater camping with Rabbi Dov Kentoff.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As a camping activity, we stopped in a hick town to see a movie, "Hope Floats" starring Sandra Bullock.

 

Lance almost got into a knife fight with a local. He eventually died by driving drunk one night on Mandarin Road. He took several friends lives with him.

 

His father Stanley committed suicide no long after at his asbestos remediation company. The younger brother Brian went crazy and lost his mind.

 

It was certainly memorable

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

whitewater.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What did you look forward to the most as a child?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I wanted to grow up and have money.

 

Now I am old and wish (sigh) that I was young and broke.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Were you a fan of any sports teams as a child?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My father came from Cincinnati, Ohio, the home of the Red Socks. One we bought a television set, he and I used to watch games every summer.

 

I discovered that if you want to take a nap in the middle of the afternoon, nothing is better than arranging pillows on the couch and laying down to listen to a baseball game. There is something about the slowness of the game and tempo of the announcer that puts me to sleep.

 

 

Golf - forget about it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How did you decide to get married?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was laying in bed one night and realized that, although I was enjoying single life, married life may be ultimately better.

 

I dated seriously for several years until Mary Wolf insisted that I date Iris Tekel, a caseworker at JFCS.

 

We were compatible and over time became very good friends. I loved her then and now. She complimented many of the gaps in my life. I have never regretted marrying her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Are you more like your father or your mother?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am more like my father because my mother died when I was a child. I lived closely with my father when I came back from the Army.

 

I believe that I learned to love poetry and literature from him. He also took me to the theatre, symphony, and libraries.

 

He taught me listen more than speak.

 

After my mother died, he said that I would have to learn to take care of myself because in the end, no one else would really do it. I thought of him as a survivor. First he came to Florida to live by himself and after he got married, he was soon a widower with two children.

 

 

So I learned resiliency. But also love, honesty, respect for others, and most of all....hope.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Joseph Young on Engagement

Day at the top of the hotel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What expectations do you have of yourself?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At my age, I expect to die.

 

Until I get to that point, I expect to try to exercise enough so I have a fairly good quality of life. I will eat a variety of things, hoping some of the things I eat are actually healthy and also work to prolong the quality of life.

 

I have no idea whether salt, red meat, avocados, etc. are healthy but I am sure that the medical field doesn't either. That includes the government who keeps changing the food pyramid every ten years.

 

 

I have cheated myself of luxuries so I should have enough funds to make it in my old age. I have no idea what Iris's medical crises will cost as we are paying over $100,000 in caregiver and medicine costs each year. Unfortunately all the financial gurus keep moving the bar upward.

 

 

 

 

 

 

51

Chuck Young

 

 

 

I am less optimistic and more depressed as I age. I don't know if it the barrage of bad news, truly stupid self-righteous people, or reality that my life has reached the sitting-around stage.

 

I expect to buried with my parents. This is prepaid through Hardage & Sons, so just do it.

 

Thanks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Are you still friends with any of your friends from high school?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am not friends with high school friends any more. I believe after 50 years so many of us evolved into something else. Death, divorce, family obligations, and interests all changed us.

 

While I still see many people I went to elementary and high school with, I would hesitate to call them friends. I have received email communication from many of them but never wanted to re-establish a relationship. Georgia Clay (Harden) did ask about my parents and my sister. It seems she is undergoing breast cancer treatments.

 

 

I almost feel guilty about being healthy. I can arise at 5 AM and go for a two mile walk and still work 10 hours trying to fix childhood trauma.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Below are some of my 6th grade "friends". In the last year, I have seen Billy Silverman, Bobby Elton, Sidney Sacks, and Kenny Fink below.....how funny they are now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6^th Grade at Spring Park

 

 

 

 

 

 

Did you date someone in high school?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I attended Landon Jr.-Sr. High School in Jacksonville. My dating was limited to girls who belonged to B'nai Brith Girls (BBG) as my father would only let me date Jewish girls.

 

The dates took place typically at the Jewish Center. I took out Sandy Schield who was two years younger than me because she had a crush on me. She lived in Arlington and had to take the city bus to Landon. Her parents wanted her to go to school with other Jewish youth. I remember she had dark skin and beautiful dark eyes. She was fifteen.

 

 

I dated Louise Hilsenrad (now Axelrod) and still see her from time to time in restaurants. She has put on weight and so have I. I guess that explains where we still meet.

 

I also dated Lois Avchin. I was not passionate about any of them as I worked after school at the Pantry Pride grocery stores and

 

 

 

 

57

Chuck Young

 

 

 

had little time for socializing on the weekends. We only had one car in my family and I was not allowed to drive it recreationally because it was the only way my father had to get to work, and too dangerous for me to possibly put out of commission.

 

Down the street was a girl named Georgia Clay (Heron). I never thought of her as a girlfriend. We never went on a date. However, she recently found me on the internet and told me that I was in two of her classes in elementary school and many in high school. She and her friend, Candy Chancey, used to talk about me during high school but I was oblivious.

 

 

One day her bigger brother, Neil Chancey a large athlete and several friends pushed me into the lockers on the third floor of Landon High School. He was angry and wanted to know if I had a hard time keeping my hands to myself. He said that I had fondled his sister's breasts. Somewhere he probably told me to stay away from her. I was stupefied.

 

 

Even today I can't remember what her breasts look like or if she even had any. It wasn't true and I guess Candy told Neil when the story got back to her through Georgia. Neil never apologized or mentioned it to me but until he graduated he always went out of his way to speak to me and offer me a ride in his car.

 

Candy died a spinster. I hope the fondling she received from me in her dreams were wonderful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What were your favorite cartoons growing up?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We didn't have a TV until later on in my childhood and I was not permitted to buy comics at Brandon's Pharmacy.

 

I loved the Rocky & Bullwinkle show because the various characters seemed intellectual. I still don't get a friendship between flying squirrel and a moose. I liked Boris Badinoff and his girlfriend Natasha. Mr. Sherman the dog and his pet boy, and of course Dudley Doright of the Mounted Police.

 

Mickey Mouse and friends never interested me. I guess I had cartoons that I invented in my head. Hollywood could never compete with those.

 

One day Saturday morning Ronnie invited me over his house to watch Rinky Dink and You. His mother went to the store and bought a Rinky Dink kit which let you put a piece of green saran wrap on top of the screen. Then you could use a special marker to fill out the missing lines and solve the Rinky Dink puzzle.

 

 

 

 

 

What do you most value in your friends?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The ability to keep a secret. This goes for both male and female friends.

 

Dogs are my best friends because they are really good at keeping secrets and never tell on me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What's the funniest thing you've ever done?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I tell this story out of penance. Sometimes funny is also hurtful.

 

One day my friend Ronnie Raizis and I were sitting around at his house. He attended Assumption Elementary School. He was complaining that everyone had to bring Valentines Cards to school to hand out.

 

 

We were learning to be masculine so we were not into hearts and roses, even if the little girls our age were competing to see who could get the most cards.

 

One of us came up with the idea that we would send Valentines to the adult neighbors on our street but sign the name of another one. Just to cover our tracks, we also sent one to his mother and one to my father.

 

We thought this was hilarious. We wrote, "I love you so much" or "I would like to be married to you." The messages were pretty stupid and the handwriting was worse. Stamps were four cents back then.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am not sure what our goal was. Either to start divorces or affairs. However my father who was a wonderfully naïve man said to me that he had received a Valentine's Day card from Mrs. Hodge, an old crone, who lived several houses away. He didn't understand it.

 

 

He certainly didn't like Mrs. Hodge because he said she was a Christian Scientist who stood on the street corners downtown handing out leaflets.

 

I regret never asking my father about that in later years. He probably wouldn't have remembered.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Which musicians or bands have you most liked seeing live?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a hard question because I have seen Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and the Stones. I think I will go with either Art Shill or the guy whose name I forgot in St Augustine who died trying to save someone in the surf at Anastasia Park......Gamble Rogers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is your first memory ever?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My parents teaching me to walk.

 

One day my Dad put me down and never ever picked me up again.

 

I told him that when he was 75 years old over a couple of Budweiser's we were sharing in the backyard.

 

He said, “you’ll have to carry me now."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What do you like most about your siblings?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I like everything about my sister. I am sure that she would think her story had its ups and downs but overall she has been successful as a sister, sister in law, mother, wife, and friend to many.

 

 

 

She will be always known for her warmth, friendliness and generosity. The word, "most" suggests that she has one outstanding quality but that would do her a disservice.

 

She worries about us all. I always thought that anyone who cares more about other people than they care about themselves, really understands the meaning of love. She is all that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is the longest project you have ever worked on?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The longest project I ever worked on is my life, which includes my marriage and relationship with my family. So many different colors.

 

I expect it will get wrapped up in the near future whether I am finished or not.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What are some of your family traditions?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I lived with Dad, he would always light candles and say a prayer over the wine. Sometimes he would sing the entire Kiddish prayer. It must have been familiar and comforting to him.

 

 

 

Iris and I continued this tradition, at least lighting candles. She became more dogmatic about it than me. I guess it made an impression on Joseph as he bought us candlesticks for one of our anniversaries.

 

 

My prayer is that he learns that there is a time to work, and a time to rest.

 

 

 

 

What's the best show you've ever been to?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have never been to a bad show as I have always been accompanied by someone who was excited afterwards, including the eighth performance of "Cats". And I would go again.

 

I can remember falling asleep at the pavilion at Jacksonville Beach when I was ten years old. It was a soft warm summer night. The concert started only when the sun went down so it was around nine o’clock. The stars were bright in the dark sky and the moon was full and hanging low over the water.

 

I was thirsty and had to drink sandy water out of an old rusty fountain. My little arm pits were sticky and sand got between my toes as I was wearing open sandals.

 

My father picked me up in his arms as I became cranky. I loved his masculine smell and my eyes started drooping. The band was playing "Begin the Beguine" when a blonde lady in a long dress

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

stepped before the steel microphone. I turned my heard and saw the top of my sister's head, and then turned to see my mother's smile.

 

Then I fell asleep.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

pavilion.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

Have you been on any adventures?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was once touched by an angel.

 

When I attended the junior college in Palatka, Florida I hung around with an assortment of guys both from Jacksonville and native to Palatka.

 

One day we were racing around the sparse county of Putnam, Florida in a 1958 VW beetle when it shut itself off in the middle of the potato fields, miles away from civilization.

 

We didn't know anything about fixing cars and didn't have tools anyway. So we made a halfhearted look under the hood at the engine, which was in the rear of car. Nothing was smoking or looked broken so we started hiking down the two lane asphalt.

 

After about forty minutes of shuffling down the road, including a stop to pee in the fields, an old truck came by and stopped ahead

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

of us. We ran up to the truck to see if we could get a ride into St. Augustine. The driver was an older man who took pity on three boys in the middle of nowhere. We all squeezed into the cab of the truck. We told him why we were out walking and he insisted on turning the truck around to look.

 

I realized we never locked the doors or rolled up the windows. I don't know if we were careless or just stupid.

 

He said that the fuel pump needed replacing.

 

He went back to his truck to get tools and found a VW fuel pump. "I thought I might need this some day" he told us. Quickly he took the old one out, throwing it into a ditch next to the car.

 

We offered to pay him but he just shrugged it off saying it was only a junk part anyway. He drove off as quickly as he arrived.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How far back can you trace your family ancestry?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I asked my Dad this question for a class project I was working on at school.

 

He said that my ancestors were standing at the base of Mount Sinai 5,700 years ago and that could be proven genetically.

 

I wondered what really happened on that mountain? Did Moses really bring down Ten Commandments? My father was spiritual and felt something tremendous must have occurred if people are still talking about the event.

 

Attached photo is my paternal grandmother's mother and father in Russia. I am guessing that it was taken at the turn of the century.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dwoskin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tell me about your best day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am extremely grateful that each new day is my best day....so

 

far.

 

Even if something sad or depressing happens. It is part of my life and expands my understanding of life. I don't wish to go backwards.

 

I feel very lucky that I have learned that those I envied have had a much miserable life than me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How did you figure out how to be a parent?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My wife was a social worker when she became pregnant. She suggested that I take parenting classes from the Sisters of Charity who ran St. Vincent’s Hospital.

 

I dutifully showed up which really intrigued them as I was about 37 at the time and the rest of the group were single pregnant girls in their teens.

 

One of the nuns asked me if there anything in particular that I was concerned about. I replied that I was concerned about dressing the baby in diapers, especially the part about accidentally sticking the baby with the diaper safety pins.

 

She was really nice by explaining I should buy disposal diapers and not worry about having to triangular fold and pin cloth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also went into a pharmacy and bought everything on the shelf that had to do with babies including three different types of breast pumps. By the way, the pumps are helpful when a sink gets clogged.

 

 

We turned potty training over to Judy Tekel. I assume Joseph is trained as I have never looked in his pants since he was two.

 

Three things I learned if a baby is crying or cranky: he hungry, tired, or has poop in his pants.....maybe I should check next time.

 

(attached photo of Joseph and his binky)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Joseph and his Binky

 

 

 

What things did your parents argue about when you were little?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have absolutely no memories of my parents arguing.

 

Once they had a very heated discussion in the house. My dad was sitting at the head of the dining room table and my sister and I were sitting on the sides. My sister liked to change sides from time to time as she would hide food on the rails under the table. We never could understand the roaches?

 

I can't remember what the specific issue was about but my mom was bringing homemade chicken soup from the kitchen into the dining room and accidentally spilled the hot liquid on his lap. Maybe to make a point.

 

 

My mom had a very musical laugh so my sister and I joined in. After my Dad's nuts cooled off, he thought it was funny too!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I bet he is in heaven still laughing about it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Joe Young

 

 

 

What has made your faith stronger?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I swear there are Angels that sometime hover around me. I am not a superstitious person but my wife thinks I am a witch. Too many coincidences and events have happened that I can't explain.

 

 

 

Usually I wake up in the night or can't sleep when a life changing event is going to occur. This happened when I told Iris I thought she was pregnant. Or the time I received my Army draft notice, or the night before my Dad passed away.

 

I was restless last night so I guess asking my wife, "Are you okay?" "yes" she said, stop asking me. So I went for a walk and there was a major accident on St. Augustine Road right in front of me. I was so stunned that I came home and said, "God sent me a message."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The very first time I noticed this I was attending a junior college in Palatka, Florida. I was out riding around with two friends way out on a farm road in Hastings, Florida which is a smaller town.

 

All of a sudden something broke in the Volkswagen we were riding in and we cruised to the side of the road. It was pretty deserted out there so we started hiking in the direction of St. Augustine.

 

 

We were probably a mile down the road when a guy in a pickup truck stopped and picked us up. Now there were four people sitting on one seat in a pickup. He asked what we were doing out in the middle of nowhere. So he turned the truck around to go look at the broken VW.

 

 

He said it was a broken generator when we opened up the hood. Luckily he has an eight year old VW in the back of the truck. There it was, all by itself on the back of the truck, He had a metric wrench (damn those German engineers) and it for us.

 

We started the car and he drove off. Who rides around the farmlands with a VW generator? I think we were touched by an angel.

 

 

 

What is your best advice when it comes to work?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Various bosses gave me advice:

 

Louie Portnoy told me not to get my meat where I got my potatoes and gravy.

 

Mitchell Peltz to me to buy low and sell high.

 

My dad gave me some American Indian advice: put your faith in God but keep your canoe away from the rocks.

 

I was also told that you can lead a horse to water but if you can teach the horse to float on its back then you can really make some money.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What things do you think you cannot live without?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oxygen, water and love.

 

Also the morning cup of coffee.

 

I don't understand this question.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What's your favorite joke?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ole and Lena were having a dry spell in their sex life. Lena goes out and buys some crotchless panties. She puts them on and sits on the couch with her legs wide open. When Ole gets home from work she says 'you want some of this?' Ole says 'Hell no! Look what it did to your underwear!'

 

 

Revisiting My House

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The only house I can remember is the one on Planters Road in Jacksonville, Florida. It was always a great home to me and I didn't know or care about living anywhere else until I came home from the Army and joined a real estate department of a large regional bank.

 

 

 

It was there working at the bank that I discovered solitary individuals living in huge mansions by themselves. How strange I thought since I could only live in one room at a time.

 

Our house was a three bedroom one bath asbestos shingled house. The heat was provided by a kerosene stove located in the hall in the middle of the house. There was no air conditioning until my father went to Montgomery Ward and bought two window units. The house was so small that the hot water heater had to be pushed up through an attic opening by two large sweating plumbers. Every fall my dad had to call the kerosene company where a man would arrive and struggle with a long

 

 

 

 

Chuck Young

 

 

 

hose dragged from his truck and around the house to fill up a 55 gallon tank that was mounted with legs outside my bedroom window.

 

I spent my life mowing the lawn, cutting the hedges, vacuuming, cleaning, painting the inside and outside walls. I lived in the house so much that I knew every square inch of dirt outside and every tuft of carpeting inside.

 

My best friend Ronnie Raizis called to tell me that his mother had passed away at age 95. She was the last survivor of my childhood on the street so I decided to slowly drive down Planters Road to see if it was as I remembered.

 

The large palm tree my dad so proudly planted in front was gone along with all of his azalea bushes. All the ornamental stones were gone along with the ornamental iron handrail my grandmother had to hang onto when she came to visit; and later, he relied on it too.

 

 

Thomas Wolfe wrote, "You can't go home again" It is not that the home changed, I realized I had.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Planters Road

 

 

 

 

 

Did you have a favorite teacher in middle school?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was dropped off at Middle School.

 

I was suddenly and overwhelmingly sent to Landon Junior/Senior High School once I graduated from Spring Park Elementary. I was still a child so the high school juniors and seniors seemed like adults to me.

 

 

Some children are ready for the seventh grade but I wasn't. My homeroom teacher was Marie Knowles who had a dance studio on Hendricks Avenue. Homeroom teachers were responsible for telling the main office who was missing or late. We also said the Pledge of Allegiance and students took turn in each classroom to reading out of the bible. If it was hot, the teachers turned on the fans and tilted the vanes in blinds. I could always hear the buses that were late belching smoke and gas behind the school.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had an eighth grade teacher named Mrs. Clauzelle Whaley who taught Algebra 1. (Her name sort of sums it up) Her back was fused so she moved like Frankenstein. She also threw erasers and chalk. What a waste of time. I think she was two hundred and fifty years old.

 

 

My hormones started talking to me and I snickered in the hall and boy's bathrooms about the girls. The girls acted older and wanted to attract the attention of the boys in high school. Grades seventh through eighth were on the first floor, ninth and tenth grades on second, and eleventh and twelfth were on the third floor. Students in junior high (seventh and eighth grades) were told to stay off the inside stairs as well as the outside steps in front of the school. Out of boredom I looked at the breasts of the girls in my classes but it didn't help me to pass the time. Some of my friends told me their fantasies were about their teachers.

 

 

Not me as my teachers had grey hair, mother goose shoes, thick glasses, and a musty smell about them.

 

First day of school I went home to my dad and said that I needed to bring twenty dollars in cash to the coach as I would be taking gym and had to have shoes, shirt, shorts, and a jock strap. The coaches sold all the clothing. My shoes didn't come in for six weeks so I played outside in loafers. The jock strap was a size large and I had a twenty six inch waist. My dad and I studied the

 

 

 

 

 

jock strap while I practiced putting it on.

 

I did notice an attractive woman with long dark eyelashes going up and down the stairs. Her name was Yvonne Moore. She caught me staring at her swishing her long skirts through the halls and she would smile at me. Little did I know she would be teaching me typing in my junior year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LandonHighSmall.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whaley.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is your best

 

relationship advice?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

>  Keep your mouth shut and your bowels open.

 

>  Shave before you get into bed with a woman.

 

>  Never eat beans before you make love.

 

>  Don't tell your wife she snores. No women ever snores because it isn't in their DNA.

 

 

 

 

What was your first car?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My first car was a 1960 Oldsmobile Cutlass. I loved the car as it was a minor Cadillac. This is back when the Cutlass was a large four door mid-range car. My Dad bought it from the owner of a Texaco station in St. Nicholas Shopping Center. Unfortunately I got hit by a Hispanic strip dancer one rainy night on Collins Avenue in Miami so I don't think I owned it all that long. The stripper hit me and also a carload of foreign tourist who came to the United States to buy a Mercedes and ship it back to some eastern country that they came from. They told the police they had diplomatic papers but were still scared. The police made the stripper stand outside her car as they kept ogling her skimpy costume. She told me that she was on the way to work. The car was the only thing she owned.

 

 

I drove back to Jacksonville with the driver's side smashed in. Because I couldn't open the electric windows, I had to stop at each toll plaza and had to open the door to pay the toll. Each time

the toll attendant would say, "Do you know that the car door is smashed in?"

 

I had no car for a long time after that.

 

I got drafted by the Army and ended up in Ft. Monmouth, New Jersey. My aunt Lilly lived in New York City and was still paying for her husband Lou's Chrysler. She bitched about the cost of the insurance and the monthly garage parking charges. I offered to take it off her hands by changing the title into my name, buying insurance, and parking it at the fort. We left five minutes later to find a Notary who would assist in the title transfer.

 

In New Jersey I learned how to put chains on tires for the snow and how to get the tires studded so I could drive on ice. It was a wonderful car because it had electric windows, electric seats, and push buttons to change the gears, instead of a gear shift. I wondered why they discontinued that? My Dad drove the car for four years because I was sent to Ft. Lewis in Seattle, Washington, then South Korea, and finally to Fort Hood in Texas.

 

"Hey" I asked my Dad. "What happened to my motorcycle?"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oldsmobile.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oldsmobile2.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

JAWA motorcycle

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What were your favorite subjects in high school?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had none. I thought high school was a waste of time. I was getting my education on the streets. Only typing class saved me because I got in an Army Data Processing School (computers). They didn't take computers out in the jungles of Viet Nam.

 

I only took typing because I wanted to be in class of women. Also I was in love with someone who was taking typing at the same time - funny, I can't remember who it was.

 

 

 

 

 

What is your best advice when it comes to raising children?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leave them alone.

 

They will grow up anyway and mostly dress, speak, and act like their peers no matter what parents say or do.

 

Advice for parents of babies: if they are crying it is because they are hungry, tired, or have poop in their pants. So feed them, stop dragging them on airplanes or to the mall, and smell their bottoms.

 

 

 

 

Iris

 

you never just left your child be. you talked, educated, molded and loved by touch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How did you experience the day Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have to confess that I have no memory of that day. Right now I could't tell you the year he was assasinated.

 

As a Jew, someone is always shooting at us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE UNVEILING

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the fall of 2013 I was the only person on earth that possessed a key to my cousins’ house on Leewood Lane in Jacksonville, Florida.

 

I had just let Michael and Brandon Epstein, the adopted grandchildren of Mary Wolf, into the locked house. They had recently trashed the house looking for valuables that their grandmother may have hidden before she was taken away permanently to the nursing home.

 

 

I looked at my face in the master bathroom mirror of the house. At age sixty-nine I am developing jowls I thought. I touched my hand to my jaw and felt the loose skin.

 

The house was dim. Most of the light bulbs had burned out and I never replaced them.

 

As I turned over the remaining moldy items on the floor with my foot, I saw an old dirty white book, “The Bride’s Book”, laying on the floor scattered among the discarded papers and photographs of lives lived in another time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Out of curiosity I brought it home perhaps to relive the feelings and emotions of Mary Wolf as a young bride. According to the “Brides Book”, December 5th, 1947, Martin Wolf proposed to her in the Andrew Jackson High School Auditorium and on stopping for a red light. They were to later marry on May 9th, 1948.

 

“The Bride’s Book” was crammed with newspaper articles about the engagement, the wedding, and a long list of gifts that the hundreds of cousins gave her. The book is a story of party after party, of long trips, and of expensive meals. It is a story of a whirlwind that looked like it would never stop.

 

But it did.

 

After Scott died, then Stacey died, brother Izzy and all the sisters seemed to disappear. We never seemed to get older but her nephews and nieces all aged in one day. And then only Iris and I were standing at Mary’s grave speaking about her life, her aspirations, and sorrows. Suddenly the funeral was over and it was a year later.

 

 

Iris moved the date of the unveiling to January when she was well enough to attend. “How could you ever find this place on 42nd Street?” Iris asked. But we did after weaving our way

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

around the black children playing basketball in the neighborhood which backed up to the wall of the cemetery. There was one lone car at the site. I announced, “It must be Alan Gordon as he is the only relative I know who is still driving a Cadillac with a Gator cap in the back window.”

 

 

We passed the time with Alan talking about our kids, where they were living and what they were doing. We discussed how time flies, and who is buried way over there, and over there, and over there.

 

 

Finally the young rabbi showed up and looked at the three of us, Alan, Iris and me. “Do you think we will have a minyan?” he asked. “Let’s wait a few minutes.”

 

The rabbi kept eyeing the gates of the cemetery from the grave site. Alan called nephew Teddy but he didn’t answer his cell phone. Bobby called and said that his wife’s sister just passed away. “That is it.” announced Alan. Alan grabbed one end of the sheet covering the ground marker stone and the rabbi grabbed the other so together they pulled it off. “I am taking the sheet home if you don’t want it,” said Alan. “And I am taking the marker too.”

 

 

The sun was shining and the day was turning into a warm Florida afternoon. Mary would have like that as she was particular about her hair.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iris spoke a few words when the rabbi was finished. She spoke about Mary’s love of books and about Mary’s wicked sense of humor. I gave the rabbi a check for $200.00. Iris said it seemed like a lot of money for a ceremony for three people and one unveiling. I agreed but countered it was also Mary’s money. The rabbi said goodbye and wandered away to see another grave. Alan jumped into his car as he had to catch a football game on television.

 

 

I looked at my face in the mirror at home. I have the same Dwoskin jowls. Rest in peace Mary. You will live as long as I do. I am now you and you are me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mary Wolf - the engagement announcement

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esther Dwoskin - her aunt with the same jowls.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Uncle Nathan Dwoskin, Mary Wolf and Joseph Young

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta

 

Chuck: what a sad ending to a life. Mary was so flamboyant at times. Remember when she came to your house for Thanksgiving with a headband and a feather in her hair? You mean neither grandson showed up? This happened to us once the money was distributed from Alan’s Mom’s estate. We never heard again from Jennifer Levin, David Levin or Michael Levin. We do hear periodically from Miriam Levin, usually to inform us of some terrible inherited disease we should look out for. We did hear once from Michael Levin a couple of years ago when he was starting some new video business and was looking for investors. We declined to invest. Martin always seemed to be a prince, where Mary was the diva. I think of her showing up for Thanksgiving with Tupperware in her purse to take leftovers home. Chuck, you are still princely to me. Don’t worry about Dwoskin jowls. It makes you look distinguished…. from your Sissy

 

 

 

 

Hi Chuck,

 

Estie just sent me this and I wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed reading it. That, and the photo of our grandmother Esther Riva Young, wearing the necklace that I gave to Estie to give to Francine, was very moving to me. Thanks for writing and sharing your thoughts with us. Your “Yankee cousin”, Betsy XOXO

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is your favorite body part?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Hand

 

My wife, Iris, was pregnant in 1986. We had her medical records blocked so no one would not know the child’s gender until it was born.

