40 Years Together – 40 Years (And Now 3 Days) Gone

I planned on writing this entry between January 20 and March 29 for some time. The relatively narrow timeframe saw two of the most important events in my life. Now, another one is on the record.

The joyous occasion was January 20, 1973. Janet and I were married at Temple Israel on E. 75^th Street in New York City. The following blog entry, which I also reposted, details how a cold and allergies conspired to bring us together. http://brulelaker.blogspot.com/2011/03/forty-years-ago-today.html 

Barely two months later and a week after my birthday, on the day we were supposed to have dinner at my parents’ apartment, I received a call from my father’s office that he’d been rushed to a hospital near his office. My blog entry about that day has also been reposted and is here again, sparing me another recitation. http://brulelaker.blogspot.com/2010/12/sudden-death-in-family.html

The two dates are forever linked and, although this would mark the 40^th year commemorating both happiness and sorrow, it figured to be routine. Then March 5 dawned.

It began simply around 8 a.m., with my mother’s daily call to my brother, Frank, in Denver. All seemed normal, as he related that a condominium conversion would result in her grandson, Grant, finding a new residence. She mentioned this to Janet, who told her our sister-in-law Rita’s father had passed away at age 99. Her speech was rather garbled, which we attributed to some heavy-duty medication she has been taking for chronic back pain. Shortly thereafter, her caregiver Ann, who had been with her since a two-day hospital stint in early February, called to say mom seemed confused because she thought her 101-year-old brother-in-law, Adolph, had died. We then went for a 9:30 meeting but just before it began, Ann called and said she needed to call 911 because my mother had become disoriented and her speech was completely garbled.

All signs pointed to a stroke that affects the ability to speak and process speech. Her motor skills were unaffected but those hadn’t been good recently. Mom had finally consented to seeing specialists for her chronic pain. The diagnosis was a compressed vertebra, although she felt pain on her side as well as her back. The day before entering the hospital, a neurologist prescribed a new medication, which she took that night and the following morning. The original CT scan showed no signs of a stroke, and one theory was the new medication could have caused this terrible reaction. When normal speech did not return within 48 hours, stroke was again the suspected culprit. A Thursday evening scan confirmed it.

During her stay at Northwestern Memorial, the staff ran a battery of tests. The attending physician sat us down on Thursday afternoon to inform us that what was supposed to be a routine scan of the lungs found pervasive malignancies for which no treatment was warranted for an 89-year-old woman. I found this akin to being hit over the head with a 2-by-4, then getting kicked in the gut. The doctors gave us a time frame of weeks, maybe a few months. She came home to hospice care, getting the very best help from Ann, her assistants and the hospice staff. After rallying somewhat, she showed a rather sudden decline and passed away peacefully on March 26. She didn’t want a rabbi at the service, so I led the graveside service two days later, using passages from the Union Prayer Book, copyright 1923, that my father received for his religious school confirmation in 1932.

My mother lived a long and wonderful life, with a few bumps in the road along the way. She was never big on medical care in the first place – claiming she was basically Christian Scientist – and eschewed anything more than routine physicals in her later years. She practiced “ostrich medicine”: she hated scans and MRIs, deciding that if something were found she was too old to treat, so why bother looking? On the other hand, she didn’t take her reduced mobility during the last year too well, for she loved to get around and had seen the world.

 

The response from family and friends has been overwhelming, Mom had a strong personality, and she didn't hide her feelings. Her oldest friend, Joy, who lives in Los Angeles, called me when she heard about mom's health setbacks. They met at age 6 at O'Keeffe School and listened to "Little Orphan Annie" on the radio together. I started to apologize to Joy for my mother being short with her over recent months, atrributing it to her aches and pains. She interrupted me with a laugh: "She's been short with me her whole life!" Somehow, from a friend of 83+ years, it sounded like a compliment.

Dr. John Elisberg: A Non-Conformist and Good Guy

Just because I’m writing about somebody I saw once in almost forty years doesn’t mean I’ve run out of topics. John Elisberg was a true individual, and I’m fortunate to have made his acquaintance again two years ago.

I knew John since age 11, when he started at Camp Nebagamon in 1960 with my brother Frank and me. One year later, we met on the basketball court for the first time, as we South School 6^th graders defeated John’s North School team, and the year after that we began six years in junior high school and high school. And somewhere along the line, we started religious school together.

