The Garden Mission A Grandfather's Labor of Love – A True Story

In July 2024, I took advantage of a sale and purchased a green 8'×2'×2' metal raised garden bed on Amazon. That afternoon, Jacob and I spent an hour putting it together. After identifying a mistake, we took it apart and assembled it again. Upon completion, we carried it out the basement door and placed it in what we thought was an optimal spot in our backyard. (A note here: our house is surrounded by tall trees, thus limiting the available direct sunlight.)

I spent hours online searching for the best soil mixture for planting vegetables in raised beds—topsoil, homegrown compost, worm castings, perlite, and peat moss—and then spent hours over the following weeks combining the ingredients and filling the bed. Having fully filled the frame, I decided it wasn't in an optimal location. So, I emptied the soil out, moved the empty frame to another location, carted the soil in multiple wheelbarrow trips, and refilled it.

On a Sunday morning in February, I drove to Home Depot and purchased all the necessities for starting seeds in my basement: Jiffy planting pots, Jiffy Seed Starter mix, seed packets of three varieties of tomatoes, peas, pole beans, carrots, zucchini, and cucumbers, plus a full-spectrum UV light fixture. I hung this in our basement, moved a folding table under it, lined up the planting pots, filled them with soil, gently placed seeds in each one, and turned on the light. I dutifully watered these daily. Within two weeks, sprouts emerged, and I watched in amazement as they emerged and grew.

After the last frost in April, I transplanted these seedlings to the raised garden bed, where they either did not grow past plant infancy or died immediately. I returned to Home Depot and bought three varieties of tomato plants, two varieties of green peppers, and pots of zucchini and cucumber. I planted these in the garden bed described above. It quickly became apparent that these plants were not receiving sufficient sunlight. I dug them up, set them aside, emptied the soil from the planter, moved the planter to a sunnier spot, and conveyed the soil, one wheelbarrow load at a time, to refill the planter. I returned to Home Depot and, once again, purchased varieties of tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, and cucumbers. These were planted in the raised garden in its new location, which, as far as I could determine, received the minimum daily allotment of sunlight required for growth.Within two weeks, sprouts emerged, and I watched in amazement as they emerged and grew.

Within two weeks, sprouts emerged, and I watched in amazement as they emerged and grew.

Within two weeks, sprouts emerged, and I watched in amazement as they emerged and grew.

Slowly, slowly, tomatoes emerged. A yellow pepper appeared but was immediately eaten by some unknown and unwanted invader. By late July, two tomatoes were beginning to turn from green to pink, and in the first week of August, they seemed ready for picking. Within two weeks, sprouts emerged, and I watched in amazement as they emerged and grew.

It was just that week that my two grandchildren arrived (with their parents) for their annual summer stay at our home. Two days after their arrival, Bina and I went to the backyard. I guided her to a tomato, she tugged it gently, it detached from the vine, and we brought it to the kitchen and displayed it to all.

Mission accomplished.

More Advice from ER Docs

A recent article in the New York Times cited "Six More Things E.R. Doctors Wish You'd Avoid." Among these was "never mow the lawn in open-toed shoes", which make me cringe just to think about it.

I thought it would be an important public service if I proposed four additional activities that should be avoided. While these were rejected by the Times editorial staff and led to a visit to my home by the Sandy Springs Police, I share them, nevertheless.

1. Going to Synagogue

Going to shul on Shabbat or other holidays is safer now that all our synagogues have automatic gates requiring that you enter a code generated each day using a formula based on gematria, and numerous armed guards brandishing weapons. Here in the south, there is also a growing movement to have congregants "carry" . Knowing that the advanced age of the majority of members of my synagogue requires thick glasses and hearing aids, I am dubious that this practice will in any way make us any safer. I believe that the only reasons congregants should carry weapons in shul are: (1) if they really want a specific Aliyah, for instance, the ones describing the sacrifice of Isaac or rape of Dina or (2) if there is a risk that there will be no more egg salad at the kiddush when they reach their place in line.

