Author: Beth
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Learning Dar es Salaam
9 July 2009 I am sitting in George Sempeho’s office at the UN, and we are going through hell just to make a phone call – land line to land line. I had to take a cab here because no one in Tanzania can make a conference call; the technology doesn’t exist here! (Or so…
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Recovered Memories of Pemba in 2009
7 July 2009 Today is Saba Saba, the seventh day of the seventh month – a national holiday. I’ve heard different stories about its origin: that It began as a market day, when all the farmers would bring their harvest to the city; or that it celebrates the founding of the TANU party (Tanganyika African…
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Day jobs
I woke up Sunday thinking about David Freelander. No particular reason; I think about him often. One of his paintings holds a prominent place in my apartment. And many of the memories and photos and stories from my twenties and early thirties feature David. The time my mother gave us tickets to a gala opening…
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I miss myself
A sudden medical scare sent me spinning off into the past, unspooling the visions and variations of my aspirations over decades. Music came first, when my grandparents sent us an upright piano. I must have been three years old. I remember following the piano into the den and coming out when I could play “He’s…
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Hudson River Jog
In my old age, now that running for PRs is a distant memory, I find such pleasure in running for the fun of seeing the world around me.
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September 11
It was just a little warmer that morning 20 years ago. But the same blue sky. I’m flooded with emotions – remembering the horror and fear, the thunderstorm the next night when I found myself standing by the bed screaming, having been awakened by thunder in the middle of the night. But I also remember…
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Curmudgeon POV: First World Annoyances
A random list of aggravations that spoil the ticking of time in pandemic New York. 1. Noisy, incessant helicopters carrying rich tourists to look at Central Park, spoiling the peace of a quiet weekend. 2. Runners and cyclists in the park blaring music instead of wearing headphones. 3. Dogs off leash on the bridle path,…
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In Memorium
We survived COVID. We kept to our running and biking and friendships. I skipped the Tuesday night Zooms because my days at work are filled up with Zoom calls and I didn’t have the patience for the one-at-a-time report-outs that Zoom requires and the inevitable lags and echos that disrupt the normal banter and cross-talk…
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The Tyranny of the Past
Yesterday I spent a little time logging into what seems to have been an all-day conversation about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on Clubhouse. The discussion was, of course, prompted by the recent Hamas rocket attacks and the Israeli bombings that murdered hundreds of civilians. But it was really a lot of venting about the endless history…
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Is this America?
My grandfather was 4’11” tall. From a shtetl someplace in Belarus. When he came to the United States, he worked as a Hebrew teacher, a milkman, a factory worker. He joined Workers of the World. He and his brother moved to Cleveland and got jobs in a plumbing supply company. And when World War 1…