John was a true non-conformist. He convinced some of his friends – including me – to ride our bikes to high school as freshman when that was decidedly uncool. Cycling became a lifelong love, although his idea to ride to Cobden in southern Illinois, whose high-school team, the Appleknockers, had almost pulled a Hoosiers-like upset in the state basketball tournament, was quickly nixed. His smooth jump shot pretty much meant I would be the loser in our driveway 1-on-1 matches. John’s position in baseball was – what else? – catcher, where he played for two years in high school, and he was a regular member of our Saturday summer softball games in Watts Park. He also had a great dry and wry sense of humor. Our grandmothers were friends, and his grandmother used to ask my grandmother about “The Twins.” John would call us The Twins, but always with the sappy grandmotherly inflection thrown in.

Central School varsity and jv basketball teams, 1962-1963

John is 3rd from right, 2nd row. Phil Toubus (aka Paul Thomas) is at his left

Frank is 4th from left, back row. I'm 4th from right, back row. Steve Glick is to my left



Everybody has a favorite Elisberg story, so here goes.

John and most of our friends weren’t the most interested students in the confirmation class of 1965 at Congregation Solel. We didn’t have speaking parts at the Sunday June ceremony, so we were relegated to the end of the line (done by height) to file in wearing our long white robes. We found ourselves standing by a tray of desserts, most notably tiny chocolate-covered éclairs. As we looked at John, his face belied he was going to take one. Sure enough, he did. The warm sun streaming through a window made the chocolate runny, and it quickly coated John’s fingers. Just as he popped it into his mouth, the line started to move. A look of confusion crossed his face; what was he going to do? For a split second, he looked down at his flowing white robe. No, he’s not going to do it, we thought. With all eyes upon him, he resumed walking and licking his fingers at the same time. I think he hesitated on purpose, just to yank our chains.

 

Frank and I in confirmation robes, 1965

 

At camp, John was known for his canoe-trip expertise. He double-packed on portages or carried a heavy aluminum canoe, loving the experience. Among others who shared this talent were Reed Maidenberg and John Seesel – still my dear friends – who were with John on a two-week trip when it rained almost every day. John became a counselor and, try as we may, we coaxed maybe one letter in three summers from him about camp goings-on.

After our respective college graduations (John attended Wisconsin), we reunited when he enrolled at Northwestern Medical School. Some found it ironic that he followed his father’s footsteps to become a doctor, for John passed out watching a film of an eye surgery in 8^th-grade science class, which had been brought in by Dr. David Schoch’s son, John. Janet and I married in January 1973 in New York City, and John traveled east that weekend to attend the wedding. His evening attire included a tweed sport jacket, corduroy pants and hiking boots. Between my married life and John’s education demands, we didn’t see much of each other thereafter, and he returned to Wisconsin for his internship, residency and a family practice in the Appleton area.

 

John (next to Janet) at our wedding, Jan. 20, 1973



As noted earlier, John wasn’t much of a communicator. In the days before cheap or free long-distance calling, email and other forms of electronic media, staying in touch took some effort, the “Reach-Out-And-Touch-Someone” canard notwithstanding. We knew John lived in northeastern Wisconsin, and some more than others tried writing but to no avail. He never attended a junior-high or high-school reunion, but he did send Frank written regrets that he wouldn’t be attending the big 75^th anniversary camp reunion in 2003. All we knew was what we found on the Internet, which wasn’t much besides his office and home address and that he’d divorced and remarried.

In January 2011, his mother’s death notice appeared in the Chicago Tribune. Services were in The Glen, where his parents had moved after selling John’s childhood residence. I knew if I didn’t attend the funeral, I’d never have contact with him again. Realistically, there was never a question to go. Too much water under the bridge, as I always say.

Janet and I were his only contemporaries on that snowy weekday. John looked pretty much the same, sharing baldness with his father and younger brother Bob, a prolific Huffington Post commentator who appeared in a Naked Gun film with Leslie Nielsen and O.J. during his screenwriting days. We chatted for a bit before the service, as the bygone years pretty much evaporated on the spot, bringing me back to our bike-riding, hoops-shooting, summer-camping days. John had closed the family practice and was now teaching at the University of Wisconsin Medical School. After its conclusion, he told me something shocking: this fitness fanatic, who never smoked a cigarette in his life, had been diagnosed a year earlier with lung cancer. It was now pretty much in remission but by no means cured.

After returning home, my Google search found two rather surprising facts. The first was that he had been given only a few months to live when the cancer was diagnosed, and here he was, actively pursing life and enjoying activities with his grandchildren. The second was John was now a Mormon, having converted after his marriage to Harvada. Like me, John was hardly religious as a youngster – neither of us had a bar mitzvah – so a conversion wasn’t all that strange. He did, however, become a very devout church member, typified somewhat by his sadness that his three teams – Wisconsin, Northwestern and Brigham Young – had all lost the same day in the NCAA and NIT basketball tournaments two months later. And I know that because we kept in regular touch after that January meeting.

