Goodbye Facebook

13 Monday Jan 2020

Posted by Richard in Articles of Interest, Escapes and Pleasures, Family and Friends, Go Sox, The Outer Loop

Tags

10 Reasons Why You Should Quit Facebook Now, Facebook, Instagram, Leaving Facebook, Lisa M., MillersTime.net, Millerstimeblogger, Sacha Baron Cohen, Sacha Baron Cohen Video, Samesty84, Social Media Dieting, Twitter, www.millerstime.net

I’m going on a diet.

Not the kind of diet I’ve been on for the last three years, with some success, despite some ‘give backs.’

But a diet from the two to three to four hours a day I spend between email, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and a variety of websites that provide me with some form of input about things important and not so important.

I’m starting by withdrawing from Facebook, which is something I’ve been considering for a year or more, not just because of the amount of time I spend on it, but also for a number of other reasons.

There’s lots I like about FB, particularly for being in touch with friends (and some foes) with whom I otherwise might not have frequent contact. Certainly I enjoy posting photos (mine and Ellen’s) and links to my MillersTime.net blog. And there are a number of links that I follow from various FB posts that I might not know about otherwise.But I’m choosing to start this diet with FB because of what FB has become and what its leaders, particularly Mark Zuckerberg, have done with this once promising social networking website. I’ll spare reposting Lisa W’s list and explanation of Ten Reasons Why You Should Quit Facebook Now. Suffice it to say that I agree with at least eight of her 10 points.

(I have previously posted (on FB!) Sacha Baron Cohen’s powerful three minute video of how FB’s platform and policies are allowing the spread of hate and lies in our political and other discourse and, in fact, makes what is occurring there even worse by their unwillingness to intervene. If you haven’t listened to Cohen’s message, stop now and click on the link above.

I will continue, for now, with my Instagram and Twitter accounts knowing that Instagram is owned by FB. As with any diet, you can’t cut out everything at once, but you have to start somewhere. In order not to just transfer my FB time to one of the other social media time killers, I will also limit my total time spent using these (and other) social media platforms.

So by the end of January, I will no longer have a Facebook account. Between now and then, I will figure out alternative ways to stay in touch with some individuals abroad and with friends here in the US. I’m open to suggestions as how to do that.

And if you want to help me (having partners in dieting has proven valuable to me with my weight loss), you can let me know if you’d like to be on my MillersTime.net mailing list, which at no cost to you will get you three for four emails a month that describe my most recent blog post (on travel, photos, family, grand kids, books, films, baseball, and an occasional attempt at describing something that is on my alleged mind.) Just email me if you want to get those notifications about new blog posts.

Finally, for now, I will retain my two Instagram accounts (samesty84 and millerstimeblogger). So feel free to follow me there and send me your Instagram handle (if you want to stay in touch that way).

There’s always that old fashion way of communicating – email (Samesty84 at gmail dot com) and texting. I am diligent in responding to email (and snail mail) from friends…and texts, which seem to be my wife’s and daughters’ preferred way of reaching me.

Focusing on the Grand Kids

16 Saturday Mar 2019

Posted by Richard in Family and Friends

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Ellen Miller's Photos, Grand Kids, Grandkids, Photos, Thru Ellen's Lens

Contrary to what some of you may think, Ellen and I are not spending all of our time traveling, going to movies, reading books, seeing friends, finding wonderful restaurants, following baseball, or stressing about the state of our nation.

We now have five grand children, and when Ellen is not making picture books from our travels (she’s up to 25 now!), she focuses on Eli, 10, Abigail, 8, Ryan almost 6, Samantha 3, and Brooke 18 months.

Today’s post are photos from the last three or four weeks, some from a weekend when all five were together and some from KC and others from DC/MD.

Thru Ellen’s Lens: Wyoming

28 Tuesday Aug 2018

Posted by Richard in Escapes and Pleasures, Family and Friends

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

Grand Teton National Park, Grand Tetons, Jackson Hole, Spring Creek Ranch, Wyoming, Yellowstone National Park

Usually we just post photos from trips abroad, but as many of you know, the US has as much outstanding scenery and wonderful sites to visit as almost any place in the world.

Below are a baker’s dozen photos from a recent family trip to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Grand Teton National Park, and Yellowstone National Park. Thus, you get not only the benefit of Ellen’s eye but also a glimpse of the family too.

