To See Ourselves As Others See Us (Part 2)

This posting is based on a talk I gave to The Villages Philosophy Club on 19 July 2019. plus supporting stuff from my Blogs and other sources.

PART 2 - MY CAREER, MARRIAGE, FLYING, AND OUR "GREEN ACRES" DAYS.


MY PROFESSIONAL WORKING LIFE STARTS
January 1961 - I graduated from the City College of New York (CCNY) with a Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering. My first job was with the Norden Division of United Aircraft in Norwalk, Connecticut, close enough to my parent's home in Brooklyn so I could spend weekends there and continue to pursue my social life.

Defense contractors are known for their "hire and layoff" policies. They hire engineers in anticipation of contracts or when they get a contract and lay them off when the contract ends or business falls off. I was never laid off, but as I watched others leave I saw "the message on the wall".  

In 1963 I quit my first job and immediately started my second, this time at Lockheed Electronics in Plainfield, New Jersey, also close enough to Brooklyn such that I continued spending weekends with my parents and pursuing my social life there. I met my wife-to-be, Violet Stark, who had recently completed her Bachelors Degree in Chemistry at Brooklyn College. She got her first job working in the Chemistry Lab at St. Luke's Hospital in Manhattan, where she tested blood and other bodily fluids.

OUR MARRIED LIFE STARTS

June 1964 - Vi and I married and we moved to an apartment in Scotch Plains, NJ, close to where I worked. She continued her work in Manhattan, commuting by bus. As you may see in the graphic above, I had an "AuH₂O" (Goldwater) sign in the rear window of my car. Therefore Vi, as a chemistry major, knew exactly what she was  getting into politically when she married me.) 

In the year prior to our marriage, I had been pursuing my Private Pilot's License at Chatham Airport in NJ. Indeed, Vi's very first flight in an airplane was when she came along on one of my training flights.

I earned my Pilot's License early in 1964, so, the day after our wedding, it was natural for me to rent a Cessna 152 and fly us to Niagara Falls, NY. There, we rented a car and drove to Niagara Falls, Canada, where we enjoyed the sights and stayed the night at their aptly named "Honeymoon Hotel".























The photos above capture key events of that trip. including a view of our startling flight over the falls.

We headed back to NJ the following morning, taking our scheduled refueling stop at the Binghamton, NY airport. Reviewing our flight plan, the Control Tower notified us that there were some serious storm conditions at our destination in New Jersey and strongly recommending that we spend the night in Binghamton. We rented a car, got a hotel in Binghamton, did some touring in that city, and had a wonderful dinner there.

Very early the following morning we flew out of Binghamton and arrived safely in New Jersey.


We never suspected that we would be living in the Binghamton, NY area the following year!

But that was not the end of our honeymoon. A few days later we flew to San Francisco (on a commercial airline) and spent most of the week in Palo Alto, California, including a visit to some of Vi's relatives in San Francisco. We also rented a Cessna 152 at the Palo Alto airport and flew for a couple of hours over San Francisco, including a period when we were above the clouds and could not see the ground.

Some months after we married, Vi got a job at Muhlenberg Hospital in Plainfield, NJ - an easier commute. For her new job, Vi had to learn to draw the blood she was going to test. She had many amazing adventures in that aspect of her job, including drawing blood from a man we said he saw snakes crawling up his hand. (He was in his DTs - delirium tremens from alcohol abuse. Vi told him her needle would get rid of the snakes.) She also drew blood from the heel of a baby who had been born prematurely.

OUR FIRST DAUGHTER IS BORN

What do they call people who use the "rhythm method" of birth control?  Parents!

Vi became pregnant soon after our marriage. When we told Vi's GYN that I wanted to be with her when she gave birth (a practice that was not at all common in New Jersey in the 1960's) he told us it was not permitted at the hospital where he worked. However, he was good enough to refer us to a wonderful doctor at Overlook Hospital in Summit, NJ Hospital, where the practice was allowed. 

We read some books about "Natural Childbirth" and Vi's new GYN was very helpful. I was holding Vi's shoulder when our daughter Lisa was born in May 1965. Vi was WONDERFUL! 

At that time, the Lamaze Method of childbirth was not well-known in the US. However, a couple years later, we learned about Lamaze and used it for our second daughter, Rena. and our third, Sara. 

Both were born at the Guthrie Clinic, Sayre, PA, where Vi's GYN was the wonderful Dr. George Corner. 

For Rena's birth, I was not allowed to be in the Delivery Room, per se. So Dr. Corner had me stand at the open door, where I watched the birth process. 

