On the Brink

I’ve been thinking a lot this week about my grandfather.

Michal Romanowicz embarked with his brother Freidrich from Hamburg Germany aboard the SS Pretoria. The ship’s manifest list the brothers, 24 and 21 respectively, as being of Polish nationality and their last place of residence as Krechn, Austria. They arrived at Ellis Island on Aug. 15, 1913.

That was less than a year before the start of World War I. And Vienna that year had the dubious distinction of hosting Joseph Stalin, Leon Trotsky and Adolf Hitler, along with Marshall Tito and Sigmund Freud.

My grandfather worked as a coal miner in Ohio and West Virginia. The youngest grandchild in the family, I spent time with him during his late retirement years.

One of my more vivid memories is of him reading from four newspapers while watching the evening news. One was a four-page daily from the small Ohio River town in which he lived, one a larger daily from the city 12 miles upriver, a Polish language newspaper and the New York Times.

“They can take everything away from you,” he would say, possibly reflecting on family and material possessions he’d left behind in Eastern Europe or upon the worldview having lived through the Great Depression and both World Wars formed. “But they can never take away what you know.”

I have always credited my grandfather with partially sparking the passion I have for newspaper journalism. But today, as our new president’s administration puts forth “alternative facts” and orders federal agencies to restrict the information they release to the public, I hearken to my grandfather’s words in a new way. And I fear what lies ahead for our country.

Bored to Creativity

Scouts on Mondays, piano lessons Tuesdays, bar mitzvah studies Wednesdays, ski cadets Thursdays and Saturdays, religious studies and services on Saturdays -- not to mention piano practice, violin practice, a monthly camping weekend. My son's extracurricular activities can become quite the treadmill. So when he declared he was spending Sunday inside and in his pajamas all day, I was pleased at his self-proclaimed need for a break.

By late afternoon however -- even after a trip outside, in snowpants over his pajamas, to work on his snow fort -- he declared he was bored. He implored we move to another neighborhood so he could be near his friends who "all live near each other and never get bored." I suggested he go read a book, play with some of his toys or play a computer game. When he continued his boredom rant, I responded with a list of thank yous he could write and chores he could complete.

He finally went upstairs, taking along a copy of "The Pocket Guide to Mischief." He returned a couple hours later with a big bag of rubber bands. By the final minutes of the Packers-Cowboys playoff game, he had made a rubber band ball and a list of materials he'd like to get from Michael's and the Dollar Tree.

Having Martin Luther King Day off from school, we made the trip for craft supplies then went for lunch at his grandparents'. They supplied an old skillet and heat gun so he could begin making this Army man clock, as well as some flour and Elmer's glue for making a stress ball. He and his Dad finished putting the hands and timer on the clock this evening.