 

We picked out the names Joseph Terence if male and Terry Jo if female after my father and Iris’s mother.

 

Iris kept telling me that she had an agreement with the obstetrician that they would give her a lot of drugs once she went into labor. She was really panicked. Unfortunately she was beginning to suffer from Multiple Sclerosis so once the anesthesiologist saw her at the hospital, he said, “No Way.” The doctor finally arrived and told Iris that a natural birth, no caesarian section or epidural, was much healthier and faster healing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They took her out of the modern birthing room into a surgical pavilion with me trailing behind with my camera. The doctor looked at me and said to suit up. It was very noisy in there. Iris was trussed up on a table with her legs in the air and the doctor sitting between her legs with various pans. I stood just behind looking over his left shoulder. “I can’t see anything!” Iris kept shouting out. How odd I thought that she was the main actor and yet had no view.

 

 

A sloppy wet head appeared. It became a holy silence as everyone in the room watched the little old man appear from her stomach, then one small hand, a body, another arm, and finally legs too. A nurse reached in with a towel to pick up the baby. She dabbed at the fluids and showed it to me. “What is it?” gasped Iris. "I can't see!" “It’s a boy” said the nurse. She laid the baby on Iris's chest for a brief moment. He was very quiet. “What is his Apgar Score?” Iris was highly anxious that he score a 10, the highest possible, as if having ten fingers determined whether he would get into college.

 

 

They placed him on a table to dry him off. His fingers were smaller than a pencil. I stood there rolling the little fingers in my hand. The bones felt soft and clay like. “We are taking him to the nursery now,” said the nurse. I followed as they wheeled him away his little hands forming fists.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Joseph grew and came home from college. We went shopping for clothes at the Mall. “Hold my hand,” I said to the grown man. “Are you crazy?” he laughed. He was used to outrageous comments from me. Secretly maybe I wasn’t. I missed the soft little hands that learned how to turn the pages of the picture books. “Let me do it,” he would order me as we sat down to read a Dr. Seuss.

 

 

The last time I really looked at his hands was at the cemetery when he reached to get the shovel to thrown dirt on Cousin Martin’s coffin. They looked like fingers that belonged to a pianist: long, thin and soft.

 

 

When I discovered my father dead in his house, he was sitting on his couch as if he had just decided to rest. I reached out and touched his hand. His finger pads were old, rough, and the skin felt loose from years of use. They still felt warm as if his spirit was still in his hands.

 

 

Joseph called us from Mexico to say that he was engaged. We were so happy for him. Now someone will continue to be with him and hold his hand forever.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What do you think death is like?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About 1958

 

When I was in elementary school, I attended Spring Park Elementary. It was a one story brick building with halls that seemed to little children, to stretch forever. I attended elementary school at the same time as my sister but I never saw her during the day. She may have disappeared to Siberia and then returned in the afternoon.

 

 

My mom used to carpool us to school with other moms in our neighborhood. But sometimes I would ride my bike to school or sometimes even walk. We lived about a mile from school but the trip for a little boy was safe through friendly neighborhoods or down the long ribbon concrete that stretched halfway to the beach.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One day my mom came to pick me up and took me to a strange neighborhood that lay close to the schoolyard. We got out of the car and we walked up to the front door of a small modest white stucco home. My mom rang the doorbell that was answered by a woman who simply said, “He is around back”.

 

Around back was a large two-toned dog that was tied up with a heavy rope to the wire fence surrounding the yard. “His name is Thomas C. Thomas”, the woman said.

 

“Do you want to take him home?” asked my mom. “We may have to keep him tied up because he is such a big dog.”

 

My dad grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, a dirty industrial town in the early 1920’s. His family was immigrants and pets were a luxury. He was not happy that my Mom acquired a dog without telling him. I could hear them discussing the dog for several nights.

 

Unknown to me as a child was that my mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer. She loved the dog and the dog loved her. The dog was something she was unconsciously leaving to my sister and me. What things could she leave us except an animal that was a vessel of her love?

 

After her death, my father was never quite the same person. If he was happy, he was happy in a sad sort of way. Slowly my father realized that the dog was still waiting for her return.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He started talking to the dog. At first it was just the normal master to dog type of commands. Eventually he became more conversational. He would sit in his chair with the dog, Thomas C. Thomas, sitting on its haunches in front of him. My father would start talking to Thomas as if he were sitting on a bench in the park conversing with a lifelong friend.

 

 

Thomas would look at him with rapt attention, sometimes cocking his head as if questioning a statement, sometimes sighing or yawning as a friend will do when they are ready for the subject of conversation to change.

 

My father’s retirement was forced upon him as the result of years of medical neglect. He was emotionally unprepared for a life without a job. He began wandering around the house and yard speaking loudly to imagined friends or ghosts. When people asked him, “Who are you talking to?” He would come back from his reverie and answer that he was talking to the dog.

 

At the end, Thomas C. Thomas died of old age in our back yard. His death was particularly hard on my father. Because he was a large dog, my father dug a large hole in the yard right next to where he laid down for the last time. My father grabbed his four legs, two in each hand and he pulled him into the hole shoveling the dirt on top.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Afterwards, my father spent a long time washing off the shovel with the garden hose. He was very quiet all this time. I remember the smell of his sweaty body when he came into the house. It was very acrid and he had a strong odor of vinegar about him.

 

Only years later I realized it was the smell of sweat of a person who has been about the business of death and dying.

 

When I was in my twenties, I fell in love with a girl that I wanted to spend the rest of my live. The relationship lasted for many years so that when we broke up, the end was a difficult conversation and parting. The love was gone but still she cried and tried to negotiate an extension. We both knew that it was over but we both were scared of the change.

 

 

Later that same day after I got home, I realized that I had been perspiring heavily from the emotional conflict. I immediately recognized that distant smell; it was my father’s smell, the smell of burying a dead dog.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE PRANK

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One day I was sitting around with my best friend Ronnie, bored as young boys are often found when he sighed that he needed to go home and write the names of everyone in his class on Valentine Day cards.

 

 

 

It was Tuesday and his mother had bought the cards to be handed out in school on Friday. The nun, Mary Francis, had sent a note home for parents to buy cards for the holiday. All the girls in his class were delighted but the boys just dreaded it. Little did Ronnie and I know that Valentine's Day would always be a source of anxiety as we grew older.

 

 

One of us had an epiphany. Let's send Valentine's Day cards to the adults in the neighborhood. We will address them as though they were sending them to each other. So we did. We even sent one to my Dad and one to his mother to throw off the suspicion that we might have done it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My mother had passed away but she still had left stamps in her sewing box. We sat down with a fervor writing "I really like you" or "I like your smile". We were laughing so horrendously that I thought I would wet myself.

 

We had instant regret the moment we pushed the cards down the throat of the old blue post office box on the corner. Then we waited.

 

Several days later my Dad casually mentioned that he received a Valentine's Day card from the widow down the street. I was dying to ask him what the card said but thought he was making a leading statement to catch me, so I appeared disinterested.

 

"Anything happen at your place?" I asked Ronnie. "Nothing at all." he replied. He looked far away and said, "This neighborhood does seem like a happier place lately, doesn't it?"

 

I should mention that we also rubbed garlic on Mrs. Powell's dog so when she picked it up to hug it, she would get arm full of stink.

 

Ronnie's mother was disturbed when he and I had a contest to see who could pee the highest on his neighbor's house.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I AM IN AWE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rilya Wilson was a foster child of the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) and the center point of an investigation into neglect and mismanagement in the organization. She was approximately four years old when she disappeared in 2000.

 

 

 

DCF did not discover her disappearance until two years later, when she was not found living at the home of caretaker Geralyn Graham. Graham is suspected by prosecutors to have murdered Wilson, but only circumstantial evidence had been presented. The two caretakers claimed that a DCF worker had taken the child for medical testing and never returned. Authorities denied that any state worker had ever taken Wilson for medical testing.

 

In August 2004, Graham was charged with kidnapping and three counts of child abuse, and Kendrick with two lesser counts of child abuse. She says both of them spanked Rilya with switches, locked her in a dog cage and in the laundry room.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

During the trial there was evidence of abuse, including a dog cage witnesses said Graham obtained to punish Rilya and testimony about the girl's lengthy confinement in a small laundry room. Pamela Graham testified that Geralyn Graham regularly tied Rilya to her bed using plastic restraints so she would not get up during the night. Graham alleged that a woman who claimed to work for DCF said she was removing Rilya from the home for evaluation and never returned.

 

 

In January 2013, the jury convicted Graham of kidnapping and child abuse, but deadlocked 11 to 1 on the charge of murder. On February 12, 2013, the judge sentenced Graham to 30 years for kidnapping plus 25 years for aggravated child abuse.

 

The case led to the contracting out of foster child casework to private organizations. --MiamiHerald.com. Retrieved 2014-04-05

 

In the year 2000, the same year that Rilya Wilson disappeared, Iris Young was the Executive Director of Jewish Family & Children’s Services. She had been successful in taking a small religious focused social service agency from ten workers to twenty and had moved into a larger building in Mandarin, a wealthier suburb of Jacksonville Florida.

 

 

She had watched the constant stories of the missing child for weeks on the television and decided that her agency could design

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

a child welfare model based on what is best for the child. This child safety agency, Family Support Services of North Florida, grew to over 150 employees and a fifty million dollar annual budget.

 

 

The number of children in orphanages, foster homes, and care by other friends and relatives has fallen by over fifty percent since privatization from the State of Florida.

 

Iris’ dedication, vision, and love for the children of this community has reduced the terror, trauma, and uncertainty that loomed for children while families were reconstructed.

 

She is so strong. She raises me up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BETTER MOMENT IN MY LIFE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After the police tracked down the runaway foster child for the third time, I went to the huddle room and sat at a table across from him.

 

"I don't want to be here" he scowled, arms crossed against his chest.

 

 

 

"There's nothing for me here." he glowered angrily.

 

I waited quietly and then said to him, "I am here."

 

A lone tear rolled out his right eye and down his cheek. He stood up and we hugged tightly.

 

"He is going to be alright now" I thought to myself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hospital Stories, Part 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One day it started out with taking my wife to the emergency room for a routine blood check. It ended with her staying there all weekend. That was the good part. I got to sleep late and actually had a day off to myself.

 

 

 

But here is the interesting part. You know how when you go to the emergency room and immediately lose your identity? Instead of Iris Young, she became room #7. Over the intercom they page staff, "room number 20 has an ear infection and needs a nurse". Paging doctors, paging technicians, paging nurses over and over and over again.

 

 

So after sitting in a hard plastic seat with my head against the curtain in the emergency room, I had to pee desperately. I went out to the emergency waiting room but there was a sign stuck in the door that said, "out of order" in English and "fuera de servicio. no haga pis aquí." in Spanish.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But since it was Saturday and quiet, I took the elevator down to the ground floor (which is actually the basement). I found a men's room down a long empty quiet hallway. I went in and leaned against the urinal for a pleasurable but private pee. Only a man standing at a urinal can explain this joy.

 

Suddenly the door slammed open as a man in a wheelchair forced himself into the bathroom. He struggled to steer the wheelchair as he labored to get through the door.

 

By steering with one hand, he shot into the bathroom, the door slamming after him. Unfortunately he came to rest against the back of my knee, pinning against the urinal. I looked down and in back of me to discover that he had no legs, only stumps protruding from his knees. His right stump was firmly shoved into the back of my right knee cap.

 

 

He had wedged himself, and me, into the tiny little cubicle. Carefully, I edged sideways so that I could remove my belly from the urinal. This caused his chair to shoot forward with the end of his stumps coming to rest into the urinal basin. He was very agitated....but legless people in wheelchairs always seem angry to me.

 

 

I went to the café and got a cup of coffee. I sat down and read through the latest issue of Folio Magazine. Then I headed back to the emergency room holding area. I expected to find Iris still

 

 

 

 

lying on the hospital bed waiting for test results.

 

As I walked down the hall, I head banging and shouting from inside a hospital room.

 

I could tell it was coming from the men's bathroom that I was in previously. I opened the door part way to peek in and sure enough, it was the legless man stuck in a handicap toilet cubicle. Evidently he couldn't get the door open and his wheelchair through it.

 

 

I turned around to see a black orderly way down the hall and called to him. I said, "there is a handicap man stuck in the men's bathroom. I think he needs help." The orderly kept saying, "What did you say?" "What did you say?" I could tell that he did not want to help him.

 

 

I pointed to the bath room, turned the corner and went back to the emergency room, thankful for the peace and quiet of an emergency room.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What are your favorite books?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lately I have read all of the Douglas Adams books that Joseph bought me. Adams was the author of the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy".

 

Additionally I have read all of the Michael Connolly books which is a detective series situated in Los Angeles; and the James Lee Burke books which features Dave Robicheaux a New Orleans detective. There are 20 Robicheaux books in the series as of March, 2015.

 

 

I recommend John McPhee if you are curious about science, nature, and the cause and effect of some forgotten subjects. Go to Wikipedia under his name to browse as he has written too many titles to mention here.

 

 

And lastly Malcolm Gladwell but he may be past his best work now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Did you ever get in trouble at school as a child?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was constantly in trouble and that would take a book.

 

Spring Park Elementary School on Spring Park Road.

 

My mother passed away while I was in the sixth grade. She got progressively worse as the cancer evolved from her breast to her blood stream.

 

My school teacher at the time was a sweet young recent college graduate named Clare Schneider. She didn't understand what was going on in my world. However, there were two big events in her classroom.

 

 

The first one was a puppet play. My character was supposed to be a doctor which really upset me. My sister sewed a doctor's costume for a paper machete head that I made out of flour, water, and Times-Union newspaper.

 

 

 

 

 

The second one was that Ms. Schneider had a monopoly on holding the school's annual maypole dance.

 

I told my teacher that I would not be participating in the maypole dance because it was a Christian ceremony and I was Jewish. "Why would ever think that?" she asked me.

 

I told her that it looked like a Christmas tree and she would have to call my mother if she was going make me weave myself around some school yard tree.

 

I knew that my mother had been moved to River Garden as a hospice facility and I never found out if my teacher tried to call my mom.

 

Our family would spend free time in my mom's room watching her quickly deteriorate.

 

I don't know if they still have that pole with the ribbons stored in a forgotten school closet but I am pretty sure that my sister and I would be first to volunteer to dance around with ribbons in the school yard.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6th grade - I have a full head of hair and am smiling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A maypole dance?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is the best meal

 

you've ever had?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is hard so I vote for Beach Road Chicken Dinner which is down the street from my old house on Planters Road. This restaurant has been in the same location since 1939, which says something about the failure to poison the clientele.

 

They are actually located on Atlantic Boulevard because Beach Boulevard didn't exist in the 40 and 50's.

 

As of 2015, the dinners are $9.95 with unlimited ice tea and sides: creamed peas, French fries, biscuits, gravy. I once found some peas in the cream.

 

French fries are deep fried in the same oil as the chicken so this is a non-stop trip to the cardiac clinic.

 

I recommend avoiding Sundays due to the church crowds that line up early, and yes, there are a lot of churches in the

 

 

 

 

 

153

Chuck Young

 

 

 

Neighboring area.

 

Coming up as #2 would be Lou Bono's BBQ. Its history is a separate story.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unlimited cream peas

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beach Road Chicken Dinner

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What are some choices you made about how to raise me?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Learn how to balance a checkbooks

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What do you admire most about your mother?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My mom died June 4th, 1957. This was five days before I turned twelve years old. It has been so long ago that I had to recheck the dates to attempt to flood my memory.

 

My memories are of a lady so distant that I am not sure that all I remember is what people told me about her and narratives about photos she appears in.

 

In those stories she was taking me to elementary school, she was a Cub Scout den mother making me wear my uniform to school, she was putting reflector tape on the fenders of all the bikes parked in front of the school. She was also the person who had a wooden fraternity paddle hanging on a hook inside a kitchen cabinet. All she had to do is open the cabinet door to inspire cooperation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I heard that she attended Lee High School but I can find no evidence of that. There was no demand for educated women in the 1920's, She took herself to New York and secured a job in a shop that framed pictures. But when her father died, her mother cried for her to come home as she was the oldest. Her siblings were adventurous as she was and they too were often gone for a long period of time.

 

 

She loved and married. My father loved her in return. Marriage was her salvation which allowed her to "have it all." She had a job at the May Cohen's Department store, worked at Safer's Kosher Market during the holidays for supplemental money, purchased her own home in the suburbs, and gave birth to two children.

 

 

The attached photo shows her with her two children, Esta Reva and Charles. All three have a prominent gap in their front teeth. The children inherited her beauty, wariness, and strength to survive.

 

 

If she were alive on Mother's Day, May 10, 2015, she would be 107 years old.

 

Happy Mother's Day. I hope you are having a wonderful day with the Angels. More than admiration, thank you for my life, my sister, my wife and son for whom the world and I would never have known.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Faye Leah Young

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What was your Mom like when you were a child?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tears ran down my mother's cheek.

 

She looked at me with eyes full of unconditional love as if all she could have ever wanted was right there in front of her.

 

She tried to pick me up to stop my violent thrashing and then she knew at once that everything people ever told her was true. I hit her in the face and then tried again to get away from her. Then I kicked her several times in the chest. My mom was strong, but not that strong.

 

 

I was only 4 months old but healthy and active.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

163

Chuck Young

 

 

 

Esta

 

When I was a child, I was always afraid of my mother. She would get mad quickly and you could watch the red rise from her chest to her face. That was the time to run and hide from her wrath. She had very definite, European ideas as to how a girl should behave. She was very insistent on good manners and being respectful to your elders. I would get beaten with a switch that left marks on my legs, but I would not let her see me cry. My brother, whom I adored as did everyone else, never seemed to get into trouble or cause my mother to raise her voice to him. I quickly learned to find hiding places and take a book to read. When she got sick with cancer, I had to help nurse her although I was only 12 years old, it was very traumatic, but I kept it inside so as not to cause my father stress.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What was the neighborhood you grew up in like?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I grew up at 1759 Planters Road, Jacksonville, Florida and lived there until I went to St. Johns River Junior College in Palatka, Florida.

 

My mother and father paid $15,000 for a single story, frame, three bedroom, one bath home with no air conditioning. The house was heated by a kerosene stove located in the hall. The house was clad in asbestos shingles and had a built-up asphalt roof. After my Dad passed away I carpeted the entire house and put vinyl siding over the shingles.

 

 

The house was located just outside of the old city limits which allowed my family to save on city taxes. The city and county consolidate into one big city in October 1968 that resulted from public corruption including bribery and larceny. Jacksonville

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

became the largest city, land wise, in the US. My father's real estate taxes went up to help pay for road that needed paving and electric lines to new developments.

 

My father noticed that the Assumption Church and Winn Dixie would be developing near the Mayfair subdivision so he bet that the new beach boulevard road to the beach would increase in value. He was right as their is no vacant land anywhere around this neighborhood.

 

 

I always thought we had a large backyard but later I discovered it was less than one half acre. My father planted azaleas bushes all around the house. They were pretty in the spring but I spent my youth trimming them away from the windows. Every month my dad bought a new plant for the yard and I guess I inherited that gene since my yard is now a jungle.

 

 

The Powell’s lived on the right hand side but were silent Christians we ever spoke to. The Rowlands lived on the left. He was a city electrical inspector and she was a high school guidance counselor. They had one daughter, Linda, who married a surveyor and disappeared into history. The Rowlands developed into full blown alcoholics in their retirement years. It was my job to call City Rescue every time they fell down in their house and couldn't get up.

 

They also had a dog named Wrinkie that they kept tied up in the

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

rain, cold, or heat. He lived a long time but I don't know why?

 

Our house was built up on brick piers above ground to let the air circulate under it. My dad put up lattice around the openings so it would not look so barren. When I was very little I used to like to climb under the house into the dark cool sand that existed there. I never saw spiders but my sister insisted that they lived there with the snakes.

 

 

Our floors were originally all pine, sanded and smooth. We had a small hole to the attic and somehow the plumbers located the hot water heater on studs in the attic over the kitchen.

 

After my father passed away I continued to live in the house until I married Iris. Iris had no intention of living in that neighborhood even if there was a tree full of figs in the backyard. My father planted the fig tree in memory of my mother as that was the translation of her Hebrew name. My father went to cheder as a child so he was familiar with the phrase, "everyone will sit under their own fig tree and they will have nothing to fear." Micah 4:4. I think he was spiritual rather than religious.

 

 

We had a septic tank buried in the back year that had to be pumped every 5 - 7 years. It is still there. Additionally there were shoe boxes containing the remains of birds and other small animals that we had said prayers over after they died. We became very good mourners.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Although we were desperately poor, my father shielded me from a lot of the hardships in life. I learned that it is not the house which makes your life but the people who dwell in it.

 

Other

 

The house sold in November 1990 for $48,5000 and included 996 square feet of heated space. It was built in 1943 by Charles Commander & Sons. It never contained a Christmas tree until the day I left.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Planters

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you could do it over, would you join the military?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the 1960's, the US was drafting males into the Army and Marines to feed the war in Viet Nam. My draft lottery number came up so I went to the recruiting office. The draft was for two years with a possible extension. Volunteers had to sign up for three but could pick a school/occupation to be in.

 

I volunteered to go into the Army as a 34Bravo20 which was electronic data processing (before the days of computers). I spent 16 weeks in basic training at the United State Army Infantry School, Fort Benning, near Columbus, Georgia in the Sand Hill training complex.

 

 

From there I went to Fort Monmouth, New Jersey for a yearlong training in data processing. Then to Fort Lewis, Washington State, then to Bupyong Dong, South Korea, and finally to Fort

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hood, Texas where I was discharged.

 

The army was a time waster but it did allow me to grow up. It also made me eligible for the GI education benefits which I used to get my MBA degree at Jacksonville University. It also made me worldly by forcing me to socialize with a large cross-section of the population.

 

 

I really didn't have a choice in entering the military in one way or another but I think I maximized my time while I was there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What are some of your favorite smells?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

See attached photos:

 

I used to like the smell of the old boardwalk at Jacksonville Beach where they were always cooking hot dogs, popcorn, and french fries. I remember the machine that pulled taffy and tested the filling in your teeth.

 

Hanging out at the original Chamblin Book Mine on Roosevelt Boulevard was always a great experience. It was quiet and you could actually hear the paper rotting away. This was great on a rainy weekend because you could get lost in the stacks. The roof was always leaking so it smelled like a wet dog.

 

Driving to St. Augustine I would beg my father to stop at Horne's that was on US 1 in the middle of nowhere. It smelled of shellac, marmalade and Clorox. My Dad only stopped once and I only had enough money for a Florida keyring. I think I still have it. Sadly.

 

 

 

 

 

Chuck Young

 

 

 

You can't say Jacksonville and not know that it smells of Maxwell House Coffee. That is a good thing to smell on a cold day either going to Landon High School or working at the shipyards. I wonder how many natives have been inside? Very few I bet.

 

Lastly, my sister used to dare me to run through the Arcade downtown Jacksonville. It was a mini mall that connected two streets. I never went inside the theatre but the mall had tiled floors and smelled of urine and popcorn. Yes it was dirty and dark but always made looking at blouses at Lerner Shops more interesting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

boardwalk at Jax Beach where you could get saltwater taffy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chuck Young

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

chamblin book mine - in the stacks

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hornes-1950s somewhere between Jacksonville and St. Augustine

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jax Beach Pavilion Shot - why were the toilets always out of order?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maxwell House on Bay Street next to the River

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Arcade. My sister thought the windows in Kay Jewelers were fancy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

What were your favorite toys as a child?

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had a toy chest at the end of the hall that had broken cars, pieces of jig saw puzzles, scrap paper, and maybe a broken doll's head or hand.

 

But what I liked the most was my Bozo the Clown doll. Sometimes I would talk to it and everyone in my house would think I was demented.

 

I found one in an antique store but they wanted $125.00 for it. I recently looked on EBay but no one is selling it.

 

The last time I saw my Bozo he was on my bed. I had punched his face in and twisted one leg into a knot. I never saw him again as I will always believe that he left me due to my excessive domestic violence. Is there a shelter for abused dolls? He may be there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is the worst performance you have been to?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The worst performance I realize I attended was with my family to see my Aunt Salome perform in a black face minstrel.

 

My family was big into Al Jolson and knew most of his songs like, "Mammy". "April Showers", and especially "Suwannee, how I love You." I bet if you mention any of the titles to people in my family over the age of 50, they will start humming the songs inside their brains.

 

 

The performance was held at the old George Washington Hotel's ballroom. It may have been a fundraiser. Even back then I thought my Aunt Salome was freaky with a black face and white lips with the makeup she was wearing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I asked her about it many years later in the 1970's to see if she remembered it. Her face lit up. She also remembered her special lines she got to say between two of the songs.

 

The Master of Ceremony sat in the middle of the circle in the center of the stage: "Mr. Interlockerter," shouted Salome. "Do you know how to make antifreeze?"

 

"No, how do you make antifreeze?" "You have to hide her long underwear!"

 

As late as 1970, she and my Uncle Felix thought that was still a funny joke.

 

My father was raised in Cincinnati, Ohio so even back then he thought only rednecks south of the Mason-Dixon line would put on a racially demeaning show.

 

The next day my Mom took me downtown on the bus to Fred Paulus's music store. She bought the sheet music with lyrics from the show. Mr. Paulus knew exactly why she was there and inquired about the performance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Happened on New Beach Boulevard?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Southgate

 

My father bought his first and only house at 1759 Planters Road in a new subdivision called Mayfair Place. He chose it because prior to consolidation of the city and county, it was outside the city limits. He would not have to pay city taxes or sewage fees but the 21 Mayfair Bus and the 13 Atlantic Bus ran to the end of the line on either side of the neighborhood, which is how he got to work each day. He was working at Cherry Produce since his Uncle Nathan had moved on.

 

 

My father's theory on buying real estate was to look for a new Winn-Dixie and Catholic Church because these organizations were good at predicting population growth and therefore increased value.

 

 

He was right for the first twenty years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He was unfamiliar with the donut hole theory of real estate investment and growth planning which means that population continues to move outward from the center leaving older neighborhoods to disappear in the middle.

