Jew Eat Yet?

The Saddest News

After a picture-perfect pregnancy of 24 weeks and 5 days, including a stellar ultrasound just five days ago where everything looked so great with our twins, Kendall unexpectedly went into labor early Monday morning. We went to Cedars and they were sure they could stop the contractions. But nothing they tried worked and Kendall was rushed into surgery. At 9:46 and 9:48 am on Monday morning, April 27, Kendall delivered our twins, Oliver and Charles. Oliver clearly had some major issues and the team working on him was having a very hard time. Charlie was stable and they were able to get him to the NICU right away and insert all the lines they needed to. It was up and down with Oliver all day and finally, about 12 hours later, he died in our arms. There’s nothing worse, of course, and we are heartbroken. Charlie continues to do well but he was born so early so we just have to hope that he can continue to develop and grow over the months ahead. We are so grateful to be at the Cedars-Sinai NICU, clearly one of the best in the world. They are amazing miracle workers, and also so incredibly compassionate. When Oliver died, the NICU nurses were crying as much as we were. There are many stories on the walls of 24-week-old babies at Charlie’s weight (1 lb. 10 oz.) who survived and thrived and are now healthy normal children but we have a long road ahead and he’ll probably be there until his August due date. I still can’t believe any of this is happening and keep waiting to wake up from the horrible dream. We are so full of grief over our lost son who I believe sacrificed his life for his brother because he was in total distress and who knows what would have happened if they both hadn’t come out when they did despite all efforts to keep them in. I am so sad that they won’t have each other but hope that on some level Oliver is right there with Charles. More soon…

Bea Arthur

I was sad to hear that Bea Arthur died this morning here in Los Angeles. I knew the actress was 86 years old and wasn't going to live forever, but it still seems unreal that she's gone. She was such a strong presence on TV for so many years she seemed indomitable. Kendall and I saw Arthur's one-woman show several years ago and despite her advancing years, she still had it.

I wrote about Bea Arthur in 2005, in reference to "Maude," the first of her two ground-breaking sitcoms. Our friend Marcia Rodd played Arthur’s daughter on the pilot for “Maude” which was the 1972 season finale of “All in the Family.” Bea had already appeared in an earlier episode of that show as Edith Bunker’s ultra-liberal cousin Maude. With Edith’s subservience to her husband and Mike Stivic’s hysteria over Archie’s every move, it was a relief to see someone who could stare Archie down and give him hell. The twist was that Maude, the polar opposite of Archie Bunker, was just as trapped by her extreme attitudes as Archie was.

Can you think of a single actress who had better comic timing than Bea Arthur? She could take a so-so line and make it as memorable as Lucy Ricardo’s “Vitameatavegamin” routine. I attended a taping of “The Golden Girls” when I first moved out here and in one scene Estelle Getty kept messing up a line so they had to do it over and over again. Every time Bea Arthur repeated her line I burst into laughter as if I was hearing it for the first time. Who needed laugh tracks with that dame?

I once wrote to Bea Arthur during her “Maude” days and received this letter in return. Nothing very personal, but today I still marvel that any of those people wrote back at all. Does anyone answer their own fan mail today? Maude Findlay was ostensibly one of TV’s first feminists but you had to wonder. In retrospect it seems to me that her husband Walter (played by Bill Macy) was a patriarchal slavemaster of the worst kind. His constant condescension of Maude, her daughter, and her grandson would be hard to stomach today. Maude often told Walter to go to hell (“God will get you for that, Walter!”) but when she was getting a little too uppity Walter’s trademark bark of “Maude! SIT!” would do the trick every time. Oy. Still, the show broke even more taboos than “All in the Family” and was taken off the air by more stations in protest. It was only a few months after Roe v. Wade when Maude suddenly found out she was pregnant on the show (Bea Arthur was 49 at the time!) and became the first (and last?) TV sitcom character to have an abortion. Think of how daring that was back then. Can you imagine Laurie Partridge, Billie Joe Bradley, or Mary Richards even saying the word abortion? The show also dealt with racism, therapy, menopause, alcoholism, homosexuality, plastic surgery, swinging, the legalization of marijuana, and other topics that would have sent poor Jim and Margaret Anderson of “Father Knows Best” straight to Marcus Welby, M.D. for some emergency care. (On the other hand, I still maintain that Jim and Margaret’s 1954 relationship was more equitable than the supposedly enlightened Maude and Walter’s.)