The best way to see these photos, however, is in the slide show which you can access by following the instructions below.

12 Do’s & Don’ts for Grandparents

31 Tuesday Jul 2018

Posted by Richard in Family and Friends

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Do's and Don'ts, Grand Children, Grand parenting, Taking Care of Grand Children

Now that we are ‘old’ hands at this grandparenting thing – nine plus years and five grandchildren – we have learned a few things that no one told us when we started doing this drill. Some of these ‘do’s and don’ts’ are very important to your sanity while being in charge.

(Recently, we had the two pictured above for ‘four’ days.)

DO totally clean out your refrigerator before they arrive and before your daughter goes through it to throw out anything labeled with a sell date being before the day she checks on you and accuses you of “trying to make my kids’ sick.”

Do purchase a half gallon of milk per grandchild per day, one 24 oz size of Hershey’s chocolate syrup per grandchild per two days, one pound of blueberries, one pound of raspberries and a half pound of blackberries per child per day, and most important, three cups of Edy’s ‘Light’ Ice Cream (5.8 fluid ounces) per child per day.

(On the first day, we gave them ice cream after dinner; on the second day we gave them ice cream after lunch and dinner; on the third day we gave it to them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.)

Do get plenty of rest the week before you begin this care taking assignment and be sure you have nothing scheduled for the week following.

Do plan to go to bed within seven minutes of putting the grandchildren to sleep (12 minutes if the child takes time to fall asleep).

Do bring the grandchildren to your home for at least most of the time you have them. There’s a chance (slight) that they might be on better behavior in your house than in their own (particularly if you let them know that if they want to be ‘invited back’ they’d better behave).

Don’t agree months in advance to do a long weekend of care taking expecting or hoping that your children’s plans requiring your assistance will fall through, thus relieving you of having to take care of the grandchildren. If your children’s plans do fall through, they either won’t tell you or they’ll just make new plans, once they’ve got your agreement to take the kids.

Don’t expect to do anything other than be available 24 hours a day every day the child/children are with you.

Don’t even consider using one of those video monitoring devices that show you what’s going on in the children’s rooms once you’ve put them to bed.

Don’t expect that anything you learned or was successful with your own parenting of your own children will be of any use with your grandchildren.

(We tried to mitigate the arguing between the two grandchildren by alternating who got to ‘go first’ whenever there was a decision about something where there was choice, something we had done with some degree of success with our own children. This ‘proven tactic’ was easily obliterated by the grandchildren arguing over whose turn it was to choose first.)

Do encourage the grandchildren’s parents to put them in day camp for at least half of the total number of days you agree to take care of them.

Don’t tell the grandchildren anything you don’t want them to tell their parents.

(When I responded to pleas for stories about when we were young, I mentioned that I was arrested for stopping traffic, trying to shut down DC, during the Vietnam War. The five year told his parents that Grandpapa was put in jail for stopping cars in the war in the streets.)

Don’t, under any condition or despite any pressure, even consider having more grandchildren to take care of than the number of adults you have available to manage this task.

You’re welcome.

PS – Please put in the comment section of this post any ‘Do and Don’t’ suggestions that you have discovered that may be helpful to fellow grandparents.

Continuing to Remember Sam Miller

04 Wednesday Jul 2018

Posted by Richard in Family and Friends

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Chelmsford MA, Esther Miller, Esty, Esty Miller, Eulogy, Sam, Sam Miller, Samuel S. Miller, Temple Beth El Cemetary

On this July 4 anniversary of my father’s death, a repost from seven years ago.

from MillersTime, July, 13, 2011…

Sam died, as he requested, peacefully and without pain, in his own bed, in his apartment, surrounded in the last months, weeks, days, and hours by three generations of his family. His daughter, son, son-in law, daughter-in-law, four grand children and their spouses, four great grand children, and of course his wonderful caretaker all were able to spend time with him at the end of his life.

Eulogy

Samuel S. Miller
Jan. 13, 1918 – July 4, 2011
Temple Beth El Cemetery
Chelmsford, MA
7/7/11

When we were last here, it was for Esty. And when it came to talk about her, it was pretty easy.

It was clear what to say about her. She was a caretaker and a builder of family.

Sam, on the other hand, is not so easily categorized. He was a person of contradictions and (seeming) opposites.