 

For the first twenty years we watched them build Southgate Plaza (1957)that may have been the first shopping center in Jacksonville. It contained a W.T. Grant, Walgreens, a Lerner's Dress Shop, a National Shirt Shop, and a Thom McAn's Shoe Shop. Raymond Cohen opened a Toy Town toy store later and the Lazarus family opened a clothing store for children only. It was 71,000 square feet and we thought it was huge.

 

 

In 1965 my friend Ronnie went with me to a fast food restaurant called the "Big Mooo" specializing in milk shakes. He played a new song on the juke box, "I can't get no satisfaction" by a group I never heard before called The Rolling Stones. The building is still standing on the western side of Southgate being used as a window screen shop.

 

 

Later Jax Liquors opened a bar and lounge on the east side of Southgate Plaza and briefly their home office. Don Tredinick sold his bars to ABC and they closed the building. There was also a Lums Restaurant that specialized in hot dogs steamed in beer. It was a Florida franchise owned by some Jews. They merged the corporation with a Las Vegas casino, later filing for bankruptcy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before Lum's there was an Obi's grocery store. It was a small two story building where the owner's lived above. Mr. and Mrs. Obi were from the middle east and not very happy. The place scared me and my sister didn't make it more inviting. Mr. Obi was very heavy and sat at the front door. My sister said they didn't like kids in the store by themselves. They also kept it dark to save on the cost of electricity.

 

 

Two exciting things happened when Southgate Plaza opened. The Jacksonville Transportation Company extended two more bus lines to San Souci and to Southside Estate Boulevard. They were at the end of civilization at that time. They also added sidewalks and a middle lane to New Beach Boulevard.

 

The best thing that happened at Southgate was the opening of a Wolfie's Restaurant. Wolfie's came from Lincoln Road in Miami. They would not let you seat yourself unless you sat at the counter. Every table had free pickles in little silver buckets. Too Jewish for the natives, it was changed into a Morrison's Cafeteria.

 

 

I had my first two Christmas jobs at National Shirt Shop, a clothing store for men. It was managed by Roger Holmberg who was the first openly gay person I ever met. He never hit on the young guys working there as he had a life partner for many years. I was allowed to buy clothing at the employee discount

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

rate of forty percent off. The minimum wage at the time was seventy five cents an hour.

 

Because the neighborhood was outside the city limits, zoning was nonexistent. Dr. Silverberg opened a veterinarian clinic and dog boarding two blocks east. Animal hospitals were smelly and noisy as the dogs were kept in outside kennels. I don't think they had air conditioning at that time so we kids could hear dogs screaming inside when we walked down the sidewalk in front.

 

When I was eight years old (1955) I thought Lauren Silverberg was the most beautiful girl alive. We rode the Jewish Center bus home together on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

 

I told Morris, the bus driver, that I would get off at the animal clinic with Lauren and Randy, her brother, so he wouldn't have to stop twice on both sides of the road. I could also spend a few more minutes looking at her.

 

Dr. Silverberg and the family lived on the property facing Beach Boulevard over a three car garage. Both Lauren and her bother Randy passed away. Lauren had married Skip Rothstein, an attorney. Randy was also an attorney and later the Jewish Center scoutmaster. Before he married his wife Cindy, I had just started working for the Atlantic Bank. We were responsible for evicting his mother in law, Bea Goldsmith from her Mandarin Home. The animal hospital is now a used car lot but inhabited by ghosts of

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

all those dogs.

 

There were several other businesses that are gone now: the Sunoco gas station and the Barbeque take out store.

 

Southgate Plaza is mostly empty with a dirty Family Dollar and a Save A Lot grocery store. Winn-Dixie and all the restaurants and chain stores have disappeared. Mayfair Village Apartments across the street have been converted to very low-income housing.

 

 

St. Nicholas Shopping Center to the west is starting to revive and perhaps it will begin to spill over.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Young's Fancy Fruits

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My mother was the entrepreneurial one. My father Joseph Young had married when he was in his late thirties so he was satisfied with a steady paying job and working for someone else. I always thought it was because his father Isadore humiliated him when he left Cincinnati on the train for Florida in the height of the depression. While he loved his father, he refused to ever return to Ohio even after the ubiquitous airplane service was established.

 

 

There were no jobs in Cincinnati during the depression because it was primarily a manufacturing town. His father Isadore rented bench space in a factory from another Jew to manufacture miniature suitcases for traveling salesmen to tote their samples from business to business or house to house. My father was too gentle for the life of the factory anyway.

 

My mother developed breast cancer in tenth year of my life around 1955. She persuaded my father to quit his secure five day

 

 

 

 

 

a week job and half day on Saturdays to purchase a small grocery store on Atlantic Beach Road. It was just east of the big A&P at St. Nicholas Square and across the street from the Mayfair Baptist Church whose congregation consisted of World War II vets and their families. The parishioners faithfully filled the benches each Sunday morning with Southern religious and patriotic fervor.

 

The building that housed the store was business in front with an attached house in the rear. Mrs. Bryant, the former owner was a widow and continued to live in back. A second customer had to go through the back door of the store into her house to use her toilet if the only one toilet in the store was occupied.

 

Atlantic Beach Road was a two lane highway with no sidewalks.

 

Cars were coming into common use for every household.

 

Customers could literally drive to the front doors for parking. My father and mother thought that the name, “Young’s Fresh Fruits” was a great name and painted it in large letter on the west side of the building for everyone to see who was traveling to the beach.

 

 

The store had a small meat case, one old cash register with cigarettes, snuff and dipping powder in the front of the store. There was a candy case and cold beer in a refrigeration unit at the very back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was fascinated by the cigarette machine my Dad bought for $35.00. For twenty-five cents you could put a coin in the front and pull a long handle under the brand you wanted. The cigarette package would come falling through the machine with a loud noise and flourish, ending up on a silver shelf at the bottom of the machine. It was manly thing as no women would purchase cigarettes so publicly. It also took some strength to pull the handle out to its full length.

 

 

I spent a lot of time at the store. My father baby-sat there as my mom would be going for cancer treatment or just be lying weakly in her bed each day. She would try hard to smile at me, even if it was wanly, whenever I came into the master bedroom to see her.

 

One day two large men came into the store while I was there. The leader told my Dad that they were taking over all the cigarette machines in the county and he would have to sell the machine to them. They would now have the key to fill the machine and empty the coin box. My father recognized one of the men as a deputy working for Rex Sweat, the Sheriff. Rex and his boys rode large Harley Davidsons because South Jacksonville was growing with many of the new neighborhood streets just dirt and unpaved. There wasn’t much gun violence back then for them to worry about. Most disputes were settled with fists and knives. Rex Sweat’s boys preferred a club that looked like a baseball bat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While the police chief was in charge of everything within the city limits, the elected sheriff controlled the large county. Their main task was to remind blacks to stay in their neighborhoods, ride at the back of the bus, and step off a sidewalk when a white person approached them. And this rule was enforced between black children and white children too. Jacksonville was segregated. Blacks would stick their head in the store’s door or call for my father to come outside to sell them something. They were not allowed inside.

 

 

I didn’t actually see my Dad turn over the cigarette machine and key to the two thugs. But I noticed that the key was missing from the little holding box in the back of the cash register drawer. Selling cigarettes was a cash business and the police were above skimming.

 

 

Before they left the store they turned to my Dad and said, “We are going to let you sell beer on Sunday and no one will bother you.” My father thanked them blankly.

 

On the next Sunday the store started filling up right after church. “Damn it” my Dad shouted out. “I didn’t get enough change from the bank on Friday.” Getting enough cash and change for Saturday and Sunday was a logistical nightmare. A merchant didn’t want too much money in the register as they would be arguing with their employees about what he called “shrinkage.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the first Sunday, we stood inside the store looking across the street at the full parking lot of the church. Then the deputies came in. “Hey Joe”, one yelled out. “Where do keep the large brown grocery bags?”

 

 

My Dad kept a large stack of bags right next to beer cooler. They put several six packs in bags and walked out of the store without paying; a fact that drew my attention. So I said to my Dad, “hey those guys didn’t pay!” The policeman turned and said, “You can’t sell beer of Sunday so I will be back Monday with money.”

 

That was true and was also the routine for the parishioners when church let out. Get the beer on Sunday but pay for it on Monday. Eventually City Council passed legislation revoking the old blue laws with their prohibition against drinking, especially on the Christian Sunday Sabbath. My father watched the revenue dry up as every bar, drug and grocery store started opening on Sunday.

 

Around 1975 I was living at home and asked him if he had any regrets back then about being the proprietor of a small store? There was one regret. He said that my mom kept insisting that he put a window on the end of building so people could drive up and not have to get out of their cars. She was sure the Baptist would double their purchases. She was right and ahead of her time since no decent bar today would open up without a drive-in window.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My father sold beer by the singles or a six-pack. He also sold individual cigarettes for five cents each. He was cagey about giving out free matches unless some customer had a reputation for spending at least ten dollars in the store which would be about fifty dollars in today’s money.

 

My father spent a lot of time at our home towards the end of my Mom’s life. The retired couple who managed the store regularly stole money out of the register. I only ate the candy and drank the Cokes freely.

 

 

After my mother died, he immediately called Solomon’s Salvage. Mr. Solomon asked a few questions as he walked about the store. He offered my Dad one thousand dollars for everything: debts customers owed, inventory, meat display case, and ice boxes.

 

In the middle was Mrs. Bryant crying and shouting that she and my father had a contract, so what was she going to do. My Dad explained he had two young children therefore he needed a job that would put food on the table. Abandoning the store is what he did.

 

 

He went to work for his cousins at East Coast Fruit Company on Edgewood Avenue. They remembered him not just as family but an adult who lived with them and their mom in Aunt Bessie’s rooming house. He was the one who mentored them, took them to Halloween parades and played sports with them outside when

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

they were small children.

 

In 2015, I was eating an expensive lunch with the head of our community development department and our Tallahassee lobbyist. As we were leaving they told me to step into the bathroom alcove with them as they wanted to show me something. It was a cigarette machine but now a package of cigarettes cost seven dollars and twenty five cents.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What the building looks like in 2015. No parking, five lane road and the church is out of business.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Heavy roll of brown wrapping paper we used to wrap meat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The coke bottles floated in ice water and would give you a mild shock if not properly grounded

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cigarettes for $7.25 at River City Brewing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Merita Bread gave my dad a free screen door. The store had fans but no air conditioning.

 

 

 

 

 

The places I've lived.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

at various times......

 

o 1759 Planters Road

 

o 402 Reid Street, Palatka

 

0 James Hotel

 

o Macomb & College Street - Tallahassee 0 Fort Benning

 

0 Fort Monmouth

 

o Fort Lewis

 

o South Korea

 

o Fort Hood

 

0 Cumbrian Gardens Lane

 

0 Nakema Drive

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chuck Young

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Virginia Couck - Wooden House torn down

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

James Hotel - walked up 3 flights to single bed room

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

College and Macomb - Tallahassee = yes, it's a bar now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Eclair

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While at the beach,I got up off the hot sandy white sand and tried to climb up the concrete bulkhead which held the Boardwalk at the top. I ended up scrapping my tan arms. The family was proceeding up the wooden stairs which were rebuilt after every storm.

 

 

 

It was time to leave but we had a special treat. A visit to Arnot's Bakery. Barefooted my mom, dad, and sister took me. Their pastry cases were full of goodness of chocolate. It was air conditioned cool which contrasted with the Florida sun.

 

Even though I was sandy all over, they let me come and sit on a vinyl chair parked next to a laminated table.

 

My Mom told to go sit over there and save the other three seats for them. Here comes my sister now with my chocolate éclair. What? The éclair is missing the custard filling inside.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I ate the crust and I was happy. My sister was afraid of Mr. Arnot and his long mustache. She was also afraid of his big white apron dusted with white sugar. I fell asleep in my damp bathing suit while Dad laid me on the floorboard of the car in back. I was always carried in the house.

 

 

Childhood joy is walking barefoot across cold black and white floor tiles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was Arnot's Bakery at Jacksonville Beach. 1955

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blockbuster Dreams

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are several dreams that I keep visiting. One is the Blockbuster Video store that was next to Pizza Hut on old St. Augustine Road. I guess that I could have predicted that they would go out of business when they charged me $8.00 for returning a VHS tape five days late.

 

 

 

"Welcome to Blockbuster!" they would shout out when I entered the store. I rarely went there unless I was with Joseph. We would head past the old videos that they had for sale to the wall with the new releases. They were always out of best sellers. There would be just empty boxes that we stood reading with the other disappointed customers.

 

 

The atmosphere was anything but clean and well-organized. Who helped them pick out the color scheme? It was blue and yellow sickening. I think their original goal was to make it feel like a library, except for the black themed movie trailers that were pumped into the store at the loudest level.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let's us always remember the walls that surrounded the store with obscure movies. Joseph and I would walk up and down the aisles with the many rows of movies organized by genres such as comedy, horror, family, kids, action, drama, and so forth. They were also arranged in alphabetical order by title as if that would assist the hapless customers.

 

 

Some of my best bonding time was spent with Joseph on a Friday night standing in line to get checked out circling the microwave popcorn displays and old videos that were for sale. They had the latest technology but could never find my name in their computer system. "Where did you get this card?" some acne-faced teenager would be questioning me.

 

Pizza Hut is still there dutifully hiring the neighborhood teens with their recently acquired automobile licenses. Blockbuster believed too much in what they were doing. They had the power to control who would watch Star Trek-First Contact. But it wasn't us.

 

 

Goodbye Blockbuster. Hello Christian Bookstore who gave us the $15.99 statuettes of St. Joseph that we could plant upside down in the back yard to sell our houses faster. It must work because there are hundreds of houses in Mandarin with a plastic statute buried on the property.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally I think it is ironic that they named themselves "Blockbuster" since they rarely had any. It must have been good for a laugh at the corporate headquarters as it is for us now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blockbuster

 

There are several dreams that I keep visiting. One is the Blockbuster Video store that was next to Pizza Hut on old St. Augustine Road. I guess that I could have predicted that they would go out of business when they charged me $8.00 for returning a VHS tape five days late.

 

 

"Welcome to Blockbuster!" they would shout out when I entered the store. I rarely went there unless I was with Joseph. We would head past the old videos that they had for sale to the wall with the new releases. They were always out of best sellers. There would be just empty boxes that we stood reading with the other disappointed customers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The atmosphere was anything but clean and well-organized. Who helped them pick out the color scheme? It was blue and yellow sickening. I think there original goal was to make it feel like a library, except for the black themed movie trailers that were pumped into the store at the loudest level.

 

Let's us always remember the walls that surrounded the store with obscure movies. Joseph and I would walk up and down the aisles with the many rows of movies organized by genres such as comedy, horror, family, kids, action, drama, and so forth. They were also arranged in alphabetical order by title as if that would assist the hapless customers

 

 

Some of my best bonding time was spent with Joseph on a Friday night standing in line to get checked out circling the microwave popcorn displays and old videos that were for sale. They had the latest technology but could never find my name in their computer system. "Where did you get this card?" some acne-faced teenager would be questioning me.

 

Pizza Hut is still there dutifully hiring the neighborhood teens with their recently acquired automobile licenses. Blockbuster believed too much in what they were doing. They had the power to control who would watch Star Trek-First Contact. But it wasn't us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Goodbye Blockbuster. Hello Christian Bookstore who gave us the $15.99 statuettes of St. Joseph that we could plant upside down in the back yard to sell our houses faster. It must work because there are hundreds of houses in Mandarin with a plastic statute buried on the property.

 

 

Finally I think it is ironic that they named themselves "Blockbuster" since they rarely had any. It must have been good for a laugh at the corporate headquarters as it is for us now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blockbuster

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is the worst job you ever had?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The worst job I have had was at Angel's Diner in Palatka, Florida.

 

 

I needed some money while I attending school at St. Johns River Junior College.

 

My landlady suggested that I get a job in one of the restaurants in town since I live on 2nd street with her and there a dozen around with Hiring! signs in the window.

 

I only worked there two days before I had to leave. Angel's was a real converted railroad dining car with a long aluminum counter inside and girls on skates taking orders outside.

 

The first day was uncomfortable as they gave me a white butchers apron that I wore over my jeans but I truly just stood around behind the counter handing the waitresses various things.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They had several cooks behind a walled counter and one old grizzled ex-navy guy who worked the front changing the coffee filters, adding ice to the machines, and making waffles. I guess the plan was that I would learn to do his job as seemed alcoholic and most likely missed a lot of work.

 

The second day started off stiff and formal but by lunch the gang loosened up enough to banter with me and the customers.

 

Then a strange thing happened. The old front cook started to make this gurgling sound in his throat. He was wearing a dirty sailor's white cap which turned sideways on his head.

 

Then he pitched forward on his face behind the narrow counter. It as hard to reach him and frankly no one wanted to touch him, even to check if he was dead.

 

I squeezed behind the counter. The crowd shouted for me to take off my apron and prop his head up off the dirty wet floor. "Pull off his shoes", "Pull off his shoes!" the big red headed waitress shouted at me.

 

 

I squatted down behind his feet and pulled off both shoes simultaneously. The came off rather fast because he didn't have any feet. Rather he had sock tops around his ankles and two ankle stubs where his feet must have been. The shoes were specially made to hold his feet so he could stand erect.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I saw his legs and no feet, I passed out on top of him still holding the 2 pair of shoes.

 

There was no third day at work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inside Angel’s Diner, Palatka, Florida

 

 

 

 

What famous people have you met and how did you meet them?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have met several famous personalities but the ones who surprised me the most was Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland.

 

I was at Fort Hood during my army service but frequently left the fort to go into Killeen Texas. I went with several army buddies to buy tickets at a club called the Oleo Strut. There were rumors that some folks from Hollywood would be in town to perform some anti-war skits. This was in the 1970s when the war in Viet Nam was in full swing.

 

 

The café we went into at noon was crowded so we sat at the counter ordering hamburgers, fries, and cokes. Jane Fonda came in and sat down on one of the stools near us. Her face looked pockmarked and she was wearing a white tee shirt that looked like she had spilled grape juice down the front. Soon after,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Donald Sutherland joined her. He had the same pointy nose and arrogant air about him as he does now. I was amazed by how thin and how tall he was.

 

I believed either Candace Bergen or Jane Fonda to be the most beautiful women in American. People Magazine said she was born in December, 1937 which would make her two years older that my Cousin Herbie Gordon who just passed away. What was the difference?

 

 

She readily admitted she has gotten plastic surgery over the years, had a facelift in her forties and another one in February 2010. She also got breast implants when she was younger and recently had a chin lift as well as surgery to remove the bags under her eyes.

 

As she has gotten older, Jane no longer does the rigorous, high-impact aerobic exercise she extolled during the 1980s Fonda, who has an artificial hip and titanium knee, admits she's no longer as limber as she used to be.

 

The music was loud, psychedelic light were flashing, but I had a headache and left the Oleo Strut to go back to fort. “You should have been there when the police came.” ""They took Jane away" my bunk mate shouted in my ear but I doubted I would be back or ever see a young girl they called, Saigon Jane.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately she got locked up at the next town too. Four marriages and four losers.

 

 

 

Chuck Young

 

 

 

 

What are your favorite plays?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have loved a lot of plays such as

 

:  Cats - watched it 10 times and can watch it again.

 

:  Jersey Boys - snap your fingers

 

:  Les Miz - Man's fall from grace and redemption

 

:  The Producers - Funny

 

:  South Pacific, Paint Your Wagon, Oklahoma - know the words

 

:   Pipin - same but Irene Ryan died so I am not sure how it sounds now.

 

 

:  Pump Boys and Dinettes - Fun song and dance

 

:  Lion King - has staying power with the Circle of Life.

 

:  Warhorse - original and loud.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

lion king

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Did you have a car in high school?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We were too poor and only the elite or highly borrowed family had an extra car for a child to park at high school. Car insurance was the biggest expense as gasoline was only 50 cents a gallon. Back then a lot of people did their own repairs as compared with today's cars and the technology that is involved.

 

Only teachers and visitors were allowed to park in front of the school on Thacker Avenue. There was a small dirt lot in back that would hold about twenty-five cars.

 

Landon High was designed as a college preparatory school since it was assumed that ninety percent of the students would go to college. Youth with wealthy parents had them dropped off at the front by the housekeeper, chauffer, or dad on the way to work downtown.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bus riders like me gathered in cliques on the front steps and watched. We would congratulate anyone who showed up on crutches or an arm in a cast from a weekend incident. I don't think I ever saw my sister and her group.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What do you think death is like?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It appears that right after the pain disappears from the brain, the light in the eyes gets smaller and smaller and then the person's consciousness is gone.

 

"Thank you for sharing your beautiful life with us, now Let go!" nuns of The Sisters of Mercy say. People close their eyes and take an infinitely long sleep.

 

 

I was at Herbie Gordon's funeral with Iris. We were stationed away, back behind some tombstones as I was afraid Iris's chair would get stuck in the soft grass and dirt. However, when we got to that part of the ceremony where the rabbi invited the assembled to throw a shovel of dirt in the hole, I could hear this deep hollow "thunk" each time someone tossed a scoop.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I asked Iris, "Do you think the dead can still hear, and even though they are dead, can they "hear" that sound?"

 

 

 

 

 

My Mother's Funeral

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The last time I saw my mother was in a small room on the second floor of River Garden where she had been taken as a hospice placement. My grandmother was sitting in a chair wiping the sweat from my mother’s face with an old wash cloth. “Why is her arm in a cast?” I asked. The cancer was wasting her body and thinning her bone marrow.

 

 

“geh avek” she whispered hoarsely to my father which is Yiddish for send them away. She waved goodbye to me. Fifty years later I still expect her to return. That’s what usually happens when someone waves goodbye.

 

 

The phone call came on the old black rotary telephone in the morning. My father’s voice was flat. He then hugged my sister and I in his big arms and said, “We are all alone now.”

 

The black limousine came to pick us up at the house and took us downtown to Estes-Krauss Funeral Home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mr. Krauss asked if anybody wanted to look one last time. My father said no but my Aunt Salome said yes. My mom’s cousin, Adolph Laask, lit up a cigarette. “You can’t smoke in here!” Mr. Krauss frowned. Adolph went outside.

 

The pallbearers carried the casket out a side door while we went out the front. The funeral procession snaked its way down Main Street to 3rd and Silver, to the old Jewish Center Synagogue. It stopped in front of the imposing white granite steps. The doors to the Sanctuary had been all thrown open.

 

Our limousine was right behind the one carrying the casket. I was surprised to see Rabbi Tofield open the back door of the hearse where we could see the foot of the wooden casket. The Rabbi and the Cantor stood there by the open car door for a respectful moment and then we continued on to the cemetery. My father said that now her spirit was released to live in the synagogue forever. My mother sang in the choir and was involved heavily so this was the Center’s final honor.

 

 

It was mandatory that I go to every Sunday minyan with all the other boys who were scheduled for a bar mitzvah. As we walked through the dingy halls I wondered if my mother’s ghost was floating around somewhere with me.

 

I had never been to a funeral at age thirteen. Her funeral was graveside with the family sitting in the front row next to the hole

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

in the ground. I was intrigued by the metal frame contraption that straddled the hole. The rabbi put a black cloth pin on each of us. He then took a small knife and made a cut on the ribbon as a sign of rendering our clothes in mourning.

 

The pallbearers placed the casket on the metal construction which automatically and slowly lowered the box into the ground. It never occurred to me that my mother was inside.

 

The last thing I remember was the thunking sound of dirt being thrown on top of the casket. I can clearly hear it echo from all the funerals I have been at since. I went with my wife to the funeral of Herbert Gordon, a distant relative. I asked Iris, “Even though the person is physically dead, do you think that part of the brain may still be alive so they can hear the dirt being thrown on top of them?”

 

 

“Do you miss your mother?” my grandmother would ask me at each visit to her at River Garden. Yes I would reply but since she waved goodbye I am still am hoping that she will come back from wherever she went.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

30 Day candle we stared at for a month. Then we walked around the block and threw it away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All that remains at a flea market of Estes-Krauss Funeral Home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We still remember with rocks on her tomb

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

shovel in sand - need I say more?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last photo comment:

 

When we visited the cemetery I asked my Dad why my Mom's tombstone was tilted?

 

He said he had it straightened several times but stopped as he assumed her soul was just restless.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Smells

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Smells

 

The other day I was sitting in a chair and for some reason I looked at my hand and then I smelled the palm of my hand. I wonder how many people do that.

 

It was a smell that was unusual and not familiar. I went to the sink and washed my hands carefully and then waited a couple of hours. I smelled my palm and noticed that the smell had come back as if my hand was sweating and this would be another fascinating thing about me.

 

 

I can well identify the smell of my armpits which is distinctly different from the thousands of visitors I stand in line with in the hot sun at Disney World. This is my smell. I can remember it only from high school onward when I ran track. Then in college before a big date. Then in the Army after a day of crawling through a Confidence Course. Or after giving a professional

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

presentation.

 

I asked my wife how bad my socks smelled just before climbing into bed one night. Not at all she replied charitably. I understand marriage after thirty years. There are some things that your mind tells you to turn off.

 

 

My sister bought me a bottle of Canoe cologne. What a great memory she has. It still has the flavor of sock-less Bass Weejuns, Gant shirts, and Corbin trousers dating from the fifties and sixties. My father questioned why I would drench myself in high school with expensive, quickly evaporating, products. Bay Rum and Pinaud Aftershave was fine for him. I loved opening the closet door in my parent’s bedroom. It smelled like my mother’s clothes and indescribably reassuring. In the first week of my marriage I noticed my wife’s clothes stirred up the same strong memories.

 

 

I worked for National Shirt Shops, a men’s clothing store, in the early sixties. They sold gift boxes of Old Spice, English Leather, Brut and Jade East cologne. Jade East had a strange lime smell and like nothing that reminded me of Asia. It was so high in alcohol that we would catch dirty looking men in back of the store. They would be filtering it through a loaf of bread so they could drink it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately my car has to sit in the hot Florida sun all day while I am working. My 1994 Camry developed a smell that bordered on mold, old Pepsi, rotting fabric and a hint of gasoline. I bought the 2013 Camry new which had that luxurious “new smell” to it. Consumers Digest said that it comes from the hazardous glue that is used under the instrument panel.

 

 

Nevertheless it is only designed for six months duration and then it is gone. I noticed the same about my new 2014 Ford convertible. I did what everyone does. I lurked at Pep Boys, Auto Zone, Target, and Walmart smelling the cans and packages of “new car” smell products in hopes of finding something that would really duplicate the new car smell memory. This search must be like looking for a second wife. Of course I always end up buying a new car-smell Christmas Tree mirror hanger but I discretely hide it under the front seat. How effective is that? “Hey” my coworker said one day when we were driving to lunch in my car, “did your dog pee in the back seat?” So much for a new car smell.

