Archives for June 2005

I snorted when I read this article.

I suppose that she didn’t have any real conviction. Not that any of this matters in the greater scheme of things.

That is how I feel, felt and have been feeling since yesterday. Elvis sang about a Burning Love, but right now I have a Burning Anger.

I have been trying to shake it, to just let go because in the grand scheme of things things could be worse. Yesterday could have been worse. When I confronted the thieves yesterday I could have been seriously hurt, but then again I could have punched him in the mouth, kicked him in the ass and thrown him headfirst into the wall.

I freely admit to being somewhat regretful for not having taken advantage of the chance to do so. My friends and family gave me a bit of a chuckle when I told them that I had a plan on how to make this work. I always have a plan and a backup for the plan. Too many years reading fiction and watching television.

Just to satisy my inner child I did a little weight lifting to see what this old man can do. I can still dumbell press 80 pounds in either hand, pull 200 on the lat-pull and curl 110 pounds. I used to be able to do far more. The 20 year-old model of Jack was a beast who worked out for hours and could have taken this 36 year-old and chewed me up into little pieces.

So what does all this mean to me? Well it means that my Taurus body still exists. I still can call upon great reserves of strength and in theory I could have taken the man turned him upside down and shaken out all of the change in his pockets. If life were a bad comedy when I grabbed him three sets of silverware, a platter and a tea set would have tumbled out followed by a big screen television. But that is not how it works.

I have been violated. We passed these people in the story several times. When we went to the police station to file a report I was able to give a decent description of them. I know that they saw that I am a father, that I have children and that is part of what makes me so fucking angry that I could spit blood.

I don’t condone stealing from stores, but if they had robbed Target it is theoretically a faceless crime. This is different. This is literally stealing food from the baby. This is looking someone in the eye and spitting on them. This takes balls and a complete disregard and disrespect for others.

You got me. You got me good and for a short time you have free rent to live in my head but I am going to push you out and forget that your sorry ass crossed my path. I began the process yesterday. When I stared in your eyes you knew that I knew you for what you are.

I cancelled my credit cards, killed the ATM, the cellphone and took care of the bank accounts. You made off with some cash and some gift cards that had been given to my children for clothing and toys.

You stole from my children and that is where the real depth of my anger lies. You have my home address, pictures of my family. If for some reason you were unable to see that you were robbing a family the pictures are there to witness your depravity.

I don’t really expect you to show up at my house, in truth I pray that you do not. As much I wish I could have shown you in person just how I feel I am glad that I did not. I do not want my family to see that there is a darker side to me. I know that they would understand that a father must protect his family and that in certain circumstances there are things that happen, but had it gone there you would have robbed my children of even more of their innocence.

And that is the real reason that I am happy that it did not happen. It is not my fear of what could have happened to me, although that does exist, it is knowing that had my son seen me in a fist fight he would have been terrified. So there is some small relief.

There is some small relief in this because in theory if it can be fixed with money it can be made right, but that is little consolation. So for now enjoy your little moment in the sun because your face is known to the police. The store has a clip of you on their tapes and they have supplied it to the police. You will be caught, you are going down.

“Daddy, They Have Mommy’s Purse.” It didn’t sink in at first. We had gone to Target to buy a new car seat for my son and some napkins, nothing real special. For that matter we would have skipped the trip altogether but today was the last day that the seat was on sale.

“Daddy, They Have Mommy’s Purse,” said my son. It took a moment to realize what he was saying because like so many other children he had spent a good deal of time pointing at various items and explaining why he had to have it and I was not paying as much attention as I could have. But it wasn’t like I was ignoring him either.

We were on the second floor and preparing to take the elevator down to the first floor. My son and I were waiting for the girls to finish looking through the clothes that hung near the elevator doors. Bibs, dresses, onesies, a cornucopia of clothes, girls clothes I might add. And while they were sorting through the various pieces I was lost in thought about this and that.

“Daddy, They Have Mommy’s Purse.” I heard it and looked up in time to see a flash of pink in the hands of a woman entering the elevator. I grabbed my son and hustled over to his mother and asked if she had her purse. She looked in the stroller and shook her head no and I made for the escalator.