 I believe technology advances in the 21^st century only played a small part in John’s seemingly newly found communicativeness. Any correspondence was always returned within 24 hours, with his cares and concerns for my minor medical maladies in the face of his greater challenges. I’d asked if it was o.k. to give out his information to his old friends, which he gladly assented. Most of them heard from John too. And to my surprise, he even remembered my birthday.

Through the emails and Harvada’s blog, I kept up on John’s changing condition. Often they included detailed information on treatments and dosages, as well as his general well-being. Still, I wasn’t mentally prepared for Harvada’s early January entry: it basically said, the end was near. I waited a day, then called his home. “Is this the Elisberg residence?” I asked and told it was. Virtually holding my breath, I asked, “Is John in?” “This is John,” the voice said. We talked for 30 minutes. His voice was strong and upbeat, despite his being in home hospice care. John could no longer walk, and his only expressed consternation was that he had to have two people lift him out of bed into his wheelchair. He knew about our 50^th –year junior-high reunion in August and expressed wishes to attend, despite his lack of mobility. He also asked if I knew where I could get a copy of our yearbook; I told him I thought somebody had scanned a complete edition and I’d check into it.

Word came via email that John passed away peacefully on January 28, with many of his family members comforting him at the end. So many emotions rushed through: sadness about his passing, happiness that we got to speak, regret that we hadn’t kept up over all of the years and relief that he no longer had to suffer. He left me with what I told him during our last conversation, barely keeping it together: Your courage is an inspiration to me, for it reminds me about what’s really important in life. For John, it was his family, friends, faith and a profession of healing. For the last one, you may read the comments on the death notice in his former hometown newspaper, the Appleton Post-Crescent: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/postcrescent.  Here’s Bob’s take on his brother in the Huff Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-j-elisberg/the-tao-of-plink_b_2589921.html.

One of our mutual friends and his Freshman B squad basketball and freshman and sophomore baseball teammate, Steve Glick, found the news more difficult to take than he’d imagined. I knew why, and it wasn’t just our fleeting sense of our own mortality. The week before I’d seen the intense play, The Motherf***er with the Hat, and remembered an exchange starting with the “I thought you were my friend?" question. The reply: “Anybody you meet before the age of, say, 25? That’s your friend. Anyone after that? That’s just an associate. Someone to pass the time. Someone who meets maybe one or two specific needs. But friend? . . . Friends are at the playground.”

 

John was with us on the playground, basketball court, softball fields and baseball diamonds, bicycle paths, Northern lakes and wedding ceremonies. I announced his passing to his junior-high classmates via the group email list set up for our 50-year reunion. Most of the many replies had a single common thread: John was a “good guy.” He was and very much more, and I’m really going to miss his birthday email next month.

Save The First Roumanian Congregation

Agudas Achim

Ahavas Achim

Anshe Antipole

Anshe Emeth Nusach Sfard

Anshe Galitzia

Anshe Kalvaria

Anshe Knesses Israel

Anshe Lebowitz

Anshe Lubavitch

Anshe Luknik

Anshe Motele

Anshe Odessa

Anshe Pavolitz

Anshe Pinsk

Anshe Shavel and Yanova

Anshe Ticktin

Anshe Vilno

Anshe Zitomer

Austro-Galician

Beth Hamedrosh Hagodol Kehilath Hasfardim

Beth Hamedrosh U’Bnai Jacob

Beth Jacob Anshe Kroz

Bikur Cholim

B’nai Abraham

B’nai Itzchok

B’nai Reuven

Mishna U’Gemora

Mikro Kodosh

Ohel Jacob Anshe Kovno

Poali Zedeck

Shaarei Shomaim

Shomrei Hadas

There is one name missing from this list: First Roumanian Congregation. It’s missing because of all the above, it is the last surviving synagogue building in the Maxwell Street area. The pre-fire building (1 of only 112 remaining) is facing demolition, and Preservation Chicago put it on “The Chicago Seven,” its list of the most endangered structures in the city.

 Constructed at 497 (now 1352 S.) Union Street in 1869, the building’s various ownerships reflect the changing demographics of the city. Its architect was Augustus Bauer, whose firm also designed St. Patrick’s Church and the Tree Studios. A German-speaking high school, part of the neighboring German United Evangelical Zion church, was the first tenant. Beginning in 1875, a branch of the Foster School, a public school, leased the building.