 

 

 

 

The Internet search engines have a million articles on the air which comes from our back sides be it from human, dog, monkey or cow. Evidently cow gas contains a high degree of methane which is an environmental issue. I will state that I understand it is largely a result of whether I have been eating onion rings or not and not dwell on this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I wondered if it was funny or just curious when my cavemen ancestors were sitting around the fire at night listening to the sounds and smells resulting from the day’s catch. Next came the invention of the bath.

 

 

I love walking into department stores that have perfume counters in front of the store. The perfumes used to have alluring names such as Come Hither, Seduction, and Bright Eyes. Now they are called High Tech, Sugar Rays, and Mr. J.

 

My father came to Jacksonville and lived as an old bachelor in a room run by his boarding house Aunt Bessie on Eighth Street. He would drag me by the produce warehouse, maybe the bank with its cool marble smell. Sometimes we would walk past The Krystal Hamburger Stand or the doors of the old Florida Theater with its smell of candy and old popcorn.

 

When he was a bachelor he walked into Cohen Brothers Department and saw a blonde lady at the perfume counter.

 

I became his story and remember the smells for him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes People Die

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes people die and they take your story to the grave.

 

This is not all bad because these people easily remember what happened to you that you would rather forget as part of life's story. Your story is always one that they laugh about and tell to other people and always in your presence.

 

Stories about the time you were hitting on a girl and your friends later told you that your fly was opened. Or the time you ran into the women's bathroom by mistake on the beach boardwalk. They always get a chuckle about the time you were drinking and fell down skinning your knees and chin. What a great three point landing they would shriek.

 

 

In 1951 my mother thought it would be a good time to go to the beach so she called up her friend Mrs. Sohn on the old black rotary phone that stood in the hall by the bathroom door. Mrs. Sohn lived in the St. Nicholas area.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My mom packed sandwiches for me, my sister, and herself. We then trudged up Atlantic Boulevard to meet Mrs. Sohn by the old Preston's Drugs. The 13 Atlantic bus ran from downtown, past St. Nicholas, to 3rd Street at Jacksonville Beach. I realize that people did a lot of walking in those days, schlepping bags, purses, beach toys, and inflatable rings. Now I can hardly walk from the parking lot at work to the elevator without complaining about the weather, lack of parking, or my physical discomfort.

 

It took a long time for the bus to come and my mother insisted that we stand in the sun next to bus bench or the bus might go right by us. She and Mrs. Sohn chatted. My sister complained about the buckle on one of her sandals.

 

I stood about watching the infrequent cars driving past. Mrs.

 

Sohn and my mother chatted.

 

I noticed a strange object right on the corner. I tried climbing it but my shoes could not find an unslippery spot. Although it was metal, it was cool to the touch. In an effort to climb higher, I grabbed what I thought was a handle. This was my first discovery of a fire alarm.

 

 

The box started making strange noises. "Did you pull the fire alarm?" Mrs. Sohn asked anxiously in her German accent. I am sure it was a mistake my mom answered serenely. My sister played with her braided hair and smiled. Then the hook and ladder truck appeared.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Who pulled the fire alarm the fire captain demanded? He examined the box, the people standing there, and then surmised that it could have been a little boy climbing up the pole.

 

Not so said my mom and Mrs. Sohn agreed.

 

"Oh here is the bus now" said my mom.

 

For the rest of her life Mrs. Sohn would repeat the fire alarm episode. She would tell it and pat my head with a laugh. When I was older she would tell it looking up at me. Since she sang in the choir at the old Jacksonville Jewish Center, she had an unlimited number of people she could relay it. This was always the way she introduced me.

 

 

My sister has long forgotten the day. Mrs. Sohn and my parents are not alive anymore. However the trauma of the day, the lies told by adults, and the indifference of my sister are still with me. The fire alarm has been long gone but its ghostly image haunts me when I pass by the corner.

 

Sometimes people die and take your stories away. But my embarrassment and the people who loved me are not totally gone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

fire alarm type at St. Nicholas

 

 

 

 

 

What was your first

 

reaction when you found out you had been drafted into the army?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I actually expected to be drafted in the Army. I was attending college at FSU but was "off track" which meant that I was not moving to graduation within a four year period.

 

The Viet Nam war was in full progress. The government was pulling ROTC students out of school to fill in the officer ranks. They were also drafting men into the marines but few people remember that.

 

 

My father watched TV and was panicked that I would be living in the jungle. The news was horrible on both sides.

 

If drafted, the service obligation was two years. If one enlisted in the Navy or Air Force, it was four years. The army was a three

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

year period.

 

When my draft lottery number came up I received a post card that said I had 90 days to go to the Naval Air Station reception center to enter the service. I went to an army enlistment office on Beach Boulevard across from my house. I discussed various "jobs or skills" one could obtain with an enlistment.

 

I was intrigued by data processing. This was in the 70's before computers were known. Data processing was actually the IBM punch card system that used punch card machines, verifiers, sorters, collators, and other mechanical machines.

 

The school was in Fort Monmouth just outside of Red Banks, New Jersey and lasted over a year. I figured the war would be over by the time I graduated. I also thought that they don't take data processing machines out in the jungle. I was wrong in the first case but right on the second.

 

First I had to get an army physical at NAS and was shipped off to Fort Benning, Georgia which is in the northwest corner of the state near Columbus. I was assigned to a training company in a section called Sand Hill.

 

When I was out of the army my dad told me that he was physically sick and cried the day he took me to the bus station.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The strange part of it was that I grew up as a street kid so army basic training was a great place to be. Previously I was a dead-beat college kid. However in basic training I had clothes, money, food, and a place to sleep. I recently saw an old pay check from those days where I made seventy dollars each month and had fifteen deducted for a savings bond. My father filed a rather short form to the IRS that year.

 

 

Like most people, serving in the military gave me a worldly education that is hard for civilians to understand. I still feel a joyous sense of pride when the flag passes by in a parade.

 

I am gratified to live in this country. While I probably would not choose to give up three years of my live again, the experience now is a part of my resume and part of my soul.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Heyman's Department Store

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bernie

 

My Cousin Walter said I should help out his friend Bernie Heyman at Christmas. I was home on the Christmas break from the junior college and was just laying around the house in 1964. Bernie owned Heyman’s Department Store on the corner of Davis and Union Streets. It was a small inner city clothing store less than five thousand square feet in all. The clientele was the African American community that lived nearby. It is long gone since Bernie was killed by the police. The Ritz Theatre is there now.

 

 

The police didn’t mean to kill Bernie. He had one of the first burglar alarms in the 60’s that would call your house if someone broke into your downtown business. When the alarm rang at his house in St. Nicholas, he rush out on a cold dark night with a

 

 

 

 

 

gun. The police showed up too and mistook Bernie for a burglar.

 

“We asked him to put down the gun but he didn’t,” said the police. “He kept crouching behind the blue mail box and we could see that he had a gun.”

 

At Christmas time, Heyman’s Department Store sold mostly flannel shirts, dungarees, and skates with keys. Lots and lots of skates. There were skates in boxes stacked high on shelves all around his store. The little store was chaotic but the lack of Christmas sales could break a business. Bernie and his wife Bobbie left the store every hour to make a cash deposit at the bank. This was before debit and credit cards became available. I enjoyed noise and the smell of the clothes. Clothing was treated with formaldehyde to keep the bugs and rats from nesting.

 

 

Why do you only sell one brand of skates I asked Bernie? He said because the keys were always getting lost and every manufacturer had a different key. I loved strapping on the skates and using the skate key to turn the toe clamps so tight my toes became black and blue.

 

 

Everyone would sleep late on Christmas day at my house since everything was closed. We knew it was Christmas in my neighborhood as we could hear the sound of skates on the asphalt road in front of my house. A few kids got bicycles but this happened only once in their lifetime.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My job at the store was to run into the back room and get more dungarees when the stacks got low. Some of the dungarees were flannelled lined so if you rolled up the cuffs, the flannel inside had a matching shirt you could buy. My hands became blue from the cheap dye that used on the pants.

 

A gypsy palm reader had occupied the empty store next to Heyman’s Department Store. Stay away from them said Bernie. They are goniffs. I stood up all day watching customers until late at night. Bernie’s wife Bobby made pastrami sandwiches and we stood up eating them not daring to leave the store at lunchtime.

 

Bernie was affable. He was quick to lose his temper and quicker to make up when he realized that he had overstepped. Brusqueness was his attitude but he was generous as long as it didn’t concern his money.

 

 

His wife survived his killing by taking odd jobs, mostly at hospitals. If I ran into her she would smile at me and we would reminisce about Christmas at Heyman’s Department store.

 

When I was at Herbie’s funeral I saw Bernie’s grave. Jews traditionally leave small rocks on top of the cemetery grave stones to indicate that someone visited and remembered.

 

There was a chewed half smoked cigar butt hanging off of the top of Bernie’s grave stone. He would have liked that.

 

 

 

 

 

Chuck Young

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Skate and key

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Kiss

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Kiss

 

They say that when you get married, each night you go to bed not only with your spouse but also their entire family. I believe that is true.

 

One thing I notice about the Tekel family is that they like to kiss on the lips.

 

Not the first time, but the second time I met Paul Tekel I wasn’t paying attention and he kissed me full on the lips. I was stunned as this was not something that my extended family in north Florida ever did. I then was introduced to Lou and Yvette Tekel, Iris’ aunt and uncle.

 

 

Lou was a short friendly little man who caught me off guard. Then his wife. I quite distinctly remember his rough beard and her highly sprayed hairdo. Up close.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have never tried to give or get a kiss from Nina. I don’t want to try. In fact I don’t even shake hands with her. It probably doesn’t help that I put my hands in my pockets. Have you ever seen a passionate kiss when one party has their hands in their pockets?

 

The Youngs and cousins are quite different. They rush at you and then at the last moment purse their lips and turn their cheek to you. I call this the Cheek Bump. They really enjoy the kiss if you hear a humming or umphing noise too.

 

If this is not choreographed right, I would end up knocking off their eye glasses or hearing aid. But I am freaked out when I kiss a female cousin and it feels like a man’s beard.

 

I like to kiss my wife. Hers is always a soft smiling kiss with a thank you at the end.

 

 

 

 

 

 

What advice would you give your 20 year old self?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was born in the summer of 1945 so twenty years later in 1965 I was leaving St. Johns Junior College in Palatka, Florida for FSU and Tallahassee. I felt lost because I was majoring in general business and had no idea where I would end up.

 

My twenty year old self was very aware of what was happening in Vietnam. It was a scary time. The Civil Rights movement was at its height. Citizens had set fire to the Watts section of Los Angeles and my Dad and I watched the world burn on our old black and white television. Memories can be so depressing.

 

One bright spot occurred when my father took me to see "The Sound of Music" at the old San Marco Theatre. We sang the songs from the movie for the rest of our lives.

 

My first real epiphany came when I worked as a fundraiser for the North Florida United Way. During this time, 1993, the World

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trade Center was bombed. I then learned that every single person would suffer a traumatic experience in their life: loss of a job, death of a parent or spouse, bankruptcy or so on. This event would be as depressing and deep a black hole that one could fall in, even to the edge of possible suicide.

 

I would want to tell my twenty year old self to prepare emotionally, financially, physically but that "you will be alright."

 

The depression can be offset by gratitude and looking around at all that you currently have. I would also like to tell my twenty year old self that the future you will experience, places you will visit, and people you will come in contact will be beyond your dreams.

 

 

Now I am seventy although it is hard to believe and sitting in an executive office on the eighth floor of a building overlooking the St. Johns River. When modern technology I can calculate that I am exactly 2.175 miles from where I grew up on Planters Road shooting basketballs against my garage door in the backyard.

 

My father died in 1978 and he only saw one of my offices high in the Jacksonville sky. I have no idea what he imagined I would turn into when I was in my early twenties.

 

But I have spent most of my life, which is my working life, in executive offices with large windows looking down at the hot

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

sidewalks my father trod each day to make a sale of a box of lettuce or a hamper of cucumbers.

 

Dear 20 Year Old Charles, Your life will be fine. I recommend that you learn to hum the song "Climb Every Mountain" from the Sound of Music. It will accompany you on your journey.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

San Marco with same exterior

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Julie Andrews

 

 

 

 

Chuck Young

 

 

 

 

How did you get to school as a child?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I was in elementary school at Spring Park, my mom would take me to school in the old car my parents bought. Many years later neighbors would ask if I was scared because they remember my mom driving around and around the neighborhood in circles trying to teach herself to drive.

 

Sometimes Mrs. Rowland would take me if it was cold. When I was in the fourth grade my parents bought me a bicycle so I could ride to school. It was so safe I didn't even have a bike lock. Occasionally I would walk home. No perverts would stop and talk to me and I would amble through the Belden Apartments on Belden Circle to Beach Blvd. Beach Boulevard was a narrow four lane highway. Southgate Plaza was new so I would wander through the Walgreens, W T Grant, and other stores.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I went to Landon Jr-Sr High School I took the city bus. We had to go downtown and buy bus tokens or slips of paper which us allowed us to ride. Sometimes we sat in the back with the segregated blacks. This always made the white adult riders frown but they were happy we were away from them. The diesel city buses always had sticky windows that slid from side to side to open. Buses were always dirty, smelly, and hot

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.

 

Bus drivers were cool because they had control of the metal change holders and token box which looked like a gum machine.

 

Last time I was on a city bus I was going with Joseph to a Jaguars game. The buses were still noisy, dirty, and smelly. We had to stand up but I touched the seats out of nostalgia. They were still

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

hard as hell.

 

 

 

 

 

Still Sharp

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Still Sharp

 

My mind has been blank lately. My thoughts disappeared from running back and forth to the hospital, worrying about what the dog is doing all day, and being confronted with startling accounts of child abuse that I can’t dodge.

 

I wandered around the house unable to sleep one night. Out of boredom I looked in the china cabinet that Iris inherited from her mother. I saw an object shoved way back on a shelf. I yanked the door open hard without a key. The object was a tarnished box that belonged to my father.

 

 

I was surprised when I found it. It contained his old silver shaving razor and box. It didn’t look well cleaned and I wondered if it still contained his DNA after all these years. The velvety inside was missing possibly due to years of wetness. The razor inside came in three parts and they still fit together. All that was

 

 

 

 

 

missing were the blades.

 

My father shaved his face with this razor every day until the day he died. I saw him unshaven only once when he was in the hospital as a result of a heart attack. Several year before he died he developed a trembling in his hands and would nick his face. It then became a daily ritual for him to sit on a stool in the kitchen while I dragged the razor over his face. I learned every crease and bump on his face. I was hesitant to use it but he rebelled against the new plastic multi-blade razors that were being developed.

 

Razor blades are manly and speak with a hint of danger as they travel across the neck.

 

When my mother died I was sent to Cincinnati to attend my cousin Ruthie’s wedding. I stayed with the Greenfields who were close friends of my Uncle Harry. One morning Bob Greenfield asked me if I wanted to see him shave. Of course I did since I was a guest in his house, sleeping in his son Sheldon’s bed.

 

With the bathroom door wide open, I stood in the bathroom while Bob hocked a lot of phlegm, then took a long loud piss into the toilet. He then soaped up a brush and started flinging whiskered sprinkled soap all over the sink and floor.

 

Bob was definitely an Alpha male in that house.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was the beginning of my shaving experience but I really don’t think about shaving when I am doing it. So much for King Gillette and his Fusion blade system. When they started marketing the Lady Gillette, the danger was gone.

 

I screwed the razor together and took it apart several times just to feel what it would have been like each morning for him. When life is gone the special things are left behind.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Razor

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Razor

 

 

 

Mother's Day

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was wondering if I could go back in time to 1933, what would I say to a 26 year old woman who was applying to be a citizen of the United States?

 

First of all I would tell her that although she is probably scared and excited, this is a great decision that she is making as it will change her life and many other people too. She cannot begin to imagine how this decision will set so many future events in motion.

 

 

She doesn’t realize it at this moment, but in 1940 she will be working in the biggest department store south of Atlanta, Georgia. It is here that a tall man will come up to her station in the cosmetic department and ask to walk her home. A cousin told him that there was a good looking single blond woman working at Cohen Brothers Department Store.

 

 

 

 

 

He will walk her home frequently but this is okay because she knows his family well. He is going to ask her to marry him and they will have two children, a girl and a boy. While she may not live to see them grow up and marry, they will.

 

They will also become educated, prosperous, and travel around the world. The girl and the boy will fly in an airplane to Europe, Asia, and see a man walk on the moon. They will take luxury ship trips.

 

 

And they will have children. One of her grandchildren will be named for her, another for the man who ask to walk her home. And her grandchildren will marry and have children.

 

Her daughter, her great grandchildren, and niece will return to Belgium from time-to-time not realizing how important that first trip to the United States was.

 

Go ahead and become a citizen and thank you. Because of this document you are in all of us now and everyday is your day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is the furthest you have ever traveled?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The furthest I traveled was to the west coast of South Korea. Just south of the port of Inchon near Pyonteck (Anjeong-ri, or Camp Humphries)

 

I grew up in the Army as I traveled to New Jersey, Seattle, Korea, Japan and Texas.

 

I must have been brave or curious since I survived and have wonderful memories.

 

I also traveled with Iris to Rome and Naples on the Eastern side.

 

Here's a link: http://www.army.mil/article/117803/Welcome_to _Camp_Humphreys__South_Korea/

 

50 years later it is still there.

 

 

 

Who Were Your Friends in School?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bumble Bee

 

I received a Jacksonville Jewish Center notice that Bobby Drashin had passed away. I admit that I haven’t seen him in over ten years although he was part of my life when I was in elementary school.

 

 

Bobby was similar to a bumble bee in my mind as he was small, overweight, and always buzzing around in some activity. Like a bumble bee, I was never sure what he was producing but it always seemed to be on the edge.

 

When I received the obituary notice I started wondering where he came from because in my memory he just showed up one day. Then I remembered that my mom had a large circle of friends. My dad also knew his father as they both worked at the produce market. Bobby’s dad named his business Dixie Produce in the

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1940’s. It was an interesting name for a business owned by a New York Jew in the south. I was most intrigued by the confederate flags on his logo.

 

My mom would go over their house to bake cakes along with his aunt, Hannah Diner.

 

Their house was on Camden Avenue, down the street from my dad’s grocery store on Atlantic Boulevard. There was a big garage in the back where Mary his mom started her plant business. Mary stopped being the Cub Scout leader at the same time and convinced my mom to become the cub pack leader. I was in the fourth grade at the time and proudly wore my neat uniform to school.

 

 

My mother was sick with cancer but I didn’t really know it at the time and passed away in June when I was in the sixth grade. Bobby’s mother and his father Sam got a divorce. Several years later my dad started dining out for free with Sam Drashin because he was president of the hotel and restaurant association. Sam also drove a big black Cadillac Eldorado at the time and came by our house in the car to pick up my father. My father must have been an unusual wing-man. However my dad did go to Arthur Murray’s Dance Studio in his seventies so you never know.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When my mom was still alive, she and Mary would go to the A&P in St. Nicholas to get the managers to sell their plants in the produce department. Selling plants in a grocery store was a radical idea at the time.

 

Bobby’s big brother Sidney became an event promoter. Bobby could get me into concerts free such as Jimi Hendricks, Question Mark and the Mysterions, Roy Orbison, Jethro Tull and Janis Joplin. I stood behind the stage at the old armory on Union Street watching the performers come and go.

 

Bobby and Sidney went to Englewood High School and I went to Landon High. I didn’t see him for five years until he showed up at St. Johns River Junior College with Paul Isaacs as his roommate. Paul and I were friends all through high school. I was rooming in a dorm in front of the junior college campus with Ronnie Raizis in my final year.

 

 

Paul and Bobby left to go to to the University of Georgia and I went to FSU. I was riding on my motorcycle during my time in Palatka but Bobby had a large red Pontiac. He got regularly fined for parking it on the grass.

 

 

Iris and I ran into him at a Havurah party that the Schacter’s were hosting in the 90’s. We started talking about the good old days. I mentioned I was jealous that he had a new car at college. He said that he felt guilty that the car was bought with insurance

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

proceeds from his father’s death. Sam Drashin had too much to drink one night and drove the Cadillac into a barrier on the newly built I-95 expressway.

 

His mother was a high school graduate and largely unskilled. After Sam died Mary had to find a real job to support the two boys. The only job she could find was working as a matron at the city jail. He said he felt guilty that every morning she had to put on a uniform and strap on a gun. This was not something accepted in the Jewish community. The price of that memory was the hot red car he drove at the University of Georgia.

 

 

One day when I was in elementary school I rode my bicycle over to his house. There didn’t appear to be anyone at home. I saw a chain going from a bush to a large hole in the lawn right next to the concrete driveway. I pulled on the chain. “Don’t do that” yelled his mother charging out of the door. “You will hurt the dog.” The dog had dug a ten foot hole and tunneled ten feet under the driveway.

 

 

Sam bought Bobby and Sidney a boxer and named it Pooker. Bobby loved that dog even though it would jump the fence scaring the neighbors. Bobby must have continued to love the boxer breed as that was the final photo he pasted on his FaceBook page. His obituary requested that donations in his memory be made to Boxer Rescue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another time I rode up on my bike and Bobby was standing on the driveway next to the bushes. He was trapping large bumble bees in a Mason jar. They would make this furious buzzing sound trying to get out.

 

 

And that’s why I still dream of him being like a Bumble Bee trapped in God’s jar for eternity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bobby and a boxer named Georgia

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iris Honored by MS Society

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The MS Society contacted me to discuss Iris for an award she is to receive in the spring 2016. The following will be my response:

 

I am pleased to discuss the background of my spouse, Iris T. Young for her service to the community. I believe it is appropriate that she be honored for her many contributions. We honor people for their service: presidents, military heroes, actors and actresses, athletes, and pop singers. We honor them by naming buildings, streets, airports, and cities for them. We inscribe their names on sidewalks or immortalize them in various Halls of Fame. However, the worker in social welfare is usually remembered only by lives that were touched and souls that were saved.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Iris came to Jacksonville as a college graduate, she brought with her a vision that society could be improved by combining the ideas and interests of all members of our community. In1976, she began her social service career in the trenches as a caseworker, learning firsthand about the effects of racial discrimination, poverty, and homelessness. During this time, she began to formulate programs such as a Community Nutrition Program, Senior Transportation, and a Jewish Healing Network.

 

These ideas found life beginning in 1983 when she was promoted to the Executive Director of Jewish Family & Community Services. Starting with a small staff of 4, she led the agency through consistent growth to over one hundred employees providing services such as adoption, foster care, protective services for children, persons with HIV/AIDS, mental health counseling, emergency financial assistance, a food pantry and senior adult services. Her role as Executive Director was to help others acknowledge challenges and to establish an organizational culture that supported diversity and inclusion.

 

 

As a visionary, she was able to connect with diverse groups to improve the lives of Florida’s abused and neglected children, sensing that the best solution for their safety and security remained with the local community; and creating a model that gets relatives and neighbors to look after one another.

 

Although her agency is still known as Jewish Family & Community Services, the mission and work of the agency values every person’s dignity and worth regardless of religious belief,

 

 

 

 

race, creed or gender. She has never hesitated to be the advocate of people different than those of her race, culture and religion.

 

She rose to a prominent position and proved that men and women in the workplace are equal when given the opportunity. She is surely Jacksonville’s finest example of what is possible when roadblocks are removed due to gender and disability.

 

In 1990, when the large influx of new Americans arrived in Jacksonville, she directed her agency to be the focal point to integrate them into our community and into the democratic system by finding employment, food, clothing and shelter. Her efforts brought diverseness, richness and color to our city.

 

Iris engaged the local business community as a partner to help them understand the complexity of modern society and formed joint ventures with financial institutions, grocery stores and universities to find solutions to create a better community.

 

She continues to involve herself across a wide spectrum of the community forming links with diverse groups as non-profit agencies with government, business and educational institutions and thus creating a vibrant life for those around her. She has managed this and more while still maintaining a balance between her family life and a work life. She has remained married for over 33 years raising a son who has followed in his mother’s footsteps as a caregiver.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By example, Iris Young has actively practiced her personal values, both publicly and privately, and has been quoted as saying, “…it’s not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what’s required.”

 

 

I am deeply in love with Iris Young, as she is a person who has effected real change in my life, our lives; and her life has made everyone’s life better.

 

Past Boards and Community Involvement

 

Northeast Florida Community Action Agency Easter Seals

 

Mt. Carmel Gardens Senior Citizens Residence Hospice of Northeast Florida

 

Emergency Services and Homeless Coalition Mayor’s Commission on Children & Youth Mayor’s Commission for Victims Services Hope Haven Children’s Clinic

 

Family Support Services Management Partner Executive Women’s Network

 

United Way Agency Directors Association Leadership Jax

 

St. Vincent de Paul Home Care Advisory Committee Multiple Sclerosis Society

 

Jacksonville Jewish Center

 

 

 

 

 

City of Jacksonville Public Service Grant Panel City Kids Art Factory

 

Past Awards and Honors

 

National Council of Jewish Women – “Women In Power” Florida Times-Union Eve Award Finalist Rachel Davis Humanitarian Award

 

Exchange Club – Lifetime Achievement Award AFL-CIO Service Award

 

Honoree - Mayor’s Commission on the Status of Women

 

Education and Certifications

 

Masters Degree in Business Administration

 

Masters and Specialist Degree in Counseling

 

Certified Family Court Mediator

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Food Tales - 1

 

 

 

I only have scattered memories about food when I was growing up. My mother and father liked food and drink and they always emphasized moderation. My father came from Cincinnati, Ohio, a town heavily populated by German immigrants. As a result, he was a regular beer drinker even though he never had a brand preference. Once of his favorite Sunday comics was Dagwood and Blondie. Dagwood was always making multi-level sandwiches which seemed to give my father an excuse or model to do the same. He never drank beer without a meat, cheese and bread chaser.

 

 

We had whiskey in the house that lasted forever. I don’t think I ever saw my father buy the hard stuff. He was a straight Canadian Club kind of guy which I eventually turned into. We also had all these strange flavored alcohol drinks I could never understand how to drink. I tried everything in the Army but I have never learned to like them. Once when I was eight or nine

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

years old I got into a bottle of Old Mr. Boston Crème de Menthe green liqueur.

 

The only thing I got out of it other than a woozy head was green diarrhea. My mother thought I must have gotten something like cancer when they stared at what came out in the toilet. My father could smell it on my breath and punched me several times in the stomach to make it come out. Green projectile vomiting is as fascinating as green poop. Yes, projectile vomiting means “across the room.”

