Our Day of the Dead
By Gene Aronowitz
Growing up in a Jewish Family, I was familiar with the Jewish rituals designed to honor the dead. The word shiva, as in sitting shiva, means “seven,” and this practice includes seven days of communal mourning designed to facilitate emotional healing after the funeral. On the anniversary of a loved one's passing, many mourners light a 24-hour candle. On the afternoon of the holiest day of the year, Yom Kippur, there is a public communal memorial service during which the names of all those being remembered are read. Although not an observant Jew, I have always tried to observe the spirit of those practices.
For over thirty years, ending in 2018, my wife, Linda, and I lived in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, which was then over 40% Hispanic, many of whom were Mexican Americans. During late October and early November, local bakeries were stocked with pan de Muerto, or bread of the dead, and with cakes, cookies, and rolls similarly decorated with the likenesses of skeletal skulls. Customers consumed these delicacies during Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, celebrated on November 1 and 2 each year. Their joyous observances are typically structured like family reunions, during which the departed people are presumed to be the guests of honor. Although neither Linda nor I is of Mexican heritage, we decided to use the Day of the Dead celebration as a model for our own remembrances. We decorated part of our 3-story Brooklyn brownstone townhouse with vases and garlands of marigolds from our garden and enjoyed the Day of the Dead bread and pastries. Then, in 2010, we decided to celebrate the lives of more relatives and light a candle for each of them.
It was easy for me to expand the list of our honorees.I was the family genealogist. Many of the people on the family trees were distant relatives with whom neither Linda nor I had personal relationships. However, we were able to identify 50 relatives that one or both of us knew personally and meaningfully. I printed a list of those individuals for our 2010 observance.
In the hallway on the third floor of our Brooklyn brownstone, we had a large marble-topped rectangular table built by Linda’s great-uncle, who had died 26 years before. We thought the table could serve as a suitable altar because it was large enough to hold the 50 clear glass votive candles we bought, one for each of the 50 people on our remembrance list. Each candle was designed to burn for 10 hours. As each was lit, I recited one of the names off the list, and we talked about our relationships with each relative. This process took almost an hour.
When the ceremony ended, we went down to our ground floor, but would check on our conflagration from time to time to assure ourselves that our home was not in danger of burning down. The last time we went up, about two hours after we lit the candles, we could hardly breathe;50 candles can consume a lot of oxygen. All the windows and doors in the house had been closed because of the near-freezing temperature on that November day. We opened them slightly and blew out all the candles. This eliminated the specter of the whole house becoming as asphyxiating as the third floor had become, conceivably suffocating us as we slept, prematurely having us join the ranks of those whom we were honoring.
Carlos and I
By Gene Aronowitz
As described in another memoir, “Cycling and Street Safety” (Footnote: https://genearonowitz.com/b/index.php/memoirs/cycling-and-street-safety), I was very active with Transportation Alternatives (T.A.), a cycling and street-safety advocacy organization in New York City. I was honored to be their Volunteer of the Year in 2011. However, after a dispute with that organization, I resigned from one of its committees, of which I was the Vice Chair. A few days later, I received a call from Paco Abraham, the chair of the committee and a member of StreetsPAC, a political action committee. That organization had just endorsed Carlos Menchaca, who was running in a primary for a New York City Council seat against the incumbent, Sara Gonzalez. Paco said that he and the other members of StreetsPAC were very impressed with Carlos because he was so interested in street safety, and that cycling was his primary form of transportation. “Perhaps,” Paco hinted, “I might use my newfound time working on his campaign.”
Something about getting back into politics appealed to me. I was already pumped up, having, by that time, watched every single episode in all seven seasons of “The West Wing” - twice. Although fanciful, that series led me to imagine that electoral politics could be exciting, useful, and enjoyable. Forty years earlier, for a total of fifteen years. I had experienced the administrative side of politics. I had been a public official, first in Ohio and then in Westchester County, New York. However, I had never been involved in electoral politics except for a brief period when I made a few telephone calls for Barack Obama.