Former First Roumanian Congregation/Gethsamane Missionary Baptist Church

 

With the influx of Eastern European Jews on the eve of the 20^th century, the First Roumanian Congregation purchased the building in 1897. Several founders were from the city of Isai, which through pogroms and later the Holocaust saw its Jewish population virtually eliminated. With a growing congregation and the movement of families to Lawndale – which eventually had the third largest Jewish population in the world behind Warsaw and New York City – the first Roumanian built a large, ornate synagogue at 3622 W. Douglas Boulevard in 1925.

Former First Roumanian Congregation, 3622 W. Douglas Blvd.

 

Chicago’s African-American population, confined to certain parts of the city, moved into the Maxwell Street area during the 1920s. The next tenant gave the name for which it is now popularly known: Gethsamane. On May 27, 1935, the Gethsamane Missionary Baptist Church, organized in 1922, made S. Union Street its new home. The congregation erected a new façade on the front of the building in 1944, obliterating Bauer’s design. The construction of the adjacent Dan Ryan Expressway (you can see the building when driving in either direction), urban renewal and expansion by the University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC) led to a dwindling membership, and the church closed in 2005. Purchased by an investor, the South Union Arts Center was the final tenant, closing in 2008.

The Gethsamane Church has sported a large “For Sale” sign for at least three years. The broker describes it as land for sale, 26,000 square feet that can be divided into 11,000 square feet. The listing price is $3.5 million. This has not stopped plans by UIC to construct the John Paul II Newman Center Student Residence, at first a 17-story, 500-bed dormitory since scaled down to 5½-floor (what’s half a floor?), 250-bed facility.

 

Given the poor job done in preserving any semblance of character in the old Maxwell Street area, one would think the powers that be would want to save the Gethsamane. I find the arguments against preservation rather lame – merchants will benefit from additional money spent by the students, it’s not architecturally significant or financially viable, its vacancy is dangerous, etc. – when compared to the loss of the last vestige for which Maxwell Street is best known. Like it or not, this was (and for some still is) “Jewtown.”  There were more than 30 Jewish congregations and only one is left. And my great-grandparents worshipped there after arriving in Chicago at the turn of the century, and my family is buried in the First Roumanian Congregation Cemetery in Waldheim. I know it’s personal, but I think preservation is more important than how many bags of Skittles the students will buy or how many pizzas they’ll order.

There Used to Be a Synagogue Here: Former Chicago Temples

The above title is similar to two posts in October 2010, detailing my efforts to photograph all (or nearly all) of the remaining former synagogues in Chicago. It’s taken from the song “There Used to Be a Ballpark,” recorded by Frank Sinatra. Old baseball parks are another one of my interests (see http://brulelaker.blogspot.com/2010/11/remembrance-of-ballparks-past-la.html). 

“I’m going to get these photos published in a book,” I kept saying, month after month, year after year without making more than cursory efforts to find a publisher. Although books have contained photos of former synagogues, none is dedicated to a compilation of what these buildings look like today.

My book – There Used to Be a Synagogue Here: Former Chicago Temples – was published this month. Here’s how it was done.

 

Former Isaiah Temple (see note at the end)



While driving on the South Side, I passed what remained of the former KAM, the oldest Jewish congregation in Chicago, at E. 33^rd St. and S. Indiana Ave. A disastrous fire to the Pilgrim Baptist Church, designed by Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan, had left only the front and two side walls standing. I stopped the car and shot the front, sides and back of the building and talked to some church members who were meeting across the street.

My project initially centered on the temples for which our families had worshipped on the South Side. Further research, however, found a much larger web of family connections and the intense desire to discover more about the synagogues of bygone days. I used three main sources for finding the subjects: Chicago’s Forgotten Synagogues by Robert A. Packer (Arcadia Publishing, 2007), American Jewish Committee lists from the early 1920s and the Synagogue Collection from ChicagoAncestors.org, an online list of 279 institutions from The Newberry Library.

Armed with a myriad of addresses – from Rogers Park to Hegewisch, Maxwell Street to Austin – I now needed to streamline my efforts. The Street View option on Google Maps made the task of determining which buildings still exist much simpler. By entering an address in the search bar and dragging the Street View icon to that location, I could observe one of three situations: a vacant lot (very prevalent), a building that obviously was not or never had been a house of worship or – if lucky – a structure that most definitely looked like a former synagogue.

 My photographic journey took me to many parts of the city. Luckily, I had no trouble shooting in the places like Lawndale, Englewood and Bronzeville, where the people were uniformly friendly (some invited me inside) and interested in why the white guy was taking pictures of Baptist churches. Eventually, I compiled more than 300 photographs, which I posted on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/brulelaker/sets/72157615593834103/).  Comments on the photos included translations (I don’t know Hebrew), suggestions for places I’d missed and an occasional correction.