 

 

Years later I still felt guilty at the mess and stains I had made in the hall. I explained to my father that I must have experienced motion sickness years ago on that day. He said he couldn’t remember the incident.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I got married, my wife donated all of the old furniture in the house. We had an old buffet that stood against one wall in the hall. The liquor used to be stashed in one end of the buffet in a

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

small cabinet. In it was a bottle of Southern Comfort that I brought back from college. A bottle of Old Mr. Boston Crème de Cacao that was poured into glasses of hot tea whenever we had a cold. Lastly there was a bottle of Old Mr. Boston Crème de Menthe green liquor with a metal screw top. After all those years, the bottle was never opened again and the top was glued shut.

 

 

 

I am still concerned...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am still concerned about this from 65 years ago.

 

When I was five I was sitting on the floor in front of the couch in the living room. I was just quietly talking to myself like toddlers will do.

 

Someone turned to me and asked, "who are you talking to?"

 

"I am talking to my friend Woody." I said.

 

Everyone in the family laughed.

 

"Where does he live?" they asked me. "In the woods." I replied.

 

They would forever afterwards ask me how my invisible friend Woody was doing.

 

I should have told them that I was just talking to myself but instead I used the only name I could think of at age five. I was mesmerized by the Woody Woodpecker Golden Book.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You know I still miss him.

 

 

 

 

What are some of your favorite ways to spend a Saturday?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sleeping ~ I am old

 

 

 

 

 

 

Do You Pray?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why do you still pray?

 

My mother's family immigrated to the United States from Lodz Poland in the early 1900's. I was born after World War II so when my grandmother told me stories about the old country, she would always nod that before the war the people in Lodz knew something bad was going to happen.

 

 

My grandmother's family was scattered across the world but she still kept in touch with a sister in London and her cousin Adolph Laask in Jacksonville.

 

This year, as every year, I stood for the Yizkor service during Yom Kippur memorializing the memories of my parents and relatives. The service concludes with a prayer for those who died in the Holocaust as well as those who have died in the service of our country.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chuck Young

 

 

 

The last prayers never meant much to me since the participants always seemed so abstract and just a conclusion to the service. But then I stumbled on a photo of people of Lodz who could have been my relatives or even me.

 

Their prayers were never answered, or maybe they were.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What did you read as a child?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you came in my house in the 1950's, you would trip over books. It seems like my sister and father were always reading books or magazines. We had a monthly Reader's Digest and also the Reader's Digest of Condensed Books.

 

My sister was always borrowing Nancy Drew books from friends. I introduced them to my son Joseph and he practically read the entire original series.

 

When the game, "Trivial Pursuit" came out, my sister had stored all the needless facts in her head and I could never beat her.

 

My father had a set of Victor Hugo books. They were large in size with a fake dark leather grain on the covers. But inside were etchings which fascinated me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jean val Jean stealing bread for his hungry children - for which he served 15 years in jail. Then there was Toilers of the Seas and the octopus fight. The dark images seared my imagination.

 

My uncle Felix Jacobs let me read a book he brought from London when he immigrated to the United States. It was called The Cock-House at Fellsgarth by Talbot Baines Reed. It is still available on-line at Amazon.

 

 

Of course I read Golden Books, Hardy Boys, Mad Magazines, and later books that were reviewed by Playboy Magazine. Today I read the book review insert from the Sunday New York Times.

 

At age 15, my sister gave me a copy of Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. I read it straight through because at age 15 it made everything seem so true.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

307

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chuck Young

 

 

 

 

Who was your worst boss?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Everyone has at least one.

 

I thought I was lucky in that I made it through the first forty years of my life working with ethical people who also served as my mentor.

 

Here's the donkey's ass that I worked for:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, I even kept a photo of him. Neil King.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He was the epitome of the white southern bigot. He hated women. He often would say that he "didn't want skirts on his team." He hated all religions, all foreign cultures including the food, and he thought he was superior in all respects.

 

He would denigrate his mother and son. He loved guns but never served in the military.

 

The day I was terminated from his department, I went to his office where he sat smirking and I thanked him.

 

Fifteen years later I learned he was living in a cabin in the woods of North Carolina. He had aged and turned sickly. I ran into his son who was in rehabilitation for substance abuse. His son was washing dishes at the Waffle House.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What things are most important to you in choosing a home?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The most important thing in choosing a home is the people you will be sharing it with.

 

There needs to be a space for privacy and a place where everyone feels comfortable coming together.

 

Separate bathrooms are a luxury but it allows one to stand in the shower as long as they want to dream, sing, pray, or smile. A very large hot water heater is also a great appliance.

 

Where will I put the memory photos? Where will I store the spices? Where can I put family heirlooms so they are safe but still can be seen and used?

 

I choose a home where you will be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you could thank anyone, who would you thank and why?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you could thank anyone, who would you thank and why?

 

There are so many people who nurtured me, mentored me, financially supported me, and spiritually guided me that the list would be quite long and would go on and on.

 

Therefore I will start with my father who did all of the above and probably suffered the most and the longest as a result of encountering me.

 

After my mom died, I spent part of my childhood from the age of thirteen onward under his parental control, such that it was. He was always cringing as he looked at the deep scars on my face from falling out of a tree, off my bicycle onto the asphalt street, or down the brick stairs at the back of the house.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I look back at the time I that my home address was the same as his I realize that I was really never at home. He really ate dinner, dressed, and lived in a house for many years by himself.

 

Someone asked Mother Teresa what was the worst thing in the world? Not being poor, not being hungry, not being homeless....she said the worst thing in the world was loneliness.

 

In high school, my father knew I was drinking with my friends and also driving his car on those same nights. He never said anything. Once he found a six-pack of beer in the truck of his car. “How did that get there?” he asked. “I dunno?” I replied with a straight face looking him in the eye.

 

 

It would be nice if he could come back for five or ten minutes. I would ask him how my mom and other deceased relatives were doing. I don’t think we would have a deep discussion or anything like that but I might ask him what brand of beer he liked, and if he would want one. Then I would hug him and thank him for the years of silent forgiveness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How did your parents pick your name?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My name is Charles Hyman Young. I was named after my uncle, Charles J. Young, my father's brother and my middle name after my mother's father Chaim Jacobs.

 

When Charles J Young was born on January 16, 1907, in Cincinnati, Ohio, his father, Isidore, was 33 and his mother, Esther, was 25. He had two brothers and three sisters.

 

He graduated from the University of Cincinnati Medical School in 1928. My father's brother was a medical doctor who practiced obstetrics. He became a US Army Flight Surgeon and died on December 16, 1941, in Montgomery, Alabama, at the age of 34, on a training mission. He was buried in the Covedale Cemetery with his parents.

 

 

My father's father never recovered from his death.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My middle name, Hyman, comes from my mother’s father's name: Chaim (meaning health, in English).

 

Not much is known about him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chuck Young

 

 

 

Hyman C Jacobs was born March 3, 1876, in Regów, Mazowieckie, Poland. The family name was Jacobovsky. He had two sons: Felix and Joseph and three daughters: Faye, Salome, and Marie, with Annie Haber Jacobs between 1908 and 1917. He died on February 23, 1939, in Jacksonville, Florida, at the age of 61.

 

 

I have been told that he peddled fruits and vegetables from a horse and wagon on Broad Street in Jacksonville, Florida.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chuck Young

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chuck Young

 

 

 

 

What inventions have had the biggest impact on your day-to-day life?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The cell phone

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chuck Young

 

 

 

 

Charles Meets Iris

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About 1980

 

Charles Meets Iris at Sears

 

I had attended Jacksonville University and had been giving Scott Wolf a ride to JU in Arlington from time-to-time. Scott previously attended Vanderbilt but came home to Jacksonville as a result of his need for dialysis. His sister, Stacey, suggested that I take Scott with me when I went out on weekends as a single. My father had died in 1978 and I was living alone in a three bedroom/one bathroom home that my father had bought in south Jacksonville near St. Nicholas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scott called one night to suggest we attend a Jacksonville Jewish Singles party on a Saturday in an apartment community house. I agreed to attend but knew that I wouldn’t care for the crowd. Scott introduced me to a friend of his, Iris Goodstein, who was running the singles program for the Federation with Ruth Slutzah. Iris had previously worked for Jewish Family and Children’s Services but was passed over when the director, Larry Rackow, retired.

 

 

One day Stacey Epstein called me to see if I wanted to take out a friend of hers, Betsy Rubin. I called Betsy who told me she lived in a new apartment way out in Mandarin. When I arrived, Iris answered the door.

 

 

When I asked her what she was doing there, she replied that she had separated from her husband Bob Goodstein, a young attorney.

 

Betsy and I went to the Orange Park Mall movie to see Robert Redfern star in a prison movie called “Brubaker.” It was an uneventful night as Betsy wanted to go bar hopping and I didn’t.

 

Mary Wolf invited me to a Thanksgiving dinner. It was at Stacey’s house on Smullian Trail. There was a large crowd: married and singles. Iris was there. I left early and didn’t smooze because I had another date.

 

 

 

 

Mary called a month later and insisted that I call Iris to ask her out. At this time, my relatives were aggressively serving as my personal matchmaker. They had determined that I was not gay and could not understand why I was living alone in a house by myself.

 

 

I called Iris to ask her to join me for lunch at the downtown Sears Roebuck restaurant. It had an upscale restaurant called the “Jean Ribault Room”.

 

Sears patrons dined on one of the specialties of the Jean Ribault Room, shrimp salad served in an abalone pearl shell. This in-store restaurant, clad in cool, calming greens, was situated on the second floor. It indicated its First Coast location through a 33-foot long mural by Jax artist Lee Adams (see above). The painting depicted the 1562 landing of Frenchman Jean Ribault at the mouth of the St. Johns River.

 

 

Appropriately, coffee was served to diners by two girls in 16th Century French costumes. Patrons could also frequent the building's Peggy Kellogg coffee shop. As one website visitor notes about this eatery, "I remember going in as a child and my parents would get me a chocolate milk drink."

 

Sears eventually closed its Northbank shopping utopia. It followed other downtown department stores by relocating to outlying neighborhoods. The company shuttered its Northbank

 

 

 

 

outlet in 1981 so as to reopen in a new expansion at the Regency Mall. (Courtesy of MetroJax.org)

 

“She’s so beautiful” Mary crooned to me over the phone. “When are you going out with her again?” I invited Iris to have dinner with me on a Wednesday night as a follow-up.

 

“Why would you ask me to go out with you on a date on a Wednesday night?” Iris would ask me, many years after we were married.

 

She was convinced that I didn’t want to invest a lot of money in dating her. She also claimed that I excused myself from the date by saying I had to get up early so terminated the date quickly.

 

It was because Iris told me she was leaving town to see her sick mother. She might not be able to see me since she travelled to Fort Lauderdale on the weekends dutifully. During Teri’s sickness, Iris struggled to leave town on Friday and drive back to Jacksonville on Sunday night. This was an eight hour ride one way.

 

 

After her mother passed away, she did get in touch with me. We started hanging out together. Her roommate Betsy left for graduate school in a cold climate where she looked better in sweaters.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iris bought a single family home in Huntington Forest from a friend who was a Marine. He was being transferred to a new duty station.

 

After we married, this was the first home we lived in.

 

 

 

 

Joseph Young Meets Faye Jacobs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About 1940

 

Joe Meets Faye

 

I asked my father how he met my mother.

 

He said it was the day that he was at the Western Union office across from Hemming Park in downtown Jacksonville. There were two important places businessmen went each day. One was the bank and the other was Western Union. Western Union had designated boxes similar to post offices boxes.

 

One of his relatives was also inside. He told him that there was a single Jewish woman working at the perfume counter by the front door of Cohen Brothers Department Store. My father was about thirty-nine years old and still a bachelor. I am guessing that he looked wistfully out of the window of the Western Union

 

 

 

 

 

building at the large department store across the park.

 

“She’s a blonde.”

 

My father walked across the street and could see a smiling blonde right in front. He was looking at her so hard that he walked into the glass door and stumbled. Although he was not a graceful man, he went inside and she spoke first.

 

She never stopped smiling as she told him to whom she was related. She was a Jacobs and Laasks, he was from the Jacksonville Portnoys and Dwoskins.

 

A Cohen Brothers floor walker, Mr. Powell, approached and told my Mom that she could not be socializing at the front counter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My father was beside himself. He began to wait at the side entrance when the employees left for the day so he could talk to her. Then he stayed next to her as she walked across the Riverside Viaduct to her home on Jackson Street. Then it was spending time with her on weekends.

 

When it came to physical attractiveness, my father felt he was marrying-up. My mom was not as educated as my father so there was a natural attraction.

 

My mother and father married and lived first on Post Street. They decided to buy a house in the suburbs on Planters Road. It was just outside the city limits on Beach Boulevard.

 

Next door lived Mr. and Mrs. Powell.

 

Why did you join the

 

military?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The government was drafting conscripts for the Viet Nam War. They were actually drafting soldiers into the US Marines which frightened me.

 

When I was at FSU I had to drop out during a semester. My draft number was on the list so I visited various recruiters. I enlisted in the US Army because it was a three year contract vs. the Navy Air Force, or Coast Guard which were four years.

 

I agreed to enlist if they would send me to data processing school in Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. (now called computers) The school was one year long so I thought the war would be over by the time I got out.

 

 

My father cried when I caught the bus to Fort Benning, Georgia. But I got food, clothing, a bed, and $100 month while being a Private at basic training.

 

 

 

 

 

I served at the Sand Hill barracks but I loved every moment as I was in top shape as a former high school runner.

 

Were your parents strict, or relaxed?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My sister said that my mother was very strict. I am not sure. My sister's parenting style was very relaxed. Where my sister had to go to college, get married, have children, buy a house, etc; her children were all freedom flyers.

 

I think mothers live vicariously through their daughters. I am not sure what my mother wanted my sister to become? Maybe a famous singer.

 

Mother see their sons more aspirationally. My mom probably wanted me to become something my dad never achieved; to become a professional or business owner. She was very gritty and entrepreneurial. She probably saw large sums of money as the key to being legitimate and being valued in the community.

 

My wife proved that was untrue as she became famous from just doing good social work.

 

 

 

 

My father always seemed to be a step behind. He really had no idea what a father was supposed to do. It is ironic that he was pitched into the parenting role at at age 57. He was inner angry, befuddled, and depressed by the life he was dealt. When it came to parenting me, his style rocketed from handling my crisis to crisis.

 

 

It was only later when I came home from the Army to live with him that I discovered how he struggled every day of his life to find meaning. It wasn't in his children. He had very little interaction with us prior to my mom dying. After she died my sister went away to college 3 years later, married, and never returned. I left for college after 5 years and only came back after I had grown up in the Army.

 

 

Science is very specific that children are formed before the age of

 

5.   After that it is too late to change the emotional and brain neurons. Looking back at friends and relatives for comparison, my sister and I turned out wildly successful - beyond our parent's dreams.

 

 

So the parenting "style" is not important. It is the nurturing, the caressing, the high expectations, the mentoring, and the environment among the things which shapes a persons' life.

 

 

 

Did you ever have a commercial you really liked?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I crackle, cause I’m crisp, I taste better because I’m fresh. I’m a treat full of zip, I’m a Lays Potato Chip.”

 

This was taught to me by my sister in about 1955. I think we just got our first black and white television set. The jingle is so old that it can’t be found on the internet.

 

That was over sixty years ago and I am still haunted by it; and have the stomach size to prove it.

 

Thanks Sissy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Birth

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Born 10/18/42 to Joseph and Faye Leah Young in Jacksonville, Florida. Mother really wanted a son. Finally achieved that when younger brother was born. Seemed kind of sickly. Didn't like to eat, major fights with mother at mealtimes. Would hide bread under shelf in dining room table. Was very shy and quiet due to not being able to see well most of life. Loved to read. Loved to dance. Loved to sing. Had perfect pitch for a long time. School was traumatic since I couldn't see well. Mother didn't believe in glasses, was afraid it would destroy how I looked. Appearances was very important to mother. Father not really around due to his work hours. Mother seemed to always be yelling at me for something. She would throw pieces of paper on the floor and say, why didn't you sweep it up. And so it went. My father did cherish me and stuck up for me. We were always having people stay with us, my mother's sisters and their children etc.

 

 

Somehow I got through elementary school. By sixth grade I told my mother that I had to have glasses in order to go to junior high. She finally took me to the optician and got me glasses so I could see better. By that time she was suffering from breast cancer though I did not know it. She had to go through surgery and radiology which burnt her terribly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Memories of my mom

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Favorite memory of mother was her singing in the synagogue choir and also her singing lullabies at night to get me to fall asleep. She believed you could do anything you wanted, just get in and do it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chuck

 

My mother passed away when I was twelve going on thirteen so I have foggy memories of her. I have black and white photos of her that refresh some of it. <attached> One of the photos came from Sabina Goodmark who was a childhood friend. She kept it for over 50 years and gave it to me only before she died.

 

My friend, Georgia Clay (Herndon) contacted me the other day via email. She was concerned by a spurious posting that was done on her close friend, Candy Chancey, Neal's sister. Georgia said that she remembered my mother's voice too. Georgia said

 

 

 

 

 

that her mother's voice was so soft that she would ask my mother to yell for Georgia to come home as she could be heard all over the neighborhood.

 

Another friend, Ronnie Raizis, and I spent one evening reminiscing over beers at the European Café. He said that he remembered how my mom was always quick to fix peanut butter sandwiches for us to eat. He said he also remembered that my mom learned to drive by going around and around the block. Since we often played in the street, his mother must have kept him indoors.

 

 

She was a hovering mom. When I was in the second grade at Spring Park Elementary, I looked up in the middle of the day and saw her peeking through the small window in the door. I think she was always checking on us.

 

My mother sang all the time. People remembered her voice. My father said that her voice was called Coloratura Soprano. A voice that can trill, hit high C's, and roll words. When she spoke, people turned their heads. I remember being in the synagogue with my sister when she was in her 20's and she had to restrain her voice as it had the same vocal quality. People said that about me....how they were amused to hear me on the phone, only to

 

find out later that I didn't look like I sounded. I guess my mom passed that on to us genetically.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One day I came home and she was very excited that she had gotten a paying job at Jack Becker's Kosher Market before Passover. My father took my sister and I to see her standing in a white apron behind the food cases proudly serving the Jewish community.

 

 

My final memories of her was when she came back from the hospital and lay dying in the bedroom. She insisted that I go outside to play and not stay indoors with her. And her last words in River Garden to us was in Yiddish, her mother tongue. She said, " Gay Avek", or go away. My grandmother was there crying at the emaciated figure in the bed.

 

 

I always wondered if I would have turned out differently if she had lived longer. Her life and death gave me resiliency, street smarts, and certainly the sense of love. Although I have been alone most of my live, I never felt that she abandoned me. She is still with me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Faye

 

 

 

What were your

 

grandparents like?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I only knew one grandparent while I was growing up. My mother's mother, Annie Jacobs. All the other grandparents had already passed away. Our grandmother, Annie Jacobs was a very heavy set typical Polish grandmother. Our father was very good to his mother in law and would take us to visit her almost every weekend. Our grandmother Annie could sew very well and made me dresses periodically. She would have a fit over my being a tomboy and wanting to go play outside all the time. Annie lived in River Garden when it was in Riverside. For a period of time she supposedly helped out by being the purchasing agent for foodstuffs for the place. Her son, Felix and his then wife, Gertrude thought Annie should live with our mother and father, but there was no room in their little house and Annie did not really get along with our mother. They were always arguing about things. Our mother felt she was always being picked on by the rest of the family and held back from doing the things she

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

wanted to do. After our mother died, Annie still lived at River Garden and in fact, lived there until she died. I was a freshman in college when Annie died, I think. I know that our father had big blowup with Felix and Gertrude over how much was being given to the support of Grandma Annie. Our father was desperately trying to keep bills paid, pay off horrendous medical bills from our mother's illness and keep his children together and also he had borrowed money from relatives for the little store our mother had insisted he buy just before she got ill. Since you were the first grandson, you were considered the prince. Also you were very good looking with big blue eyes and auburn hair. We called our grandmother, Booba. If we took her to the beach, she would sit by the edge of the waves and since she was so heavy make a large hole we could pretend was a swimming pool. I had early on decided to be master of my destiny and Booba just couldn't get it. So I really didn't have much to do with her as I became busy with High School, friends, boyfriends etc. Adolf Lassk was one of her nephews who was considered very successful as he had a beach home and Booba liked to go there in summertime and hang out. Our father would go to River Garden and pick Booba up and then take her to the beach so she could visit with her relatives. Periodically we would have to go to River Garden for some event. I would always take a book and try to hide and read it and not have to interact with the old people there. There always seemed to be a musty old person smell there. I guess because I did not

 

 

 

 

have a warm, loving grandparent while I grew up, I have tried to make up for it with our children (including your son,Joseph) and grandchildren. I was very lucky in that my husband's parents were very sweet and kind to me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

image.png

 

 

 

 

Chuck

 

I have to agree that I only knew Anna, and when she lived in River Garden. It's hard for me to understand today that once she was married and lived in a house on Jackson Street with her husband Chaim and five children.

 

I remember her as a lovely old woman with fleshy arms and milk bottle legs like Nikita Khrushchev's wife. She was soft all over so when she hugged me to her breasts, it was like being swallowed by my favorite couch....except for the smell.

 

I didn't like the cameo pins she wore as sometimes when she hugged me hard, they would stab my cheek. I thought maybe she thought that if she hugged me hard and tight, that she would live forever. She was right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My mom got a job in New York framing oil paintings for aspiring artists when she was in her twenties and single, but when her dad got sick, the other children and Anna cried for her to come home to take over. Now that I think about it, I could have been born in New York.

 

 

Anna lived in the suburbs of Jacksonville before she moved into River Garden. The suburbs were across the Broad Street Viaduct on Riverside Avenue where she had chickens, horses, and cows. My father said that this distressed him that Jews had livestock in town when he came to live in Jacksonville. I attached a photo with her and her cows next to the Acosta Bridge.

 

I asked Sabina Goodmark, a girlhood friend of my mother (this was witnessed by Iris Young) about Anna's husband, Chaim. She said that he had a horse and wagon and peddled fruit and vegetables on Broad Street with the other Jewish peddlers. The horse's name was Frank.

 

 

They would stand there all day in the sun. Chaim would be reading the Jewish Forwards and Frank would look over his shoulder as it appeared to Sabina that the horse was reading too. The horse knew that when the sun started to set it was time to go home so he would head back on his own, often leaving Chaim standing there.

 

 

 

 

I found immigration papers on my mom and grandmother but never my grandfather. Salome, one of her daughters, told me the same story my dad told me that Chaim jumped off of a ship in Fernandina. He worked as a handyman for awhile and then wandered into Jacksonville where his family lived.

 

Anna insisted on having her own room at River Gardens. I asked her why she lived there. She said that her children couldn't or wouldn't take care of her so she signed her house and income over to Sidney Entman the executive director, at River Gardens Hebrew Retirement Home. Anna had a peaceful air about her except for the time that the Perry Como Show got cancelled. Then she kicked her slipper across the room at the TV set.

 

I liked to watch TV at River Garden with her. It was a large black and white set and since we visited on Sundays, we would definitely catch the Ed Sullivan Show. After it was over she had to go to bed and we left. All the seats were reserved in the large room that had the TV so I could only sit down when someone died or was to sick to come down to the lobby.

 

 

My sister sat on the floor. She told me old people peed on the couches.

 

 

 

I am still not sure of the relationship of Anna to Adolph Laask. He did refer to her as Tanta and clearly remembered her from Lodz, Poland where they all grew up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lodz must have had a small Jewish population as all the cousins married each other. I believe Adolph and Katie were related. They had three children with mental problems. The children would come home from various institutions in the summer to live with Adolph and Katie at the beach. Adolph would shut up his business in town during the summer so he could help watch them.

 

 

When we visited, we always thought the children: PJ, Sonny, and the little girl Julie were spooky. We never used the bathroom in the house because we thought they were perversely spying on everyone. That may explain why my sister would sit in a warm pool of water at the beach with that look of serenity on her face. What the hell. Where do you think fish and octopus go to the bathroom?

 

 

The pictures attached show Anna outside and in back of River Garden. She would insist that we only take her picture outside as she thought the inside was too gloomy. The family photo is minus the husband - that is telling. Also my mother is not standing next to her siblings. Why is that?

 

 

The photographer may have tried to balance the arrangement? I doubt it. She was much older and self- possessed. The photograph shows another insight into her character.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My uncle Felix did not want me to come to Anna's funeral. So I stayed behind at Felix's house waiting for my other uncle, Joe Jacobs to come in from Las Vegas where he worked in a grocery store. Joe didn't make it and Felix's air conditioning unit stopped working so I sat there in the hot house and waited. I didn't just sit there, I read part of a book. It was called, "The Cockhouse at Fellsgarth". Perhaps Maxine still has it. Felix said he read it as a boy when they lived in England.

 

 

Anna is missed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How did you get to school as a child?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For elementary school, I took a school bus which picked everyone up at the corner of Beach Blvd and took us to Spring Park. For Annie Lytle I took a school bus over there part of the time, the rest of the time neighbors drove us over there. Then for high school, I would take the city bus back and forth from Landon High School.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

Chuck

 

For elementary school, I took a school bus with my sister, Esta, but in the fifth grade my mom let me ride my bike to school. First she put a lot reflective tape all over it. Sometimes I walked and dreamed. There were two candy stores: one next to the school on Spring Park and the other on the corner of Spring Park and Stillman Street. I would save some of my lunch money so I could buy a small package of Kool Aid or hard candy on the way home. Both are torn down now. One was leveled for an apartment and the other became a 7-11 store.

 

 

I never locked my bike at home or in the bike racks at school. No one ever approached me as I walked or biked through Belden Circle on the way home. My father was always at work at this time and I don't remember my mother as waiting anxiously for me....it was a simpler time.

 

 

When I was in the sixth grade at Spring Park I was supposed to be going to Hebrew school to study for my bar mitzvah with Ralah Michelson and Mrs. Teichman, an old Russian lady who had no other means of employment. (I referred to her as "Mrs. Tight Pants". She may have overheard me and I regret that now.)

 

My sister likes to tell the story that I was always "missing" the Hebrew school bus and therefore would not be able to perform. The truth is that the driver, Morris, would ask me if I was going

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

and I often said no. I stayed behind to play softball and tetherball. When it came time for me to celebrate my bar mitzvah, I memorized the entire service including my haftorah in one week by playing the record over and over again.

 

Back in the day, dogs ran free and rarely went to the veterinarian. My dad did insist that ours wear a collar with ID. We had a dog named Lucky who used to roam the neighborhood. Everyone seemed to know him. He meet the bus at the corner of Atlantic Boulevard and Mayfair. How he learned the time, I will never know.