I digress. The true danger of being in synagogue is being called for Hagbah—the lifting of the Torah after the reading has been concluded. Emergency room physicians report a growing number of cases of male Jews with severe hernias or dislocated shoulders after attempting to jerk and lift a Torah scroll with 10 columns of sacred text unrolled. While this demonstration of masculine Judaism was notable in USY youth groups, it is, perhaps, a greater health risk later in life—as would be the required post-Torah-dropping 40-day fast.

2. Legos

As a young father, I was surprised to learn how far a child could push a Lego up his or her nose. The doctor always found this humorous, and the receptionist smiled warmly as she told me that removing deeply embedded Legos from a child’s nasal passages was not covered by United Healthcare.

As a grandfather, I am, once again, discovering just how dangerous Legos can be. This past summer, in the hours after our grandchildren and their parents departed our home after their weeklong stay, I ventured into the basement playroom to establish some sense of order among the apocalyptic remains. It was my failure to wear steel-toed boots that led me to the emergency room with a Lego firmly embedded in my foot. Six hours later, I returned home with the bloodied Lego enclosed in a plastic bag. If there was one bright side, it was that, unlike every private medical insurance plan in America, Medicare covers everything—including Lego removal. There are some benefits to growing old.

3. Going to Home Depot

I happen to love my last name "Raphael," which means "God will heal ." I don't mind that it is repeatedly misspelled by strangers (e.g., Rayfield, Rafel, etc.), and I will calmly respond that it is spelled like the Renaissance painter—or, depending on who I am talking to, "the Ninja Turtle."

I also find it humorous and charming that perhaps half of the commercials on my TV are now in Spanish. My assumption is that this has more to do with the micro-targeting of ads and the assumption that I am Latin American, than with a growing sense of inclusion in our country.

This was all well and good until I was swept up in an ICE raid while attempting to purchase annuals for our backyard garden and duct tape to repair my garden hose. After being thrown to the ground (and regretting that I did not have a Subway tuna sandwich available), I breathlessly explained to the masked agents that I am a third-generation American whose grandparents emigrated from Hungary. Given the screaming in the background and the loud buzzing of tasers, they assumed I had said "Haiti," over-tightened a plastic tie around my wrists, and shoved me into a windowless van they had just rented from….. Home Depot.

I was released from a darkened cell five days later when my wife, rabbi, president of my shul, and a very elderly mohel came to vouch for my Jewish identity. Most Americans who get caught up in these illegal incarcerations are not as lucky.

This is a blot on our nation. I wonder how our country would fare if my grandfather, who actually came from Romania, had been denied entry or sent home. Once settled on the Lower East Side, he popularized garlic powder and founded J. Raphael and Sons, importers and grinders of spices—a company that provided spices for most of the pastrami and corned beef makers in New York, every pickle stand on the Lower East Side, and many of the bagel and bialy bakers in the city. Our nation would be less rich and far less tasty had our country been disinclined to "send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me” and "lift its lamp beside the golden door" at that time. His is just one of hundreds of thousands of immigrant stories that have made our country great.

Hints of Animus

I stopped by an upscale coffee shop on my way home yesterday. I asked the barista for a recommendation for a light roast, and he handed me a bag of Guatemala Buena Vista. The flavor was listed as follows: Cream cheese Danish, dried apricot, orgeat (Wikipedia: Orgeat syrup is a sweet syrup made from almonds and sugar with a little rose water and/or orange flower water).

I like coffee. I grind beans at home, using a Hario Japanese drip cone (The NY Times Wirecutter runner up for the best pour-over coffee maker) and an AeroPresss Coffee Maker (see NY Times “36 Best Gifts for Coffee Lovers) when I travel. Using a goose-neck kettle, I pour 195 - 205° water slowly, rotating around the Hario organic paper filter to ensure the full bouquet can emerge.

But I couldn’t taste this coffee’s cheese Danish or apricot and wouldn’t have recognized the orgeat even if I knew what it was. I wonder if, back at the coffee shop after a long day of making floral designs in large lattes, barista sit around a table making fun of us. “Okay, how about this: “Flavor: black pepper, Saigon Cinnamon, pot roast, and recently worn Addidas.”