He was not religious, yet he tried to volunteer for the Seven Day War.

He played football – a lineman – in high school and college during the day and read and memorized poetry at night while listening to classical music.

He was a gambler, in business, at the dog track, and at jai alai, yet husbanded his money carefully to provide for his family and especially for Esty and himself for their later years.

He could be arrogant, intolerant, stubborn, judgmental, and certainly impatient, but he was caring, compassionate, and involved with his family, and could and did cry like no man I have known.

He was a tough businessman who also played chess, read voluminously, and remained liberal in his political views all his life.

As Esty often said, he was a loner but not lonely.

He was self-centered but fiercely family focused. (I’m sure everyone assembled here could tell stories about Sam’s intimate involvement with each of you.). At Daytona he taught many of us to drive, to play chess and he watched endlessly as many of you yelled, “Watch me Sammy” as you jumped into the pool. And there were many long walks and talks on the beach.

He was not close with his parents growing up, especially not with his dad. Then later, in Bebee and Tom’s later years, he moved them from Boston to Orlando where he and Esty were living, and he saw them everyday.

He smoked two packs of cigarettes a day but quit when his sister-in-law Caryl was dying because he said he wanted to see his grandchildren grow up, at least until their 20’s (they’re now in their 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s).

He loved to ask questions and sometimes even waited for the answer. He was often thinking of the next question before you answered the first one. But you always felt he wanted to know about you — as one person wrote on his 92 birthday: “When I talk to you, you make me feel that I am the most important person…I can ‘feel’ that you are with me…you take a deep interest in what I am saying…you are present to the moment and you live the moment.”

He was an intellectual who read two or three books a week, went to the dog track frequently, and walked two or three miles every late afternoon well into his 80’s to maintain his good health.

He was a ‘Yankee’ (not the baseball kind, thank God) who loved Florida (much to Esty’s chagrin).

He was basically a ‘homebody’ yet visited his son in West Africa because he said he always visited his kids in camp. He traveled to Central American for business and to Europe with Esty. With various family members, he traveled all over the US, including Alaska, and to the Caribbean, India, China, Russia, Mongolia, Egypt, Lithuania, and Israel. His trip to Lithuania was to see the place from where his mother and her family had emigrated.

Although he was ‘technically challenged’ and could barely screw in a light bulb, he learned to use the computer in his 80’s and emailed well into his 90’s.

He enjoyed good food and liquor, yet took good care of his body and lived longer than any Miller in his extensive and extended family.

He was taken care of by Esty, and then took care of her over the final difficult three years of her life, never leaving her side for more than an hour (and then that was usually only to exercise).

He was very involved with his own kids when they were small, wasn’t around so much when they were growing up as he left for work before dawn and had to spend the evenings on the phone to buy fruit and get picking crews for the next day. Then in his kids’ adult years, he again became involved with them intimately as well as with their spouses, their children, and finally his great grand children, all four of whom he saw within the last few months of his 93 ½ years.

He was a man of seeming contradictions but not of excesses and rarely of unkindnesses. In fact, I believe he mellowed a bit in his later years and became more tolerant, a bit less stubborn, and even patient at times.

So if it can be said that Esty took care of people and family, it must also be said that Sam did too, especially family, in his own way.

And as Esty taught us how to deal with medical and physical difficulties with wonderful grace at the end of her life, so too can it be said that Sam taught us that one can age with grace and softness and love.

Richard Miller

Telling Esty’s Story

13 Sunday May 2018

Posted by Richard in Family and Friends

≈ 6 Comments

In 2015 we had the good fortune to see Lin Manuel’s Hamilton on Broadway, and one of the enduring memories of that masterpiece for me is the finale song of Act 2 — Who lives, Who dies, Who tells your story? (…But When you’re gone, who remembers your name? Who keeps your flame, who tells your story?…)

As I have written previously about my mother, Esther Goodman Miller, and “…as it gets further from her life and death, I want to keep her name and flame alive, alive for myself and my sister, alive for the rest of the family who is still living, and alive for the great grandchildren, only one whom she ever met.” And also for all those lives she touched with her selfless care taking and gentle love.

Esty died on Mother’s Day, May 13, 2007, and so I repost the Eulogy I gave at her graveside.

