Swept Away (eBook)

Chapter 1.
Introduction

This is a story about the father-and-son relationship that helped shape my life. My father, Harry, was the hero of our family story. He went out from our home in Springfield, Ohio, each week to sell his brooms. On those lonely highways, pre cell phone or Sirius XM radio, curiosity was his companion. On his return, he entertained us with his adventures.

Dad had coal black hair and was a solid five-foot-eleven, though he looked even taller to us. I would have to emerge out of his shadow. He had bright, welcoming brown eyes when in good spirits. He had a gravelly Fred Flintstone voice. He was happiest playing cards, hitting golf balls, and dreaming up new products to take on the road. After a great golf shot or sales call he might yell, “Yabba Dabba Doo.” I would inherit some of his boyish enthusiasm, storytelling, and humor. These would be helpful resources for me to carry on my life’s journey.

My father’s nickname was “The Bear.” He could be a teddy bear or a grizzly bear, often in the same evening. The teddy bear was a gregarious greeter and a funny storyteller. The grizzly bear was an impatient, frustrated, fearful, and angry sales manager. Like his father, Louis, he was a dapper bear. In Dad’s closet, suits hung by color and season. Shoes stood at attention on shoe trees, snugly on duty. Our maid said, “Mr. Harry, you are a peacock.” He drove an ultramarine Buick Electra 225—a princely carriage.

Dad the teddy bear could be endearing. He told stories with drama and comic timing. I chose to mirror my father’s style—its adventurousness, ambition, and curiosity. I longed to be a storyteller, to hold court, to entertain the table as he had. Unknowingly, as just a kid, I accepted the burden of his restlessness, drivenness, and loneliness. I learned well how to leave others, choosing to leave my family and friends for the work and rituals of the road. I grew up as a traveling bear in waiting.

Bears are big, lumbering beasts, so there was not always room in my childhood house for two bears. From Monday until Thursday afternoon I would forage with freedom. I could raid the pantry. While he was gone I could hold court at the family dinner table. By Thursday dinner, the big bear was back. Time for cubs to take a lower profile.

As an elementary school boy, I remember how Dad usually went out on the road for four days and left his young wife (nine years his junior) at home with us kids. On the trail, he would be in pursuit of customers. I was left on the home front with my mother and two sisters. Mom often seemed lonely and afraid. She fought these anxieties with an organized household regime. Dad came home the conquering hero to a well-ordered home. He was given the largest plate and the most dinner talk airtime to tell his stories.

As I grew up I tried to keep up with him by eating and talking FAST—gulping, gasping, and grabbing for every speaking opportunity. I had just three days to work with. Come Monday, he would be gone. To this day, if a client gives me five minutes to speak, I make the most of it.

For our family he was “The Bear”. While bears were on my mind, I did not adopt the bear name for myself until my sixties as I began to see, through my memoir writing, these bearlike qualities in myself. My second wife, Carolyn, refers to me as her bear. I got a plush teddy bear on Valentine’s Day and a collection of toy bears for my bookcase. I captured this bear spirit in a poem I wrote in 2020.

