Looking Around

By Marjorie Roth

Looking around my dining room where I am choosing a few things to be polished for the holidays, I spy with my little eye a number of things that are important to me.  Some have already been polished and are shining out, demanding attention.  I spy the well and tree platter which will hold the turkey on Christmas.  But outgleaming it is my emotional favorite:  a hot chocolate set so attractively designed it speaks to me whenever I see it.  It consists of a round silver tray with a beaded edge, a sugar bowl and a creamer, also beaded, with each shaped in a particularly delightful way.

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My Accomplishment This Year

By Marjorie Roth

At age 100 it’s a little hard to say I’ve accomplished anything but survival this past year. I feel a little like Ukraine: fighting as I can but slowly losing ground. I have to recognize I’m living an altered life. I’ve begun to think that realization applies to life in toto, if we start with Shakespeare’s Ages of Man. It starts with the infant mewling and puking in his nurse’s arms, and finishes with walking on three legs, one of them a cane. Well, I can only walk on two legs and a counter, or on two legs and four wheels that will move me along. If Shakespeare had known about driving a car, he would have used it for adolescent age and the absence of it for old age. That stage alters life drastically. If I want to go anywhere I need someone to drive me, and then I need to be sure when I get out of the car I will have my walker and that there are railings and not too many steps to climb.

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A Long Journey

By Marjorie Roth

No, I’m not talking about a trip in a covered wagon.  I’m not talking about a trip to the Camargue, nor a gastronomical trip through Provence.  No, I’m talking about life.

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Things I Wish They Had Told Me

By Marjorie Roth

Ours was a close family even though we were scattered around the country. When I say family, I am talking about my father’s family. There were eight surviving children who as adults continued the bond of their childhood. Growing up in Kissimmee, Florida, running the general store, being the only Jewish family probably contributed to the closeness. The stories that came down to me from my grandmother described how the children seemed to hang together in couples. All her children had nicknames which added to the intimacy. For example, my father was called Lovey. We treated it as a proper name, so my cousins called him “Uncle Lovey”. There was a family story about my uncle who, as a shy child, when asked his name would answer “My name is Jody, but they call me sweetsum”. There seemed to be a birthing arrangement of boy-girl-boy girl. The close pairs of siblings –  Alda and Lovey, Morton and Sis, Dora and Jody – represented that.

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The Last Time I Saw Marty

By Marge Roth

The last time I saw Marty I didn’t think he looked well – a little pale, a little pudgy. But he was his same sweet self. Our periodic reunions were always special, illuminated by warmth from the past, and unfulfilled connections we didn’t really understand.

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Fitting In

By Marge Roth

I was always a child who fit in–at least I felt like it. I always expected to become part of whatever group there was, or might be, and for the most part, that’s the way my life went. Sometimes this had more appearance of fitting in; I only became aware of that when something was said that roused some discomfort in me, an awareness that distance was being created between me and whoever.

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My Home

By Marge Roth

There was a time in Brooklyn in the 1930’s when, in the several square blocks in our neighborhood with which I was familiar, as an observing 10 year old I was affected by the differences in people.

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