After purchasing a new camera in November 2012, I decided to restart the project in earnest. I made a list of buildings to re-shoot and vowed to contact publishers. One month later, at a lunch gathering of the ChiFlickr Chicago Meetup Club, an informal group of photographers who made their initial contacts on Flickr, I voiced my desire to get serious about a publisher. I also said I didn’t really want to self-publish the book. “Why not?” asked Kevin Eatinger, a professional photographer, art director and graphic designer, pointing out he’d done several (and I add excellent) books of his work. He suggested Blurb, his publisher of choice; one doesn’t pay anything until a book is sent in for printing and publication.

Returning from lunch, I went right to Blurb (www.blurb.com) and perused the site. The tutorial made it look fairly simple, so I plunged right in. My experience in book and magazine publishing helped greatly on designing the book, for I had to pick out each page layout individually, fit copy into sometimes tight spaces and ensure headers and captions were stylistically consistent. Less than one month later, the books (hardcover and softcover) were in my hands.

Because I controlled all aspects of production, I made the book historical with a personal perspective. My parents grew up on the South Side but one set of grandparents was from the West Side, which provided an impetus to cover all parts of the city. Research found countless interesting facts, many complied for the two blog posts and a later one on the formation of KAM Isaiah Israel (http://brulelaker.blogspot.com/2012/10/four-become-one-kam-isaiah-israel.html) but the most interesting came from my uncle Adolph.

My father had one brother, Adolph, who turned 101 on January 4. I knew the family originally lived at E. 61^st St. and S. Michigan Ave. but did not know they worshipped two blocks up the street at South Side Hebrew Congregation. Its huge sanctuary on the corner burned to the ground in the 1920s and only the religious school on E. 59^th St. remains. Adolph told me he attended Hebrew school there before moving to South Shore; my father was too young then. I did not include his claim that the rabbi didn’t like him because he was a better student than his son!

So here's my pitch: the books is sold on Blurb (www.blurb.com and the keyword "synagogue" will get you there) or you can contact me if you live in the area. Please let your friends know about this unique offering, and thank you for your consideration.

NOTE: I'd like to publish a photo of the book but Blogger can't seem to get its act together and restore the link for uploading photos from one's computer. The former Isaiah Temple, pictured above, is the cover photo; I was able to use it because it appeared in a previous blog post.

"Keep on Goin'"!: Uncle Adolph is 101

This happily is another View from Brule Lake tribute to my uncle Adolph’s birthday. He turned 101 today. My tribute to #100 was penned one year ago. http://brulelaker.blogspot.com/2012/01/uncle-adolph-turns-100.html Here’s a few more anecdotes, but I’m saving some for the birthday #102 entry in 2014.

Adolph and Rabbi Steven Mason at last year's

birthday celebration at the temple (spot the typo on the cake)

 

Last October I received an email from Floyd Sullivan, an author writing a book about Comiskey Park for a series on baseball stadiums of bygone days. He saw my photos of the ballpark’s 1991 demolition on Flickr and wanted to use a few in the book. Because the proceeds are going to Chicago White Sox Charities, I agreed in exchange for a copy of the book. I also told him that because it will contain interviews with former White Sox players, executives and fans, he should interview Adolph. His reply was “this is too crazy”; he’d already heard about him and met my cousin Cathy at a Sox game.

 Floyd conducted the very interesting interview at Adolph’s house. As previously reported, Adolph saw his first Sox game in 1921. He did not, he noted, know anything about baseball before then and thus had no recollection of the Black Sox, whose nine members were banned beginning that season. The ballpark wasn’t double-decked around to the outfield until the mid-1920s, and he sat in the bleachers before then. Some of the highlights of his long (mostly suffering) career as a Sox fan included seeing Urban Shocker pitch complete-game victories versus the Sox in both halves of a doubleheader (1924) and Minnie Minoso and Mickey Mantle hit their first Major League home runs in the same game (1951). The book is scheduled for publication in the middle of this year.

Adolph made a request as I was leaving. “Please look up Ian Kadish on the Salt River team in the Arizona Fall League,” he asked. “I want to know if he’s Jewish.” Some ten years ago, Adolph journeyed to Arizona to the Sox’s spring training site. Upon his return, my brother Frank inquired about the outlook for the coming season. He replied, “I didn’t watch much of the team. I was more interested in the minor-league prospects.” That, Frank noted, is the definition of an “optimist.” At 101, he still reads Baseball America and other publications to keep abreast of what’s going on in Charlotte, Birmingham, Winston Salem, Kannapolis, Great Falls, Bristol and Salt River. And Ian Kadish is Jewish.