I also wrote to Maude’s replacement daughter Adrienne Barbeau (forgive me, Marcia!) and got this postcard reply: “Dear Danny. Thank you for your letter. I’m sorry I’m so late in answering. I hope you are continuing to enjoy the show—I’ll bet you liked the one where the girl came to visit us from the ghetto. Another case of reverse prejudice from Maude! My best, Adrienne Barbeau.” I remember receiving that postcard and being touched by the “came to visit US,” as if she really were Maude’s daughter and were telling an anecdote about her crazy mom. That episode stands out, especially the scene where Maude was trying to convince the ghetto girl Francie that she had black friends there in the suburbs of upstate New York. She tries to pawn off her housekeeper Florida Evans (played by the great Esther Rolle ) as her pal:

Maude: Francie, this is Florida. My dear, dear friend, probably the best friend I have in the whole world.
Florida: I'm the maid.

And then later when they’re about to sit down for dinner:

Maude: Francie, I hope you're hungry. We're having fried chicken for dinner.
Francie: Good, I win a buck.
Maude: You win a buck?
Francie: I bet that dumb brother of mine that you'd have fried chicken for me the first thing off.
Maude: Ha ha ha. I love a person with a sense of humor. Excuse me. (Maude turns around and whispers to her daughter) Carol, for Heaven's sake, go into the kitchen and throw out the grits.

I next wrote about Bea Arthur two years ago when I discovered a jaw-dropping video from a 1980 special she did for CBS, in between her "Maude" and "Golden Girl" runs. This crazy number was performed by Bea Arthur and Rock Hudson on the Emmy-nominated special and when I saw it I just had one little question: WHAT WERE THEY THINKING? In the number, Bea and Rock played a couple of boozing, middle-aged suburbanites who were musing about the happy-go-lucky drug-addled kids of the day. Arthur and Hudson seemed to view all forms of recreational drug use with amusement and mirth. Try getting this number past the network censors today:     

Few people will ever come close to Bea Arthur's perfect timing. In addition to her iconic TV roles as Maude Findlay and Dorothy Zbornak, Arthur had an accomplished stage career, appearing in the original "Threepenny Opera" on Broadway, creating the role of Yenta in "Fiddler on the Roof," and winning a Tony Award in 1966 for her role as Vera Charles in "Mame" opposite her friend Angela Lansbury. Decades later the two repeated their famous number on the Tony Awards. Take a look as we say goodbye to another true original:

Hitler’s Birthday (in Color)

I’ve been eager to get rid of that sickening photo of the hate-filled children at the top of my previous post. So what do I replace it with? A rare recently discovered color photograph of Hitler on his 50th birthday. WHY? Am I trying to repel whatever readers I have left? No, but I just can’t make myself not mention today’s unpleasant anniversary. It’s Adolf Hitler’s 120th birthday. In Jewish culture, because Moses supposedly lived to that advanced age, people often greet each other on their birthdays with the Yiddish expression, biz a hundert und zwanzig, or “may you live to be 120.” I think it’s safe to say there’s not a Jewish person on the planet who isn’t grateful that Hitler didn't quite make it to the halfway mark of that. This photo was taken 70 years ago today, on April 20, 1939. He was the age I am now (gulp!) and was celebrating his big day at his mountain retreat in Berchtesgaden in Bavaria. There aren’t that many color shots of Hitler. He preferred being photographed in black and white, thinking it made him look more imposing. The creepy Children of the Damned in the photo are the offspring of top Nazi officials (but not the doomed Goebbels children). Although he never had any kids of his own (thank God), Hitler frequently surrounded himself with freshly scrubbed Aryan children, and he was endlessly extolling their important role in his 1000 Year Reich.

Der Führer’s birthday always brings out the crazies. There were already reports this weekend of early-bird revelers committing a spate of anti-Semitic vandalism in towns all over Europe. Governments around the world are taking extra measures to try to prevent such incidents today, which is also the 10th anniversary of the Columbine massacre (those boys were also big fans of Hitler). White supremacists are planning all sorts of festivities to mark the occasion this year in places such as Florida, Missouri, and North Carolina. They’re promising “family-friendly” events and are encouraging members to bring their children to honor Hitler as “one of the greatest heroes of the White Race.” As I said in my last post, this is child abuse in the extreme. These poor kids don’t stand a chance, or let’s just say it will be a major challenge for many of them to rise above their horrific hate-filled upbringings.