If you were one of the people I brushed by like a bowling ball through bowling pins I apologize. I was in a hurry with good reason. I moved fast enought that I arrived as the elevator doors opened. I walked up to the people I had seen with the purse and asked in a very pleasant voice if they had seen a pink purse.

They shook their heads at me and said no, but I didn’t really believe them. It had happened very quickly, but I had seen enough to know that something didn’t add up. I knew that something seemed off.

Here is the setting. A rail thin woman in sweats has a blanket draped over her and a slight bulge beneath the blanket. She is accompanied by a man pushing a shopping cart. The cart has a few items in it, the most prominent is an infant’s car seat complete with a baby in it.

In most situations I suspect that the man would have positioned himself between the stranger (me) and the baby. They didn’t. He leaned forward to try and obstruct my view and she pushed up past me, a diversion or so I think.

I watched her walk out the door and enter a car parked on the street. I tried to follow her steps carefully, without being too obtrusive because there was the chance that I was wrong. She got in the driver’s seat and I never saw the purse. So I turned around and found the man and the baby in the checkout line.

He made brief eye contact with me and looked away, his face betraying nothing. I gave him a hard look and tried to will him into giving me something that I could use to involve security. A twitch, look, a flash of pink, something, anything that would give me a real excuse to try and confront him again. I never got it. And because there was that ounce of uncertainty I didn’t want to cause a scene.

Moments later I rejoined the family and recounted what had happened. We found a security guard and began to file a report with the store and take steps to secure our identity/security as well as to try and find out if perhaps by some odd quirk of fate the purse had fallen out or been turned in.

We split responsibilities as my wife provided details about the purse (physical description of it and the contents within) and recounted the last place it has been seen. My son was irate. I was a little surprised at how upset he was. He was angry that he hadn’t ran up and grabbed the purse. He was angry that the people had been “not nice” and he told me what he wanted me to do. He wanted to find them and make an angry face and then a sad face at them.

And then he wanted me to punch them all in the nose and “kill them dead.” Such are the thoughts of a four-year-old. I listened to him and asked him to give me a few moments to take care of some telephone calls. I had to call the cellphone company to kill the phone, and I needed to contact the bank about the ATM card, and two other companies beyond to suspend those accounts too.

As I explained to the various customer service reps why I needed their assistance I looked at my watch and realized that everything had taken place in all of 10 minutes. It frustrated me to think that if I had looked up when my son first grabbed my arm I could have easily stepped into the elevator or done something to prevent this, but still there was that small ounce of doubt about whether I had really seen something. I didn’t want to make a false accusation.

“Daddy, They Have Mommy’s Purse.” I heard it in my mind and I got a little bit more irritated because I heard my son asking me for help. I heard him looking to me to fix a problem because in his eyes I am still superman and I felt a little bit like I had let him down.

At the same time part of me was relieved that I hadn’t had to deal with a full blown confrontation because if it had become physical I would have had to unleash the beast. I don’t mean that to sound dramatic, but the thing is if you are going to be in a fight you have to be prepared for a very nasty environment and serious repercussions. I haven’t been in a fist fight in years, but in my youth I had to dance a few times so I am relatively comfortable with my ability to take care of myself.

But that aside, I don’t want to show that side to my family. I don’t want them to ever see me involved in a physical confrontation. These are not the qualities, characteristics I want them to see nor try and emulate. I don’t want them to ever allow themselves to be taken advantage of or abused, but you can stand up for yourself without having to do anything more than use words.

The Target team eventually let us know that they had reviewed their surveillance footage and confirmed that these people had the purse. The tapes didn’t show when they had it, just footage of them rifling through it on the elevator ride and their use of the carseat to hide their ill-gotten gains.

I had been face to face with the thieves and they had lied to me. I am not surprised nor disappointed that people like this exist. They do. And I won’t lie and say that part of me is disappointed that I didn’t get the chance to go toe-to-toe with the people who committed this violation.

There are pictures of family and friends that are now gone. Memories and items of sentimental value. Some of them can be replaced and others cannot. And there is the possibility of identity theft. We have taken steps to prevent it, but it is still a concern.