EULOGY – May 15, 2007

Some of us [here] are teachers; some are doctors. Some make news, and some report it. Some build bridges, or bridge tables. Some are lawyers, government workers. Some grow fruit, and some seek to make the country and the world a better place.

Esty was none of these, at least not directly.

She was a caretaker and a builder of families.

When you know a bit about her background, that’s kind of an amazing choice of careers — or maybe not so surprising. Esty’s mother died when Esty was four months old. For the next seven years she lived with various relatives and family friends as her father, Rob, was trying to earn a living and couldn’t take care of an infant and young child. She sometimes saw him on weekends but had no real family life of her own during her early, formative years.

When Esty was seven, Rob, Pappy to many of us, and a prince of a man, remarried and Esty suddenly had a family of her own. Along with her stepmother Ray came Arnold, the older brother Esty had always wanted and whom she instantly worshiped and who was so good to her.

From an early age Esty’s role seemed to involve taking care of others – grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins. Many of you here can attest to that. She baby sat for cousin Arthur, standing here, and claims she changed his diapers.

Esty finished high school not far from here (much to her relief) and started nursing school. Her patients loved her, but probably because she so identified with their cares, worries, and illnesses, she agreed with her father’s urging not to pursue that career.

She went the U of NH, met Sam at the opening night mixer, and thought he was a bit mad when walking her back to the dorm, he told her he was going to marry her (I think she had another boyfriend at the time).

Esty and Sam married just a few years later and had Janet and myself in rapid succession. After living in eye sight of Fenway Park (Pappy was a Red Sox devotee all his life) and in Brookline, they moved to Orlando for Sam’s citrus work. Sam soon left to protect his country (as a librarian in San Diego), and Esty devoted herself to a long and never ending career of mothering, care taking, and building of family. Not only taking care of her own, Esty found a circle of young friends with young families and became treasured for her kindnesses and ability to help and care about others.

When I went a few days ago to tell one of these good friends, a friend of more than 60 years, Ruth Esther, that Esty was nearing her end, Ruth Esther cried and cried, saying how Esty was like a sister to her and her best friend and how helpful Esty had been to her in raising her own family. I’ve heard similar stories repeatedly in the last week, many for the first time. I know everyone assembled here could tell about how Esty looked out for you, took care of you, was special in some way in your life, maybe healed a wound or gave you comfort. She just seemed to have a way of touching people and making them feel special.

I’m sure I’m not totally objective, but I spend much of my life listening to and observing people, and I have never once heard an unkind word said about Esty. I would hope and urge you over the next few days and weeks to tell us or to write us of your stories of Esty’s importance to you. We want to know and to remember these stories. It is part of her legacy.

Esty never put herself first. If there was a weakness, it might well have been that she may not have known or appreciated her own worth. Everyone, absolutely everyone’s needs – her husband’s, her parents’, her nieces’, her nephews’, her children’s, her grandchildren’s, her friends,’ whomever she came in contact with – came before her own self.

As most of you know, Esty had breast cancer 25 years ago, had a botched gall bladder operation that almost killed her eight years ago, and over the past three years was overcome by a cascading series of medical issues and crises. But none of these physical difficulties changed Esty’s basic nature. What most distressed her was that she could no longer care for herself. She hated being dependent on others for her care. Starting at 86 she was forced to rely on others. And though she hated this dependency, she did it her way. She kept her frustrations largely to herself (save an occasional harsh word with Sam, probably well deserved) and continued to worry and care about others. (Her sense of humor did seem to emerge and deepen in these later years; just 10 days ago, upon hearing Victor sing, she told him not to give up his ‘day job.’)

A few days ago Janet was asking her if she was afraid, and Esty nodded, ‘Yes.’ “About yourself?” Esty shook her head, “No.” “About your family?” Esty nodded, “Yes.” She told one of her wonderful aides that she worried about Sam especially, and also her kids and grand kids. We tried to tell her she needn’t worry (she was a world class worrier all her life, tho near the end she seemed to make some progress with no longer feeling responsible for everyone else). She had taught us how to take care of each other — by her example. Even on the day of her death, Mother’s Day, (a week shy of her 90th birthday, which she thought was entirely too many birthdays), she found a way to help her family – Sam, Janet, Victor, and myself.

And so maybe she was not only a mother, a care taker, a builder of family. She was also her own kind of healer, settler of disputes, teacher, cultivator.