A few years ago, a former member of the brutal Waffen-SS opened up a shrine to Adolf Hitler in Wisconsin. Later today this guy, now 90, will be speaking at a Chicago gala to “celebrate the Great One’s 120th birthday.” He’ll be joining several other white supremacist speakers including the head of the virulently anti-Semitic Christian Identity movement. These twisted folks consider Jews to be the Satanic offspring of Eve and the Serpent. They believe that all non-whites are “mud peoples” created before Adam and Eve.

Yep, Hitler’s legacy lives on, and it’s important not to forget it even though he’s been dead for over 60 years. It’s just as possible today to whip people up into a frenzy of hate as it was back in the 1930s and 40s. Here are some additional color images of people going nuts over Hitler’s birthday, this one from his 55th birthday extravaganza in 1944. The adoring crowds are in Linz, Austria, seemingly unaware of their imminent fate or their leader’s cowardly suicide which would take place the following year. If you really want to be sick to your stomach, go to any of the old footage of the Nazis that is available on YouTube and read some of the fawning comments about Hitler and National Socialism. Comments written by people today.

Tomorrow is Yom Hashoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day. Because of a quirk in the Hebrew calendar, this is the closest it's ever come to Hitler's birthday. Which is not totally inappropriate. Maybe we can mark the two days by thinking of small actions we can take to counteract all of the hate in our world.

Shut Up!

Did you know that yesterday was the National Day of Silence? This event has been happening for 13 years but I only just heard about it. It was created by a group of students in 1996 to bring attention to anti-gay name-calling, bullying, and harassment in schools. Now hundreds of thousands of students participate each year to address the problem of anti-LGBT behavior in the schools, behavior that causes so much misery and an appalling amount of teen suicides. Just last week, an 11-year-old boy named Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover hanged himself after enduring endless taunts about being gay at his middle school, despite his mother’s weekly pleas to the school to address the problem. That makes at least four suicides of middle-school children this year linked to bullying.

As was the case with Carl, you don’t have to be gay to be attacked with anti-gay language. Students learn to use anti-LGBT language as the ultimate diss of their peers when they are very young. According to a recent study of more than 6,000 LGBT students, 9 out of 10 reported being verbally harassed at school during the past year because of their sexual orientation. Half reported being physically harassed and about a quarter reported being physically assaulted. Those numbers don’t apply to Leah’s progressive school, I’m happy to say. I don’t think the school observed the Day of Silence but the day before they celebrated Diversity Day which included workshops led by the openly gay students and teachers at the school. Of course it's mostly about what happens at home. Children learn these things by example and modeling, and if the parents of the children in the above photo who encouraged their children to demonstrate with those hideous placards aren't guilty of extreme child abuse, I don't know who is.

A group called the Illinois Family Institute created an obnoxious anti-Day of Silence PSA that I almost included here but I couldn’t bear to see it on my site so I’ll just link to it. It would be quite laughable if it weren’t so packed with lies and absurdities. Can I ask one question: why are anti-gay people such bad writers? Their ads are always horribly written and always include crazy theories about the “gay agenda” and claims that gay people want to stamp out religion in this country. Yuck.

But that PSA looks like a Gay Pride parade crossed with a Liza Minnelli concert compared to the much higher budget anti-gay-marriage PSA called “A Gathering Storm” that is currently making the rounds on national television. It was made by a group called the National Organization for Marriage and is unparalleled in its scare tactics:

The actors pretending to be real people whose lives have been negatively affected by same-sex marriage were exposed when someone found and posted the audition tapes for the spot. I don’t care how desperate those (awful) actors were, their reputations deserve to be blackened by their participation in this outrageous bullshit. I looked up the guy representing the organization, Damon Owens, and found him involved in some weird offshoot of extreme Catholicism and Opus Dei (that secret group at the center of “The Da Vinci Code”) called Theology of the Body or the Spirituality of St. Josemaria. Oy.

