Citizen of the Month

the writing and photography of Neil Kramer

Category: Life in General (Page 1 of 46)

20 Minutes on IM #4: With Sarah

November 19, 2017 / / 2 Comments

You may notice that I start projects here, and then lose interest in them (note: I’m still on day 4 of my gratitude-post-a-day from six months ago),  One of these experimental blog projects was started and abandoned three and a half years ago – I called it “20 Minutes on IM.”    The idea was to IM with a friend on Facebook Messenger for a pre-arranged twenty minutes,  and then post the conversation online.   I was interested in crossing the boundary between public and private, which, even during the Obama administration,  was an outdated  and dangerous concept.    Now, it just seems crazy.

A month ago, I decided to pick up with this interactive experiment where I left off, and have an IM conversation with Sarah Gilbert.  We arranged for a time, and I told her that everything we say was going to be made public.  Everything.  Sarah naively agreed.

In reading over the exchange, one element stands out for me, and it has to do with my own sexism.  Even though Sarah is an avid cyclist, is there any reason for me to mention her “strong thighs” not just once, but twice! In the scheme of things, it is pretty mild, and Sarah took no offense, but this just proves the ramifications of the #metoo movement.   Even men who aren’t predators are starting to look at themselves – and how they treat women – in a new way.

Neil
Hello, Sarah

Sarah Gilbert
Hi Neil! It’s fun to talk to you formally…

Neil
we used to talk all the time on here, remember….

Sarah Gilbert
I remember the days. It’s hard to keep up with my love life without a lot of conversation

Neil
it has been making me feel sad lately that I am losing touch with people back from blogging days because there is nothing holding us together anymore.

Sarah Gilbert
We don’t feel the compulsion to go to the conferences as much anymore…

Neil
it really feels like after you graduated college and you move on

Sarah Gilbert
…and the conversation has shifted.  It’s fun to think about all the ways we have transitioned in storytelling though.

Neil
yep. Also life happens. It is hard to keep up.

Sarah Gilbert
I want to talk about the secret single mom group but… you know the rules. Lots of conversations have had to be forced private.

Neil
Now of everyone I met online, you have probably had the most…. uh adventurous and chaotic last five years….without getting into too many details, there was divorce…. and some trouble there, and then relationship and some trouble there….

Sarah Gilbert
Yes! With the exception of overseas travelers, I’m pretty much tops in rambunctiousness.

Neil
hey, sounds like my life.  but at least you know how to have fun doing it.

Sarah Gilbert
Yes. I won’t get into the details here but let’s just say polyamory has been a wonderful horrible gorgeous painful adventure.

Neil
i am on record as advising you against it.

Sarah Gilbert
And my divorce was pretty much just the horrible painful part. I hear you and probably won’t follow your advice. ??

Neil
but during all this chaos you sort of changed focus from just writing to exploring your love of bicycles…you are so Portland. I think of you whenever I watch Portlandia.

Sarah Gilbert
Right. I’ve been storytelling a lot but found a whole new venue. Offline in the most extreme way. I even now am leading Portlandia tours!

Neil
there was an article lately that was a bit critical of the image of Portland and Oregon, saying that it is also a hotbed for white nationalism….. how do you feel about that…not as super liberal as we think…

Sarah Gilbert
Oh man. There is so much to say there. We’re a hotbed for everything

Neil
first you were working for a tour company? do you even own a car?

Sarah Gilbert
Well… I just bought a vehicle, but it’s for a tour company I’m starting

Neil
you have ridden bikes everyone ever since your kids were little

Sarah Gilbert
I haven’t had a personal vehicle since 2006!

Neil
don’t tell me it is a gas guzzzling SUV

Sarah Gilbert
Yes! My middle kid was a baby then.  No it’s a diesel Mercedes sprinter.  To carry lots of tour guests and their bikes ?? I worked for a bike tour company for three years….

Neil
maybe i will get yelled at for being sexist. but you have the strongest leg and thing muscles in your photos.