 

 

I went to Landon which was both a junior and senior high at the time. My mother had died the year before I started the 7th grade. I was lost but awed at the size of the three story building. My father bought either tickets or bus tokens for us so we could ride the city bus. Sometimes I rode the bus downtown with my sister to Hemming Park to buy tokens as a small aluminum store on the side of the park.

 

 

Buses always smelled of cigarettes and sweat. The bus drivers were white men only with bad attitudes. Blacks, mostly maids, sat in the very back where the open windows let in the smell of the street and diesel fumes.

 

I was intrigued by bus advertising. There were little signs that brought me fears of having hemorrhoids. Another one advertised

 

 

 

 

 

that I could learn to play the piano in six weeks. Charles Atlas said that I could be a world famous body builder by buying his books.

 

Occasionally the weather would be too cold to stand out on Beach Boulevard to catch the bus so either Mrs. Roland or another mother would pick up all the children and drive them school.

 

In the ninth grade, Georgia Clay asked me to carry her books after school from the bus station to her house. She reminded me 50 years later that she always wanted a boy friend in high school. I guess I wanted paying attention.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

Favorite recipes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since I do not cook and haven't for some time, my favorite food to eat is shrimp, really good seafood, lots of salads. Esta

 

 

 

image.png

 

 

 

 

Chuck

 

This is a subject everyone over fifty struggles with answering. If you are over fifty, you probably love to eat but don't. Cooking? Fast Food America has changed the landscape because food today isn't food like yesterday. It is a chemical combination.

 

I like really good cole slaw. The only other person who openly admits this is Judy Tekel. Oh well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

Go to the grocery store and buy a firm head of cabbage. 2) tear off 1/2 of the outer leaves, 3) find a Cuisenart and shred the pieces so the fit in, 4) add 1/2 cup of white sugar and mix, 5) you should have remembered to buy celery seed when you were at the store - this is important, use freely, 6) spoon in 1/4 of a bottle of Helman's regular mayonnaise - stir like crazy, 7) add a few ounces of white vinegar that is in back of the pantry - stir more. Cover the glass bowl you have been mixing everything in with plastic wrap and put in the refrigerator for three hours. There you go!

 

 

 

 

I also like to make Ramen. Directions are on the package.

 

 

 

 

Esta

 

Favorite recipes to eat are real Southern Fried chicken like you get at Old South, beaten biscuits,smushy peas. Any place that takes a reservation. I don't cook as there is no one at home to cook for. I used to like to bake cakes. When I was in high school I taught myself how to make fancy oedeuvres and would invite some of my friends to eat them. I also like forbidden foods like lobster and shrimp.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

Chuck

 

You can get fried chicken and smushy peas at Popeyes. I had some old red and white checkered napkins from when you took Home Economics at Landon. They got used for soaking up drunken vomit, cleaning the dog's eyes, and wiping off the tops of my penny loafers. I should have saved one, with the napkin ring for you, just for old times sake.

    

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

How is life different today compared to when you were a child?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Society is meaner, things go much faster, you have to really stay alert to stay on top of things. Medicine and treatments have gotten better; sometimes more expensive. People are living longer and healthier lives. You find people still able to drive and live alone at older ages. Marriage is not the be all , end all, it used to be. White picket fences and stay at home Moms not necessary. More women going to law school, medical school, engineering school. Being an astronaut is not unheard of.

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

Chuck

 

Is society meaner? I guess it depends who you choose to associate with. Having spent my life as a banker I got to see beneath the veneer of many people that I was jealous of. Then I started foreclosing their homes, and removing their children due to parental abuse or neglect.

 

 

My desires for their status has not become sadness and pity.

 

I find that minimum-wage workers are polite and helpful. Poverty is a great leveler. I stopped equating wealth with intelligence as that wealth may have been acquired through crime or mainly luck.

 

 

I agree that medicine has gotten better, in fact miraculous. I also agree with the rest of the comments.

 

I am concerned that 1% of the population owns 2/3 of the stock on the American stock market. I am also concerned that I awoke one day and found out that I am part of the upper 10%. Not by crime or super intelligence, but by living modestly with a long range goal to support my family in any crisis.

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

What was your Dad like when you were a child?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My father really wasn't part of my life until my mother died and my father had to assume the total care taking of my younger brother and me. My father worked in the wholesale produce business which meant it was 6 1/2 days a week, getting up at 4:30 am and not getting home until around 5 or 6 o'clock at night. My father was a very gentle and slow to anger. He couldn't understand why people just couldn't get along with each other. Education was very important to my father and because he was unable to go to college, he made very sure his son and daughter went to college and finished. I head rumors from other family members that my father like to play baseball as a young man and may have been good, but who ever heard of a Jewish boy playing baseball in those days. As a young girl my father would insist that I sit with him on Saturday afternoons and listen to the Metropolitan Opera. He would explain the operas and could even sing along with some of them. He loved gardening and seeing

 

 

 

 

 

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Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

things grow. Every year he would plant vegetables and flowers. My father would worry about his neighbors having enough to eat and would bring home things to give them. My father would rule by the 'Chinese water torture method". First he would give a sniff if something displeased him, then he would "make suggestions as to the right way of behaving or doing things". These suggestions would continue over and over until you did what he wanted. My father was my moral compass. You were to be civil to your family, love your relatives, go to school every day, do your homework every day and if your friends were doing things they shouldn't be, you were to move away from their sphere of influence. Several of my friends eloped right out of high school and started families immediately. My father did not want me going steady or having one boyfriend. He wanted me to go to college and get a good job. I decided to go into advertising and journalism and he backed me up. His family thought girls should only become teachers or nurses and really should get married as quick as could be. I did not get married until I graduated from college and as we walked down the aisle, my father said to me, "You know you don't have to do this now"

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

What has been your life's greatest surprise?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There have been many surprises. All of life is full of surprises. When I am at small claims mediation, I am constantly surprised at the stunts people pull on each other. I was surprised when two of our children came over for my last birthday and took me and my husband to the Verandah for dinner. I am also surprised that I made it past the birthday when my mother passed away and am still kicking. I try to take one day at a time and enjoy it. Living on the river, I see beautiful sunrises and sunsets and love hearing the song of the various birds that have nests in our trees. I am surprised that my marriage made it this far since it is stressful sometimes dealing with a strong personality, but also shows generosity and lovingness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

Chuck

 

The biggest surprise in my life is my life.

 

How did I go from playing at the park to Vice President of a national bank to the Executive Operating Officer at a very large non-profit?

 

I realize that I could have gone twice as far but didn't receive advice and support that my father gave me. I finally realize that I was natively smarter than 90% of the population and now am amused by it.

 

 

Like Esta, I am surprised that my marriage lasted over 30 years.

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

What was your first big trip?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After my mother died, I was sent to Cincinnati, Ohio for a couple of weeks. This was the first time I had been on a plane alone. I stayed with my father's brother, Harry Young and his wife, Ray and their two children,Ruth and Sheldon. This was the first time I had met this side of my father's family. I am still close with Ruth Young fka Meister and I recently attended a Bas Mitzvah of one of her grandchildren last year in Ohio.

 

 

 

 

Chuck

 

This is interesting.

 

The first big trip I had was with my sister on a Greyhound bus from Jacksonville to Atlanta to visit my Aunt Salome, cousins Lillian, Joey, Albert and their dad Nat.

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

Nat was a chef at the Jewish Community Center. He brought home ice cream from the center. I think he brought home other stuff too to feed his family. He never lasted long at a job.

 

I had to sleep in a smelly bunk bed and it was freezing cold. Albert introduced me to his friends across the street, Ethel and Effie. I was amazed how hilly Atlanta was since I had never been to Georgia.

 

 

My sister went on a date which pissed off Cousin Lillian who didn't have one on the weekend. It is just as well as I believe that Cousin Lillian later came out as liking women more than men. My sister said that she was in a sport car on the date and fell out? I probably missed part of that story. I am not sure how she came to fall out unless she was sitting on the hood.

 

 

Much later I was sent to Cincinnati, Ohio too but I had to take the train by myself. It was a great geography lesson as I learned how big the United States really was. It took a day and a half. No one bothered me and I didn't even think about fearing strangers. No perverts on the train but remember Cousin Albert that I shared a bunk bed with? He is presently locked up for this crime.

 

I went to Cincinnati, Ohio because Ruth was getting married to Danny. First I stayed with the Greenfields who were close family friends. Bob owned a haberdashery and brought home a new wallet for me. His wife made me raisin bran cereal for breakfast

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

and was astonished that I never tasted it before.

 

I stayed in their son's room. His name was Sheldon Greenfield and had just graduated from Harvard. His diploma hung over his desk in the room and I was really impressed.

 

I stayed the last two days with Harry and Ray. They took me to Young's Department Store in the suburbs. It was kind of dark inside as they were trying to save money by cutting back on the electricity. Ray was busy altering clothes in the back.

 

Since then I have been to Ireland, England, Italy, the Caribbean Islands, New York, all of New England, Mexico, worked in Georgia, served in the Army in Washington State, Texas, and South Korea.

 

 

I never had a bad journey.

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

What sports did you like most as a child? Why?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I liked to skate and bicycle. loved to play tennis and just run. Feeling of freedom

 

 

Chuck

 

I liked to ride my bicycle even though I feel off one day on my face and almost caused my father to have a heart attack.

 

Another time I was riding my bike on Beach Blvd near Mayfair and didn't look where I was going. I rode my bike into a car that stopped but was waiting to turn left. I was so afraid that I got up and rode home with the car in pursuit. My Dad was in the front yard watering the lawn when I rode up. The driver of the car got out and said that he may have hit me. My Dad said, "I don't think so if he rode all the way home."

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

I used to shoot basketballs at the netless rim on our old garage before the garage was torn down. I was deadly with a hook shot. Why I just practiced that particular shot? I don't know.....just showboating.

 

 

I also liked to run. It did feel like being free.

 

Lately I have been walking at 5:00 AM in the morning. No one is awake except for one cat. I feel as though I own the world and can talk to God. I once touched the street to see if I could feel the pulse of the earth. I could feel it slowly beating. I also have a special star that I make sure is out every morning. I think it looks for me too.

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

What expectations do you have of yourself?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To be healthy, calm, happy and enjoy each day as it comes. To do the right thing and listen to my children when they talk to me about their ups and downs.

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

How did you feel when your first child was born?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When our first child, Francine was born I was relieved as she was born in July in a hospital that had no air conditioning at the time. It was so hot, they only had air conditioning in the delivery room. At that time, the fathers were not allowed in the delivery room and they knocked you out so rarely had "natural" deliveries. They made you stay in the hospital for a week afterward. There were so many babies born then they had patients stacked up in the hallways. Then the nurses said there were too many people on the floor and banned the fathers. My husband and another new father put on green costumes, slung stethoscopes around their necks and walked up the stairs to get on the maternity floor. Since I had never been around babies, my husband employed an experienced white lady, this was the segregated south still, who came in for a couple of months to get me going with taking care of Francine, changing the cloth diapers, making meals etc. We employed the same lady 2 years

 

 

 

later when Jyll was born. When our son was born we employed a black child care worker whose name was Mrs King. Francine was always very verbal and bright and wanted to know why we called her Mrs King when the previous maid's name was only "Rosa" and she called my attention to the fact that Mrs. King had a mustache!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

When did you get your first car?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I did not get my first car until I was married and had two children. My husband wanted me to just share one car with him, but I felt I needed a car in case I had an emergency and needed to take the children to a doctor or something. My first car was a Chevrolet Impala and I loved the freedom it gave me. After that one we had a series of Cadillacs. My husband drove a Prelude or another little car to get him back and forth to the office or the courthouse.

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

What things do you think you cannot live without?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I need family and friends around me. Also being able to breathe free and enjoy the outdoors.

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

What are your favorite musicians, bands or albums?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Classical music, swing music and rock n roll from the ‘60s.

 

anything to dance to.

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

How did your parents pick your name?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was named after my father’s mother, whose name was Esther Rivka. Apparently she was a holy terror and picked unmercifully on the daughters. My father left Cincinnati as there were no jobs and went to work for his Uncle Nathan Dwoskin. He met my mother in Jacksonville where he was working. My father always spoke lovingly of his mother. She died after her son, Charles was killed in an airplane training accident during World War II.

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

Have you ever experienced a severe storm?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Living in Florida all my life, I have experienced a number of hurricanes. Hurricane Charley took the roof off our lanai and we were without electricity for over 10 days. It was hot and steamy then, but everyone helped each other and we got through it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

If you could thank anyone, who would you thank and why?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am thankful that Charles Young is my brother. He has been watching my back and also my front. I know I can go to him with anything and he will listen and not be judgmental.

 

 

 

 

Chuck

 

.... Therefore you will inherit my 2014 Mustang convertible. (Also

 

to upset my brother in law who would never want to see his wife drive a Ford)

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

Was there anything unusual about your birth?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My parents never said anything unusual happened when I was born. I think my mother was disappointed I was not a boy, but 3 years later she had my brother,Charles and so she had the first grandson on her side of the family.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

What was your best boss like?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I never had a “best” boss, only interesting ones. When I worked for Daniel Crisp at the advertising agency in Jacksonville, I learned a lot about the advertising field and how to do things. Working there enabled me to go back to school and get A”s on final school projects. When I worked at Channel 12, I was able to learn how to work with artistic types and get things produced in an efficient manner.When I worked for Morty Goldberg, I got to see the underbelly of business and learn what not to do and how to manage employees. When my husband went out on his own, he said he needed me to keep an eye on the business end of the law practice. So I learned business practices, management, bookkeeping and have been doing that since 1988.

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

What are some of your favorite smells?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I love the smell of salt air at the beach, the heady scent of red roses, the smell of newly mown grass and the charged air just before it begins to rain.

 

 

 

 

Chuck

 

Today I went to CVS to buy some deodorant. The snaggle tooth cashier keeps asking me if I have a CVS card every time I go in there . Why do they do that? That's the last thing I want them to find in my wallet when they pick me off the street in an ambulance.

 

 

The deodorant now comes in a palm type of container that looks strangely like the new Iphone 6 except it has a twist knob on the bottom to push the cake up with every turn.

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

It was the afternoon but I decided to swipe some under my arm pits. Then I sniffed my pits. Nobody saw me do this, only me staring back in the bathroom mirror reflection.

 

"Hey! that's disgusting" you are probably saying. Oh yeah?

 

I know that this act is the secret smell that everyone likes - smelling their pits but they would never admit it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

What is your favorite

 

holiday memory?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My favorite holiday memory is getting together at my brother and sister in law house for Thanksgiving.

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

What were some of your favorite Halloween costumes?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Never had any and couldn’t figure out what was the big deal for Halloween anyway

 

 

Chuck

 

This is a strange answer from you.

 

It allowed us to escape into a world where we thought we would never go but then, you became a princess and I became a banker in a suit and tie.

 

Never grow up. Please always remember and take care of the child in you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(see attached photo) I don't know who that fat kid who was holding the hand of the gypsy princess but they went through a life that they couldn't imagine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Halloween

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

How did you decide to get married?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had been dating Alan Rubinstein for a few months while at U/Fla. We met when I went over to Hillel Student Center one Sunday morning. He wanted to borrow my newspaper but since I was a college correspondent at the time, would only let him read it and then return it immediately to me. He took me out for dinner every night that first week. Since I was on a stringent budget, I would go anywhere that someone else was treating me to. We usually went to Kings Food Host, which was gross. Eventually I said to him, listen, you don’t have to pay for me every night, Ill pay for myself. He was just about out of money for the month at that time so was really impressed. Anyway, we continued to see each other for dinner, he was in law school and really had to study. I was in Journalism school and was looking forward to getting out and going up to New York. We each went home to our respective families for Thanksgiving. I decided to go back to school early to see who was there. I conned my cousin Joe

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

Borkson (who was also dating a girl his family didn’t know about) to going back early and taking me with him. We vowed each other to secrecy. I went back early, but unbeknownst to me, Alan Rubinstein, forgot my name. He knew I lived in Broward Hall so took to hanging out in the lobby. But, I was going in and out a back door so never saw him in the lobby. I think he had my phone number and managed to call me (this is before cell phones) so can’t really remember how we managed to hook up again. Anyway, went home for Christmas holiday and things were starting to get serious with us. When I returned from the holidays, he asked me to wear his fraternity pin or lavaliere. He had been Rex at Pi Lam at U/Miami. He wanted to meet my family but my beloved brother had a way of making comments about any boys I dated so wanted to avoid this as much as possible. I told Alan my brother was at Harvard and had two heads. I did introduce him to aunt Charlotte and Uncle Felix and swore them to secrecy. Uncle Felix liked to make comments about “the president’s dangle”which was embarrassing as well as funny. I did take a trip down to Orlando to meet Alan’s parents who were upset with the blonde shiksee he brought home. His mother saw I was wearing a little gold star necklace and wanted to know if I was really Jewish. We started playing Jewish geography and came to find out that her parents were best friends of Aunt Bessie and Uncle Joe Portnoy!!!! My mother in law had been born in Massachusetts but raised in Jacksonville

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

and in fact attended LaVilla school. Her father owned a nice jewelry store but then decided to go to Pittsburgh and have a store there. She and my father in law graduated from U/Pittsburgh and in fact my mother in law was a sorority sister of Grace Goldberg, who had been my Algebra teacher at Landon! My inlaws moved down to Orlando in 1944 as my mother in law suffered from pleurisy and needed warmer weather than there was in Akron, Ohio and Pennsylvania. They bought a liquor store and then a grove in Orlando and they became residents of the Orlando area. Alan and his older sister, Judy went to school in Orlando and then both went to U/Miami for undergraduate school. Judy got her MRS degree after one year and dropped out. Alan did get his degree in History, I think. He wanted to go to U/M law school but his parents said they couldn’t afford it so he applied and was accepted at U/Fla law school. Alan was in his last year and half of law school and since it was on the trimester system it was extremely tough. We kept seeing each other and one day, Alan said we should get married. He was pretty cute then, had dark red hair.I had to tell my aunts Belle and Lil that I would not be coming up to New York and were they pissed at me. They had been networking and setting up things for me there. Alan took me to Orlando one Friday and said he had gotten 3 engagement rings from his Uncle Joe Malkoff and I needed to pick out one. I picked out the middle one and was so nervous that I dropped it and it rolled under the piano!I scrambled around and

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

managed to get it out from under the piano,thank goodness. We decided to get married after Alan graduated from law school mainly because his parents and my father told us if we got married before we graduated, we were on our own and they wouldn’t pay for us to go to school while living together. So I graduated in April and got work at Channel 12 and started making wedding preparations. Alan applied for various jobs all around the state and took the one in Fort Myers as it seemed like the best prospect. Additionally he wanted to get away from Orlando and”be his own man”. His parents wanted him to come back to Orlando but he was afraid they would be interfering too much. For the same reason he wouldn’t take a job in Jacksonville although I really wanted to stay close to my father. Anyway, the wedding was on an August afternoon. It was very simple and we honeymooned in Miami, then went straight to Fort Myers where we have been for the last 50 years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

What do you like most about your siblings?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I only have one brother. He is the nicest, most caring person I know. He has a wonderful sense of humor and I have a great time just talking with him. I don’t think he realizes just wonderful he is to his family.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chuck

 

“What do you like most about your sibling?”

 

I will answer this question with apologies to the Frank Capra 1946 Movie, It’s a Wonderful Life.

 

“The film stars James Stewart as George Bailey, a man who has given up his dreams in order to help others and whose imminent suicide on Christmas Eve brings about the intervention of his guardian angel, Clarence Odbody (Henry Travers). Clarence

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

shows George all the lives he has touched and how different life in his community of Bedford Falls would be had he never been born.”

 

Esta – some of the lives she has touched and how different life in her community would be had she never been born:

 

Faye Jacobs Young is in painful labor. She has waited a long time to get married and so has her husband Joseph. They are looking forward to their first child in 1942. It is a boy, they name him Israel after Joseph’s father. Faye writes a letter to Joseph’s brother, Charles who is a doctor, asking him for advice.

 

Faye and Joseph only have the one child. He goes to Spring Park Elementary School but is always losing his lunch money. Unfortunately he is shy and never tells anyone so he often goes hungry.

 

 

Faye passes away leaving Joseph and his son. They are lost as there is no maternal culture in the house. Joseph’s brother has died in the war, so Joseph now takes to calling his son Charles. Charles is often in trouble as he is left alone until Joseph comes home from work. However Charles does like after-school Hebrew lessons, so he is always waiting on the bus to arrive.

 

Charles is spoiled and incorrigible so instead of going to college, he goes to work in a cabinet factory where he can use his hands.

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

If he had a sibling role model, perhaps he would have gone too.

 

Meanwhile, somewhere a man named Alan Rubinstein is attending law school at the University of Florida. He meets a woman named Phyllis. They party, get married, he drops out of law school. Phyllis divorces him. He thinks of revenge. He decides to go back to college and become a divorce attorney. Somethings stay the same.

 

 

Someplace God is thinking of creating children. We will call them Francine, Jill and Mark for convenience. If Francine were born she would go to graduate school and have three children. Jill would marry and become an outstanding writer, and Mark would build fantastic buildings. None of this occurs as God can't find the perfect parents.

 

 

There is a lot in North Fort Myers at the end of a cul-de-sac. It overlooks the Caloosahatchee River and town. Developers discover it and build HUD high rise housing as no one wants to live in north Fort Myers at this time.

 

A lawyer, Morton Goldberg, arrives in Fort Myers to establish a law office. He runs round recklessly and is soon locked up. Sometimes justice is swift.

 

Joseph Young passes away and Charles is still building kitchen cabinets. Charles often wonders what life would be like if he had

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

a brother or sister. Charles gets married and has a son he names Joseph. Joseph dreams of going on trips, especially to New York and Europe. He wants to go to Broadway plays and famous battlegrounds, he wishes he at least had relatives that would take him. His father can’t afford it so Joseph stays home.

 

A kosher delicatessen owner looks out at the street forlornly. He is waiting for someone who demands "real" kosher food in New York. Perhaps a young girl or a young man accompanied by their grandparents. The street stays quiet. The crowd goes to the Four Seasons for a ham dinner.

 

Charles’s wife Iris is upset. She really needs some cologne, or perhaps just a box of citrus at Christmas. Her Vitamin C level drops and people start avoiding her due to the smell of her cheap perfume. Relatives in New York desire Florida citrus and find that they have no way of obtaining it.

 

The angel appears. This was a dream! The angel is Esta.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

Did you date someone in high school?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had my share of dates in high school. In that day and age it was important to be out and about on Saturday night and not be staying home. A lot of the dates were “pity” dates, but hey, it was a movie and a free pizza. I knew how to listen and got the reputation of being “love” counselor to some of the shyer boys. I made a vow to never kiss and tell so I won’t tell you who was the first boy I kissed ! One summer I must have been really thin and blonde because there weren’t too many Saturday nights I stayed home. A few of them I would go out with girlfriends. They would usually wind up at Krystal, sometimes try to pick up sailors on leave. I wasn’t comfortable with that and so usually returned home early. My father was always trying to point “nice Jewish Boys” who supposedly had eyed me at services or something. I wasn’t having that either. One Thanksgiving my father informed me that he had invited Irving Cohen over for dinner, Oy vey. He was half my size, lots older than me. The one time I went out

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

with him, I spent most of the night ducking under the dashboard so no one I knew would see me with him. After that if I saw him on the street, I would hurry up and cross the street so I didn’t have to engage in conversation with him. A lot of the girls I grew up with developed very early while I still looked like a boy in some respects. I could still climb a tree, would rather ride a bike than sit around giggling. Eventually it dawned on me that I had something to offer, mainly due to some of the guys calling on the phone, stopping me at the beach or at Grey Oaks. My father did not want me to go steady or be exclusive with any one boy as he wanted me to be able to go to college and then have a career. So anytime I had a silver id bracelet with a boys name on it, I would hide it until I got away from the house. By the time I got to the University of Florida, I was well versed in flirting and being careful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

Do you have any particularly vivid memories of your grandparents?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The only grandparent I knew was my mother’s mother, Annie Jacobs. She was your typical Polish grandmother, opinionated, sometimes loud. She had dark hair and brown hair and was overweight. When we would take her to the beach, she would sit in the shallows and when she got up, there was a swimming hole to play in. She was always telling me not to put my hand on the balustrade of stairs and to always wear shoes, otherwise I would have big hands and feet. My father was very good to her and would drag my brother and I over to River Garden, a retirement home where she lived, to visit with her and to take her treats. She and my mother were always at war with each other. She could sew very well and made clothes for me and summer shorts for my brother. I believe she and her husband had a little grocery

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

store and she lived in the west side of Jacksonville. I remember going to her house one time and she was fussing at Uncle Felix, because he was taking art lessons and making pictures of nude women. Apparently she became unable to take care of herself and since none of the children in Jacksonville could take her into their homes, she went into River Garden and lived there until she died. She adored my brother as he was the first grandson and was quite good looking with big blue eyes and dark red hair. The granddaughters she really didn’t have time for. She died when I was about 18 years old and already in college. My father said I didn’t have to come home for the funeral so I didn’t.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

Are you still friends with any of your classmates from grade school?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I still am in contact with a number of friends who went to middle school and high school with me. We have had various reunions and I email Judy Mizrahi and Iris Taussig periodically. I have seen most of the classmates from grade school at high school reunions over the years, the last one being the 50th reunion which was about 5 years ago. Some of them are gone now, some have moved back to Jacksonville to care for ailing family members.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

Which musicians or bands have you most liked seeing live?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I got to see Marvin Hamlisch live which was wonderful. I have been lucky to see a number of classical musicians live which I enjoy.

 

 

 

 

 

Chuck

 

I remember that you also liked Freddie Caddell and the Dreamers (or Twirls).....especially their song, "I've Had It." The band went to DuPont High School.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0MB81E2MiM

 

If you listen to the song on You Tube you can hear the piano player, Mitch Grove! My dad said to you, "You are dating a piano player!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for jarring the memories loose.

 

:) Thanks

 

 

 

 

Esta

 

I was a band groupie to Freddie Caddell and his band as I was dating his piano player, Mitchell Grow. They were very nice and took me into wherever they were playing but made sure I only had Coke or Ginger Ale to drink. I think they made two records. I heard some time ago that Mitchell had moved out to Arizona and that he had recently passed away.

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

Who had the most positive influence on you as a child?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Probably my father as he had to be mother and father to two young children and insisted on paying off crushing medical bills. He then insisted both children get college educations so they could take care of themselves and others. He was always worrying about others and not himself. My father always encouraged me to do my best, to be kind to others and have respect for elders.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chuck

 

See image below.