While we have already missed Esty some of the last several years – and fear we will miss her even more in the days and years to come – we are glad she is returning to her Goodman family, to lie next to Arnold, Rob, and Ray. She has missed them so much these past years. She deserves to rest, and she deserves this resting place from where she came. And she has certainly earned over and over her maiden name Goodman.

Thru Ellen’s Lens: The Five Grand Children

05 Saturday May 2018

Posted by Richard in Family and Friends

≈ 9 Comments

While it may seem to readers of MillersTime that Ellen and I spend most of our time these days traveling, going to movies, reading, spending time with friends, exploring new restaurants, and attending baseball games, that is only partially accurate. We also spend some time with our five grandchildren (and their parental units), especially when we are invited to do so.

And so as Ellen has embarked on her ‘missed career’ (photography), rarely do we see the grandchildren without the accompaniment of Ellen’s camera.

Here then are some of her recent favorites of each of them. (Be sure to scroll to the bottom of this post so the youngest of the five won’t feel left out.)

Eli - 9

Abby - 7

Ryan - Almost 5

Samantha - 2

Brooke - 9 Months

Nominee for Father of the Year?

09 Saturday Dec 2017

Posted by Richard in Family and Friends

≈ 6 Comments

He’s got my vote.

Mother Knows Best

24 Thursday Aug 2017

Posted by Richard in Family and Friends

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Photo Contest

The results from the Baby Photo Contest are in, and I guess there is no real surprise about the winner.

Samantha and Brooke’s mom, Elizabeth, was the only contestant to correctly identify all 10 of the pictures (reshown and identified below).

I probably should say “Mothers Know Best” as two other mothers, Elizabeth’s sister Annie and sister-in-law Heather, correctly identified 9 out of the 10 pictures. Also, Aunt Janet got 8 out of the 10 correct.

Then came the two fathers, Brandt and his father Chuck, who between them averaged 75% correct identification, correctly identifying 15 of 20.

(Update: 5:48 PM: Upon referee’s review of the ‘father’ outcome, actually the combined score for Brandt and his father was 70% – 14/20.)

Others, Renee – 7/10, Emily G – 6/10, Ping – 6/10, Cousin Abby – 6/10, Sue – 5/10, Cousins Eil and Ryan – 5/10, and Carrie – 5/10. Ray G. said simply they were all beautiful and liked #5 the best, whoever it was. Many other readers made approving comments about the two babies but refused to commit themselves to identifying who was who.

If EACH of you who participated in the contest (those named above) will send me your T-shirt size, which picture you like the best, and your snail mail address, I will send you a T-shirt with that photo. You can substitute the one of the family (Photo #11 below) if you prefer.

Photo # 1: Samantha

Photo #2: Samantha

Photo #3: Brooke

Photo #4: Brooke

Photo #5: Brooke

Photo #6: Brooke

Photo # 7: Samantha

Photo #8: Brooke

Photo #9: Samantha

Photo #10: Brooke

Photo # 11: Family Photo

Disaster in Sierra Leone. You Can Help.

22 Tuesday Aug 2017

Posted by Richard in Family and Friends, The Outer Loop

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Global Giving, Help for Sierra Leone, Mudslide Disaster, Relief Needed, Save the Children, School for Salone, Sierra Leone

The photos below were sent to me by a friend from Sierra Leone, West Africa, following a mudslide August 14 just outside the capital of Freetown. Warning: they are not easy to take.

Hundreds of dead bodies have been recovered and burial graves are being dug. Four hundred people are known dead and perhaps another thousand have yet to be uncovered. This has only lightly been touched in the US media.

The Sierra Leone friend (he currently lives in the Washington, DC area) who sent me these photos lost his niece, her husband and her two children. At least 18 other members of this friend’s family are still missing, along with many others who had moved to the Freetown area from my friend’s village.

As in many disasters such as this, there are many needs to be met, and a call has gone out for assistance. And of course, this is personal to me as I was in the Peace Corps there in 1965 to 1967.

Here are three possible organizations that I am aware of that are reputable groups providing assistance. If you are able to help, please consider donating to one of these (or any other that you may know of that can responsibly provide assistance to those in need):

Global Giving (Includes 10 different projects that are providing relief in Sierra Leone)

Schools for Salone

Save the Children

Much thanks in advance.