Finally, a story from a different age. My aunt Rosalind, one of the world’s greatest raconteurs (she passed away in September 2001; boy do we miss these tales!), told of a visit to Michael Reese Hospital, where Adolph’s aunt Lucy, was in the last throes of her 92-year life in 1974. She was in a double room, and the roommate was borderline delirious. “Oh Lord, I’ll be there soon! Sweet Jesus, have mercy on me!” she cried. Now this was in the days before pagers and cell phones, so Adolph, a pediatrician, needed to call his answering service. Having difficulty with the phone, he asked Lucy, “How do you get an outside line?” The next thing they heard was from the roommate: “God almighty, I’m in your hands! Dial 9 and keep on goin’!”

 

All I can add is: Adolph, celebrate #101 and keep on goin'!

Politics, Money and Israel

I’ve hesitated writing this post because of certain sensitive areas. In the spirit of Fight Club, there are things you are encouraged not to talk about. They are not, however, illegal, immoral or any different from how thousands of other interest groups operate, so being it’s after the election, here goes.

The well-deserved trouncing of Ohio State Treasurer Josh Mandel by Senator Sherrod Brown provided an added dimension to an aspect of political fundraising. I met Mandel after his presentation before an American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) meeting in 2008. He seemed like an earnest young man, with much in common with my sister-in-law’s brother: Jewish, Republican, Marine Corps Reserve and state government. I thought it would be good connection for the two.

Mandel was elected Ohio state treasurer in 2010 at age 33, swept into office as part of the Tea Party revolution. During his campaign, I began receiving emails from Kasich for Governor in addition to those from Mandel. I didn’t pay any attention, figuring they had gotten my name from a contribution to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Silly me; I hadn’t noticed Kasich was a Republican. After sending an unsubscribe reply, I told Mandel’s people to not only unsubscribe me but to never give out my email address again.

Despite assurances he was going to serve at least one term as state treasurer, Mandel quickly announced he would run in the Senate primary in 2012. He soundly defeated four opponents, winning 63 percent of the vote. Last spring, I received an invitation letter signed by a prominent real-estate executive for a Mandel fundraiser. It related a litany of supposed anti-Israel positions and votes by Brown and the need to elect a staunch pro-Israel supporter like Josh Mandel. The fundraiser would bundle the contributions (minimum request: $500) and present them to Mandel in the interest of further strengthening U.S.-Israel relations. After sharing it with a friend – pointing out the overwrought tone and many fallacies – the letter went into the recycling bin. So here’s where the story starts.

This sounds familiar, some might say; doesn’t AIPAC do that? The answer is no. It’s a common misconception that AIPAC endorses candidates and contributes to their campaigns. First off, it can’t because it’s not a political-action committee. Second, it gains much of its strength from being bipartisan. Another fallacy about AIPAC is that it makes policy and then pushes it on Capitol Hill, including urging the U.S. to invade Iraq after 9/11. Again, not true. It takes its cue from the government of Israel (which by the way warned us about invading Iraq) and lobbies for issues important to Israel. Passing the foreign aid bill is always the top priority because contrary to public perception, aid to all countries is packaged in one bill, and the members of Congress vote up or down. One can’t vote Yes for Israel and No for Egypt.

AIPAC’s influence on electoral politics is more indirect and, I may add, even more effective. Persons active in AIPAC are encouraged to join a local group that raises money for Congressional – but not presidential – candidates. I was involved in one such group; it deliberately does not have a name, and if asked its name, the reply would be, “We’re just a group of pro-Israel supporters.” Because I’m still on its distribution list and respect its wish to stay out of the limelight, some of my details will remain sketchy.

Some years back, supporters of strong U.S.-Israel relations realized it was inefficient and ineffective for individuals to send money to a candidate and express support for these policies. Forming a group to bundle the contributions was a sensible solution. Members pledge to make a minimum contribution of a size I won’t disclose over a two-year election cycle. How much and to whom is your business; in fact, the group is strictly bi-partisan in that sense.