13 Curious Things about Bears

1. My father was a booming big man,
   dark black hair on head and chest,
   curly toenails and gruff, gravelly voice.
   We called him “The Bear.” He roamed the highways.
2. Black bears are often hidden
   among trees of green and brown.
   I am a big man,
   Stand out in any crowd.
3. I feel small, head down,
   when facing some challenges,
   or when I imagine a tall black Daddy bear
   walking on his back legs.
4. A wet chill grabs me when winds wail,
   Bears are bothered little,
   One layer of fur pushes back the freeze,
   the other keeps them dry on damp days.
5. Bears are fast for big beasts,
   As a big man, I like to think I have fast feet,
   particularly on the dance floor. Surprised?
6. Bears can run for two miles without stopping.
   I could run longer when I was young,
   Won’t say how long now.
7. I admire how bears daringly dash about,
   and don’t overstay their welcome at a diner waiting for a check,
   or whining about doctor’s appointments.
8. When bears hibernate, their heart rate drops to eight beats per min,
   They don’t have to get up to pee,
   After a scary dream, I wake up, heart beating fast,
   Without a nightmare—up twice a night to pee.
9. Bears scavenge campsites to graze,
   They will eat anything, snowmobile seats, rubber boots
   I tore up my friend’s pantry one night,
   looking for marmalade.
10. I used to smell my food as a child,
    and kept my peas within their frozen dinner compartments.
    Bears have one hundred times better smell,
    Don’t think they care about compartments.
11. Bears can live up to thirty years,
    Do they have midlife crises?
    I have had several.
12. I often remind my wife during Jeopardy,
    I’m smarter than you think.
    Bears might surprise you,
    they can open a locked car door with a claw
    and lift the ring tab on a Coors.
13. At sixty-nine, I was thinking about my life and my father.
    I was swept away on a curious journey.
    Bears are big, live large, celebrate a life of curiosity,
    appreciate a well-earned nap.

I am curious, faster than you think, and a formidable presence. I can leave a mess. I have tried to live large and follow my adventurous instincts.

Appreciation

My parents worked hard, lived modestly, and saved their money. They cared for us. They valued learning and brought it into the home. They were hopeful for us, even though they had grown up in a culture of anxiety. They carried the baggage of their childhood, their generation, Jewish history, and their own personal mishagas (craziness) while still building a home and doing their part for the Jewish community.

Having been in memoir classes for five years, I have shared in the lives of fellow writers. How many, as four- or five-year-olds, internalized the anxieties of their families? Before they had the ability to describe their anxiety in words, their bodies held fear of shame, abandonment, and loss. I saw in their writing the inner child who still remembers those fears. How many teens remember painful words, some spoken in anger, others as careless, uncaring quips? The disapproving facial expressions of their parents and sounds of hurtful words were carried forward by their children. I have come to believe that this is the inheritance of childhood.

I regret the stress I unloaded on my wife and kids. By scanning through my life as I wrote this memoir, I found the capacity to forgive my parents. They tried their best. I pray I will have compassion for myself, too. I hope, in my recollections, I will discover that I worked hard, lived modestly, saved money, cared for my family, valued learning, and contributed to community.

My Own Kind of Bear

After growing up amidst my father’s big bearlike presence, I would go on a life journey to discover how to be my own person. At thirty-three I became the sales leader of our family broom business (O-Cedar/Vining) and, after a major career transition at fifty, a consultant to synagogues. This memoir tells the story of how I was swept away from a small Midwestern town to New York City and from a family broom business to synagogue leadership.

In 1993, when my father was seventy-six and semiretired, we sold the business to outside investors. Three years after the sale, I began to scribble down ideas on my legal pad, just as my father did. But instead of new broom products, I dreamed about new career ideas. I wanted to get off the road. I hoped to be less driven by the rigors of nonstop combat in the cleaning products business. I wanted to write the script for a new kind of bear.

In 1996, I gave the new O-Cedar investors notice that I wanted to explore new things. During this 2-year transition, I worked as a consultant for the new O-Cedar investors and as an independent marketing consultant. I created a business school class in entrepreneurship at the University of Dayton. I got a Master’s degree in Jewish education and taught religious school. I spread a lot of ideas across my table, and finally a picture appeared. I went to a life- and career-planning workshop and came up with the idea of combining my business background and my emerging interest in Judaism. Over the next three years I committed to putting my plan into action. As all this was percolating, I got a letter.

The Call

I received a form letter from the Alban Institute about a job opening. Based in Washington, D.C., the Alban Institute was the largest consulting firm for mainline Protestant churches. I had met a Jewish leader from D.C. at an educators’ conference, and he’d taken my business card and given it to Alban.

Alban had recently received a grant from three big Jewish philanthropists to hire one Jewish person to develop a practice of synagogue consulting at the all-Protestant think tank. They now had my name on their list. Sure, their writing me was a bit of a fluke. They didn’t know me. I didn’t know them. I might have had doubts about...