August 6, 2022 Dear Mendel, Warren and I really hated going to Hebrew School, Warren even worse than me. Starting when we were eight, we had to go to Hebrew School at the Jewish Center of University Heights on W. 174th Street off of Nelson Avenue in the Bronx four…

July 30, 2022 Dear Mendel, If you could have been any singer, other than Manny Singer, it would have been Frank Sinatra. In retirement at the Deerfield Beach Century Village you finally got the chance to fully indulge in the Chairman of the Board’s music. You performed as a soloist…

July 23, 2022 Dear Mendel, We never had books in the house, but Mommy took me to the High Bridge Library on West 168th Street to get a library card as soon as I could write my name. I think I was four when I got my first library card…

July 16, 2022 Dear Mendel, Don’t know if you remember, but when Warren and I were growing up in the 1950s, you and Mommy had a family nuclear attack plan. Although we were probably about five and seven, Warren and I were ready because in school we were well trained…

July 9, 2022 Dear Mendel, About five years before you died, you were probably about 89 and I was 59, I was visiting you at the Century Village in Deerfield Beach, Florida. You were trying to convince me to take over your apartment there or buy my own because I…

July 2, 2022 Dear Mendel, During his long life, 94 years, my Zayde Solomon, your father, had very little. It was definitely a hard life. Poverty as a boy in Galicia Poland. Hardship and hard work when he came to America. The death of his first two children from influenza…

June 24, 2022 Dear Mendel, When I was a teenager we spent Sundays at the Daughters of Jacob Nursing Home on E. 167th Street in the Bronx. Mommy’s mother, Bubba Rachel, entered the nursing home soon after my Bar Mitzvah in 1963. She fell and broke her hip and couldn’t…

June 18, 2022 Dear Mendel, I am in my seventies and a grandfather and want to acknowledge important life lessons I’ve learned from you that hopefully I can pass down to future generations. From you I learned to work hard at a job, no matter what it is. Do an…

The other day I was moving some furniture for my son Solomon who does not appreciate how old and decrepit I’ve become. I didn’t complain too much because at least at the moment it felt good to flex my muscles and be doing what I call “real work,” as opposed…