For our third daughter, Dr. Corner made special arrangements. He had me wear a surgical gown and stand at Vi's head when Sara was born. The Delivery Room was packed with a half-dozen nurses who watched what, at that time and place, was quite unusual and even revolutionary. As always, Vi was WONDERFUL!

MY SECOND LETTER PUBLISHED IN THE NEW YORK TIMES

April 1965 - A month before Lisa was born, the New York Times published a story about "The Scandal of Abortion - Laws", focusing on the variety of laws governing abortion, and, especially the dangers of "back-alley abortions" in states with strict laws. 

For all the months of Vi's pregnancy, no one ever asked her "how's your fetus?" or "when is the fetus due?" It was always "is your baby kicking yet" or "when is the baby due?" The Times story never used the word "baby", but "fetus" was mentioned nearly a dozen times.

NY Times2

So, I wrote a letter to the Times and a sentence from my letter, along with several other letters, was published on May 9, 1965.

The above graphic shows my letter along with a portion of two other letters.

OUR MOVE TO UPSTATE NEW YORK - MY LONG IBM CAREER BEGINS

August 1965 - I took a job with IBM Federal Systems in Owego (upstate New York) and we purchased an 88-acre farm with a very old house and a few barns! Why a farm? Why upstate NY?   Why IBM?

Well, while Vi and I were working in New Jersey, one of my fellow employees, who had purchased a farm, invited us out to see it. He had a small tractor and a hay wagon, and he gave us a hay ride up and down the hills on his farmland. I loved it!

He told us that he found the farm in the Strout Catalog, which, at the time, listed farms and other rural properties for sale in various parts of the US. 

Although I was relatively happy with my job at Lockheed Electronics, and especially with my boss Sherman Mullin (who later was promoted to high executive positions at Lockheed Aircraft), I regularly scanned the Sunday New York Times for job Engineering opportunities. Whenever I found a job that looked interesting, I'd check the Strout Catalog for that area of the country to see what kinds of farm properties might be available.

So it was that I came upon a job of interest at IBM Federal Systems in Owego, NY. The Strout Catalog listed several very attractive rural properties in that area of Upstate NY. Also, Owego was about 200 miles from Brooklyn, convenient driving distance for us to visit our families and for them to visit us. So, I applied, visited Owego for an interview, and got the job! 

Vi and I and our infant daughter moved to Owego where we rented an apartment. After looking at several rural properties, we found the 88-acre farm we eventually purchased.  The nearest house was a quarter-mile away.

As you can see from the photo above, the property included a house and a few barns. The oldest part of the house (at the left in this photo) was over 100 years old and the newer part at least 50 years old. A wood-burning stove ("Kalamazoo" brand) and a kerosene-burning heater warmed the old part, and, the newer part had propane-burning heaters in the living room and one of the bedrooms. The single bathroom was in the old part of the house.

I hired a local guy to install an oil furnace in the dirt-floor cellar located under the old part of the house, and run baseboard hot water throughout the entire house. My Dad came up from Brooklyn and we extended and enclosed the front porch. We also installed a small bathroom on the second floor of the newer part of the house. Our neighbors, who were struggling dairy and beef farmers, welcomed us quite warmly and gave us lots of excellent advice and help.

Farm Days

OUR "GREEN ACRES" FARM DAYS

The photos above capture some highlights of what we call our "Green Acres" days (named after the sitcom of that era starring Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor). He played a formerly city-dwelling Lawyer who got the idea to have a farm and she played his long-suffering Hungarian wife. I was a Brash Brooklyn Engineer with a similar call  to experience farming and my wife (of Hungarian extraction) went along with my plan. My wife says "we eventually had everything they had, except Arnold the Pig!")

The photo on the upper left shows Clara and Gilbert Stark, Vi's parents, on one of their visits to our farm. They never said anything, but I had the feeling they were thinking "what have you done to our daughter?" The lower left shows my parents, Morris and Ruth (center) camping on the part of our farm that overlooks our house and barns. We built a quarter-acre pond up there as a water-conservation project, with technical help and $450 from the U. S. Government Agriculture Department.

The photo on the right shows me (in the center) shoveling steaming chicken manure in our main barn, which had been used for raising chickens and eggs by the previous owners.

So, how did we get the sheep and Angus beef cattle shown in the photos? Well, some of our neighbor's children were members of the Future Farmers of America, and were raising sheep as one of their projects. So, I spent $50 to buy three ewes (female sheep), and they let us join their project. 

I named our ewes after female relatives, "Annie" for Vi's cousin, "Blanche" for my Aunt, and "Clara" for my mother-in-law. Another neighbor sold me two Black Angus beef cattle that we did not name because we planned to flatten them up and consume them. 