Baby Contest

20 Sunday Aug 2017

Posted by Richard in Family and Friends

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Brooke, Grandchildren, Photo Contest, Samantha

As some of you may know, our daughter Elizabeth (Beth) and son-in-law Brandt are the parents for a second time with the birth almost two weeks ago of Brooklyn (Brooke) Shapira Tilis.

Brooke has had a lovely first several weeks, what with adoring grandparents (two sets) around and with various other family and parental friends attending also. Her sister’s (Samantha) most frequent ‘words’ (after ‘mom ma’) are ‘ba ba’ as she refers to this new addition to the family. Whether she understands that Brooke is a permanent addition or not is yet to be determined, but so far, the whole family seems to be adjusting well.

And who does Brooke look like?

See if you can tell.

After the family hospital picture below, you will find 10 photos, of both Brooke and Samantha taken during their first two weeks of life. Do not assume there are five of each. See if you can distinguish between them. The correct answers will appear in the Comment section of this post on Thursday.

Photo # 1:

Father Knows Best?

11 Sunday Jun 2017

Posted by Richard in Family and Friends

≈ 8 Comments

(Brandt and Samantha prior to their four day solo.)

Our ‘second’ son-in-law, Brandt, had the pleasure/duty to take care of our fourth grandchild (his first child) for almost four days by himself as our second daughter, his wife, was away for a long deserved break. I asked him to keep careful notes and to write something when and if he and she (Samantha) survived. (Note: Brandt’s own parental unit and his siblings would readily say that child care is not exactly Brandt’s primary strength.)

When the ‘trial’ was over, I received the following two photos from Brandt. The first is in our daughter’s handwriting and so apparently must have been a reminder list for what to feed the young princess.

Beware of Grandparents

18 Thursday May 2017

Posted by Richard in Articles of Interest, Family and Friends

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Drudge Report, Grandchildren, Grandparents, Pediatric Academic Society, The Wall Street Journal

We are under assault.

Research presented at a meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies this month warns of a grave threat to America’s children: Grandma and Grandpa. The study suggests older people are so hopelessly out of date on child-rearing recommendations that they may put their beloved grandchildren at risk.

Apparently, because we have not been ‘trained’ adequately, our children are being warned against allowing us to help with the grandchildren. Despite having been parents already, or perhaps because we were parents so long ago, we are out of date and cannot be trusted with the grand kinder.

[I wrote about this a few years ago: Are Grandparents (Becoming) Obsolete? In that Mar. 3, 2013 post I brought to your attention that we no longer were the ‘go to’ source for answering questions from our grandchildren. We had been replaced by Google. And that may even be out of date if your grandkid has Alexa to answer all of his/her questions.]

Now, in an attempt to stay up to date myself about politics and other issues and not just remain in my ideological bubble, I’ve expanded my morning reading of newspapers and other articles to include, among other sources, The Wall Street Journal and even The Drudge Report.

Imagine my horror when I saw this article this morning in the WSJ.

Sorry Gramps, You’re No Expert by Lenore Skenazy, Wall Street Journal, 5/17/17. (The subtitle of the article: “Are the people who raised you qualified to take care of your child?”)

Apparently we are not to be trusted because we don’t know all of the latest ‘research’ and ‘child expert advice’ that our own children are getting about raising their kids.

Harumph.

Ellen, let’s cancel those six upcoming dates to help out with the three grandchildren in Bethesda and the three scheduled trips to Kansas City in the next couple of months to help out with the grandchild there (and the one that is schedule to come in mid-August). After all, we wouldn’t want to put them at risk.

Maybe we can get back to traveling more frequently.

PS – I told you it wasn’t a good idea to slow down on our traveling. Now I have research to back me up. Let’s put South Africa, New Zealand, and the Arctic back on our schedule. Do you want to call the travel agent or should I?

Remembering Esty

10 Wednesday May 2017

Posted by Richard in Family and Friends

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

"Hamilton", "Who tells your story", Eli David Orgad, Esther Goodman Miller, Esty, Eulogy, Janet Miiller Brown, Rob Goodman, Sam Miller, Who Will Tell My Story?