Sarah Gilbert
…really early on I started planning how I’d like to do it on my own.  Oh don’t worry about ME yelling at you.  I show off my legs on purpose ??

Neil
i kinda always visualized you as a dorky writier loner type…. do you actually enjoy dealing with the public? i mean customers….

Sarah Gilbert
Yes! I’m kind of an extrovert in some ways.  I love to talk

Neil
I’m doing my first photo shoot for a client and I’m wondering if I will really enjoy dealing with people as much as the photography itself.

Sarah Gilbert
It’s hard sometimes. People are not all ideal.

Neil
so first you worked for a company and now you are deciding to go on your own? I have to admit. You are the epitome of Just Do It. Isn’t Nike in Oregon?

Sarah Gilbert
Yes. I started the business as soon as the divorce finally finished with the asset but.  Haha yes.

Neil
remember when I told you to start a magazine…. and two days later yous started a magazine

Sarah Gilbert
Right outside the city.  I did!

Neil
you wanted to start a bike company so you freaking did it.  do you have competitors in this ?

Sarah Gilbert
I did! Ironically I started working for a driving tour company so I wouldn’t violate my noncompete

Neil
I forget the name. I’m sure it is named after a greek myth of something

Sarah Gilbert
Yep. Several other companies.  It’s called Cordilleran Tours.

Neil
is it a greek myth?

Sarah Gilbert
It’s named after mountain ranges (cordillera in Spanish) and the Cordilleran ice sheet that shaped everything in the Pacific Northwest.

Neil
so how does it work? People come to town, and how the heck do they know you exist?  you have to be an outdoors person to start riding in the mountains

Sarah Gilbert
The idea is that we can start here in portland and the mountains I love and then expand around the cordillera. We’re not going to be biking straight up mountains…

Neil
if i visited could I physically do this? how many miles do you go?  so you supply the bikes….?

Sarah Gilbert
…but the niche is, a little more active than normal.  Yes

Neil
so where do you go? hood river? the falls?

Sarah Gilbert
You’ve got to understand that normal tourists can often not walk up 1/3 of a mile to waterfalls. So this is just a bit more adventurous. 8-12 miles on bikes. 4-8 miles hiking.

Neil
but oregon gets a lot of sports people

Sarah Gilbert
Hiking

Neil
i mean people who enjoy outdoors

Sarah Gilbert
We have a lot who live here…

Neil
not just sitting in museums

Sarah Gilbert
…but tourists are tourists. And yes we will supply bikes

Neil
not saying you are anti-intellectual.

Sarah Gilbert
🙂

Neil
just enjoy strong thighs and good books

Sarah Gilbert
I’m pretty fucking intellectual
😉

Neil
i saw you have a donut tour? i like that one.

Sarah Gilbert
Right! It’s called “beyond voodoo”

Neil
maybe you can do a tour with Powell Books as promotion

Sarah Gilbert
Because egregiously, voodoo Donuts is the most visited tourist attraction in portland

Neil
so first go for donuts and coffee

Sarah Gilbert
I like it. And then books. Well my meditative garden tour is a good example of something that takes a regular tourist attraction and then makes the experience a little deeper.  More spiritual

Neil
do u meditate now?

Sarah Gilbert
I go to the local gardens… Chinese and Japanese… and lead guided meditations

Neil
i think you never get depressed because you are always doing stuff….

Sarah Gilbert
Placing the history of the people and places in context with our own experience of them.  It’s true!

Neil
that’s my problem.

Sarah Gilbert
And yes. I meditate both on my own every night and in the midst of my workday. I take tourists to these beautiful places. And then steal away for five minutes to mediate

Neil
so how are you getting clients, or customers?

Sarah Gilbert
Meditate

Neil
do you have money to advertise yet?

Sarah Gilbert
Well the initial plan is to get listed on TripAdvisor. I really don’t have funds for a lot…

Neil
do they do it for free? i use tripadvisor

Sarah Gilbert
…we’ve found social marketing and relationships are the best

Neil
who is we? you have a partner?