The National Organization for Marriage pulled the embarrassing audition tapes from YouTube as soon as they could but you can still see excerpts from them on this Rachel Maddow report:

The names of these organizations make me want to hurl. The so-called Illinois Family Institute has nothing to do with MY family, and God knows the alleged National Organization for Marriage has nothing to do with MY marriage. It’s not that I’m this repulsed by every group or individual who doesn’t share my views. I admit that it’s probably impossible for someone to make an argument that I would support against gay marriage but I do think it would be possible for people with different perspectives to present their case without resorting to outright lies, distortions, and crazy paranoia which they include for the sole purpose of scaring the bejeesus out of their followers. It’s truly reprehensible. Instead of students remaining silent as a sign of protest I wish we could get the blowhards in these groups to shut their traps. 

Are You Ready for Your Mystery Date?

Does anyone remember this Milton Bradley monstrosity from 1965? How much did this one game fuck up an entire generation? As much as I used to pound on my sister’s bedroom door begging to be allowed entry into her inner sanctum, even I had enough dignity to recoil in horror as Sue and her girlfriends made their way around the Mystery Date gameboard trying to earn the chance to open the plastic door to find their mystery date. Take a look at the original commercial. The theme song is burned into my memory with the same weight as the Beatles songs I was just becoming aware of that year:

In retrospect, I think my parents catered way too much to my dysfunctional need to be included in my older sister’s activities. Unlike me, she was allowed a lock on her door, I’m sure mostly to keep me out. And the more she locked me out, the more I wanted in. But my parents often forced her to let me in instead of just telling me to suck it up and go find my own damn friends.

The above photo was taken at one of my sister’s birthday parties in the 1960s, most likely the one were she received her copy of Mystery Date. It was held at Mr. Adams, a restaurant across the street from Bisset’s, the department store my father ran on the corner of Broadway and Wilson in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood. This area would soon go to hell in a handbasket, with both Bisset’s (built in 1902) and Mr. Adams torn down and replaced by seedy strip malls. It’s only now, more than 40 years later, when gentrification is beginning to transform the neighborhood back into the glittering quarter it once was, home of magnificent movie palaces such as the Uptown and Riviera, and other landmarks that were part of the rich fabric of Chicago history such as the Aragon Ballroom, the Edgewater Beach Hotel, the Green Mill Lounge, the Kinetic Playground, and Rainbo Ice Skating Arena (where my parents’ marriage careened to a hideous end…but that’s another story).

I remember this party. Check out the matching hats my sister and her friends are wearing in contrast to my pirate get-up. There’s Wendy Belcove on the right, who lived in a house we thought was a mansion because it had a staircase in the back just for servants. Wendy later surprised everyone by becoming a bodybuilder. Behind her is Beth Kronenberg. Beth moved away in the early 1970s and spent years in the Israeli Army. I remember getting my own presents at this party, I assume by request, as if I couldn’t bear the thought of being in the background on my sister’s special day. Yikes, what a brat I must have been. They should have just tossed some crayons at me and locked me in a back room. Look how I’m situated squarely in the center of the photograph. Don’t you just want to punch me in the face? I do.

I started thinking about my tendency to force myself into my sister’s nascent social life yesterday when a friend mentioned the old board game Mystery Date. I remember after having gained access to my sister's lair against her will, she would whip out Mystery Date knowing that I would never deign to join in. But I'd watch them go at it. The object of the game was to have young girls (ages 6 to 14!) move around the board assembling outfits from color-coded cards they collected. At various points in the game they would spin the door handle and open the big plastic door. 

There were four possible dates: the formal dance date, the bowling date, the beach date, and the skiing date. If the outfit they put together from the cards did not match their mystery date’s ensemble, the girl would close the door and keep playing. But there was a wild card. Added to the four dates was the badly dressed beatnik-looking “dud” who was to be avoided at all costs. But here’s what the geniuses at Milton Bradley didn’t consider. My sister, her girlfriends, and every girl I ever knew who played this horrible game vastly preferred the so-called dud to the squares they were supposed to desire. You only had to look at my sister’s stream of rock club boyfriends that would follow to see how true this was (no offense, Jeff!). It doesn’t take a PhD to figure out why these pre-pubescent girls were more interested in the forbidden fruit than the guys their parents wanted them to date.