Another thought, what if we could describe people in this manner. For instance:

David: Dyslexic, overtones of angst, hints of anxiety disorder, mild and mostly inoffensive sense of humor.

Some others:

Donald Trump: Narcissist, strong sociopath overtones, grifter, hints of orange rinds.

Stephen Miller: Xenophobe, misanthrope, notes of animus and malignancy.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.: Larval pork tapeworm, anti-science overtones, strong hints of trypanophobia[1].

Pam Bondi:…….not a clue

Linda McMahon: Dirty gym shorts.

Marjorie Taylor-Green: Rotten peach, peanut shell, coloring book.

Please share your own.

[1] Trypanophobia is the intense fear of needles. Specifically, people with trypanophobia fear needles in medical settings. They may avoid getting vaccines, blood draws or intravenous (IV) fluids. Although needle phobia is common, it can have severe consequences….FOR AMERICA!!!

As Long as you Have Your Health....as it is.

Like most of those my age—perhaps all—I've had a series of medical conditions. My first was a double hernia, which I was born with and was repaired when I was two years old. I have no recollection of being in the hospital, visits from my parents, or the surgery itself. I do have one memory—or perhaps a memory of a memory—of the boy next to me in the ward. I remember that he had a net over the top of his crib, and I remember thinking that was odd. Was he an escape risk? Should I be thinking about escaping?

Perhaps the medical condition that had the most defining impact, both in terms of its effect on my well-being and the length of that impact, was ITP. It was 1976, I was living in Detroit and working for BBYO. These were the days of HMOs, and thus I went to an HMO clinic for my annual checkup. This particular HMO was in one of the less pleasant neighborhoods in Detroit, which at that time was saying a lot.

The day after the checkup, I was asked to return for follow-up blood tests. That evening, I received a call from a hematologist. My blood test revealed that my platelet count was one-tenth of the normal range, and I either had leukemia or another blood disease. I needed to return to the HMO to have a bone marrow sample taken. I spent that evening alone in my studio apartment, pondering my death.

The following day, assuring me that he had done this procedure twice before, the hematologist inserted the largest needle I'd ever seen into my sternum to extract bone marrow. Think of someone sucking out your innards with a straw. I spent another 24 hours in fear for my life waiting for the results.

In the end, I was diagnosed with ITP, a rare autoimmune disease that causes a dramatic reduction in one's platelet count. When the hematologist warned me that among the side effects of the prednisone would be a "moon face," I asked whether that meant I would have a dark side. He didn't get it. I was put on a high dosage of prednisone, which, other than making my face blow up, had minimal medical impact.

ITP is a condition with a particularly scary name, "Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura." Any disease that begins with the word "Idiopathic" is not good news. Basically, it's the medical way of saying, "When it comes to this disease, we're idiots. Let's throw high dosages of steroids at it, and if that doesn't work, let's remove an essential organ."1

For the next five years, before the removal of my spleen in January 1981—two weeks after my wedding day—I was forbidden from playing any sports. The risk was that I would be injured, and the internal or external bleeding could not be stopped. The world of basketball was the better for this interregnum.

There was, however, a positive outcome of my ITP experience. One fall morning in 1977, I sat at a diner on Broadway and 110th Street, around the corner from the Columbia University School of Social Work, eating breakfast and reading the New York Times. In the Science Section, I spotted an article that spoke of the link between dyslexia and autoimmune diseases. Thinking about my bout with ITP, an autoimmune disease, my long-term undefined learning challenges now had a name.

In articulating the symptoms of dyslexia, the author was describing me: my difficulty decoding written words, propensity to reverse letters, disastrous, undecipherable handwriting, and most profoundly of all, a complete inability to spell even simple words. A lifetime of challenges now made sense. My disability had become my identity.2

Vitiligo is another medical condition with a scary name that has visited me. Having made an appointment with a dermatologist to have a wart removed from my finger, I happened to ask him about the white blotches under my arms. In a cheery voice, he said, "Oh that's interesting"—a phrase you never want to hear from a doctor. The diagnosis was vitiligo, another autoimmune disease of uncertain causation.