Sarah Gilbert
I guess mostly me ??  Ok this is the complicated part. My boyfriend and I have talked about it for years…

Neil
you realize you have writing material staring at you from your own life….

Sarah Gilbert
…and there was this horrible upheaval in our life.

Neil
are you still talking now?

Sarah Gilbert
Well, he left. Yes.  And he still wants to work for me

Neil
or is this have to be cut out?

Sarah Gilbert
It’s complicated. I don’t know!

Neil
OK, we will talk about this later….

Sarah Gilbert
Ha

Neil
you already know my opinion.

Sarah Gilbert
But anyway, my various beautiful lovely people in my life will contribute in some way

Neil
do you have any time to write? I know that is important to you? maybe by focusing on this you are opening avenues for writing too

Sarah Gilbert
I have a lot of beloved tour guides in my world

Neil
by just defocusing on writing

Sarah Gilbert
I am working on juggling that now. One of my major outlets is these conversations I have with place. Via Instagram posts. I have an ongoing conversation with the Columbia Gorge. I call her Lady Gorge or Ms. Gorge.  Sometimes I am speaking to my lover(s).

Neil
i want to ask you something important before we bring up you new business again because time is running out.

Sarah Gilbert
But sometimes it’s to the divine self. Ok

Neil
you’re not ready for dating again, are you?

Sarah Gilbert
That is important. I don’t know. I’ve never been single this long

Neil
is it possible to find someone more…. conventional.

Sarah Gilbert
Six weeks now.  Haha no.  I’ll likely go more unconventional than ever

Neil
You’ve never done online dating stuff. You always meet in real life, right?

Sarah Gilbert
I have done online dating briefly. But mostly I only date people who already love me

Neil
I don’t even understand that

Sarah Gilbert
Sometimes it’s through social media. People fall in love.  And then I’m here.  It’s magic.  My last three major relationships were that.

Neil
I want to date again locally. but i get too distracted…. so trying to focus on work stuff…. not sure it is working though

Sarah Gilbert
People who knew me in some way and loved me.  so I’m connected to so many people. Like you.  And I’m super open. Like you.

Neil
anyway, time running out on this experiment and I have to be cruel. In case someone is visiting portland and wants to go on a tour…. how can they reach you?

Sarah Gilbert
People know when I’m available and start asking

Neil
cruel in meaning cutting us off.

Sarah Gilbert
Cordillerantours.com. 🙂  And you can reach out to me directly.  I LOVE doing custom tours. One of the reasons I started the business was to do really cool custom tours

Neil
oh crap we have so much we can talk about. we didn’t even bring up Trump. anyway, we can do that privately. Kinda missed talking to you. Sad that I have to do an experiment with you as an excuse.

Sarah Gilbert
Yes. I’m game to changing this frequency ??

Neil
ok maybe i will come next spring and go on tour too

Sarah Gilbert
I missed you too.  Yes!

Neil
what do you do on winter?

Sarah Gilbert
I will make a special Neil tour

Neil
is is still ok to go out?

Sarah Gilbert
Work a little less. But yes

Neil
doesn’t get that cold,does it?

Sarah Gilbert
I probably work 30 hours a week in November.  Compared to 55 in August

Neil
well, listen, best of luck to you, and now I will go offline and scold you about your men.

Sarah Gilbert
With driving tours this summer I racked up crazy miles and hours. And women

Neil
Good bye Sarah!

Sarah Gilbert
I can’t wait.  Goodbye !

Neil
ha ha

Family Genes

May 3, 2017 / / 48 Comments

Of all the sports available to us during my grade school years, I most enjoyed playing basketball. I wasn’t good at it, but I had a tall and lanky body, so I was useful as the center. Some team captains even picked me first during the tense boyhood ritual of “choosing sides.” It boosted my ego.