Joining Carlos’ campaign was also a little vindictive. I was sore at Sara Gonzalez, the incumbent City Council member whom Carlos was challenging in the primary. When I was a street safety advocate with T.A., I wrote to her frequently, and she never responded to any of my letters.
Carlos’s headquarters was just around the corner from our house in Brooklyn. I walked over and asked if I could be of any help. His campaign manager, Ivan Luevanos, asked if my wife, Linda, and I would be willing to host a “meet and greet” for Carlos. We picked a date, August 24, 2013, and I invited many of my former colleagues from T.A. The discussion was terrific; Carlos was knowledgeable, engaging, and responsive. I was immediately impressed and asked Ivan if I could be more involved with his campaign.
He wondered if I would be willing to make some telephone calls to older people. I was 76 years old at the time. I was hesitant because when I had tried to make calls for Barack Obama during his first campaign five years earlier, I had disliked that experience. They had asked me to make calls to Ohio, a swing state, but most people hung up on me because they were being inundated with political calls. Most of the rest made me feel that my call was a huge imposition. A bit reluctantly, I told Ivan I would try. However, to my surprise, I found making calls for Carlos quite satisfying; I was calling older people who lived in or near my neighborhood. They were responsive and interested. My favorite call was to an elderly Chasid from Borough Park. The call went something like this:
Me: Hello, my name is Gene Aronowitz, the chair of Seniors for Menchaca. Do you have a couple of minutes to talk?
Him: No. I’m too busy. But tell me, is he good for the Jews?
Me: Well, I’m Jewish, and he’s good for me.
Him: OK. I’ll vote for him.
Ivan then asked if I would help Carlos meet with older people in senior centers. My agreement led Carlos to refer to me as his Trojan Horse. At the first senior center we approached, I deceptively told the receptionist that Carlos – he was 33 at the time – helped me get around. We were both admitted. Carlos was engaging and even danced with some of the participants. Political activity at publicly supported facilities was discouraged, and once the director figured out what we were up to, she asked Carlos to leave. By then, he had won over most of the elders and left in a way that cemented a positive relationship between Carlos and the director. We went to several other facilities in the area, always apprehensive that the directors would tell the directors of other senior centers about our ploy, but apparently none of them ever did.
Carlos won the primary against the incumbent handily with 58% of the vote and went on to win the general election with 90%. Pumped up, I asked Carlos if I could continue volunteering with him. He said he would be delighted if I worked on legislation.
My first job was to evaluate the proposed legislation created by other members of the City Council. This helped Carlos decide whether to lend his support. The more members who sign on to a piece of legislation, the greater the likelihood of its passage. Later, when Carlos promoted his legislative director to chief of staff, he asked me to take full responsibility for legislation, and I became the unsalaried Director of Legislative Affairs.
I prepared numerous legislative bills, typically at his request but sometimes on my own initiative. My primary contributions to Carlos’ legislative accomplishments focused on cycling and street safety. I met regularly with my former colleagues in T.A. to get their ideas and used most of them. A few became laws.
I attended numerous City Council meetings, including committee meetings. These were often done remotely, enabling me to do instant computer research on matters being discussed and text Carlos about what I learned.
When Carlos ran for reelection in 2017, I was made Campaign Chair, a title designed to distinguish me from a professional Campaign Manager who would later be hired to handle day-to-day operations. I recruited and oversaw a group of volunteers to handle community relations, data processing, fundraising, opposition research, and similar functions. I held that post until I became overwhelmed by the combined responsibility of ongoing legislative work, campaign work, and my day job as a management consultant. Rovika Rajkishun, a local activist who later became a friend, replaced me, but I continued to work along with her primarily to seek endorsements from political action and advocacy organizations. Carlos won the Democratic primary, 48% to 33%, outdistancing Félix Ortiz, then the Assistant Speaker of the New York State Assembly. He won the general election with 82% of the vote.