Ewes need to be shorn of their wool in early spring. I had to load the ewes onto a small trailer and haul them to another farmer's barn where they were sheared. My job was to lift the 150-pound ewe into shearing position (sitting on her butt with front legs up). The wool from each ewe was worth $5, plus a U. S. Government farm subsidy of $5 each. Apparently, there may have been a shortage of wool for sleeping bags during WWII and this subsidy was still in effect. 

The ewes also had to be "settled" (impregnated) in early fall. I had to transport them to a neighbor's farmyard where a ram did that job. Ewes will allow themselves to be settled only when in the proper part of their cycle. How to know a ewe has been settled? Well, the ram wears a bag strapped to his lower chest, and that bag is filled with colored chalk. For the first three weeks that chalk is red, so any ewe settled during that period will have a red mark on the wool on her butt. For the next three weeks the ram's chalk is blue. If a ewe with a red butt does not get settled again (does not get blue chalk on her butt), that is evidence that the first settling was effective. 

Of course, the whole point of settling is to get lambs, which are born five months later, in late February or March. A week after birth, the lambs have to docked (tails cut off). The reason for this is that uncut tails hang down over their anus and could interfered with defecation. Vi and I got pretty good at this task. I used a twig lopping tool to snip the tail and then pulled the wool over the bloody stump where it would quickly coagulate and stop the bleeding.

We kept the female lambs for breeding, so I named them after female relatives. However, male lambs were for consumption, so they were not named. Three weeks after birth, male lambs need to be castrated. This is done to prevent them from settling the ewes. I'll spare you a detailed description except to say I had to hold each lamb while a neighbor farmer did the deed. For the rest of the day, I would walk with my legs apart as I "felt their pain". 

For the most part, our ewes gave birth and provided milk to their lambs as good mothers without any help from me. However, I did have to help some in the birth process, which was interesting.

We did have two lambs that had to be bottle fed because they were orphaned. We took them into our  house and fed them from a bottle. They happened to be male lambs who were destined to be consumed, but we broke our rule about naming them. We called them "Lamb chop" and "Leg-a". 

The photo above shows Vi, Lisa, and me with our two Angus Beef and some of our ewes and lambs.

As I look back at this scene from so many years ago, I see two college-educated (Jewish) kids from Brooklyn with the crazy idea of running a farm. I have a lovely warm feeling for our neighbors, themselves struggling farmers, who took pity on us and recognized how much we needed their help. They never looked down on us or demeaned us in any way. They simply accepted us as we were, and unselfishly helped us.

An example of this is the time I got our van stuck sideways on the icy ramp leading up to the barn where I parked it. I called my neighbor and expected him to come over with his tractor and pull my van down the ramp.

What he did amazed me! He looked at the situation and told me where to stand. We both pushed and the van slid around to the proper direction. I doubt this farmer ever took a course in Physics, yet he knew how to solve a practical problem that I, a graduate Engineer, couldn't solve! I knew all about gravity and friction and forces and equations, and so on. He knew that I got the van turned sideways because the ramp was slippery. He knew how to use that slippery situation to solve my problem!

Lesson #4: GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY, PEOPLE 

WANT TO HELP YOU – AND THEY WILL ! 

EVEN IF A FARMER 

(OR PILOT/MECHANIC/ELECTRICIAN/PLUMBER/…) 

HAS NEVER TAKEN A  COURSE IN PHYSICS THEY

 KNOW MORE ABOUT REAL PHYSICAL STUFF THAN 

YOU DO!

LISTEN TO THEM !

BEING A MEMBER OF THE JEWISH MINORITY

Both Vi and I grew up in solidly Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn. However, for our entire married lives, we've lived and worked as members of a tiny Jewish minority in Christian communities.  We never hid our Judaism, and only once do I remember any negative aspects of being Jewish.

I  joined the local Volunteer Fire Company in Weltonville, about three miles from our farm. There were no fire hydrants in our area, so our "fire truck" was an oil tanker, converted to haul water. We also had a water pump and several hundred feet of fire hose we could use to pump water out of a pond or the creek. Fortunately, during my time as a member, we had nothing more than a couple of grass fires, which were put out by members wearing "Indian tanks" on their backs.

The nearest real fire truck was located at the nearby Newark Valley Volunteer Fire Company which is where we trained. I actually got to drive their fire truck a short distance one time. They were our main back-up if we ever had a major fire. 

Our main source of funding was our annual Ham Dinner, at the Flemingville Grange Hall. This was an all-you-can-eat feast served family-style on long tables. I helped serve the food and clear the tables. There was no set charge for the meal. On the way out, people were expected to make a "free will" donation of as much (or as little) as they chose. Most were quite generous.