One of my sister’s actual mystery dates, her old boyfriend John Smith, was part of a legendary Chicago band called the New Duncan Imperials. NDI is still going strong, twenty years after hitting the scene with their mix of faux cornpone and hayseed. During the 90s they were a fixture at my sister’s rock club, the Lounge Ax, and in 1999 they recorded this rockin’ homage to Milton Bradley’s effed-up Mystery Date (that’s John Goodtime Smith on the drums):

A 1970 update of the game was even worse, if that’s possible, sneaking in just before the women’s movement really gained steam. Sensing their mistake with their original “Dud” hottie, this game’s undesirable was a nerd holding a stack of books, sending the message to girls everywhere that smart boys who like school are to be avoided while rich, entitled, arrogant hunks who would just as soon date-rape you as listen to your opinion on world politics are the ones they should be prostrating themselves over. Oy. The final revision of the game came out in 2005 and incorporated the characters from Disney’s “High School Musical” franchise. Now there was no dud at all—instead players ran the risk of getting sent to detention instead of out on a hot date with Troy, Ryan, Zeke, or Chad. The savvy Milton Bradley creators probably realized that even 40 years later girls would still be more interested in a disheveled dud than wholesome Zac Efron.

How about this take on the 1965 original—an all-male version? Wonder why it didn’t catch on?

Valentino: The Last Emperor

What I know about high fashion you could write on the back of an envelope and still have room for a draft of the Gettysburg Address. My lack of interest in haute couture is painfully obvious to anyone who has seen my manner of dress during the last thirty years. I like to call my style après-lycée (post-high school). I’ve purchased only two suits as an adult: one for my 1993 wedding in Paris (a blue Kenzo suit from the Galéries Lafayette) and one in 2004 for my wedding to Kendall that I bought at Nordstrom’s. Our friends Deborah and Gary helped me pick that one out and fashion maven Gary kept telling the salesman that my ass didn’t look right and that they needed to adjust the pants and jacket. I apologized for my ass and insisted on taking the suit without alterations.

It’s a shame that I’m so clueless about clothes considering menswear was my family’s business for much of the 20th century. My grandfather and his brothers had a chain of clothing stores called Karoll’s Red Hanger Shops and, needless to say, they were all exquisite dressers. During Karoll’s heyday there were 11 stores, the flagship located in the landmark Reliance Building on Chicago’s State Street, right across from Marshall Field’s. I worked at Karoll’s during many summer and Christmas vacations and even served as a model in a  Karoll’s TV commercial many years ago wearing…yes, it’s true…a purple leisure suit. If there are any YouTube videos floating around of that train wreck, I will pay top dollar for their destruction!

The only clothes designers I’ve ever been remotely interested in were the geniuses of the old studio system who clothed the movie stars of the 30s, 40s, and beyond. Names like Adrian, Walter Plunkett, Edith Head, Irene Sharaff, Jean-Louis, Helen Rose, and others. Kendall’s uncle Howard Shoup designed gowns for over a hundred movies during the Golden Era, from “Cabin in the Sky” and “House of Wax” to “Gypsy” and “Cool Hand Luke.” There was someone else who was greatly influenced by the costume designers of the glory days of the movies: the internationally famous designer Valentino Garavani.

We just saw the amazing documentary “Valentino: The Last Emperor” and liked it so much we saw it again two days later. It was produced and directed by our friend Matt Tyrnauer, a writer and editor for Vanity Fair. It's been a huge hit at film festivals around the world and last weekend had the highest-grossing debut for a documentary in years. Given my complete ignorance and borderline repulsion with haute couture, I was surprised to find myself glued to every frame and moved to tears on more than one occasion. I loved the character of Valentino, despite his healthy ego and the crazy surreal world in which he lives. I especially loved his longtime partner Giancarlo Giammetti. The two met at a café on Rome’s Via Veneto in 1960 and have been together ever since although they apparently have not been lovers for decades. Giammetti managed the business and turned it into an international success, something Valentino never would have been able to do on his own despite his brilliance.

I went to the film expecting to roll my eyes at Valentino’s opulent lifestyle and to learn that his fame was based on past successes that he parlayed into a crazy world of wealth and privilege. Instead, I saw an incredibly talented artist who was still intimately involved with every dress that had his name on it (the film was shot over two years just prior to his retirement in 2007). Trynauer’s documentary reveals the genius of this man. Every one of Valentino’s gowns is truly a work of art, and yet, unlike the work of many couture designers, they are ones you can imagine any woman you know wearing (provided she has recently robbed a bank and can afford the astronomically expensive creations). Yes, Valentino and Giammetti live insane lives of luxury and excess, but this was as fascinating to watch as it was to see his dresses take shape.

