Jobs, Jobs, Jobs – Part Five

On A Kibbutz in Israel 1968
In the late 60’s, lots of young people from Canada and the United States went to Israel to volunteer on a Kibbutz. I was one of them.

The job assigned to me was digging gladiola bulbs out of the earth (which were later frozen and shipped out of the country). Our work day started at 5:00 am when we got onto a flat bed tractor that took us out into the fields. We worked until 7:00 am, at which time we’d go back for a hearty Israeli breakfast in the communal dining room.  (More about the breakfast in a minute.) After breakfast we’d head back into the fields and dig those gladiola bulbs until very early afternoon, at which time our work day ended. By then the temperature was about 35 degrees Celsius and the sun was way too hot to work under.

And speaking of the hot sun.......  poor me.

After only a week on the job I got very sick with heat exhaustion. I had to stay out of the sun completely. Thus began part two of ‘working on the kibbutz’.

I was offered a choice — I could work in the kitchen or in the laundry. Those who know me won’t be surprised that I didn’t choose the kitchen! So, the laundry it was. My job? – ironing men’s dress shirts!!! They taught me how. They taught me well. To this day, I am a very good ironer!

Oh, yes, I promised to tell you about the Israeli breakfast.

We farmers were hungry folk, and the Israelis know how to put together the world’s best breakfast. The following is a list of the food offered to us every morning:

• Orange juice
• Freshly baked bread and butter and jam
• Sweet rolls
• Eggs
• Cow and Goat Cheeses
• Olives
• Avocado
• Several varieties of fish
• All kinds of fresh vegetables
• Tahina (a thick dip made with sesame seeds)
• Lebaneh (a homemade yogurt cheese)
• Hummus (a dip made of pureed chick peas)
• Baba Ghanouj (a dip made of roasted and pureed eggplant)
• Israeli Salad (a mixture of feta cheese with cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers and onions, with some parsley or coriander)
• Rugelach (small pastries made from cream cheese dough filled with jam, chocolate, honey, or nuts)
• And Turkish coffee

Absolutely wonderful.

More About Chess

More about chess

My father was the Quebec Chess Champion in 1948. He learned to play chess when he was 3 years old, and played all his life. In fact, he continued to play long after he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease.  Some of the old timer chess players used to come to visit and play a game of chess with him.  He could still beat them, even after he no longer knew who they were!!!  I was told that was a function of learning how to play chess at a very young age, and then playing his entire life.

If you’ll forgive the name dropping, some of the friends with whom my father played chess on a regular basis were Samuel Reshevsky, Maurice Fox, Lionel Joyner, Abe (Daniel) Yanofsky, and Lawrence Day.

Besides Bobby Fischer, International Grandmaster Boris Spassky also came to Montreal and stayed at our house.   If memory serves, in later years, my parents hosted Anatoly Karpov and Gary Kasparov.

And here’s something just for fun: http://www.anusha.com/breasts.htm

The Day Bobby Fischer Came to My House

The Day Bobby Fischer Came to My House

The year was 1962. My father, a former Quebec Chess Champion, was very active in the Canadian Chess Federation. The CCF was bringing 18 year old Grandmaster Chess Player Bobby Fischer to Montreal for a Demonstration Tournament. Bobby Fischer would stay at our house, of course, just as many other Grandmasters had, before and after.

It quickly became apparent that Bobby Fischer came with only T-shirts and torn jeans.  That wouldn’t do, so my father whisked him off to Canadian Outfitting Company Ltd on St. Lawrence Blvd., where he bought Bobby Fischer more appropriate tournament clothing – a suit, a dress shirt and a tie.  See picture below (Bobby is standing, playing Moishe Cohen.  My father is the one in the hat observing the game.)

Knowing that Bobby Fischer was Jewish, my mother asked him if he had been Bar Mitzvahed. His reaction was swift and furious; no, he had not.  End of topic. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Fischer

I meant to publish this one on Mother's Day!