I was at a funeral recently where the son of the deceased read a lovely eulogy to his dad, Sol. I only knew Sol briefly in his latter years, but Doug’s review of his dad’s life not only told me much I did not know, it also reminded me of the finale song of Act 2 in Lin Manuel’s Hamilton — Who lives, Who dies, Who tells your story? (…But When you’re gone, who remembers your name? Who keeps your flame, who tells your story?…)

This weekend, Saturday, it will be ten years since my mother, Esther Goodman Miller, (“Esty”) died. Then, on May 18th, it will have been 100 years since she was born.

As it gets further from her life and death, I want to keep her name and flame alive, alive for myself and my sister, alive for the rest of the family who is still living, and alive for the great grand children, only one whom she ever met.

And so I repost** the Eulogy I gave at her graveside.

EULOGY – May 15, 2007

Esty was none of these, at least not directly.

She was a caretaker and a builder of families.

And so maybe she was not only a mother, a care taker, a builder of family. She was also her own kind of healer, settler of disputes, teacher, cultivator.

**Posted on MillersTime — 1/15/09 Upon the Birth of Eli David Orgad, Named in Memory of ‘Esty’

My ‘Work’ Is Done

27 Thursday Apr 2017

Posted by Richard in Family and Friends, Go Sox

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Boston Red Sox, Granddaughter, Grandfather, Grandparenting, Parenting, Red Sox, Sox

Before you read any further, check out the photos above carefully. What you can see is my 14th month old granddaughter now ‘sporting’ — so to speak — diapers that clearly display what I trust will be her life choice of a favorite baseball team.

Believe it or not, her mother, my younger daughter, was the person who found and procured said diapers. (I admit I did support the idea once she mentioned it to me, but in truth, it was all her idea.)

Thus, my ‘work’ is done as far as this grandchild is concerned. Her mother seems to have it all well under control.

However, just in case, here are a few further actions she might take to embed a Sox obsession in her progeny:

Secure appropriate clothing each year of Samantha’s life which touts the Sox, Wally, Fenway, etc. (She might want to wait on any ‘Green Monster’ clothing until Samantha is old enough not to be fearful of monsters. Note: A ‘mistake’ was made with my then three year old grandson who was scared by a Green Monster t-shirt I procured for him. Only now, when he is almost four, has he begun to wear it. Hopefully, no long term damage was done.)
Parents should themselves, at various times, ‘sport’ appropriate Sox gear and should definitely avoid anything even resembling Yankee clothing. KC Royals’ gear (current home team) is problematic as mixed messages are rarely good for children.
Turn the TV on whenever the Sox are on, particularly if it is a playoff or World Series game.
Remind Samantha frequently that supporting the Sox is very important to the child’s maternal grandfather.
Find a player on the Sox team who is young and/or recognizable and have the child focus on that individual. Ages seven to eight have been found to be the earliest appropriate times to begin serious understanding of baseball. (Note: This has worked well with at least two of her cousins, and I plan to continue this ‘tradition’ with the third cousin when he reaches the age of seven.)
Plan her first trip to Fenway when she’s seven or eight. Assuming the early years of propagandizing have produced a desirable result, such a trip can ‘close the deal’ and make said individual a lifelong Sox fan. (Note: Said parents are off to a good start having taken her to a Sox game at the age of two months, tho it’s true the young babe was torn away from her earphones and taken home for bedtime in the second inning.)
As often as you can, take Samantha on or near her birthday to a Sox game, and, if possible, make it a birthday celebration with some of her friends attending also. (Note: This strategy may only work for a few years until she realizes there are more fun ways to celebrate her birthday.)
The teenage years are too late for any real Sox indoctrination as adolescents seem to get a mind of their own. Thus, it is crucial to be sure that by that time, the parental unit has fully passed on this obsession, which has been in our family now for five generations.
Check on whether there are Red Sox diapers in new born sizes (as that will be necessary soon.) We know the new baby will have plenty of onesies and t-shirt to wear, but you never know if the supply of these properly labeled diapers will be available after the initial run on them.

I do want to congratulate her mother on finding the lovely diapers, which gives me a good deal of relief that I do not have to worry about Samantha’s Sox education.

And a final special note to Samantha’s father: There is no problem encouraging her to follow both an NFL and a MLB team. And while I suspect he will favor football over baseball, it is possible, and quite important, for him to participate in this essential parental duty of supporting Samantha’s potential life long love of the Sox.

Photography by Ellen Miller