 

He had many low points in his later life that he would confide to his Uncle Nathan. However he never let his children know. It was

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

only in later life that this was dragged out of him.

 

Thank goodness he had the support of family, friends, and neighbors. He slogged on to the end with the deep pain of intestinal cancer. Both he and his wife are at peace now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"02-12-2012 05

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

What are your New Year’s resolutions?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I never make New Year’s resolutions. However, I am hoping to lose 10 lbs this year and do better in consistent exercising towards good health.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

How did you celebrate your 21st birthday?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since I was still in college when my 21st birthday rolled around, I went out drinking legally with some friends near campus. I know I was dating someone semi seriously and we went out to dinner off campus. The following summer we broke up and never each other again. The following year I met the person I married in 1965.

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

How did you experience the day Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think I was at home with my little children, had the tv and watched on tv as he was assassinated in Tennessee.

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

What qualities do you most value in your better half?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First of all, my husband is not my better half, he is my equal half. I value his thoughts on many subjects and often use him as a sounding board.He is a very caring individual for family and friends. He tries to make the world a better place in which to live.

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

What were your favorite cartoons growing up?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Veronica and Archie

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

What is one of the most memorable camping trips you've been on?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I never went on camping trips growing up. However, I was a counselor at CampFire Girls camp in High Springs, Florida one summer. We lived in rustic cabins in the middle of nowhere in High Springs, Florida. I was the arts and crafts counselor. The most memorable thing that happened during that time was when I was mixing vermiculite with concrete or something for a project and got my hand stuck in the bucket and couldn’t remove it. The rest of the counselors had to keep pouring water in that bucket until I could wiggle it out. We were allowed to go into town during the interim between camping periods and went to the only movie in town. All the local yokels were awed by the new girls in downtown. The swimming instructor was a beautiful tall girl with long blonde hair and very tanned body. Years later that girl turned up next door to me as a neighbor in Fort Myers,

 

Florida and we have been friends for about 40 years.

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

As a child, were you closer to your father or your mother? How about now?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My mother became sick with breast cancer when I was 12 and she passed away when I was 14 years old. Prior to that she always seemed to find fault with me, lots of screaming and yelling. I would primarily hide from her so didn’t have to interact. I did learn how to cook and clean and sew at very young age from her as she felt it was important for young girls to know how to do these things. I had to nurse her and help take care of her in her illness. She was horribly burned by radiation and in pain a lot.This was back in the 50’s before they had better medicines for cancer and illnesses. My father finally had to put her in River Garden for care and she died there. I always liked being outdoors in the fresh air. I don’t think my mother knew what to do with me and really focused her attention on my younger brother, Chuck. I once had a good singing voice and perfect pitch and I

 

 

 

 

 

 

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think my mother saw that as competition as she loved to perform by singing. I probably was legally blind for a great period of my life but my mother refused to get glasses for me as she was afraid glasses would keep me from finding someone to marry. I think I was in the sixth grade of Spring Park Elementary and absolutely insisted on going to an eye doctor and getting glasses. My mother made me take off my glasses as soon as I came home from school. How I got through school, I am not sure. My father was a quiet effacing man who worked from very early in the morning until late afternoon. I did not really know him until after my mother died and I told him that he insisted on sending my brother away, I would run away from home. Men did not care for children on their own in those days. My father died when I was already married and 3 children and had left home for some time. I am glad he got to see and enjoy grandchildren. I still have and treasure letters I received from him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Where did you go on vacations as a child?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We never took real vacations and went anywhere when I was a child. Periodically we would go spend a couple of weeks at the beach at some boarding house hotel. One time we did go to Miami Beach by train when my father’s cousin Gertrude Hecht married Marshall Feuer . We stayed in a lovely hotel on Miami Beach for about a week. During school vacations, I mostly worked in day camps.

 

 

 

 

                            

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chuck

 

My mother insisted that my Dad take a summer vacation. He took three days off but we stayed at Jacksonville Beach for five days. He went back to work during the day and came to the beach at night. We stayed there (4th Street and Beach Blvd) in a two story wooden house because the owner lived downstairs and it was cheap. It had an ice box and we got a delivery of ice at the start of the vacation. I may have slept in the same room with either my parents or sister. I was pretty young. The room had old iron beds with springs. I don't think I have seen that since.

 

 

We went to St. Augustine several times. We also would go to either Kingsley Beach or Stricklands. Kingsley Beach had a bar/clubroom, navy guys and their gals, and a dangerous diving board. I loved it.

 

 

Stricklands prohibited alcohol and was preachy. Screaming Baptist children and tuna sandwiches, containing sand - always. It was a drag and Florida summer hot.

 

In the early 1980's I took my wife to Kingsley Beach out of the distant memory I had of the white beach and clear water. She was fascinated by people dancing and drinking beer simultaneously; and throwing the empty cans from the dance floor into the barrels placed around the dance floor.....all without pausing.

 

 

 

 

 

The bathrooms were cheap handmade wooden stalls, no toilet paper, and no doors - just a shower curtain across the front of each stall. Kingsley Beach is now an RV park.

 

Occasionally we would go to someone's lake house in Keystone Heights such as Rudy Yergin's "Gay Cock Inn" a term which is a play on a Yiddish phrase which the locals never understood. Her house was on Lake Brooklyn. She sold it when her husband, Harry the dentist, passed away in his 40's. Lake Brooklyn along with others are mostly dried up due to the mining of phosphate throughout the county.

 

 

When my sister went to college, I went on vacation with my Dad to Fort Myers, across the Tamiami Trail to Miami and back up I-95 to Jacksonville. My father stopped to visit farmers along the way. He also liked to drive the 350 miles from Miami to Jacksonville on US-I because it was slower and because at each stoplight, he could sightsee without stopping.

 

When I was about six, Izzy Hecht's sister got married. Izzy owned the Oliver Cromwell Hotel. My mother stole a plate from the hotel that had a photo of Cromwell glazed on the center. The photo was a portrait of a serious bearded man in an Elizabethan collar. I think it was the only real piece of chinaware we had in our house for fifteen years. We hung it on the wall.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While staying at the hotel, the cousins played on the elevators until one of the bellboys yelled at us. My sister was so ashamed that she told our mother who raged on the manager until he apologized to the group of brats. We were sensitive back then and clearly my mom didn't want my sister and I traumatized.

 

My office is on the 8th floor at Riverplace. Whenever I see kids pushing all the buttons, I encourage them. Machinery is always fascinating to children. Lighted buttons, doors opening and closing. Arriving at a new destination is to experience a new thrill every minute....kind of like a vacation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What are some choices you made about how to raise me?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chuck: Some of the choices I made in order to raise you after our mother died was that we were to stay together in the same house as our father. I would get up early in the morning, make breakfast for our father, then get you up, washed and dressed for school and make sure you had breakfast and lunch money. After school I would come home, see what trouble you had gotten into before our father came home, clean the house and make a supper for the three of us. Then we would have to sit down and do homework before going to bed. I would have our father take me to the laundramat so we would have clean clothes for the following week. Our father did have a maid to help out for a long while but she drove me crazy so eventually I told her we were going on vacation and wouldn't need her. I got into a bunch of trouble doing that but I preferred to dust and clean and iron

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

myself. I think after I left for college our father did get another maid to help in the house. Thanks to the meanness of our mother I learned early on how to be "queen of clean" and to this day I have a bad case of OCB when too much is out of order. When I left for Gainesville I caught a lot of flak from our father's family about leaving the two of you to fend for yourselves but I knew I had to go away and get as good an education and the means to make a living for us as I could. I did come home on weekends a lot the first year I was away until our father suggested I needed to stay in Gainesville and study and anyway he did not like the boys I was dating in Jacksonville and was afraid I would drop out and get married or something. Sometimes when I when I was in high school and dating, I would have to take you with me so that you did not have to be alone so much. You usually used those occasions for doing something to stress me out while we were out with the current "Mr. Wonderful". I did try to socialize you so that you weren't picking your nose or wiping your butt in public and so embarrassing me. I did have boyfriends who tried to make you their friend and would bring you little gifts. The reason it took so long for me to bring Alan to the house because I did not want a lot of comment from you or the rest of the family. In fact, I told him I had a brother in Harvard, but he had two heads and one was in a glass jar! Since then I have to entertain him with stories etc . Sort of like Scherazade.

 

 

 

 

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What traits do you share with your mother?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The traits I share courtesy of my mother is blonde hair, fair skin and blue eyes. Also my musical ability. I used to have perfect pitch when singing and can follow a beat anywhere. Also I have some artistic abilities which my mother’s family had.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is some of the best advice your mother ever gave you?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wash your neck, wash your face, comb your hair

 

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How did you decide when to change jobs?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When my husband decided to go out on his own in private practice of law, he asked me to be his office manager. He wanted someone he could trust to keep an eye on the books and keeping the employees motivated. Previously I had been a researcher for 5 attorneys in a personal injury firm and had been in charge of marketing the firm. I now had to learn all about divorce, custody and other family law matters. I have been doing this for my husband since 1988. I now have a bookkeeper and a scheduling assistant to help me.

 

 

 

Chuck

 

As I remember the story, Alan had some serious concerns about the managing partner which came true when the government locked him up. Maybe that can be a future story.

 

I thought y'all were hanging out around the corner but under an assumed name while you were remodeling a Chinese restaurant to be your new office.

 

I remember visiting you there once. You said it was a great office location because you could go out on the sidewalk and watch parades.

 

Even though you were half-employed, you still bought me lunch.

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How did you get your first job?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My first job was at a Jewish merchant’s apparel shop which was on the fringe of the black ghetto. I needed to make money in order to be able to go to a youth group convention. A friend, Edna Steinfeld, told me she had this job at Mosses emporium and she was sure she could get me an after school job there as well, which she did. For quite awhile I worked there after school and during school holidays and make enough money to afford to pay my own way to youth conventions and to sometimes buy some articles of clothing to wear to these events. I learned how to do windows and how to display goods. For some reason, I was very good at selling women’s lingerie to men during Xmas and so made my quota. I finally stopped when I could not keep up studies, housework at home and I was starting to be asked out on dates and to go to the beach. After that job, I learned how to save change from lunch money and to this day, can still rub the bison off the nickel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Worman’s and get a bear claw to munch on to get me through the afternoon and evening. This job did give me money so that I could go on BBG trips out of town occasionally and thus meet other Jewish kids and socialize with them. It also gave me experience with dealing with a diversity of personalities and how to get along with a lot of different people.

 

                                                                                                                                     

 

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Who have been your closest friends throughout the years?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have been close friends with my next door neighbor, Anne Miller for almost 40 years. We first met as camp counselors at a Camp Fire Girls Camp. She taught swimming. I taught arts and crafts. We lost contact for awhile and then by serendipity, she moved next door with her husband, who was a new doctor in town and two of her three children. Her boys were all about the same age as our son, Mark and grew up together. We went through her divorce from her husband, who had the roving eye for nurses and other life events. She attended our children’s bar and bat mitzvahs. We have attended her children’s weddings, her mother’s death.

 

 

We were close friends with Andrea and Daryl Elkes. We travelled with them and went through life’s ups and downs. Daryl Elkes

 

 

 

 

 

died after being ill with heart problems about 3 years ago. We looked after Andrea and would take her out at least once a week. Now she has gotten active in the synagogue and has found a boyfriend who is very good to her, so we see her and the boyfriend once a week for dinner. I maintain contact with some of my girlfriends from childhood by email and see some of them when we get up to Jacksonville.

 

 

My husband is probably my closest friend. We have been together for almost 50 years!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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What are your favorite movies?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have seen Gone With the Wind a dozen times and love it each time. Also like Dr. Zhivago and a lot of the old black and white movies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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How did you celebrate your 30th birthday?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I celebrated my 30th birthday as a day just like every other day. I was busy raising 3 children,running a household, cooking, cleaning, dusting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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What is one of your

 

favorite drinks?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I like to drink Mojitos in the summer time. The mint flavor adds tang to the drink. Otherwise all day long I drink green tea in order to boost my immune system.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Did you ever move as a child? What was that experience like?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I never moved from Planters Road home while I was a child. When I went away to U/Fl in Gainesville was the first time I moved out of my father’s house on Planters Road.

 

         

 

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Are you a regular at any of your local restaurants or cafes? What is that relationship like?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We eat at Ristorante Fabio a small family owned Italian restaurant near our house. We have gotten to know the owners, the grandparents, watched the daughters grow up and go to college. The food is rustic , Northern Italian. Lately since the daughter has taken over, she has been trying some more gourmet dishes. The grandmother makes a tiramisu to die for.

 

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What makes you happy?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I find happiness in hearing from my brother and sister in law and finally getting to see them for awhile. I love living on the river in Fort Myers. The lights from the city when the water is still and the moon is shining are so beautiful and peaceful. I am happy when I am surrounded by my loving family and know that they are well. I find happiness in the smile of a child and watching the neighbors duckies grow from fluffy yellow ducklings to outstanding looking adults.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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What is the furthest you have ever traveled?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The furthest I have travelled is when we went to Iceland during a cruise. Also went to the Faroe Islands which is north of Scotland. We saw thermal springs and Puffins which are strange looking birds. Iceland is heated by the thermal springs. We also saw a glacier.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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What was your wedding like?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We have now been married 50 years!. Our wedding was a simple afternoon affair. My aunt Charlotte was the matron of honor. Alan had a number of his friends as ushers and best man. I was able to rent a beautiful wedding dress from a cousin of my father who had a bridal shop. My aunt Charlotte made the veil and cap that I wore. I carried a simple bouquet of flowers. My brother and father also were participants. It was in the old Jacksonville Jewish Center. We had a cocktail party as a reception which I think Mrs. Meyerhoff catered. The funny thing was that the day before the wedding my father’s brother, Harry and his son, Sheldon showed up. I had to feed them, put them up somewhere in the house and make sure they were able to go to the rehearsal dinner that my fiancé’s parents were hosting at the Holiday Inn. The day of the wedding while I was running around trying to get everything done, my father and his brother and nephew took off to visit relatives that were unable to attend the

 

 

 

 

 

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wedding. They forgot about the time and I was a nervous wreck wondering if I was going to make the wedding.

 

My fiancé called from synagogue asking where we were! Eventually my father, his brother and nephew came home and we were able to squesh into the car and get over to the synagogue. The day was really a blur and seemed surreal. One of my fiancé’s nieces had a tantrum at the synagogue. This was a precursor of what was to come over the years. And then it started raining…someone said that was good luck. I sure hoped so. When we went downstairs to the reception, I couldn’t find my father to stand in the receiving line.

 

 

Eventually he came running up and said he had been at the bar, “for a bracer”. I went to change clothes to leave for a short honeymoon and realized that I had not packed anything. We had to go back to my father’s house so I could pack up a few clothes. We also left the wedding gown and asked him to return it to his cousin.

 

 

Then we made it to St. Augustine to the Ponce de Leon Hotel. I had not eaten anything all day and was suddenly ravenous. My new husband took me to Across the Border Truck Stop as that was that was open at that time of the night and I managed to eat some potato chips and drink some coke. He said that was the first time he realized he was going to have to make sure that I

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

got something to eat every day.

 

 

 

 

Chuck

 

That is a great story. I went to St. Augustine with my Dad to buy liquor for the wedding reception from Babe Broudy. I believe my friend Ronnie was at your wedding too. I don't remember the Holiday Inn but I do remember you hanging the long brides dress from the light in the ceiling in the back bedroom. Many years later I was painting the ceiling in that bedroom and thought I saw scratches from the hanger.

 

 

 

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Have you ever doubted your faith?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No, I believe there is a higher power than we are, that is in our souls and that keeps us grounded. Also that previous relatives continue to look after us and to look to us to be good, moral people

 

 

 

 

 

Chuck

 

I totally agree with you. Sort of like The lion King song, "They Live In You"

 

 

 

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Where did you go on your honeymoon?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since we were just starting out and had little money, we went to the Ponce De Leon hotel in St. Augustine, Fla for our wedding night. I had not had anything to eat all the day of the wedding and so we wound up at Cross the Border Truck Stop where we ate potato chips and drank Cokes. Then we spent a couple of days at the Lucerne Hotel in Miami Beach. We got married over the Labor Day holiday weekend, and we had to be in Fort Myers by Tuesday so Alan could start his first job with Morty Goldberg. I had never been in Fort Myers before we got married so found myself in this little town on a river. Alan had rented a cottage on a creek. It had one bedroom, one bathroom and no air conditioning but rather a big attic fan. We only had one car so for the first few days, I stayed in the cottage, unpacking boxes and cleaning. We had this strange landlord and his who lived a little distance from us in a house also on a creek. I had received beautiful nightgowns and peignoirs as a trousseau as well as

 

 

 

 

 

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some lacy underwear. I had to hang this stuff inside of pillowcases on a line so as not to disturb the landlord and his wife. They were always nosing around to see what we were doing. One time while I was waiting for Alan to come home from his office, I was taking a shower and somehow got locked in the bathroom. In those days, I was pretty thin so was trying to figure out how to crawl out of the bathroom window and hopefully walk around to the side door. I then realized I only had on underpants, a lacy bra and a thin slip and the landlords wife was outside using the clothes line!. I did bang on the window trying to attract her attention, but she may have thought I was doing something racy so ignored it. Eventually Alan came home and I was hollering for him to get me out of the bathroom. After that I always put something to prop the bathroom door open. So began 50 years of married blisters…...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Did you have a car in high school?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I never had my own car until I was married. We only had one car in the family and my father needed it in order to get back and forth to work. Most students in my high school either borrowed a family car or rode the bus or with a friend who had a car. I went to school with the daughter from Nimnecht Chevrolet. So she and her brothers all had their own cars to drive to school. I did have a friend, Sandra Setzer, who had the use of her mother’s Buick most of the time. After school we would walk over to San Marco to have cokes and fries and gab and then Sandra would pile a lot of us in her car and take us home. I had a boyfriend for awhile when I was in high school whose father owned a gas station and he had his own car. He did not go to the same high school, so I would see him only during the summer in camp or on weekends in the winter time. My father was antsy whenever I dated a boy more than a dozen times as he wanted me to go to college and graduate and not get in trouble. So I broke up with

 

 

 

 

 

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this one boy and starting dating others. Being popular and being out on the weekends was a really big thing in those days so you really did not want to be seen just with the girls. I actually met my future husband when I was still in high school and had “run away” with Sandra Setzer and Cookie Ely and some others. We were told not to go further than Jacksonville Beach, but they wanted to ride so we wound up in Orlando where they knew some boys from AZA and BBG conventions. On the way to Orlando Sandra had a little accident and dented her mother’s Buick so she went over to Harold Finks house to get something to pull the dent out. There were some other boys over there and I met them all, including Alan Rubinstein. I was very shy and quiet in those days so didn’t have much to say. We didn’t get the dent out and went back to Jacksonville. I got dropped off at my house and my father got wind of our “running away”, told the other parents and we were all grounded for a good long time. Years later when I was a student at U/Fla, I went to Hillel for Sunday brunch and a guy said to me “Don’t I know you?” What a pick up line! So I looked at him and said, “ Yes, as a matter of fact you do, we met at Harold Fink’s house in Orlando when I came over with some girlfriends” And so was born 50 years of married life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Have you been on any adventures?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My whole life is a series of adventures. One to survive not having a mother and the care and responsibility of a younger brother. One getting an education and ability to earn a living. An ongoing adventure is a 50 year marriage. Side adventures are trips to Europe and the Caribbean. Last summer when we were in Pisa our guide asked if Alan and I wanted to really see the city. We said Yes so she took us deep within the city. I never could have found my way out by myself with all the twists and turns we took down alleys.. I suggested we go for a drink near to where the bus would pick us up. She took us all the way back out and we found an outdoor bistro near where I knew the bus would pick us up to return us to the ship. So, we had a drink and a pleasant afternoon and then went back to the ship on time!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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What has made your faith stronger?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I still have faith in the goodness of most of mankind. I have faith in the love of my family. I have faith the sun will rise and set everyday and I can enjoy the beauties of living on the river and enjoying the songs of the birds. I am fortunate in being able to enjoy living in a paradise and only occasional storms.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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How do you like to spend a lazy day?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don’t have much time for many lazy days. When I can I like to go outside by the river and watch the boats and the birds and the fish jumping in the river. At one time I had a hammock on my pool deck and would get in there and just rock and watch the sky and the clouds. Othertimes, I will take a book and sit outside on the lanai and read and read.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What inventions have had the biggest impact on your day-to-day life?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are lots of inventions that have impacted my life. I HAVE to have my I Phone around me constantly. I have to have my washer and dryer. I have to have my car so I can run away if I want to. I have to have my refrigerator and stove so I can function daily. Pant suits for women have made getting dressed much easier. Being able to type on a computer has made work easier. The invention of better cataract surgery has made it possible for me even at my age to see at 20/15. I can’t understand people that would rather be in “the good ole days”.

 

 

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How did you rebel as a child?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I rebelled by smoking cigarettes and drinking beer out on the sand dunes in Ponte Vedra with some friends my Dad did not really care for and thought would be bad influences. Since I really never was a great eater, and we had to have bread every meal, I would hide the bread in the railings of the dining room table, otherwise my mother, when she was alive, wouldn’t let me get up from the table. Everything was fine until the day I came home from elementary school and found the dining room upended which meant my mother had gone on one of her cleaning jags. She was waiting with a willow switch. I was constantly being scolded and beaten by my mother for all kinds of infractions.

 

 

My brother being the first grandson was perceived as walking on water. I did not like him very much when my mother was alive. After she got very ill and died, I had to sort of keep an eye on him so he didn’t get into too much trouble. I left home to go to college when I was seventeen as my birthday was in October so didn’t turn 18 until the following fall. I found out that I really did love my baby brother who turned out to be a marvelous human being and we are very close to this day and I worry about him constantly. My father would not let me date unless I took my brother along with me to the beach as he didn’t want my brother left at home.

 

 

One time we were at the beach strolling on the boardwalk. It was me, two guys and my kid brother! All of a sudden I couldn’t find my brother and freaked out looking for him. I did not know he was walking behind us and thought it was great fun to hide behind other people. My father made it very plain to me constantly that I was to behave, go to school, get meals done, get laundry done, and not embarrass him or the whole family. Coming from a large family, my father would know before I got home who I had been with, where I had gone, what I had done and so on. God forbid I should try to find a place to park with a date, there would be a tapping on the car window and a policeman would send us on the way. It was just easier to try to stay good.

 

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What places can you travel to over and over again?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I really loved the trip we took to Tuscany and Florence about 5 years ago. We spent a couple of days in a wonderful hotel in Florence and just walked around looking at the sights, drinking the wine and eating different pastas. Then we were picked up by shuttle and taken out to Tuscany for a tour put on by Florida Gulf Coast university.

 

 

We shared a two bedroom, two bath condominium with a friend from Fort Myers. Every morning someone would bring by a breakfast in a basket or you could eat cornflakes provided in the kitchen. Then each day we were taken to a different town like Chianti, see the sights, meet some of the local inhabitants and have lunch and dinner and then taken back to the condo called El Borgo for after dinner entertainment and bed. The weather was perfect and we were able to go behind the scenes for some the museums. I would do that trip again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

What about being a child do you miss the most?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don’t miss anything about being a child. I had a traumatic childhood and had to grow up in a hurry. I like being in control of my life and able to be free to do what I want.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

Have you pulled any great pranks?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Life was too hard and serious to have time for pranking around. My brother once pulled a prank on me when I was in high school. I was not allowed out on dates unless Chuck went with me. One time I had a date with two boys to go to the beach. I had to take Chuck with us. No one was happy with the situation. We were walking on the boardwalk at the beach when all of a sudden I couldn’t find Chuck. I had thought he was ahead of us. The two boys and I went up and down the boardwalk calling for Chuck and looking everywhere. I was about to lose it! All of a sudden he appeared. He had been walking and hiding behind us! He thought it was great fun! I obviously thought otherwise. The boys never asked me to go to the beach with them again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

What did you read as a child?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I loved reading as a child. Everything and anything. And if there were a lot of pages even better because then it would last longer. My mother took me and my brother to the downtown library every week. She had a friend there who made these lovely doll and doll house displays, portraying storybook characters. I loved stories of strong women who were doing things even in the face of adversity. To this day, I usually have two books going at the same time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

How is your faith different from your parents' faith?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My parents had a deep faith in Judaism. My faith is somewhat different in that I am much more casual and more tolerant. Additionally I studied and became a minister in the Universal church for awhile. Since two of my children married non-Jewish partners, If I couldn’t deal with this, I would have lost my children, which I was unwilling to do. The one child that did marry a Jew, married someone intolerant, paranoid and she has had to live in an ultra religious community for 20 years. We are trying to extract her and her children from that community.

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

How do you prefer to

 

travel?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I like to travel by airplane only because it gets you there in a hurry. Also we have been on some awesome cruises. We like Oceania’s smaller ships. The food is good,the specialty restaurants are included in the fare and we get off the boat to take some nice land tours.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

How far back can you trace your family ancestry?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My father, Joe Young, once told me he had participated in some DNA program and thought he could trace his family back to the House of Aaron. He said this is why the males in the family are all Kohenim.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

What have been some of your favorite restaurants through the years? How about now?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since my husband and I eat out nearly every night we have a variety of restaurants we frequent. We like Ristorante Fabio which is a Northern Italian restaurant family owned which is near our home. We recently started going to the Twisted Lobster for their yummy lobster bisque and fresh fish. Tuesday nights after yoga we often meet friends and go to Saigon Bistro which is a combination of vietnamese and French. And for gooood barbecue there is Mission Barbecue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Has your relationship with your siblings changed over the years?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I only have one brother. No sisters. Since our mother died when we were very young I had to be sure he got up in the morning, went to school, came back from school, did home work etc. He could be a real pest around dates. I went away to college and we did not see each much. We have become closer as adults. Unfortunately we live quite a distance from each other. We only get to see each other and be together a few times a year. He is a wonderful human bean. I wish my family could have lived closer to him through the years. He and his wife and my husband and I will be taking a cruise together in the Caribbean in a few weeks. I am really looking forward to some quality time with my beloved brother.

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

What is the best meal

 

you've ever had?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The best meal I ever had was at Thanksgiving in Jacksonville surrounded by children, siblings, spouses and whoever else had wandered in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

Did you consider any other careers? How did you choose?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I always knew I wanted to do something creative with writing. I went into the U/Fla Journalism school to major in advertising and marketing and stayed there until I graduated. I was able to work in an advertising agency the summer between my junior and senior year in college which gave me all kinds of good exposure. My aunts in New York were networking and trying to help find a job in an advertising agency in New York which was the grand plan.