Among the heroes of the film are Antonietta de Angelis, Valentino’s head seamstress, who supervises a large team of white-coated women who make all of the couture dresses completely by hand. Antonietta is gifted beyond belief, but she does not suffer fools gladly, and she seems frequently exasperated by her staff, barking displeasure about any work she deems less-than-perfect. She’s a classic. If this were a feature film, I’d give her an Oscar nomination in a heartbeat. In one wonderful scene, she is irritated by the demand from the top brass to see one of the dresses they are working on before she feels it is ready. Her co-workers begin to pack up the dress up for transport to another part of the building but the frustrated Antonietta grabs it and huffs out of the room dragging the priceless gown across the floor and over furniture to Valentino’s office where she practically throws it in his face. There we also witness the bizarre role of the in-house models who stand there completely naked except for a thong while countless hands shove and pin dresses over their bodies without any acknowledgement that they are human beings.

The film shows many moments of High Drama in the dysfunctionally symbiotic relationship between Valentino and Giancarlo. You see fifty years of built-up “issues” between the couple and yet their partnership somehow works. During an awards presentation you can’t help but be moved as Valentino erupts in tears when he mentions Giammetti’s all-important role in his life and career. Valentino is capable of daily hissy fits and temper tantrums, but in the end his undeniable talent and soft emotional underbelly come through to make him a compelling and very sympathetic character.

Dotted throughout the film are the celebrities who are part of Valentino’s circle, everyone from Gwyneth Paltrow to Anne Hathaway to Elton John. They are not identified and it was fun trying to spot them. There’s Elizabeth Hurley droning on to Valentino at a lavish private party, there’s good-ol-gal Joan Collins responding to a reporter’s question that had something to do with how you tell the difference between class and trash. “Darling, I have NO idea!” was her reply, revealing an endearing self-awareness behind her designer sunglasses and pushed-up boobs. We see faded European royalty, former Valentino models who have not let go of their youth (and really should), and newsreel footage of Valentino’s old friends and loyal customers such as Jackie Kennedy, Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, and Princess Margaret.

Tyrnauer was allowed entry into Valentino’s gorgeous villas in Paris and Rome and had enough footage to make another documentary about the butler who’s seen it all as well as the designer’s beloved pugs, Maude, Margot, Monty, Molly, Milton, and Maggie. We see the dogs ferreted around the world on private jets and one scene in which servants are carefully brushing the dogs’ teeth with their own special toothbrushes.

All of these activities, including the lavish party in Rome marking Valentino’s 45th year in the business occur amidst the backdrop of corporate finagling that culminates with Valentino leaving his own business and being replaced by a 35-year-old designer. What stupidity on the part of the suits. There can’t be a Valentino without Valentino and apparently the company’s profits have plummeted since the changeover.

This remarkable film is a testament to a dying industry, a man who is the last of a specialized breed, and a beauty, elegance, and lifestyle the likes of which we may never see again. I cannot recommend the film more highly, even if I didn’t know the director and what a labor of love it was for him to make. 

For those of you who’ve read Kendall’s wonderful book, “The Day I Became an Autodidact,” Matt Tyrnauer is the Matthew from her book, her childhood crush who did not know about his role in that book until it was published, God love him, and who remains a good friend. If you get a chance to see the film with Tyrnauer in attendance (he’s currently traveling around the country doing Q&A’s after the film), you should definitely do so. Matthew’s off-the-cuff commentary about what it was like to follow Valentino and Giammetti around for over two years (he collected 270 hours of footage!) is hysterical and revealing.

I have a hard time believing that someone like Valentino will be happy in retirement. Maybe he’ll come back with a line of couture menswear, perhaps a collection of retro leisure suits? If so, I’ll be sending in my resume—my days as a male model may not be over yet!

Degree-Happy Grandma

The hardest thing about having kids so late in life is the absence of older generations. I woke up thinking how much my grandmother, Anita Karoll, would be going out of her mind over the twin boys we’re having. She’s been gone for nearly 20 years but today would have been her 99th birthday. So, in theory, she could still be with us. (I often wonder if accepting the loss of my loved ones will finally become easier when they reach the age when they couldn’t still be alive.) I love this gorgeous hand-tinted photo of my grandmother. I believe it was taken in the late 1920s. She had the most beautiful red hair which she passed on to both of her daughters. It then jumped a generation to my own daughter Leah who has exactly the same luxurious shade.