For those not familiar with this form of ailment, an autoimmune disease "is a condition that results from an anomalous response of the adaptive immune system, wherein it mistakenly targets and attacks healthy, functioning parts of the body as if they were foreign organisms. It is estimated that there are more than 80 recognized autoimmune diseases."3 What are the chances that I would have two of them? Naturally, this leads me to wonder—what do I have against myself?

My most recent medical aberration actually has quite a pleasant name—"floaters." Black spots or spiderweb-like lines float across my right eye like dancing apparitions. According to the Mayo Clinic online site: "These painless symptoms could be caused by a retinal tear, with or without a retinal detachment. This is a sight-threatening condition that requires immediate attention." Thank you for that.

One final thought. At this stage in my life, conversations with friends mostly focus on our panoply of medical conditions. Knees and hips and their replacements are often dominant topics. High blood pressure, cholesterol, and cataracts are close seconds. The conversation invariably begins with, "I haven't seen you since my last colonoscopy."

What we don't need are more medical conditions to worry about. For instance, when did "restless leg syndrome" become a thing? Just about every other commercial on YouTube features happy, healthy people enjoying life, having recovered from some recently identified medical condition magically cured by a medication with a perfectly nondescript name: "Albrunia," "Normastra," "Plazonica." All these medications have an endless list of side effects that, more often than not, are more serious than the condition they purport to cure. What are we prepared to risk to have our legs remain placid for the remainder of our days? I choose to be peripatetic—which, by the way, is also a good name for a new drug.

[1]: By the way, to cover their asses a bit, the medical field has changed the name to "Immune Thrombocytopenic Purpura." I like the way they kept the "I" as the first initial, and I wonder what the conversation was like. "Okay, 'idiopathic' is out." "How about 'impervious'—no, that would be a bad look." "Identifiable—well, that's not actually true." "Let's go with 'immune'—it's perfectly vague."

[2]: This might be a nice time to take a break from my meandering to explore a piece I wrote many years ago about dyslexia and such. Click HERE if you are a glutton for punishment.

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoimmune_disease

Feedback Please

I don't mind giving positive feedback, and I value that people and organizations are interested in what I have to say. But please stop. Yesterday, I spent an hour on the phone convincing TIAA-CREF to release the $11,000 or so they have been holding for me for over 25 years since I left Hillel International. It took a month to get an online appointment. The adviser was thoughtful, providing in-depth guidance on my options. While I listened, a voice in my head repeatedly chanted the classic line from Jerry Maguire: "SHOW ME THE MONEY!" She said they could disburse it over a five-year period with monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, or annual amounts. "SHOW ME THE MONEY!" I didn't say that, but instead stated that annual would be fine. She then disconnected from the Zoom call and connected me via a three-way phone call with the person who actually had the capacity to "SHOW ME THE MONEY!" That took another half hour. I was then required to fill out three forms and have my wife fill out a spousal release and have it notarized. An email arrived almost immediately after I hung up asking me to rate my TIAA-CREF experience. I demurred. Every visit to a physician's office is immediately followed up by an email and text message asking me to rate my experience: wait time in the waiting room, wait time for the physician, congeniality of the receptionist, comfort of the chairs in the waiting room, clarity of follow-up treatment options, etc. A side note here—I only had one negative experience with a receptionist. It was 7 in the morning, as I arrived for a colonoscopy. Having survived the 24-hour prep torment, I was not in the most pleasant of moods. I had no patience for the receptionist who asked, in a surly tone: "Are you clear?" I knew what she was asking about, but couldn't help myself from responding: "About what?" In retrospect, a response of "crystal" (citing a line from another classic Tom Cruise movie) would have been even more adroit. My barber wants to know how I liked my haircut. The restaurant wants to know how I liked my salmon. The coffee shop wants to know how I liked my latte. Under the heading of "no good deed should go unpunished," responding to a one-question assessment of a vendor on your mobile device will always take you to an evaluation form asking an additional 30 questions. I get a little annoyed when the service agent at the auto dealer implores me to give the shop a positive rating when Chevrolet reaches out to me via text message. Perhaps I'm being overly suspicious, but it's hard not to see this as rating extortion. "So, Mr. Raphael, we got a call from the big man at Chevrolet International. You don't anticipate any difficulty with your brake line or your steering column, do you?" I suppose it could be much worse at a physician's office when you return for your next colonoscopy. In short, one could argue that it's always a good idea to enthusiastically and positively complete the feedback evaluations sent to you by recent vendors—consider your next haircut, eggplant parmigiana, brake job, and colonoscopy. Ratings of ten across the board might be the best approach to ensuring your future wellbeing. Please rate this post on a scale of 1 to 10, with ten being the highest praise for my erudition and one possibly damning you to a future life of misery.