My job as center was simple – wave my gawky arms in the face of the opposition until someone fouled me. Then I would strut up to the foul line, dribble once or twice, and throw the ball into the basket for a point. It sounded easier than it was to do.

One afternoon, I stood at the foul line, bouncing the ball, sweat soaking through my knee-high white crew socks, readying the shot, when I couldn’t fully extend the fingers of my right hand. My hand opened only to a 75% angle, so when I tossed the ball upwards, it spun like a planet flying out of gravitational orbit.

When I showed this to my parents, they assumed I had sprained my hand. I received the typical lecture about “being careful” when playing rough sports, as if my participation in my Hebrew School’s basketball team was the same as playing left tackle with the Dallas Cowboys.

When my hand didn’t heal, I heard whispering in my parents’ room at night. One afternoon, my parents took me from school early and we traveled to Long Island Jewish Hospital by bus. I found myself flat on a neurology department table while a gray-haired doctor put electrodes on my head and stuck me with thin, electrically charged needles. He said I should tighten my muscles, then he twisted the needles in a circular motion into my body, as if searching for hidden treasure in the sand. Next to me stood an aquamarine metal box that reminded me of a Geiger counter I had seen in an episode of the Twilight Zone. It screamed with noisy static depending on the angle of the needle. The pain shot through my body, but I stopped myself from crying. After the test, my parents took me to Baskin-Robbins for Rocky Road ice cream.

My father was a funny and compassionate man, but born to that stoic generation of fathers that did their duty, expressed their love, but never shared their personal lives with their children. I knew nothing about my father’s childhood, his time during the Korean War, or even his job as a physical therapist. He didn’t imagine it would interest me.

Twenty-five years earlier, my grandmother brought my father to a neurologist in Brooklyn to take the same painful tests. His weakness affected his neck and chin rather than his hand. The doctors were baffled by it. It didn’t match any neurological diseases known at the time, such as muscular dystrophy. My grandmother, not wanting him to take any more tests, told him to just “live with it and forget it.” My father, the oldest of three sons, and close to his mother, took her advice. He then ignored his disorder for decades, not even telling my mother about the condition before they were married.

While eating our Rocky Road at Baskin-Robbins that day, my father filled me in with vague information about the “small” muscle condition that affected both of us in different ways. I had an unknown weakness in my hand; he had one in his neck and chin.

“Live with it, and forget it,” he said, repeating the advice of his mother. “It’s better than getting prodded with those needles all your life.”

I wasn’t going to argue with that.

Even at that age, I knew my father avoided reality. By ignoring his ailment, he believed no one would notice it. Everyone did. As the years flew by, his muscle weakness got worse. When my father grew  tired, he would put his fist under his chin to hold up his neck. Friends asked questions which I avoided, wanting everything to appear “normal.” Two bullies teased me about my father, saying he looked like he had a perpetual toothache. When a doctor suggested that my father wear a neck brace, he was too proud to wear it in public, certain no one noticed. I didn’t have the heart to tell him the truth.

I’m ashamed to write this publicly, but I became embarrassed by my father’s mysterious muscle condition, and angry that he deluded himself about it. Why didn’t he try to fix it? More troubling was the inevitable conclusion – this was going to be ME when I’m his age. I imagined my hand getting weaker and my neck collapsing, and by adulthood, I would look like the Elephant Man. I attempted to follow the path of “live with it and forget about it,” but I was never able to forget about it. I exerted years of energy into hiding my shame from others. I wouldn’t let anyone see me weak or abnormal.

In high school, I taught myself to type by pointing and pecking. In college, I used chopsticks with my left hand. When a woman thought I was gay because I held a wine glass effeminately, I never held my wine glass in that hand again. Most people never noticed or cared much, but I always feared it. If they did, men would find me weak and exploit me. Women would find me monstrous and reject me. Employers wouldn’t hire me, especially for production jobs in Hollywood. Even when thriving at school and work, I worried how people would respond if they discovered the truth.