Members organize luncheons or home visits for Senators, Representatives or candidates they feel have done a good job supporting U.S.-Israel relations or filled out questionnaire to the group’s liking. Discussions are limited strictly to that subject. Most often it’s an incumbent, since his or her record is public knowledge. Rarely do you see a fundraiser for somebody running against an incumbent, unless that incumbent is somebody like Ron Paul. On that subject, I’ve only received three special solicitations that simply asked for contributions because of opposition to a particular candidate: Rand Paul, when he was running in the Republican primary in 2010; Charles Barron, a 2012 candidate for the Democratic nomination for Congress in Brooklyn who has a history of anti-Israel statements; and Tammy Baldwin, who was accused of being “anti-Israel” and “anti-Jewish” by opponent Tommy Thompson, despite that fact she was raised by her Jewish grandmother.

Thus, I was not surprised by a summer invitation to a Sherrod Brown fundraiser. He was an incumbent with a good record on U.S.-Israel relations, and several Democratic members of the group staged the event. The Mandel fundraiser I know garnered contributions from group members but the group did not organize one.

This gets me to another local organization involved in pro-Israel fundraising: To Protect Our Heritage. It is in fact a political-action committee that endorses and contributes money to candidates. Its members were (and maybe still are) invited to select group fundraisers, with mixed results. I say this because it’s made up mostly of right-wingers, some far enough on the fringe to write for the loathsome American Thinker. One of them audaciously asked Sen. Patty Murray whether because Rachael Corrie, who was killed by a bulldozer protesting the destruction of the house of a suicide bomber, grew up in Washington it reflected on the quality of education in the state. Sen. Murray (a great lady, I might add) after some hesitation deflected the question as being off the subject. Another lectured then-Cong. Shelly Berkley to go back to D.C. and tell her Democratic colleagues to not oppose expansion of West Bank settlements. She meekly replied that she would. The group’s endorsements for 2012, in addition to Mandel, included Tommie Thompson and Richard Murdock for senator and Michelle Bachmann, Steve King, Joe Walsh and Allen West for Congress. Need I say more?

There then, is the real strength of the so-called Israel Lobby and – surprise! – it’s money. The sums now pale next to the tsunami of Super PAC cash, which thankfully was mostly wasted on the Republican side. Candidates will still heed the calls from pro-Israel fundraising groups to help ensure continued support on Capitol Hill. As for Josh Mandel, the money from names like Pritzker, Crown and Zell and tens of millions from Super PACs only served to make the race closer than it should have been. I hope those who attended that Chicago fundraiser or sent in their checks because they thought Mandel should be a U.S. Senator solely on his pro-Israel position realize what a callow, pro-life-with-no-exceptions pisher he turned out to be.

Down to the Wire

The addition of a second wild-card team has brought increased complexity to Major League Baseball. With five teams playing in each three-division league, a team like the Milwaukee Brewers – who were playing .500 ball until just recently – is still in the hunt for a post-season spot.

Things were far simpler 45 years ago to the day, when each league had 10 teams (up from 8 in the early 1960s) and no divisions. Two teams saw October, while the other 18 went home. In 1967, the American League in late September was looking at a 30,315,229 to 1 chance for a four-way tie for the pennant. It truly was Down to the Wire, the title of a 1992 book by former Dallas Morning News sportswriter Jeff Miller that chronicles the race between the Boston Red Sox, Chicago White Sox, Detroit Tigers and Minnesota Twins.

 Jeff Miller's definitive book on the 1967 AL pennant race

The 1967 White Sox were the reincarnation of The Hitless Wonders. The team, managed by Eddie Stanky, ended the season with a batting average of .225 (ironically, not the league’s lowest) and 89 homers, almost half as many as the league-leading Tigers. Don Buford and Ken Berry shared the team leadership with a .241 batting average, while Pete Ward led with 62 RBI, followed by Tommie Agee with 52 and Ron Hansen with 51. Since they were just an average fielding team, the Sox were carried by a pitching staff with an astounding ERA of 2.45; no team was lower than 3.14. The leading starting pitchers were Gary Peters (.2.28), Joel Horlen (2.06) and Tommy John (2.47). Bobby Locker (20 saves, 2.09) and Hoyt Wilhelm (12 saves, 1.31) anchored the bullpen. Desperate for hitting, the Sox traded for 36-year-old Ken Boyer from the Mets and 33-year-old Rocky Colavito from the Indians in July. Smoky Burgess, now age 40, was in his last season as what amounted to a designated pinch-hitter.

 Pete Ward and Don Buford

The surprising White Sox held first place from June 11 to August 12, regaining it for one day, September 6. Before the next night’s game, the American League sent former umpire Charlie Berry to inspect the condition of the infield, following complaints by Angels manager Bill Rigney. Head groundskeeper Gene Bossard, father of current head man Roger “The Sodfather” Bossard, was well known for keeping the home-plate area slightly less arid than a swamp and, under the league’s direction, Bossard’s crew steered a one-ton roller over the area. It was later confirmed that the Sox indeed put baseballs in a freezer before the games, thus helping negate opponents’ power. The Sox lost the next two games to the Tigers and would bounce between third and fourth place but still very much in the running.