Basement Archeology

 

Basement Archaeology

    Cleaning the basement is somewhat akin to an archaeological excavation. Digging through layers of boxes, you can uncover relics from the past: coats you haven't worn for 50 years, baby announcements and Bat Mitzvah invitations for a daughter who is now over 40 years old, a game of Twister that at our age would present a very significant health hazard, yellowed copies of the New York Times from September 11, 2001, and one announcing the Israel Egypt peace agreement dated March 26, 1979.

    We found perhaps thousands of photos—mostly of our children but occasionally of travel experiences—the barges on the Amsterdam canals, vistas of the Golden Gate Bridge shrouded in fog, the cobblestone alleyways of the Old City of Jerusalem. I went through all the photos, throwing out the duplicates and the ones out of focus, and putting aside ones with special meaning: birth, B-Mitzvah, graduations, relatives whom I loved and who are now gone.

    For some reason, my mother passed on the family archives (broadly defined) to me: a copy of my diploma from SUNY Albany (1974), letters I wrote from camp when I was 8 pleading with my parents to take me home, aerograms from Israel in 1975 describing life on Kibbutz Maayan Tzvi, a photo of my father sitting behind a World War II B-17 bomber.

Perhaps the oddest item, and without question the one that impacted me the most, was my father's brown leather wallet. Opening it up revealed his Social Security card, New York State driver's license, and, within the translucent plastic pockets generally used for displaying photographs, four disintegrating four-leaf clovers.

    I have my father's Boy's High yearbook from 1941 and his varsity football sweater—a heavy black wool garment with a large "B" emblazoned on the front. But neither of these, nor the multiple photographs of him, had the emotional impact of his wallet and its contents. And I'm trying to figure out why.

    Unlike photos of special moments and objects representing his athletic skills, these were mundane items that accompanied him in his daily life. They were in his back pocket as he navigated the side roads of Queens and Brooklyn on his way to grind and mix spices at J. Raphael and Sons. He would have pulled out his wallet when he treated his children and their friends to Carvel ice cream on Bell Boulevard or when he and I had coffee and apple turnovers at the Scobee Grill in Little Neck. Perhaps they were in a drawer in his bedside table as he lay in his room at Sloan Kettering Cancer Hospital in New York. The wallet also contains a check for $35 made out to, in my father’s handwriting, Dr. Robert Levy, who was, if I remember correctly, the Oncologist who first treated his Hodgkin’s Disease.

In the context of his early death, the desiccated four-leaf clovers struck me as ironic. But perhaps they were a message sent to me from beyond the grave: Luck is how you define it. Yes, he died at a young age. But his life was blessed with a wonderful family who adored him. He had friendships that lasted a lifetime. "The crown of a good name is above them all[1]." He was recognized as an honest, caring, and decent man. His work, as I have been told, was a difficult burden for him. But he persevered. He got up every morning at 5:30 am, navigated an hour's worth of traffic, spent 9 hours mixing, grinding, and packaging spices that would provide the flavoring for most of the meatpackers and pickle makers in New York, and then spent another hour in traffic. If God was looking down on him, and if there is a heaven, I think he has earned his luck.

 

P.S. On a lighter note, my father handed down this tongue twister that I now share with my grandchildren causing delightful giggling.  Try it:

 

One smart fellow, he felt smart.

Two smart fellows, they felt smart.

Three smart fellows, they all felt smart.

---

[1] Ethics of our Ancestors, 4:17—"Rabbi Shimon said, there are three crowns: the crown of Torah, the crown of priesthood, and the crown of kingship. And the crown of a good name is above them all."