But in many ways the most disappointing part of this knowing that today my son learned that theives and bad people are more than just stories. A little piece of his innocence was stolen and that just makes me sad.

When we arrived at the high school we were all sent into the gym along with the other campers, counselors, staff and families. It was a tense situation and there were a lot of tears, cries and whispers.

I remember trying to process what was happening. Back at camp we had all waited on the baseball field and watched as a series of buses pulled in and were loaded up with people.

The youngest campers were only nine and they were among the first to be sent out. We made a point of waving and smiling at them so that they would feel better as we felt an obligation to be good role models.

Bus after bus was filled and then there no more buses, yet we remained. We were told to stand up and we began the first of what would be many marches that summer. We headed up the road out of camp and were loaded into US Forestry trucks. As we left camp I looked out the back window of the truck and watched the flames roll down the hill and wondered what would happen to camp and if my trip to Israel was over before it started as my passport and clothing were all left there.

I can’t quite remember any more if I slept at all that night, but I do remember that early in the morning they got all of us together, the entire machane and told us that we going to daven shacharit.

Initially I was angry and a bit dumbfounded by this as it seemed to be particularly cruel. Why would we be asked to do this. Were they stupid. It just seemed ridiculous to me.

It was during the Shemoneh Esreh that I suddenly realized that I wasn’t just saying the words, that I was trying to participate again. The realization caught me off guard and like any good teenager I immediately ceased participating and tried to pretend that nothing had happened.

There are a lot of other stories about the fire and the things that happened during that time, but they are not relevant to this story, perhaps I’ll share them at a different time. What I can tell you now is that later that day we were able to go back to camp to get our stuff and later that evening we left the high school and spent the night in a hotel by LAX.

The next morning our parents hugged us goodbye at the airport and wished us a safe journey. Some hours later we landed in New York and switched planes, tired, but exhilirated.

As I walked to the very back of that TWA jet I remember being in awe as it was my first time on a 747, not to mention the first time I had been on a plane in 15.5 years. I can remember wondering if maybe, just maybe I was wrong about a few things in my life.

But the introspective thought was pushed aside as I realized that there were literally hundreds of other teens from the other camps on this flight. I was far too excited to do more than gawk at some of the girls and conspire with the boys to impress them with tales of our amazing escape from the fire.

It was a long flight from New York to Tel Aviv and I remember so many other things besides trying to meet girls. One of the primary memories is of realizing that I was a part of a huge community, maybe not as large as some others, but so much larger than I had ever realized.

It felt like every few hours there was a buzz among the passengers as the men tried to gather a minyan. I especially remember noticing that it wasn’t a problem, there wasn’t any lack of volunteers.

It helped to build upon the sense of community that I had been feeling, but in a different way. I grew up being involved in Jewish life, but whenever it was that I stopped believing in G-d I had also lost some of my faith in the community.

That is, I knew that we all shared something in common, but it really didn’t have any meaning to me. Now, the meaning was returning to me. Now I was starting to feel as if I was a part of something special again. On that plane ride I really began to feel like I was coming home again.

(cross posted on Jewish Connection)

Since the revelation of the identity of Deep Throat there has been a ton of analysis and conversation about whether Deep Throat was really one person or if there were several people with Felt serving as the funnel or conduit of information.

There has also been a lot of rhetoric about why he came out now and suggestions that the desire to capitalize upon a book deal is opportunistic, unfair and in general a whisper that this should reflect poorly upon Felt and his family.

I am bothered by a few things. I have yet to read anything that provides a substantive reason as to why there is a need to verify whether Felt worked alone or not and whether Woodward/Bernstein spiced up the story a little with their descriptions of covert communications.

Am I interested in learning whether there was more than one person? Yes, I am. But I am also interested in seeing these pundits give a reason why they need to know more. What do they intend to do with this knowledge.

In relation to Felt and family trying to make a buck off of this I have to say, “So What.” What does it matter, Why do you care. Why is it ok for Woodward to try and do so and not them.

In short I think that there are a lot of smart answers but I am not hearing or reading them. I don’t like settling for supposition, whispers and ridiculous commentary.