Two surprises characterized the season. The 1966 World Champion Baltimore Orioles, who swept the Los Angeles Dodgers 4 to 0 in the Fall Classic, fell 21 games to finish 76-85 in 1967. The Boston Red Sox, 72-90 and only two games ahead of the last-place New York Yankees in 1966, were in fifth place as late as August 13 before storming into the pennant race, thanks in part to Carl Yaztremski’s Triple Crown season and the mid-season addition of present White Sox announcer Ken “Hawk” Harrelson. The Minnesota Twins and Detroit Tigers, second and third in 1966 with a one-game difference, had solid line-ups. Harmon Killebrew and Tony Oliva led the Twins in hitting, and Dean Chance joined Jim Kaat, a 25-game winner in 1966, on the mound. The Tigers were led by Al Kaline, Willie Horton Norm Cash and Bill Freehan, with star pitchers Denny McLain, Mickey Lolich and Earl Wilson.

 Ken "Hawk" Harrelson

The White Sox seemly had no business being in such company but with only five games remaining, they stood only 1 game out. The schedule was in their favor, with a double-header vs. the last place Kansas City A's on the road and eighth-place Washington Senators for a weekend series at home. The Twins were in first place, the Red Sox in second, one game back and percentage points ahead of the White Sox, and the Tigers were 1.5 games back in fourth. Because of a rainout, the Tigers would have to play back-to-back doubleheaders with the Angels in Detroit, while the Twins and Red Sox eventually squared off for the final two games in Boston.

A’s manager and Hall of Famer Luke Appling, a career White Sox player, would have liked to see the Sox win the pennant but sent two of his best pitchers, Chuck Dobson and Catfish Hunter, to face Peters and Horlen. The first game was a disaster for the Sox, scoring 2 runs (in the 9^th inning) on 4 hits while committing two errors, a wild pitch and passed ball on the way to a 5-2 loss. The second game was worse, blanked 4-0 on three hits by Hunter. Some 5,325 fans witnessed the meltdown, the last A’s games in Kansas City. They moved to Oakland the following season. (My blog post on the A's is http://brulelaker.blogspot.com/2012/05/kansas-city-athletics.html)

 

Chuck Dobson and Catfish Hunter

The Sox limped back to Chicago, now 1.5 games back in fourth place. A win on Friday night was a must. Only 12,665 showed up to watch the Sox stay in the race. Anticipating a possible World Series appearance, the Sox built a fenced-in area for photographers on the far side of the 1^st-base dugout. The Senators put runners on first and second vs. John in the 1^st inning, thanks to two errors. Fred Valentine then lofted a pop foul behind 1^st base that Tommy McCraw would have caught if the photographers’ area hadn’t been built. Valentine then singled to drive in a run, which held up thanks to 4-hit pitching by Phil Ortega, and the Sox’s 1-0 loss eliminated them from the pennant race. They then lost the final two games, 4-0 and 4-3, the Saturday game witnessed by 4,020 die-hard fans.

 Fred Valentine

So down to the wire it was, as the Tigers split their first doubleheader and the Red Sox beat the Twins on Saturday. The winner of Sunday’s Red Sox-Twins game was assured at least a tie for first place, while the Tigers needed a sweep to force a one-game playoff. The Red Sox defeated the Twins, 5-3, setting of a wild celebration resulting in the shutdown of the Kenmore T station for fear the mob would spill on to the third rail.

In the meantime, the Tigers won game 1 of the doubleheader, and somehow I found myself on the second floor of the D wing of Dravo Hall at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where I was a freshman, at about 7:30 EDT. Somebody had tuned in Ernie Harwell’s call of game 2 from WJR in Detroit. I arrived just in time to hear Dick McAuliffe ground into a Knoop-to-Fregosi-to-Mincher double play, thus ending the Tigers’ hopes with an 8-5 defeat.

 Ernie Harwell

It took the White Sox five years to recover from the disappointing ending. Attendance for the season was only 985,634, as the mid-summer shooting of a motorcycle policeman fueled increased fears of safety in the Comiskey Park neighborhood. The team and attendance got progressively worse, bottoming out in 1970, finishing 56-106, 42 games behind the division-winning Twins, before a total of 495,355 fans. I was not one of them, for the only season since my first game in 1953 or 1954, although my streak of seeing the Sox every year is intact by attending a game in Boston.