 

A Buiding, Room, Road, Bridge and Disease by Any Other Name

 

You will find Bernie Marcus's name on buildings throughout Atlanta and cities around the world. The Marcus Autism Center, The Marcus Hart Valve Center, the Marcus Trauma and Emergency Center, all in Atlanta, and the Marcus National Blood Center, in Israel. All these facilities are testaments to Bernie's commitment to humankind. The Trump name is also on buildings around the world. All these edifices are testaments to Trump's narcissism.

 

Naming buildings can be tricky business. When we built the Hillel building at Johns Hopkins University, two donors made impressive naming gifts. One got the building name, and we named the Hillel Foundation after the other. That was the easy part—designing the signage on the front of the building so that each name got equal billing was far more complicated.

 

Rooms get names as well. At a Hillel Foundation in Boston, there is an elevator named after a donor. John Waters dedicated the "John Waters All Gender Restrooms" at the Baltimore Museum of Art. This works on many levels. In Europe, these would be the "John Waters Water Closets."

 

Public work projects also have names. I love the renamed Thurgood Marshall Airport in Baltimore, hate Ronald Reagan Airport in Washington, think John Wayne Airport in Long Beach, California is a hoot, and am not surprised that Charles De Gaulle in Paris is difficult to navigate. Fiorello La Guardia has stopped rolling over in his grave now that the airport named in his honor is not a traveler's disaster area.

 

The George Washington Bridge was named after our first president, whose military leadership led to a series of defeats in the early years of the Revolutionary War, handing the British control of what are now all five boroughs and much of Westchester. He retreated to New Jersey—perhaps just below where his eponymous bridge now stands. The old Kosciuszko Bridge linking Queens and Brooklyn was an abomination during rush hour. The new one is beautiful. Unfortunately, there are only 12 people in New York who know who Tadeusz Kosciuszko was and 6 who know how to pronounce his name (Wikipedia is less than fully helpful in this regard: /ˌkɒziˈʊskoʊ, ˌkɒʒiˈʊʃkoʊ/ KOZ-ee-UUSK-oh, KOZH-ee-UUSH-koh). The Holland Tunnel in NY was not named after the country—otherwise it would have been the Netherlands Tunnel, hardly an appropriate name for a tube buried deep beneath the waters. It was named for its chief engineer, Clifford M. Holland, who died before the tunnel's completion. His successor, Milton Freeman, died five months later. Certainly, an inauspicious start.

 

Here in Atlanta, highway overpasses and road intersections are named after people. The Tom Moreland Interchange is colloquially known as "Spaghetti Junction." Moreland was, according to Wikipedia, "one of the United States' leading road building experts." Those of us who have traversed Spaghetti Junction find this difficult to believe.

 

I wonder about medical conditions named after people. According to Wikipedia, there are 605 diseases and syndromes named after people—both the physicians who identified them and the patients who suffered because of them. Anybody who actively follows baseball knows about Tommy John surgery. Nobody who actively follows baseball knows what Tommy John surgery is. Further, my guess is that there are fewer than 15 orthopedic surgeons around the world who know who Tommy John is. Valentino's syndrome, named after Rudolph Valentino, is "pain presenting in the right lower quadrant of the abdomen caused by a duodenal ulcer." Valentino ultimately died from complications of this condition.

 

Not all the owners of these eponymous conditions were real people. For instance, there is a psychological disorder characterized by delusional jealousy known as "Othello Syndrome." There was no real Munchausen, but rather a literary character, "Baron Munchausen." This psychological syndrome, also called "factitious disorder imposed on self" (FDIS), is one where "individuals play the role of a sick patient to receive some form of psychological validation, such as attention, sympathy, or physical care" (Wikipedia). It is also known as "Kvetcher's Syndrome."

 

Not that it will be an issue, but I think about a disease named after me. I have coined the term "food blindness"—a condition where a person cannot see the Tupperware container of tuna fish in front of one's face in the refrigerator (a condition unique to married men). I'd be honored if that came to be known as "David Raphael Syndrome." Other than a caring spouse, there is no cure for this heart-wrenching condition.