 

 

You know how life is full of turns and twists. In my senior year, I broke off a long term relationship with a med student and started dating like mad. During that time I met the man who I ultimately married. My aunts were majorly pissed when I had to inform them that I would not be coming up to New York after

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

graduation but in fact was already engage and would be getting married the end of August when my fiancé finished law school. I did work in a television station in Jacksonville for about 7 months after I graduated as a means of making money to pay for my wedding. I was able to create and write some advertising and learn how to produce ads there.

 

 

When I married ,came down to Fort Myers Florida with my husband who had a job as an attorney there, I managed to have a part time job at a television station as a copywriter. After I became pregnant with my oldest child, it was no longer feasible for me to continue working. We then had two more children and I was out of the workforce for a long time.

 

 

I usually did try to keep my hand in by finding little newspaper jobs here and there. After our children were all in school all day, I was bored with staying home and mopping floors so considered becoming a court reporter. Someone told me about this new profession of being a paralegal in a law office and I went to the owner, Morty Goldberg, of my husband’s office to see if they would hire me. He did not want to have wives and husbands working in the same office although one of the other attorneys had just brought his wife on as his secretary. I then went to the head of the personal injury department, Ray Goldstein, and made a deal with him that I would be on probation for 90 days and see how things worked. Ray decided he would take a chance with me

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

and did hire me as a researcher. I then worked my way into the marketing head of the firm, doing all the advertising and marketing and working with an advertising agency to be sure everything was legal and ethical.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

Did you date someone in college?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I went to the University of Florida in Gainesville there were only about 15,000 students. The ratio of men to women then was terrific. I went to fraternity parties, dorm parties and just plain old dates. In the 60’s guys were supposed to call you by Wednesday night for a Saturday night date. This meant if you really stuck to this “law” that you did not have the chance of a date on Saturday. I realized the silliness of this “law” and if someone asked me out after class on Friday, I went. Some semesters I had to study more and date less in order to stay in school. I did have one boyfriend who was in pre med and dated him steadily except for summers for about 2 years. He started telling me to change my major to nursing so I could help him when he became a doctor. We soon broke up after that. I met the man I married when I was in my senior year of college and he was in law school. Since he couldn’t remember my name after we met one Sunday at Hillel he sat in the lobby of Broward hall

 

 

 

 

 

where I was living in the hopes I would come through and he could ask me out. Unfortunately I was going out the back door of the dorm so it was quite some time before I came through the lobby. In the meantime I met a guy from Pensacola and we were doing coffee dates. I went to the library to study with Alan and unbeknownst to me, he went up to the guy from Pensacola and told him we were going steady. I couldn’t figure out for the longest time what had happened to the guy from Pensacola. I was also dating boys from Jacksonville when I went home and I think all this running around drove my father nuts. He was afraid I was going to get serious and drop out of school and get married or something. So Daddy was always telling me not to burn the candle at both ends.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

Have you ever been a hero to someone? Has anyone been a hero for you?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have known several “special” people who awe and inspire me. One is my brother. He has taken wonderful care of a chronically ill wife, been supportive of her and enabled her to reach a high potential others in her predicament have been unable to achieve. He does wonderful things for at risk children enabling them to become productive citizens. He has raised a super son who is carrying on with helping people. My mother in law was a “special” person. I learned so many things from her and how to conduct myself and be successful in business.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

Tell me about one of the best days you can remember.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Every day I can wake up and see the sun rising over the river is a good day. When I see the moon rising over the river at night and sprinkling its silver dust everywhere it is a great day. I love the days I get to see my children and grandchildren. And a really good day is when I get to see my baby brother and the fine man he has become. Living is southwest Florida is sometimes a paradise of plants and squirrels, birds and fish jumping outside.

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

Are you still friends with any of your friends from high school? How have they changed since then?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I still have some contact with some of my friends from high school. Usually see them at reunions. I have been friends with my next door neighbor, Anne Miller since we were both counselors at a CampFire Girls camp in High Springs. She was the swimming instructor and I was the arts and crafts instructor. We were students at U/Fla at the time. She married a medical student and followed him in his residency. We had been living in our current a few years when I noticed new people moving in. I took a look at the wife and discovered it was Anne Miller with her husband and two boys. She later had a third boy. We have been friends for over 40 years, having been through all of life’s ups and downs with our boys growing up together. I don’t really talk to high school friends that often since we live at the other end of the street

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

What are your favorite plays?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have seen Phantom of the Opera at least 4-5 times in different venues from Fort Myers to London’s West End. Each time the story and the music grip me and I enjoy it all over again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

If you could choose any talents to have, what would they be?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

math and science

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

Were you involved in any organizations in high school?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While I was in high school I was in a number of social organizations as well as some school organizations like Spanish Club. I enjoyed being BBG going to their conventions and went to a few of the religious youth organizations conventions and meetings.. I realized early on that if your parents had money and positions then your way would be paid by the clubs. At that point I checked myself out of these clubs. I was able to meet and date some nice and some not so nice boys through these groups.

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

What foods do you dislike? Have these changed over time?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eating is an activity that is necessary but time consuming. I would rather be doing something out of doors. However, I really don’t care for swordfish and pork chops and most pork products. Just don’t like the texture of these foods in my mouth. I also don’t care for drinking milk due to a lactose intolerance and also my mother was always getting clabbered unpasteurized milk from a local dairy which was about the worse thing to drink ever. I didn’t like them as a child and still don’t as an adult although I have learned to eat and appreciate good cheeses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

Describe your favorite places to spend the summer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I love spending summers right at my home on the river. I can sit on the patio or go swimming in the pool. If I open the sliders at night, the sound of the river is very soothing. Sometimes I go to the beach after season and walk as far as I can. Sometimes like to go out to Sanibel and captiva after the tourists go home. We have gone up to the north carolina mountains in summer and stayed in government parks which is fun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

What simple pleasures of life do you truly enjoy?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I enjoy the company of my family, sitting and chatting or doing things with them. I love living on the river and seeing its changeability everyday. The sunrise and sunset are what keeps me grounded. Most nights I go out and walk the driveway and look up and marvel at the stars which I can see in the clear skies overhead. Right now we have 4 ducks that my husband insists on feeding. The colorations of the males are gorgeous. We also have white herons in the shallow waters. Yesterday I saw a great gray heron. Sometimes at night you hear their mournful hooting to their mates.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

Outside of class, what were you involved with in college?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While a student at U/Fla in Gainesville I had a wonderful time in taking fencing lessons. I also participated in student political activities and I had a weekly column on college news in the Jacksonville Times Union. I enjoyed different sports activities such as swimming and watching football. I was an editor for a short time of the Broward north newspaper. I tried to get to know a lot of different people.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

What are your favorite TV shows?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I like to watch dramas on PBS, movies on TCM;old comedies like Andy of Mayberry

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iris Young

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iris Young

 

 

 

 

Are you still friends with any of your friends from high school?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My high school was in Farmingdale NY. It was a huge school.

 

I lost contact with friends when I chose to attend UF.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iris Young

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is her yearbook photo. She loved her gold necklace with name. When she came to Jacksonville, everyone knew she was from New York.

 

Here are some written quotes from the 1971 Hi Life Farmingdale High School Year Book to her…..

 

 

 

 

 

Iris Young

 

 

 

“Dear Iris: I have enjoyed your friendship and bubbly personality and I hope to see you in the future. Lunch has been so much better with you there. Never forget Jalapeno Joe. - Love Lorraine M. Lawrence.”

 

 

“Iris, I’ve known you so long. Remember Mr. Monaco and South Council. Enjoy yourself. - Barbara Moore.”

 

“Dear Iris, This year we were really have become good friends. We will keep in touch next year. Good luck in the future. - Michael (Mike) Orlando.”

 

“Dear Te Kel: Remember the great days of math with the two of us the great geniuses FHS has ever seen. … I am completely jealous that you’re going to a school where you’ll have a tan all year long. - Love Sandy Simon”

 

Note: Iris graduated with highest honors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iris Young

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iris Young

 

 

 

 

What Were Your

 

Grandparents Like?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On my mother’s side, my grandparents were warm, loving and very American. They were Henry and Betsy Fischer.

 

They had a dress factory and made dresses. We spent more time with them.

 

They came every year to hem our clothes for school . My grandfather would drive around the block to park the car.

 

We frequently went to their place in Brooklyn where they would make us tuna sandwiches. My grandfather would watch baseball on TV. The canisters in the kitchen were my grandmothers. My grandmother had a bowl of candy by the door of which we were allowed to eat only one.

 

 

On my fathers side, they were immigrants with thick accents. they lived with my fathers sister. they did not drive as my

 

 

 

 

 

Iris Young

 

 

 

grandfather had a limp and used a cane. My grandmother died when I was young, so I don’t remember much about her.We all made fun of him became he would come to dinner and ask “You know who died?” We did not spend much time with him.

 

My father’s father was Morris Tekel. He married Esther and they lived in the Bronx on Commonwealth Avenue. My father Paul was 15 and his sister Pearl was 5 years older. Morris made lady’s clothing out of fur, while Esther was a seamstress. Morris eventually moved to south Florida, living in a small apartment near Miami Beach. They both came from Russia with an elementary education. Morris died in 1973 at age 73. He had all brothers in 1915: Abe (tailor), Issie (barber) Morris (button maker), Ben in school, and Jake (presser). Morris (my great grandfather on Paul’s side was also a tailor in 1915. I never met his wife Bella.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iris Young

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Fischers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iris Young

 

 

 

 

How did you get your first job?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Ny, you had to be 17 or had drivers ed before you could drive. So I was waiting but then had a great idea. My best friend Linda was already driving, so we decided to get jobs together . We went to Kleins, a department store like Bealls, and applied saying we had to work the same shift and they agreed. I worked in lingerie.

 

Iris Young

 

 

 

 

The Moral Decision

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Many years ago I was the Executive Director of a non profit agency.

 

 

There is a reply to this post on the bottom

 

I tried to hire the best staff possible . A guy I was friends with lived in the apartment below me. He was a high level clinical social worker. When I heard he was available I recruited him to join our staff.

 

As time went on, he became my #2. Soon the agency grew and we all moved. As time went on, I noticed his office door was closed as if he had a client in there. But as I looked into it, it appeared no ne was with him. Much to my surprise, I found out he was dating my sister. After a short time they announced they were getting married.

 

Now, my second in command was my brother in law!

 

Moe time passed and the shut door continued. One day, two trusted staff came to me with evidence that his time was being

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

spent on very inappropriate web sites.

 

I was beside myself fnd didn't know what to do. Talk to him and insist e stop the behavior or let someone else in on the decision? I went to my board president and shared the story. He asked that we meet away from to the office with the vice president too. They said they would handle it because as a relative it was inappropriate for me to handle.

 

So they met with him offsite and told him he could resign or they would fire him.

 

They called me and said he had resigned and we were to change the locks and not let him back in.

 

That decision cost me my relationship with my sister.

 

It was the most painful decision of my life . How do you choose between your family and your professional career?

 

 

Chuck

 

I disagree with the title because there is no moral dilemma here.

 

Each of us makes choices in life. He freely chose his. As you are aware, I had the same issues in my family and the outcome was much worse:

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2246257/Albert-Abrams-blamed-spinal-tumor-addiction-child-porn-sentenced-7-years-prison.html

Iris Young

 

 

 

Albert has now served four out of a seven year sentence. You may have saved him but no one will give you credit.

 

Ethically and legally you did what you were paid to do. Let go of this as you can't control what others think, say or do.

 

Here's a story:

 

A man was walking down the street when he saw three brick masons.

 

 

 

He asked the first one what are you doing? "I'm laying bricks and trying to earn a living buddy" was his reply.

 

He asked the second one what he was doing. "Duh, I am building a wall." was his reply.

 

He asked the third one what he was doing. "I am building a cathedral." he replied.

 

Remember - you have built cathedrals. Keep up the great work and don't take your eye (or heart) out of remembering the bigger picture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta

 

Iris: This was a tough period of your life and you did the right thing in order that the agency could carry out its duties.

 

Iris Young

 

 

 

 

What is one of your favorite children's stories?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I was a little girl, my favorite story was ‘The Little Mermaid’. Later, my favorite book was ‘Little Women’. When my son was little , his favorite was the ‘Pokey Little Puppy.’

 

 

 

 

Chuck

 

Mine was the Hans Christian Anderson collection, especially the story about Big Claus and Little Claus.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I told you not to gee up my fine horses so I struck yours dead

 

 

 

 

 

 

581

Iris Young

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The sexton hid in a chest in the corner so the farmer would not see him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don't think he will find any sea cows said Little Claus walking home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Where Did You go on Vacations as a Child?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Every year, from age 8 to 13, my parents would send us to a private sleep away camp in the Catskills for Jewish kids.

 

Friday nights, services would be at the lakefront and I learned songs and prayers. It was a kosher camp, so I learned about not mixing milk and meat. I loved to go.

 

When my father wasn’t working, we would rent a camper and go to a campground in Maine, Virginia or Pennsylvania and see the sights. I remember trips to the Amish country, Washington and other places we could drive to.

 

 

Iris Young

 

 

 

 

Who did you go to prom with?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I went to prom with my high school boyfriend Robbie Wolfe.

 

My best friend’s boyfriend, Frankie was a year older than us, so he could drive. Robbie was from a large German catholic family who owned a moving van company .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iris Young

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

His family didn’t like me and my family didn’t like him. If he called to talk to me and my mother answered they would chat for 10 minutes and then he would have to go!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iris Young

 

 

 

 

Did you ever get lost as a child?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have no recollection of being lost as a child. However, I do remember a trip to Busch gardens where I was trying to find Chuck and Joseph in the pouring rain and searching from one side of the park to the other . I felt more desperate and frightened as more time passed. Of course, when I finally found them they had been inside an exhibit, nice and dry!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iris Young

 

 

 

 

Who are your favorite artists?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have always loved Van Gogh and Picasso. I admire bright colors. and shapes. Locally, I am a fan of Dan Goad and his birds. My favorite is the ducks in the bedroom and the way the neck sweeps down in a protective way.

 

It has always reminded me of Chuck and me.

 

What is the best meal

 

you've ever had?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had been dating Chuck for a year and a half when he invited me to go out at the end of January . Before we went to dinner he sat down next to me on the couch in the den in my house. He pulled out a ring box to show me. I thought he was going to show me his mothers wedding ring ring so I reached for the box. He wouldn't let me look and said he wanted to talk to me first. He explained he had something to ask me and told me to take my time in answering his question . Then he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him.

 

 

We went to Stricklands, a steakhouse for dinner and I was so excited I couldn't sit still. So, that was the best meal I have ever had!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iris Young

 

 

 

 

What do you like most about your siblings?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don't know how to answer. I used to love my sister's sense of humor and quick wit. We were close because we only had each other. Even though she lives in town we rarely talk or spend time together. She has chosen to withdraw and I can't change how things are. Sometimes, I think of good times growing up and mourn what has been lost.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esta

 

Iris: I feel badly about the estrangement between you and Nina. Is there anyone she trusts to try to move things closer together. I adore my brother. He is the best. He is the model for my son. We also only had each other since our parents died when we were at a relatively early age. Therefore, I value my family members and wish I could be closer to them.

 

 

Iris Young

 

 

 

 

What was your Mom like when you were a child?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I was young, my world revolved around my mom. My mom was happy. My father traveled for years and that’s when things started to change.

 

My sister was a difficult child, stubborn and strong willed. She was a kid who argued and fought back about everything . My mother used slapping, pinching and yelling for discipline. Nina felt abused but couldn’t figure out how to get along at home. She remembers yelling and being sent to her room.

 

I was the good child who never got treated badly by her. After years of my mother fighting with my father, he left and things got really bad.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iris Young

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was in college and she became suicidal. Nina got stuck with rants and raves.

 

 

 

 

 

Iris Young

 

 

 

I have memories of a loving caring mom until later when our world was destroyed by my parents’ divorce.

 

 

 

Iris Young

 

 

 

 

What is your best advice when it comes to raising children?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Raising children takes a lot of skills and work. Learning patience and the right way to correct mistakes takes practice.

 

Often, just saying “no” does not work. Showing children the alternate method will provide better learning. When you say no, you must show them an acceptable alternative behavior.

 

You must develop new listening skills and listen for feelings below the surface. Your reflective listening skills must acknowledge what you are hearing before you respond.

 

As you can see, it is more complicated than you think.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iris Young

 

 

Iris Young

 

 

 

 

What was your wedding like?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our wedding was a fun and joyous celebration. We planned everything ourselves.

 

I knew the hotel through work and knew the caterer too. We hired Dick Browdy and his band to be the emcee and he knew how to run a Jewish wedding. The flowers were all silk table decorations that we had made in advance and stored them in Chuck’s house until the wedding day. I had silk flowers made for the top of the cake.

 

 

Before the wedding we had everything timed so we wouldn’t be bothered during the event. It was a perfect day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wedding Cake Topper

 

 

 

 

What would you consider your motto?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time.

 

 

We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iris Young

 

 

 

 

What are your favorite TV shows?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My favorite shows are the old Law and Order, The Good Wife and Blue Bloods.

 

 

 

Iris Young

 

 

 

What were your friends like in high school?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My friends in high school were a mixed bunch of kids. One was an old friend fom elementary school who lived down the street.

 

My best friend was not Jewish and had a boyfriend. My boyfriend was not Jewish and came from the kids who were average in grades. We were put into tracks determined by how smart you were. Dating a boy from a different track was a hidden violation of the unspoken rule- “stay with kids like you “.

 

My parents said I could only date Jewish boys but they didn’t bother me too much because my mother liked him.

 

Two of my other good friends were Jewish boys I grew up with. When one got the vice principal’s daughters pregnant, I was told I could not see or talk to him anymore. I thought that was a silly rule and I missed him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What are your favorite books?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

by Chuck Young

 

Iris was a voracious reader. She favorites included James Patterson, David Baldacci, John Grisham, Steve Martini, and Ridley Scott. When she died, she was reading Johnathan Kellerman.

 

 

More important was that she continued to read when she lost the use of her hands. She had the original Kindle and was still able to lightly squeeze the page forward button on the right hand side. She also read in bed on her computer with her accessible eye program.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iris Young

 

 

 

 

If you could have as much money as you wanted, what would you do with it?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think I would buy land on the beach and build a new handicap house with a deck overlooking the ocean so I could see the waves and be outside in the sun. I would buy a new car. I would love to travel in my own handicap accessible plane. I would be able to hire staff that was top notch. I would buy a service dog that would be trained to help me. My house would have voice activation for everything. I would create a foundation to help ms patients afford medical equipment-especially assisstive technology.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iris Young

 

 

 

 

What was the neighborhood you grew up in like?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The neighborhood I grew up in was filled with families like mine. Some of my best friends grew up there. We all attended the same schools: Northside Elementary, Farmingdale middle and Farmingdale High School. My house was a multi level house with a top level of bedrooms, mid-level with kitchen, living room and dining room. The next level was a family room. The next level level down was a basement- which held my father's workroom and washer. We lived on a big corner lot. Across the street was a playground .

 

 

We lived down the street from Dr Murray's family.

 

There were many jewish, catholic and other type families. My best friend debbie croes lived down the street the street and mark feinberg lived down the other street. It was a white middle class neighborhood.

Iris Young

 

 

 

 

What are some of your family traditions?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

my family traditions included making the matzah ball soup from scratch, making a sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole. we lit the menorah every night for hanukah.

 

 

Iris Young

 

 

 

 

What foods do you dislike? Have these changed over time?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have never liked fish and that is still not a favorite today. I never liked okra or brussel sprouts and that is true today. I can"t stand cucumbers and raw vegetables.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iris Young

 

 

 

 

Did you have a car in high school?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In my area you had to be 18 to drive or have taken drivers education. I was not eligible until the end of my senior year. So I did not have a car until the end of my second year of college where I had earned $500 to use to buy a car. My father believed I could always get a ride from some guy. He did not help me with money for a car. I had to cover all the costs myself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iris Young

 

 

 

 

What is one of your

 

favorite drinks?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

my favorite drink is vodka, kahlua and cream.

 

 

Iris Young

 

 

 

 

What has made your faith stronger?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think some illness and my ability to maintain strength through them has made my faith stronger. After years of being surrounded by Baptist believers, I find myself more comfortable with being Jewish. Most of all, working for a Jewish agency and all those who were helped made me be more proud of Judaism and the beliefs it holds. Most of all, being married to Chuck and sharing similar values and beliefs has made my faith stronger.

 

 

Iris Young

 

 

 

 

What was your first boss like?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My first boss as a professional was an elderly man with Alzheimer’s (early stages). He was not well liked or respected in the Jewish community. He would beat his thigh when frustrated and yell.

 

 

 

He had run the agency for 31 years and was a true social worker who wanted to help people with mental illness and prisoners in jail. These were not of interest to the general community. He wanted to be a counselor to his employees and give advice to them. Larry was good to me and let me start some programs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iris Young

 

 

 

 

What is your best

 

relationship advice?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My best relationship advice is to listen first and then do active listening before responding. Make sure you clarify what you think the other person said. If things get hot, walk away but make an appointment to come back and talk about it at a later time when things have cooled off.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iris Young

 

 

 

 

Were you involved in any organizations in high school?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was not involved in too many activities in High School. I belonged to Future Teachers of America, National Honor Society, and a book club.

 

I got a job as soon as I could. I also worked every summer as a camp summer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iris Young

 

 

 

 

What famous or important people have you encountered in real life?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm sorry to say I have not met many famous people in my life. Once, as a child I saw Joey ( can't remember her last name and I came away thinking "what a bitch".

 

I have seen Virginia Satir and Master and Johnson.

 

That's all I can remember .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iris Young

 

 

 

 

Iris Young Scholarship Award

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Set up a Scholarship Award at Family Support Services of North Florida for needy college students.

 

Iris went to the University of Florida but her parents divorced at the same time. She had to take a job as a Resident Assistant at a boy’s dorm to obtain campus housing. She also wrote grants for the Science Department for pocket money. She said life would have been easier at U of F if she had pocket money to fall back on. Hence this award for future students.

 

 

 

 

Iris Young

 

 

 

 

How did your parents pick your name?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

by Chuck Young

 

Iris claimed her mother wanted a name that no one could shorten or make into a nickname. The same is true for Nina's name.

 

 

 

 

Esta

 

But my children called her,auntie “EYE”

 

_

 

 

 

 

Iris

 

Ironic, isn't it.

 

 

 

 

Iris Young

 

 

 

 

What is the best job you've ever had?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

by Chuck Young

 

Executive Director of Jewish Family & Community Services for 25 years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iris Young

 

 

 

 

When did you get your first car?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

by Chuck Young

 

Iris's first car was a red station wagon.

 

Her dad got it purposely so she would not be cool in high school when she was driving around. She never forgave him and that became one of her secret password questions we discovered when we had to hack one of her accounts.

 

He never bought Nina a car. That was also duly noted in the family history.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iris Young

 

 

 

 

Did you have a job while you were in high school?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

by Chuck Young

 

Iris had a part time job at E J Korvettes. Here's a fun fact she told me: they especially liked to hire Jewish girls. The name, "E J Korvettes" comes from shortening "8 Jewish Korean Veterans" (of the Korean War).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iris Young

 

 

 

 

What are some of the most important elections you've voted for, and what made them important to you?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The last election that Iris voted was for President. She really wanted Hillary Clinton to win. Clinton was a woman Iris admired, and she despised Donald Trump after watching all the TV debates.

 

 

 

She couldn't understand why anyone would choose a candidate that mocked the handicap, Gold Star parents, and rivals.

 

-by Chuck Young

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iris Young

 

 

 

 

Who Impacted Your Life? - as told to Chuck Young

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is always somebody that turns your life around. Sometimes we remember them. I asked Iris who was the most memorable person that impacted her life first? Without hesitation she said that it was Mrs. Appleton her third grade teacher in Long Island, New York.

 

 

 

I never met Mrs. Appleton but listening to stories about her and watching Iris’s eyes and smile light up, I think that I can image what the class was like.

 

I don’t think that Iris was ever described as one of the popular girls or one of the jocks. She was a small stocky child that liked to read and considered herself smarter than everyone else in the classroom. This was borne out by bringing home only straight A’s on her report cards. She loved to go to school and obviously was acknowledged by her teacher.

 

 

 

 

 

Iris Young

 

 

 

I believe that Mrs. Appleton saw a kindred spirit in Iris as she had been when she was a child. Becoming a teacher as she was bookish and maybe plainer than the rest of the girls.

 

Mrs. Appleton was probably the first person outside of the family to tell Iris that she was smart and how successful she would become in later life. Of course Iris’s mother, father and grandparents told her. But this was different. Mrs. Appleton was a real person who knew a lot of children.

 

Iris must have believed her from that point on…all of her life. So much that she would share the stories with her husband fifty years later about wonderful Mrs. Appleton.

 

As Iris became further disabled, the use of her brainpower became more important.

 

Mrs. Appleton was right and so was Iris.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you could thank anyone, who would you thank and why?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iris would thank her family for all their support.

 

-- Chuck Young

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iris Young

 

 

 

 

Paul G. Tekel

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

652

Iris Young

 

 

 

 

Tell us about when you became the grandparent of Lucille Vivian Young in Pensacola, Florida

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By: Chuck Young

 

Iris was sicker than we realized when it was found out that Laura pregnant. Iris insisted on driving five hours to Pensacola Florida for the baby naming so she could see the baby.

 

I believe that all knew this would be her last trip as she had an ileostomy bag and a urine catheter and had lost a lot of weight. A caregiver, Yolanda Lipsie, and Chuck took her Pensacola after finding the only hotel that could handle a handicap lift. A ramp for Joseph’s home also had to be procured.

 

Iris got to hold Lucy. It was a special protective touch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Joseph Young

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Joseph Young

 

 

 

 

What is one of your favorite children's stories?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My favorite was one that I believe Bubbe and Grandpa got for me which was about a scuba diver who meets a dragon and discovers some treasure. I think it had some blank spaces in it where someone had filled out my name so I was the center of the story. The pokey little puppy is a classic also. I am so glad that my parents encouraged me to read from a young age since I know that it helped me develop a great foundation for learning and allowed me

 

to pursue almost any career option that I wanted to.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Joseph Young

 

 

 

 

What were your favorite toys as a child?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I cant think of anything specific that I had as a young child other than a lot of stuffed anmals. I always enjoyed sports and loved had all kinds of sports items such as basketballs, skates, and bikes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chuck

 

When you were little your favorite toy was a hand puppet named, "Piggy Joe". We were in a toy store at the Orange Park Mall that had a rack full of hand puppets. You screamed with joy when you saw it. When we looked in the inside of the pink cloth we thought it was crazy that it was called, Piggy Joe. It spent hours of your life entertaining you.