If there is a hero in this story, it’s my ex-wife, Sophia. After dating for two months, I told her about my weakness. She wasn’t surprised or scared by it, but confused by my lack of knowledge. She made it her personal project to get to the bottom of the mystery.

After extensive amount of research and calling, she found two specialists who dealt with obscure neurological diseases. My case was so unusual, two hospitals, the Mayo Clinic and UC Davis, started a bidding war for me as their research subject. Free airfare, hotel, and breakfast buffet! One doctor in Minnesota, Dr. Engels, had identified a disorder that fit my weakness. Sophia dragged me to take another of those needle tests, now known as an Electromyography (EMG). Sophia lovingly held my foot as they poked my body with needles. I had a biopsy that confirmed the diagnosis. My condition was slow-channel congenital myasthenic syndrome (CMS), an inherited neuromuscular disorder caused by a defect at the neuromuscular junction.

Slow-channel myasthenic syndrome is rare, about 800 cases of it in the country, all inherited through family, many of them either Eastern European Jews or French Canadians. The “slow” in slow-channel describes the closing speed of the nerve junction. In a normal action, the nerves send pulses through the body, and then the junctions close. With a myasthenic syndrome, the nerve junctions close too slowly, and chemicals leak into the muscles, causing atrophy. The severity is different for each individual. My weakness was in the extension of my right fingers.

Sophia also wanted to understand the family component to the disorder, so she pushed my father to get tested again, much to his dismay. She didn’t stop there. Sophia contacted my two uncles and a male cousin, questioning them like Sherlock Holmes. She discovered that each male member of my immediate family had a muscle weakness somewhere on the body, in the leg, neck, back, or toes. We had a common inherited syndrome, but no one knew it because no one confided in one another. We were the type of family that kept secrets. It took an outsider, Sophia, to bring us together to deal with our health. My grandmother’s advice to “live with it and forget it” created an atmosphere of silence and avoidance for three generations. Sophia prompted every male family member to get tested. We discovered that we inherited this syndrome from my grandmother herself. The doctors at Mayo Clinic and UC Davis wrote a paper about us.

There was some good news. Dr. Engels found a common prescription drug that stopped, or at least slowed, the leakage into the muscles by speeding up the closing at the junction. It was Prozac. For the last fifteen years, I have been taking 40-60mg of Prozac every day, not for depression or anxiety, but for the slow-channel disorder. My hand hasn’t gotten better, but nothing has gotten worse. Little has changed since childhood. Luckily, I have a mild case.

Of the thousands of people I’ve met over the last fifteen years, I’ve only told four of you about the slow-channel disorder. I’ve lied rather than be honest. I’ve come up with stories to explain why I hold the camera like a precious doll or text with my thumb. When I go on dates, I never order spaghetti because I never mastered eating it with my left hand. Whenever I’m asked why I don’t have children, it’s easier to portray myself as a selfish Hollywood type busy with his career than say the truth. Sophia and I feared having kids. Doctors told us that a child would have a 50/50 chance of inheriting the syndrome. Would our child’s ailment be mild, like mine, or more severe, like my father’s? We didn’t know the answers, so we just avoided the question of children until it was too late.

This mild ailment has plagued me my entire life. The anxiety was mostly self-made, intensified by a family that didn’t communicate. I’m sure my father felt guilty for passing the disorder to me, which became a barrier between us, and the reason he avoided telling me about his past.

I recently visited my neurologist in New York. He suggested I take a genetic test. Ten years ago, it would cost $10,000. Nowadays, you spit into a tube at home, and send it to the clinic via the post office. I now have a chart mapping my genes, showing the irregularities. It’s cool what science can do. It’s also a reminder of the importance of health insurance (hint, message to the Trump administration).

One of my favorite sayings goes something like this, with some paraphrasing, “When you are twenty years old, you worry about what others think about you. When you are thirty, you try not to care what others think, but you still worry. By fifty, you realize others were always too busy with their own sh*t to think about you at all.”

