Carol Bergman

 

A nationalist will say that "it can't happen here," which is the first step toward disaster. A patriot says that it could happen here, but that we will stop it.

 

― Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny

 

 

Freedom is not just an absence of evil. Freedom is a presence of good. It is the value of values, the condition in which we choose and combine the good things, bringing them into the world, leaving our own unique trace. It is positive.

 

-Timothy Snyder, On Freedom

 

I took Timothy Snyder's advice and put my body in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people, the Justice Court in the small village where I live in Upstate New York.  Full disclosure, I went with a friend who was feeling trepidatious after receiving a speeding ticket, and asked for support. She had never been to court before and had asked if I'd find out more about this particular court. Then she asked if I'd call my Sheriff "friend" to put in a good word, or if I knew the judge. I had interviewed the Sheriff for the local paper, but he is not my friend; there's a firewall between my professional and personal life. But my friend was scared, and not thinking clearly. I told her the request was inappropriate, and she understood.

 

We decided we'd both wear suits and tame our wild hairstyles, out of respect for the court and the formality of its proceedings. Our politics dictate this posture: humility, no one above the law. Thus do we all stand when the judge enters the courtroom; he is the emblem of our 240-year-old imperfect judicial system.

 

There are almost 1,200 Justice Courts in New York State, and thousands more in small towns across the country. They deal with small-town matters: evictions, family troubles, small claims, traffic violations, and are considered the courts "closest to the people," according to a New York State brochure I just read.  But for all its modesty, the rituals of a Justice Court are impressive, even awe-inspiring. On the day my friend was scheduled to appear, there was a long line to pass through a rigorous security check. The usual impulse to chat to a neighbor had dissipated, the hallway utterly silent. Once inside the courtroom, we were directed to hard wooden pews, and settled in to what turned out to be a long night. The movement of the police officers in their bulky bullet-proof vests and pistols, the lawyers in their black and gray suits, and the clerks conducting the well-choreographed proceedings were mesmerizing in their apparent harmony and efficiency. The judge seemed far away, snuggled behind his elevated, portentous desk, speaking privately—no microphone—and  sotto voce to everyone.

 

Then it was my friend's turn to approach the bench. Time had run out and her case was postponed until the following week, which was deflating and also stressful. There was nothing to do but go out for a hearty meal and try to relax.

 

I couldn't stop thinking about that courtroom all week, how quiet it was, how well organized. Everyone knew their role and their place, everyone was polite, and everyone appearing in front of the judge was—not surprisingly—attentive . I wondered if Trump felt anything similar in the courtrooms he has been in of late: fear, for example, or wonder. Is he totally oblivious to the rigors and purpose of our judicial system? In the best of times, in the worst of times, this is a system that works, that can be made to work if we continue to attend to its flaws and correct them.  

 

Most local justices are elected officials. If we don't approve of what they do, we are free to take our objections to the ballot box. As for the political corruption of SCOTUS, that's a more complicated challenge, one of many we'll be facing in the days, months and years beyond November 5th.

 

This post is dedicated to all the young American citizens, and new American citizens, who will be voting for the first time in November.

 

 

It is a tale told by an idiot,

 full of sound and fury,

signifying nothing.

 

-from Macbeth by William Shakespeare

 

 

 

Another encounter with a stranger in a parking lot last week raised my spirits and reminded me that none of us need be strangers if we open ourselves to conversation and connection. The sound and fury all around us—social media, cable news, unending talk shows—is deafening, and we must shut it down to hear our own voices, those of others in our orbit and, even more importantly, out of our orbit. How do we feel? What are we thinking? What are our particular challenges right now? And what about all the innocent earthlings caught in the orbit of those who are disgraced?

 

The woman in the parking lot—her name was Estelle—had a dark blue Honda, younger than mine by ten years or so, but the paint is chipping, she complained. It was a cool autumn day and I was willing to linger for conversation.  My mantra at the end of a close-knit, trusting talk these days is always, "Are you registered to vote?" But within minutes,  Estelle and I established that we were both registered to vote, could not wait to vote, were both Democrats, and had migrated from the city  to upstate New York, she from Harlem and I from Washington Heights. And we have even more in common: We both have a grown daughter, and we both are educators. I was relieved. I could relax into the conversation and, by the end, had handed her my card. "Let's meet for a coffee some time," I said, whereupon she blessed me. The cadence of her New York accent soothed me, the blessing more so. My readers will know that I never refuse a blessing, or deflect it. "Thank you," I said. "I could use a blessing today."

 

 

"People may disappoint us," she said, "but He never does."

 

I told her that I have no faith in a "higher power," but I would cherish her blessing nonetheless. I would put it in my jar of blessings and pull it out whenever I am disappointed by the hatred I sometimes receive on email in response to something I've written, for example.

 

Then I headed home, the radio tuned to one of several syndicated evangelical stations I can pick up in Ulster County. I land on them by accident because the music—country, folk, or pop—lures me. The music is followed by a bible reading or a sermon, suffused with sturm und drang, fear, sin and exhortation; it keeps me glued. One sermon this week was about abortion, how doctors are executing babies, one of the newest vicious tropes. It was upsetting to hear it spew out of the mouth of a young woman lay preacher who hopefully has never needed an abortion. She ended the screed with a call to the ballot box.  

 

How many of my neighbors are listening to these stations, I wonder? I have no idea. I only know that most of America is lost to me here in the mountains, among like-minded acquaintances, colleagues and friends. Beyond my day-to-day forays into my neighborhood, my digitalized, atomized world is secluded and circumscribed. I struggle not to turn away from troubling ideas, events and people into the comfort of my own certainties. That zone of safety is an illusion.