We met once a month at our Fire Station. At one meeting, a member suggested we could raise money by raffling a TV set. The discussion quickly focused on how we might get a new TV set for the least amount of money. One member suggested we wait for a sale at Sears, another said he knew the owner of a TV sales and service shop in Owego, etc. 

In the midst of all this talk about getting the TV for the least amount of money, the guy in charge, who happened to be the owner of the Weltonville General Store, said "We're NOT JEWS!"

Immediately, I raised my hand and said "I AM!"

That ended the discussion and we went on to other matters. However, after the meeting, several members congratulated me on my reaction. We never had that raffle.

I DON'T BELIEVE IN  MIRACLES … BUT

As kids, both Vi and I learned to read Hebrew and I received an Orthodox Bar Mitzvah. (In those days girls were not Bat Mitzvah in Orthodox Judaism). My brother, five years my junior, was also Bar Mitzvah.

Our three daughters also learned to read Hebrew and were Bat Mitzvah in the Conservative/Reconstructionist congregation in Endicott,, NY, to which we belonged. Similarly, our three grand-daughters learned to read Hebrew and were Bat Mitzvah in the Reform congregation in Andover, MA, to which they belonged.

Vi and I are founding members of the Reform Congregation here in The Villages, FL.

All of the above happened even though neither my parents, nor Vi, nor I, nor our daughters, nor our grands have any literal belief in Judaism.

Does that fact qualify as some kind of miracle?

(Perhaps "Jewish solidarity" goes a lot deeper than any of us suspect?)

THE EFFECT OF "REVERSE DISCRIMINATION" ON THE JEWISH MINORITY

I'm going to jump ahead a bit to 1978, when my third letter was published in the New York Times. It had to do with the Supreme Court's tortured decision on the Bakke case, where a highly qualified applicant to medical school was denied admission, while members of other racial and ethnic groups, with significantly lower qualifications, were admitted under a quota system. 

While Bakke was not Jewish, he was denied admission because, being "white", he was a member of an "over-represented" racial/ethnic/surname group. As we know, Jews (and Asians) in the United States are even more "over-represented" in college admissions as well as professions that require high academic capabilities. I was concerned that our daughters, through no fault of their own, as members of an "over-represented" group, would similarly be affected by this type of "reverse discrimination". 

NY Times3

As the above graphic indicates, I began my letter with a classic story:

"Once upon a time, a poor man was accused of stealing a horse from a rich estate. The jury decided that the poor man was totally innocent, provided that he returned the horse - after the harvest."

Justice Powell was joined by a group of four justices in part of the decision, and a different group of four justices in the other part of the decision! Basically, the Bakke decision upheld the use of race in college admissions, so long as it was muddled into a "good faith" multi-factor calculation, and there was no obvious quota system. I pointed out that:

"Mixing poison with milk does not make the milk safe - quite the contrary."

The Supreme Court ordered the medical school to admit Bakke. It is said that "justice delayed is justice denied." Bakke was 42 years old when he graduated from medical school. He went on to be an anesthesiologist at the Mayo Clinic.

Shortly before the Bakke decision, IBM sent me to the University of Michigan to interview some engineering students who were about to graduate. I was required to classify the applicants, using code numbers according to their race, ethnicity, and gender, and I was ordered not to inform them they were being so classified. Also, I was allowed to invite highly qualified students to an expense-paid trip to Owego, NY, but only if their GPA was 4 or higher - unless they were "minority" in which case 2.5 was acceptable.

Also, to my horror, when I compared the code numbers to a list that included my name, along with the names of other interviewers, one of whom was Asian, that the IBM Personnel System had me classified as "white" without telling me! So, the IBM computer system had me classified by race. Did they also have me classified by religion? I hope not, but we may never know.

Ira Glickstein

(This is the end of PART 2.)  CLICK TO CONTINUE TO PART 3  (OR BACK TO PART 1)

LINKS TO ALL PARTS OF "TO SEE OURSELVES AS OTHERS SEE US"

PART 1 - MY MORAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY TAKE SHAPE IN MY COLLEGE DAYS

PART 2 - MY CAREER, MARRIAGE, FLYING, AND OUR "GREEN ACRES" DAYS.

PART 3 - TOASTMASTERS AND MY EARLY CAREER AT IBM

PART 4 - APPLE II AND IBM PC ROCK OUR WORLD

PART 5 -  OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES IN NEW YORK AND  FLORIDA

PART 6 - ACTIVE RETIREMENT IN THE VILLAGES, FLORIDA