Why write about this subject today after these years of silence? I chatted with a friend last week who admired the honesty of my writing. I’ve always tried to be authentic on my blog, writing about my father’s passing in 2006, my separation with Sophia, and the ups and downs of my dating life. But I’ve hidden this important truth from everyone, the result of a family tradition of avoidance.

And it’s time to break the pattern of shame.

Hands Across America

January 16, 2017 / / 5 Comments

  

I have a friend who is involved with the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater Group, which was started in 1966 by the iconic musician and activist Pete Seeger in response to his despair over the pollution of the Hudson River. Today, the organization is still thriving, and during the spring and summer, the schooner Clearwater sails down the Hudson, bringing the message of activism to thousands. On Saturday, my friend was going for a meetup with other crew members of the replica 19th Century sloop, and I was lucky enough to tag along. There was a pot-luck dinner, great conversation, and some old-fashioned folk-singing. I found myself feeling very comfortable, even when events turned hippyish. Who can resist the beat of Native American drumming?

Many at the meetup were preparing to attend the big march in Washington D.C. protesting Trump’s inauguration. A few said that they would be unable to go to Washington for various reasons, but Clearwater cleverly found a way for  everyone to show their support. A large protest banner was laid out on a table, and those who knew they couldn’t attend created a handprint by pressing their ink-painted hand onto the cloth.

This isn’t slacktivism; it’s symbolism. These individuals will be present in Washington, their hand raised high for all to see, even if they aren’t physically marching in the street. Not everyone has the ability to march. Everyone does their part in the way they can.

I’ll be marching in New York. But I know many of you will be marching in Washington and Los Angeles and Chicago and Raleigh and Miami.  When I go on Facebook next week ready to go into Manhattan to march, feel free to post a photo of YOUR HAND in my Facebook comment section, and I will know you are there with me. I will be doing the exact same thing with you, our hands together in friendship, love, vulnerability, and strength.  Let’s watch out for and support each other.

Losing Things

January 11, 2017 / / 5 Comments

So far, in 2017, I’ve been losing things

I lost the close relationship of a woman.

I lost the comfort of looking up to a President who beamed with decency and intelligence, as a new administration takes shape, in the likeness of a serpent.

Three days ago, I lost my umbrella, leaving it on a bus.

Two days ago, I lost my hat, leaving it on a train.

Yesterday, I lost my identity, or at least my wallet, pickpocketed in the Times Square subway station. In my wallet were my credit cards, my library card, my insurance card, and my driver’s license.  

Today, I took a break to see a matinée of the award-winning film, Moonlight.

Later, I discovered that I lost my second hat of the week, this time leaving it in the movie theater.   When I called the theater’s lost and found office, they said it was gone.  Was I losing my mind?

“There is nothing wrong with me,” I told myself.  “I am distracted.  Between the personal and the political, I feel lost.   I’m not ready for the new year yet, and my mind is rebelling against its existence.   

I grabbed a  strong cup of coffee, then went to the New York Public Library to get a replacement library card.  I glanced around at all the books on the shelves. Thousands of books stood silently, lined up like Napoleon’s soldiers waiting for action. From Knitting for Dummies to A Guide to Authoritarian Governments to the Kama Sutra.  So much to learn, so much to do, so much to fight against, so much to love and protect.

The librarian handed me my new library card. My name was written on it.  It was my first new proof of my identity in 2017 since my wallet was stolen.

I was now ready for the new year.  I had no choice.  With only my library card and twenty bucks in my pocket, I stepped outside into the winter cold to buy a new hat and umbrella.

Sixth Grade Mind

January 6, 2017 / / 3 Comments

At the end of sixth grade, we all received an autograph album so we can sign our goodbyes to our classmates before we headed off to the great dark and dangerous unknown — junior high.  I found my “autograph album” yesterday  in my closet, and it was fun reading again, especially the page where I listed my favorites.  

I can only imagine my sixth grade mind’s thoughts as I scribbled in my answers.