 

 

 

Ah, the women are nearly always right, all the same, he says. Do you know what the women have a gift for?

 

What?

 

Eventualities. A good woman can look far down the line and smell what's coming before a man even gets a sniff of it.

 

-Claire Keegan,  Foster

 

 

The Greek diner was empty when we pulled into the driveway near dinner time. We were down near Newburgh for an eye check appointment and after a long wait needed a culinary respite and some fun in preparation for The Big Debate. Most Greek diners date back to the 1950s when there was a wave of Greek immigration. Some are faux copies, but the Ikaros looked authentic. Its stainless steel art deco trim sparkled in the late day autumn sunshine, but the concrete steps leading to the entrance were broken, and we had to step over them, which might have been a warning, if we had been in the mood to heed such warnings. Despite their higher prices these days, we looked forward to the menu, which we knew would be voluminous, and include a spanakopita, my favorite.

 

There was only one other couple in a booth and a couple of waitresses, dressed in black with aprons tied around their waists. Charming, I thought. But the silence in the nearly empty room reverberated. If the diner wasn't doing well, what would the food be like? The waitress plunked down two glasses of water, her hand all over the top of the glasses. Not so charming. I dipped my paper napkin into the water and cleaned them. Don't make a fuss, I said to myself. We are here to relax. But my well-honed city "attitude" was already in gear. I would have sent those glasses back pronto in the city. 

 

Then came the menus and the waitress hovering behind me as we perused the gazillion choices, ordered, and thanked her. More waiting in a day of waiting. I figured the spanakopita was frozen and my husband's eggs benedict flown in from parts unknown. Something's wrong, I said to myself. We should have left before we stepped over the broken steps. Sometimes my intuition won't quit, or is it my writer's imagination? 

 

The food arrived, it was eatable, and we enjoyed our conversation. Then it was time for the check. I had decided to treat my husband and pulled out my credit card. Our waitress had disappeared, rush-hour traffic was building, and we wanted to get going. I took my credit card and headed for the restroom. There was our waitress, sitting on a stool at the counter, scrolling on her phone, it seemed. I handed her my card. She barely looked up at me, but I took a good long look at her for future reference: in her 40s maybe, hair salt and pepper, and disheveled, no makeup and close-together eyes. She was still on her phone when I surfaced from the restroom. What was she typing into her phone as she held onto my credit card,  and why wasn't our check ready? All those strange lingering- at- our- table moments, and now this. I was already writing the noir screenplay.

 

The obligatory scene at the table came next: The check with credit card plunked down, and the waitress at my shoulder. I was paralyzed with haut disdain, and  could not say anything as she watched me decide on a tip and sign the receipt. But that wasn't the end of it. The end of it was my conviction that she had stolen my credit card information. She was a thief and I would report her to the local constabulary.

 

I checked my credit card statement as soon as I returned home and for two days after. So far so good. It seems as though my imagination went wild, or I had momentarily lost trust in humankind. Why had it disappeared so suddenly? Was it the prospect of another assault from the guy who should be in an orange jump suit? None of the above, dear reader. I had mistaken, or misread, the waitress's boredom and eccentricity. Mea culpa.

 

 

 

This is my story. A story of how my determination to become a top professional table tennis competitor helped me overcome the stigma of being physically disabled and survive the obstacles of homelessness and petty crime.

 

 

-Tahl Leibovitz

The Book of Tahl; From Homelessness to Paralympic Gold

 

 

 

I was already a tennis player when I arrived at UC Berkeley, but my boyfriend, Jim, had never seen a tennis racket before, not a decent one anyway. We were in love so, naturally, I decided to teach him how to play. Never having had the opportunity, he had no idea he'd be good at racket sport, very good. I had always been a competitive athlete "for a girl," and I wasn't going to subsume my competitive spirit to a guy, even to a guy I was in love with. It was very frustrating because Jim was a hot shot the minute his racket touched the ball, and I never got a game off him once he learned how to play.

 

Fast forward to our decade-long sojourn in London where Jim became a squash player, and then in New York where he took up racquet ball. And then one day he got hit on the left ear with the dense, hard racquet ball and developed vertigo. He'd been in the navy on a ship for a couple of years so the swaying sensation was familiar, but every athlete loathes injury if it means lay-off , and Jim was miserable. Off he went one day for a swaying walk up 86th street between Second and Third Avenue where he found a pool hall. At the very back were several table tennis tables and a tall guy giving lessons. That was it, he was hooked. Here was a racquet sport he could play forever, and all over the world.

 

Years passed and Jim met Tahl Lebovitz, who became one of his coaches. Tahl had a back story that resonated with Jim. They both had similar hardships in childhood because of abusive parents: Tahl had been homeless, Jim spent some of his growing up years in foster care. But it wasn't only their rough childhoods that drew them into a trusting collaboration; they both have physical disabilities—Tahl has bone tumors and Jim had polio that left one side of his body smaller than the other, not as serious as Tahl's disability, but serious enough. Both are disciplined avid table tennis players though Jim will never be able to get a game off Tahl, which must be divine justice. Tahl also competes against able-bodied players and is a member of the US Paralympic Team; he's just home from Paris as I write and his memoir, completed before his departure, is now published and available online:  The Book of Tahl

 

There's always a story behind a story, and this is Jim's and Tahl's and his wife Dawn's, who loves to sing at church, and mine, too, as I have watched the relationship between these two remarkable men deepen over the months of working together on Tahl's book. Tahl's story, and the honor of publishing his memoir, has lifted our spirits, as I am sure it will lift yours.