My dear mother is 95 years old, and living life fully.  Ten years ago, I sent her a Mother's Day card with the following message in it.  It seems fitting to repeat it again here, now.

Dear Mom,

When I’m feeling sad or lonely, I call you and you cheer me up.

When I find myself in a dilemma, I call you and you help me figure out what to do.

When I’m delighting in an achievement, I call you and you celebrate with me.

When I just feel like talking, I call you and you listen.

But the time will come when I no longer have you.

And when I feel low, I will remember your words of encouragement.

And when I struggle with a decision, I will apply your wisdom.

And when I celebrate an achievement, I will know you would have been proud.

And when I need to talk to you, I will.

Happy Mother's Day!

Your loving daughter

2010 Doctor's Office in Montreal

I find that as I get older, the doctors I see get younger and younger. In fact, some of them are children. So you can imagine my surprise, last week, when I took my 95 year old mother to see her eye doctor and discovered that he’s the same age as she is. Or almost.

Here’s a photo of his waiting room.

 

Here’s a photo of his doctor’s chair.

Here’s one of his patient’s chair.

And finally, here's a photo of his secretary at her TYPEWRITER.

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs – Part Four

As a Special Education teacher I had many years of rewarding work with children with special needs. I’ll probably write about that some time, but for the moment I seem to be remembering other jobs.

One was working for Stokes Seeds in St. Catharines. (Thanks JoAnn, for reminding me.) Stokes hired casual workers each Spring as ‘pickers’ and ‘packers’. Most of Stokes’ business was catalogue orders of seed packages. The warehouse had wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling shelves full of packages of seeds. As a ‘picker’, my job was to grab an order and a basket, and RUN through the warehouse ‘picking’ the correct seed packages, putting them in the basket, and then dropping the basket off at the packing department. Grab another order, another basket, etc. It took practice to find the right seeds quickly; some days I was assigned to vegetables, other days to flowers. My shift was 3:00 pm – 11:00 pm.

I could tell you about my sore feet, but believe me, I was one of the fortunate workers who could afford the luxury of a good pair of walking shoes. Others were not so blessed. I saw women (it was apparently ‘women’s work’) with swollen, blistered feet, wearing slippers and flip-flops, the best they could do on minimum wage. I could tell you about my sore back, which at first recovered overnight, but soon did not recover at all. I was in pain (feet and back) throughout my shift. But so was everyone else!

One evening I arrived to find I’d been re-assigned. I was to work in packing! Ah, the luxury of it. Picture a long counter with a row of bar stools. As ‘packers’ we got to SIT! Besides the comfort of sitting, I really enjoyed the job of packing. I was fast, accurate, and apparently very good at organizing and packing the boxes and wrapping them tightly, ready to mail. The person in charge of the packing department told me so! But after three wonderful nights packing, I was re-assigned to ‘picking’.

Devastated, I asked the head of the packing department why I had been re-assigned. She explained that all the jobs rotate and that she has no say in who works in her department.

The next morning, I went to the Stokes Seeds head office and asked to speak to the Personnel Department. 


“May I please be permanently on packing?”  “You see, it’s about my feet....”

“Absolutely not.”

“... and the head of packing really likes my work; she wants me to work there full time.”

“No.”

“Can I tell you about my back?”

My words were falling on deaf ears. (Or am I supposed to say ‘hearing-impaired ears’?)

“This is how it’s done; if you don’t like it, quit.”

“And while I’m here” I said, “may I make a suggestion?”  “Instead of stocking the seed packages alphabetically by name, if you placed the most popular ones on the middle shelves, the picking would go faster and you would eliminate a lot of the bending and stretching needed to reach for the packages, thus reducing the stress on the back, and probably cutting down on sick time.”

“This is how it’s done; if you don’t like it, quit.”

I quit.

COOK BOOK IDEA

Most people love cheese.  There are so many dishes that can be enhanced by adding cheese.  It makes sense then, that someone ought to write a cookbook on the topic.  It won’t be me, but I would like to be the one to choose the title for the book.

“What Would Cheeses Do?