My Favorite Author: Agatha Christie

“I don’t read children’s books like the other kids. I read adult books like my mom. I read Agatha Christie. She is an adult writer.   I am an adult reader.”

My Favorite Book: Murder on the Orient Express

“My favorite book is “Murder on the Orient Express.” Of course it is. I love trains. I have a train set, and when I am on the subway, I imagine myself on some really fancy train, like the Orient Express. The Orient Express is as fancy as they come. You can sleep on the train and they serve you steak and lobster, like at that fancy restaurant in Long Island where the waitresses dress as pilgrims. The Orient Express goes from Egypt to Europe, and all types of fancy people go on it, Dukes and Duchesses, and millionaires. Hercule Poirot is also on the train.   He  is a famous detective.  He is way smarter than even Columbo. This is his hardest case ever! But he watches, and listens, and puts two plus two together, and he figures it all out. You will never guess whodunit. If you’ve ever played Clue, this is a book you HAVE to read.

The novel is also educational.   It teaches us an important life lesson that I will remember forever. If you think logically, using your little grey cells in your brain like a detective, you will be able to figure out anything. Nothing is too complicated for the human brain to understand if you think hard enough. Life is like math, 2+2=4. I will always remember that. Think hard enough and you can figure out the answer, so everything will always be perfect.”

My Favorite College: Harvard

I have never seen Harvard in real life because I have never been to Boston.   I have only seen Harvard  in that movie that my mom likes where the college students fall in love. But I know that I must attend Harvard for college. It is the best. Even though I am only in sixth grade now, I must prepare myself to get into Harvard now, no matter if I have no fun until then. Because once you get into Harvard, you have everything. The rest of your life is pure happiness. You sit on the lawn and read books with smart guys in glasses and play Frisbee with pretty girls with long hair.  If you go to Harvard, your parents are so proud that they tell all their friends, “My son is in Harvard.”  Over and over again.   And when I come back from Harvard to Queens and go back to my sixth grade class, Sharon will want to be my partner in the dance festival. “Oh, Neil, you are back from Harvard!” she will say. “I would love it if you will be my partner for the dance festival this year. I wish I knew you were going to Harvard in sixth grade, I would have become your partner and we would be married by now. But now we can get married because you went to Harvard.”

My Favorite Profession: Lawyer or Author

I would like to be a lawyer and fight for civil rights and against those who try to ban books and say there is no evolution. I’m always in social studies coming up with a question where the teacher goes, “Good question, Neil.” I can do that in court. I will be logical as a lawyer, like Hercule Poirot as a detective. I will say, “You say blacks and whites should not go to the same schools, but WHY do you believe that? Do you have any proof why it is bad? Aren’t all children just children?  Do you know the words of Martin Luther King?  Don’t we all bleed and laugh and cry and learn? Why shouldn’t we go to the same schools?” And everyone will stand and cheer.

Maybe I’d rather be an author instead of a lawyer.  My uncle is a lawyer and is divorced, and my dad says he drinks too much. I’m not sure I would want to go to court everyday or wear a suit.  I don’t want to get divorced or drink too much.   An author may be better because he sits at home all day and writes stories, like Agatha Christie, and everyone just loves you all the time. And as an author, you can make A LOT OF MONEY!! Girls will want to be with me because I will have so much money.

My favorite motto: Do Onto Others as You Want Others To Do To You

This is my favorite saying. A famous rabbi once said that the entire Torah can be summarized by this saying. You don’t like being beaten up or mugged, so you shouldn’t do it to someone else. If someone is sick, bring them the homework. That is exactly what you want, right? If everyone follows this plan, then everyone is nice and happy. Of course, just to be logical, I might not want to beat you up because I follow my motto, but you might still beat me up, because you don’t follow the motto. Then, I’m not sure what to do. That screws up everything. But I think eventually, as society advances, we all will be good to each other. It is the way of history, like landing on the moon — progress!

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