one year ~ one sentence


3. Martin Luther King, Jr., a civil rights act...
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1947 Born breech with a forceps mark on my forehead.

1948 Israel is established as an independent state.

1949 My cousin Rachel is born on my birthday.

1950 My parents moved into the only house they would ever own and the Korean War begins.

1951 The trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg begins and I start nursery school at the Jewish Community Center.

1952 I enter first grade and find out that not everyone in the world is Jewish.

1953 I get a really nice second grade teacher who plays piano and doesn’t yell at us.

1954 We have to sell our house and move into an ugly rental apartment that was supposed to be temporary.

1955 As we continue to live in the ugly rental apartment, my mother loses her interest in housekeeping; but, my fifth grade teacher keeps a terrarium in the classroom with live salamanders and invites the entire class to a picnic at a small park across from her house.

1956 Our babysitter, Biala, allows me and my brother to watch Elvis Presley’s provocative performance on the Ed Sullivan show.

1957 I stand with my friends by the beach wall at night, scanning the skies for sputnik.

1958 My older brother has his bar-mitzvah celebration at the Cliff House hotel and all my relatives fly in from out-of-state.

1959 I am valedictorian of my Hebrew School class and get to stand on the bima in the synagogue for the first time.

1960 A couple of days a week, I commute on the subway for an hour and a half after public school to attend a Hebrew High School in Brookline, where I cannot understand the classes and I’m too shy to speak.

1961 I am thrilled and inspired by President Kennedy’s inauguration.

1962 I watched the Jackie Kennedy TV tour of the White House and hold my breath during the Cuban missile crisis.

1963 JFK is assassinated and I get kicked out of school for talking about it during French class.

1964 I argue unsuccessfully with my parents about wanting to apply to colleges other than Northeastern U. and graduate from High School with awards in Fine Arts.

1965  I commute to Northeastern U., earn mostly A’s, participate in drama and campus politics, and join the Martin Luther King Jr. march in Boston.

1966  I withdraw from Northeastern at the end of the year and start exploring other options while living at home and working in a really boring clerical job.

1967 I start studying at George Washington U, switching my major to Russian, spending a lot of time in art museums, and begin dating an older man, an artist that I met at one of the museums.

1968 When Martin Luther King is assassinated, I can see the smoke rising in downtown Washington D.C. and tanks are patrolling the streets.

1969 I participated in antiwar protests and went to the USSR for 6 weeks on full scholarship as part of a study tour, my first trip outside the USA.

1970 Worked at MIT as a Russian secretary, delaying my start of grad school while hoping to get a USIA job in the USSR.

1971 Studying for my MA Russian Lit at Columbia gave me the academic experience that I had been seeking and a whole lot more.

1972 Having difficulty coping with emotional stuff, I begin questioning whether I really want to continue studying toward a Ph.D.

1973 I fulfill a longtime drive and move to Israel, where I learn to speak Hebrew, get an interesting job at Haifa University, and experience my first war.

1974 I meet and marry an Israeli engineer, who takes me on my first trip to Europe for our honeymoon and then back to the USA, where he has a job supposedly waiting.

1975 We move to California, where my husband got a second job after the first one was canceled and our daughter Orli is born.

1976 I have adjusted to motherhood and Orli is so adorable that I start thinking about having a second baby.

1977 I give birth to our second daughter Shelli and arrived late for my post-natal obstetric visit, because I couldn’t pull myself away from watching the live TV coverage of Anwar Sadat’s historic visit to Jerusalem.

1978 I am in the middle of getting a second MA—this one in Linguistics and TESOL—in preparation for our return to Israel.

1979 We move back to Haifa, Israel with two babies, first into my husband’s old 4th floor walkup apartment, and then into a nicer place that we could afford only by selling our American bought appliances and only car.

1980 I get a temporary position writing public relations for the University of Haifa and it turns out to be my favorite job of all time.

1981 Our youngest daughter, Keren, is born at the hospital across the wadi from our home.

1982 The Lebanon War begins and I begin hearing about the Peace Now movement.

1983 I am commuting a few days by taxi a few days week from Haifa to Hertziliya—more than an hour each way–creating lessons for teaching basic English on Atari computers.

1984 Due to the difficult situation in Israel, we for return to California—where I begin a new career as a technical writer and get briefly involved in the refusenik movement on behalf of my cousin, Ephraim (Alex) Kholmyansky and his wife.

1985 I am hitting my stride as the sole technical writer for a small startup called Tall Tree Systems, but struggling to cope with the overwhelming workload of doing that in addition to caring for three small children.

1986  I become an expert pioneer user of Ventura Publisher, the first popular desktop publishing package for IBM PC compatible computers running DOS, and I’m excited to write a small section in a published book on the subject.

1987 I get fed up with the low salary that I was earning at Tall Tree Systems and accept a recruitment offer for double salary at another company that is a further commute from my house.

1988 We make a big bat-mitzvah celebration for our daughter Orli and all my family comes out from the East Coast.

1989 Recruited to work for Tandem Computers, which seems much more human than my previous company, and even has a swimming pool.

1990 Around the time of Shelli’s bat-mitzvah, my husband rents a place for us in Haifa and tries to convince me to move to Israel by myself with the girls while he continues to support us by working in Silicon Valley, but I refuse to go when Iraq invades Kuwait.

1991 Doing well at work and participating in Toastmasters, but still struggling with trying to do it all.

1992 Feeling overloaded.

1993 The Oslo Accords negotiations begin.

1994 When we celebrate the bat-mitzvah of our youngest daughter, Keren, my parents fly out for their final visit to California and I begin working for an Israeli company (NetManage) with the idea of returning to live in Israel.

1995 My husband and I are happy to move back to Haifa, Israel with our daughter Keren, but it turns out to be too difficult for our daughter.

1996 Going through a difficult period, trying to readjust after Keren has missed most of her first year of high-school and our daughter Shelli dropped out of Berkeley to do her army service in Israel.

1997 Still working for NetManage, managing a team that is split between California and Israel, gives me opportunities to visit Shelli while she is doing her army service.

1998 NetManage begins to falter and lays off most of the staff in California.

1999 I am working as a documentation manager at Informix, which is a larger company with multiple managers and much easier than any of my previous tech writing positions.

2000 My father dies just before his 90th birthday and I am devastated.

2001 On 9/11, I am visiting my mother in Florida and together we watch the TV coverage of second tower being hit—wondering if this was the start of another world war.

2002 My mother dies and I regret that I wasn’t with her.

2003 I am still working full-time, more than 40 hours a week, but taking longer vacations.

2004 My husband retires, but does not take on any of the housework or cooking.

2005 I retire from full-time work and celebrate with a 3-week adventure tour to Peru, followed up my lots more travel, including two months in Israel, where Shelli is attending medical school.

2006 Doing more traveling and publishing travel stories in an online travel magazine, TangoDiva.

2007 Our daughter Orli gets married at Fogarty Winery and I go back to work to help defray expenses.

2008 First grandson, Gali, is born, and it feels like falling in love.

2009 Trying to find balance between working part-time and having time to hike, exercise, and help out with Gali.

2010 Attend San Miguel Writer’s Conference with Barbara Kingsolver and break my right hand.

2011 Second grandson, Oz, is born and it’s like falling in love again, but also a lot more work.

 

This entry was posted in antiwar protests, assassinations, childcare, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, grandparent, Haifa, Israel, Jacqueline Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., memoir, President Kennedy, technical writing, Uncategorized, women and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

1 Response to one year ~ one sentence

  1. DD says:

    Wow good on you 🙂

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