Unfortunately, my grandmother died before any of her great-grandchildren were born. I was lucky enough to know my own great-grandparents when I was a kid, but that’s because the women in my family tended to have children when they were practically kids themselves. My cousin Nurit, who is a year younger than me, has seven children. Her oldest, Na’ama, just had twin boys a few weeks ago, Yuval Mordechai and Roni Ya’acov. Na’ama’s boys are in the rare position of having a GREAT-GREAT-grandmother, my Auntie Anne, who lives in Israel. Pretty incredible, no? Anne is the only surviving sibling of my late grandfather, Sam Karoll. Her parents were my great-grandparents who I’ve written about so often, Itshe Meyer and Alta Toba Korolnek.

I’m not positive but I think I’m the oldest person in my family who’s ever had a new baby.  We always heard the story when we were kids about how my grandmother had my Uncle Paul so very, very late in life. The story always reminded me of the biblical character Sarah who supposedly gave birth to Isaac when she was 90 years old. My uncle’s birth was seen as that kind of miracle. It was only as an adult that I did the math and realized that when she had my uncle, my grandmother was a shocking…38?? Okay, I guess in those days, that was considered old!

A few years ago on her birthday I talked about my grandmother’s interesting history. Although her Jewish parents emigrated from Russia at the turn of the century, my grandmother was born on April 5, 1910, in the unlikeliest of places: Newport, Kentucky. She was a real country girl. This picture was taken in Kentucky during the first World War. That’s my grandmother in front with her younger brother. It kills me that I can’t sit down with her to talk about her life, starting with her earliest memories as a tomboy in Kentucky. I know so little about her childhood. My grandfather’s family was so large and powerful that marrying it into it meant your previous identity was quickly subsumed by the dominant culture. When I was growing up everything was focused on my grandfather’s side of the family. For the most part, we only saw my grandmother’s relatives once a year, on the second night of Passover. (Being second-tiered relatives they were never invited to the first seder!) So, while I can trace my grandfather’s journey at the age of three from Staszow, Poland to Toronto, Canada, I barely know anything about my grandmother’s past.

I do know my grandmother never finished high school in Kentucky because she had to go to work. When she was already a grandmother, she decided she wanted to go back to school. First, she got her high school diploma. It was such a huge deal back then for an older woman to go back to school that her graduation was picked up by the wire services and printed in newspapers all over the country. This article came from the Reno Gazette. She then went to Northwestern University and majored in journalism, an amazing achievement for a grandmother in the 1950s. After that, she went for a master’s degree at the University of Chicago. In 1960, the Chicago Sun-Times printed a big article about her called “Degree-Happy Grandma.”

Anita Karoll was just 14 when she quit high school and went to work as a comptometer operator. She was the mother of a 16-year-old high-schooler when, despite the doubts expressed by friends, she returned to the classroom.

Now a grandmother, she is the possessor of a high school diploma, a bachelor’s degree in journalism, and by the end of this year, will have her master’s degree in political science. And, oh yes, she’s also working on her teacher’s certificate.

“If you do anything that’s off the beaten path, you’re bound to get criticism,” she said. “But it’s remarkable how, as soon as you achieve any measure of success, it stops. If I wanted to quit school now, my family wouldn’t let me.”

Except they did. She never did finish that last degree or become a teacher, unfortunately. I always heard that my grandfather had finally had enough and asked her to stop. Too bad.

After her high school graduation, she took a few courses at Northwestern University’s downtown night school—just for fun. The faculty urged her to work toward a degree on the Evanston campus, though at that time it was against the university’s policy to accept older adults as full-time freshmen.

“I did feel a little funny that first quarter at Northwestern because I didn’t know a soul,” she says. “Now that I’m working on my master’s at the University of Chicago, age doesn’t mean anything. I’m a student—period!”

On only two occasions has she dropped out—once to plan her daughter’s wedding, and once to remodel her house, but there have been rough times when she’s been tempted.

“I think my children have benefited,” she says. “They know how to study. My nose is in a book so often that theirs are, too. And it seems to have started a trend. Quite a few of my friends have gone back to college.”

What has it cost?

“I’ve never tried to figure it out and won’t,” she says. “Education is something that can’t be valued in monetary terms.”

You go, girl! And Happy 99th Birthday! I miss you!