Linda's Red Bag

Ideas take up space. There is no design for where to put them. It is up to each individual.

It is memorial Day weekend and I have driven by many yard sales, driveways filled with items that people no longer use, that are taking up space, and will be sold or given away. Truly valuable items are sold at auctions and other marketplace venues or given to loved ones. Is it the same for ideas?

The red bag my mother gave me, with folders probably filled with resumes, stories, poems from throughout her life, items that she valued because they concretize her ideas, it still sits on my floor and I have no heart to put it in a closet or an attic. The contents are much larger than the bag. They fill time, our home, my future, if I cannot decide where to put them.

xoxo,
Bob's Daughter

Designing Life

By Design...
How can understanding  design be so vitally important?
Uncle Herbie has told me a story about his time in the Korean War. I will not tell it as well as he does, but I will give you the highlights.

Herbert I. Cohen is in a ditch digging trenches in Korea.
A superior officer yells out, "Does anyone here type?"
Herbert I. Cohen calls back, "Me!"
He didn't hesitate and tells me it was worth a try, the worst thing that could happen was that he would end up digging ditches when they found out he was a poor typist - and since he was already doing that, this seemed like a good idea.

"Report to building ****"
"Yes, Sir" said Herbert I. Cohen

After cleaning up, Herbert I. Cohen stood facing building ****.
He decided to go around to the back of the building and go in through that door.
Once through the door a doctor asked him, "What are you doing here?"
He replied, "I'm here for my assignment."
The doctor said, "Come this way."
And that is how Herbert I. Cohen stopped digging ditches and became a surgical assistant.
(He later went to Johns Hopkins and became a doctor.)

He laughs at this part of the story and tells me, "I knew if I went in the front door I'd have to type and they would know I wasn't very good, but if I went in the back door something else might happen."

Herbert I. Cohen went in the back door because as Uncle Herbie recently explained to me, "You basically know what happens in the front of a building, so I figured I had a better chance for something interesting at the back." This is about design and a certainty in the structure of an environment.

I kept thinking about my lawyer's office. I hate the building. In order to make every tenant feel that they have a "front" entrance the architecture rambles and it is unclear which door to enter and what stairway or elevator to use. This is not the sort of building that Herbert I. Cohen entered on his way to becoming Dr. Cohen and then Uncle Herbie.

I later asked him if they ever figured out that he never reported for typing. He said, "OH, yes, but it was months later and we were going home. They asked where I was and I told them 'I went to building **** and reported for duty.' And I had. And I went there every day."

"Didn't someone notice that you weren't typing?"
"Yes, eventually they asked where I was working and I told them 'surgery' and they said, 'Cohen, you were supposed to be typing!' and I said, 'this is what they asked me to do when I arrived.' and that's the truth!"

I love Uncle Herbie.
xoxo,
Bob's Daughter
aka Uncle Herbie's Niece

Google has now listed one of Bob's patents online. When I first found the patent (see blog) I discovered it from a Florida newspaper and then had to search the patent office. Now, just several months later Google has it in one quick search and link. Did this blog push his patent to the front of the line for digital processing, is it random, or alphabetical?

We are living through the initial stages of a digital world and I want to be conscious of it. In years to come this will be taken for granted, but it is happening NOW, for anyone reading this blog.

I found something else in this search. A site called Funeral Digest with the headline Today's Obituaries.
One of mom's obituaries is there.

There are also funeral plots for sale and a banner with names of people with anniversaries of their deaths.
This is big business. I think it used to be called religion.

Ballard Durrand, the funeral home I contracted with for Mom's burial, sent me a letter inviting me to have them set a dove free in my mother's honor.

I mentioned this to two professors I teach with at SUNY New Paltz. Kathy responded, "What are they going to do otherwise, keep them hostage?" So funny, and terrible.
The other professor, Suzanne, said that she thinks we do not talk about death in our culture and that people are searching for meaning. I agree with her.

It is the convergence of the internet, capitalism and lack of meaningful ritual that is creating this bizarre death market.

In the meantime, no word from MyLife.com about the email I sent my father.
It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, "dead letter box."

Respectfully,
Bob's Daughter

Mother's Account

It's Mother's Day.
I closed her LinkedIn account.
A gift for us both.

Bob and Linda, spring/ summer 1965

Martha's Vineyard, MA

xoxo,

Emily

aka Bob's Daughter

MLS

My cheeks hurt I get such a kick out of this.
The listing states "contempo".

I really am Bob's daughter.
I often unwind looking at MLS listings, thinking about investing in real estate.
Bob didn't have instant gratification perusing from a laptop, but I think he would have LOVED it.
Anyhoo, I find it to be fabulous because sometimes I come across something like this...

and I wonder what it looks like inside? Contempo? Hmmm? Maybe it is one big box?
No...here comes that strange feeling in my cheeks, like I might laugh, but I shouldn't.
Beam me up Scotty because this is what I found!

This place is a time capsule! Love it, had to share it.
Design, some is classic and some is of a moment. I especially like that the yellow fridge and oven match the yellow sink. Whomever buys this place might want to try keeping it as a set because I think this predates avocado!

xoxo,
Bob's Daughter

"Never let yourself forget who you are." Chuck Jones, my mentor told me that. It is one of the best pieces of advice I have ever heard.

Great advice when so many of us wear different hats. I find it can be hard to keep track of myself. For example, I see someone whom I haven't seen in a few years, I am with one of my twin daughters and the person says, "Is this your daughter?" I may pause, because to me it is obvious, but this person has had a lapse in time in my story. This is a moment to catch up on each others lives. Recently, I heard a less pleasant version, "Did you birth those babies?" I was silent for a moment. There is actually no answer to this question that is polite. I simply state, "Yes." Inside I think of loudly saying, "No, you bitch, I ordered them from a catalog." Instead, I try to move on and ignore whatever she says next. (If I had adopted these children I still would detest this statement.) This is one example of remembering who I am. Yes, I am a new mother, no I don't have to be spoken to like that, and lastly I hope at 43 years old I have the control not to make a scene.

Yet, Chuck meant this in a different light when he said it. He said this to me when I was afraid to make a change in my life - a big change. He knew that I could do this because he held a piece of me in his heart and memory that could make these changes. I felt fragile that day. He gave me a bit of myself back and asked me not to let it go - to remember myself. I am remembering this conversation now as I prepare to make more changes. I don't always remember my strength, but I remember Chuck.

xoxo,
Bob's Daughter
aka Emily

Gideon Loewenstein may be my new "best friend". You know, the kind you had when you were in elementary school. The person who was suddenly there in your life and very important. Gideon, has not let me go since the phone call I made to him (out of the blue) after finding his name on a patent that my father created. He was so warm that day that when I found him on line and then called information for his phone number. I like the world where Gideon lives. It has kindness, beyond civility. He emails me every once in a while and lets me know he is thinking of me and asks how I am. After mom died he emailed that I should "be strong". I like that phrase from an architect.

This is how old I was when Gideon last saw me. 

This is me with my father in 1968. I love the way that Bob is showing me the block. Shape, space, square, form, I don't know what he was saying, but as a child I loved to hang upside down and imagine that I lived on the ceiling and that all the door frames were benches.

I want to address Gideon as Mr. Loewenstein, but he signs his emails "Gideon".
It is challenging for me when kids call adults by their first names. I am more accustomed to it now, but our children call most people "Auntie" and "Uncle". It helps, but it  is inaccurate. I  miss the comfort and design of decorum and manners that provided my (false) sense of security that the world had an order to it. An order that could be defined with short words, unfortunately Ms. wasn't one of them..

Bread and roses,
Bob's Daughter