Carlos and I had a productive and mutually satisfying relationship. Like The West Wing episodes when Leo McGarry found and hung on to Jed Bartlet, and Josh Lyman found and hung on to Matt Santos, I felt lucky to find and hang on to Carlos. The whole experience was a turn-on. Even though unsalaried, I thought the time I spent on his campaigns and as his Legislative Director constituted sound, productive, and very meaningful career moves.
Although Carlos served on the City Council for another four years, my only lingering responsibility was documenting his achievements. Linda and I used the time to prepare to move 120 miles north to East Taghkanic, New York, her old hometown. Political associates asked me if I was planning to run up there. I said I wasn’t, adding, "We’re going to drive."
A version of this memoir is included in the book 23 More Memoirs.
What Now
By Gene Aronowitz
My wife, Linda, and I were shopping at a local supermarket. We had only three items left to locate: hummus, blueberries, and fish fillets. “I’ll get the fish,” Linda said.
I approached the courtesy counter. “Do you have any hummus?” I asked.
The attendant pointed toward the vegetable aisle. “All the way at the end,” she said.
I found classic hummus where she said it would be and put it in our shopping cart, where we had left it. Then, I returned to the courtesy counter. “You couldn’t find it?” she asked.
“Oh yes, I found it, but now I need some blueberries.” She pointed at the aisle behind me. I went over and picked up a large container of berries. I returned immediately to where the shopping cart had been, but couldn’t find it. Assuming my wife had moved it, I started circling the aisles, looking around. The attendant saw me walking by and asked abruptly, “What are you looking for now?”
“My wife,” I replied, and saw her grin broadly.
A version of this memoir is included in the book 23 More Memoirs.
To Look At
By Gene Aronowitz
In a Manhattan building that housed numerous rehearsal studios, I squeezed into a small elevator, a Lilliputian in the center of six stunning models.
Twisting, I surveyed a forest of fashionable jeans, the highest waistlines at least two inches beneath their navels. I also saw one long, pleated, tartan skirt, slightly flared, wound around a tiny waist.
As we descended, I slowly scanned the skirted one whose left leg had invaded my space. A sheer white blouse covered a braless chest. I chanced a glance at her full lips, high cheekbones, and wide eyes. Gorgeous, I thought, but then, embarrassed at being caught, my eyes dropped quickly toward the floor.
As the elevator stopped at the second floor, I closed my eyes in contrived contemplation, not supposed to look or even listen, which is difficult in New York City, where conversations fill the air like the swarm of famished bats. “I don’t need that shit,” the woman in the skirt said and then described the outrageous sexual expletives she anticipated from the construction workers who had been noisily occupying the street the last few days.
When the elevator reached the lobby floor, the women walked out. But as they did, I regretted not saying anything to the one in the skirt. I thought she looked fantastic and very sexy. But I said nothing, settling for the superior feeling of not being characterized as a voyeuristic and lecherous young stud standing among them.
A version of this memoir is included in the book 23 More Memoirs.
H.O.
By Gene Aronowitz
One day, when we lived in Brooklyn, we went to see a movie at the Film Forum, a nonprofit art-house cinema in Greenwich Village, the go-to theater for the NYC cinephile community. On our way, we stopped at a health food store and bought some valerian root, an anxiety-reducing herb we fancied.
When we sat down in the theater, we noticed a fetid smell. Sitting in front of us was a rather unkempt person. Linda leaned over toward me and whispered, “H.O.”
“What?” I asked.
“Heinie odor,” she answered, an acronym she acquired as a teenager from one of her friends to refer to the repeated flatulence of someone they knew. We nodded to each other knowingly. I tilted my head, indicating that we should move, and we shifted our seats about three rows closer to the screen.
But the new location had the same stinky scent. Linda said, “It wasn’t that guy. It’s the theater that stinks.”
Back inside our house later that afternoon, Linda placed her backpack on the stairway. Bending down to take off her shoes, she noticed the same odor and removed the brown paper bag containing the valerian root. “It’s this,” she yelled. “This is what stinks.”
We laughed and wondered how many people might have sat behind us, wrinkling their noses and silently transferring to seats with presumably sweeter-smelling neighbors.
A version of this memoir is included in the book 23 More Memoirs.