I don’t make New Year Resolutions, but I start every year hoping to interview an Old Jewish Person®. Then I realize that I have no interviewing skills, or patience or determination to actually do it, and soon another year rolls around. So this is probably as close as it gets to having a narrative on this blog. This text is translated from an older gentleman’s blog I’ve been following for many years. He lives in Israel and seems to be retired after a long career as a physician. His stories are always fascinating, honest, and told from an old Jewish doctor point of view I find so relatable. If you read Russian you will find his blog to be a unique personal account of the long-gone era, mixed with tragic and funny stories he encountered in his latter years while working in Israel with ex-Soviet immigrants. And if you are Russian-impaired, you have to rely on my crude translating and editing skills. Translating takes a long time and there only so much of it I can do at work so this is only the first part. I also edited out an episode that cannot be possibly explained to a non-Russian reader without writing a small book. Part 2 that covers WWII and the years after is coming up sometime in the future.

In the early sixties, after three years of working in a rural area, my family came back to Minsk. I got a job in a TB clinic; my wife was hired as an ambulance doctor.

Soon I’ve met an interesting man in the clinic.

It was our consulting thoracic surgeon Grigory Semenovich. He was a distinguished man, a veteran of WWII, a PhD. Actually, when he was born in the beginning of the 20th century he was named Hirsch, his father was Simha, so his full name was listed in the passport as Hirsch Simkhovich. Not willing to pronounce such a tongue twister, people at his Worker and then Medical school called him Grisha, and later Grigory Semenovich. His last name was Obershmukler, which is translated from Yiddish means “chief smuggler”. It’s hard to say how his ancestors got that name, but in the early 19th century by the order of Tsar Alexander I all the Jews in the Empire were required to produce last names. And then it all depended on the imagination of barely literate clerks and happy owners of new names.

When I met him, he was an old man of sixty, small in stature around 160 cm (5’2’’), with a large bald spot surrounded by a narrow rim of gray hair. Thick black mustache streaked with gray, barely concealed a rough scar on his upper lip – a reminder of a childhood surgery. He had nasal and slightly hoarse voice. During surgeries he had to stand on a step-stool.
All this combined – a tiny height, baldness, big mustache and a voice – made for somewhat of a strange impression , although he was a good surgeon , very well-read and educated .

Grigory Semenovich had his habits.

During surgeries, when complications and difficulties arose, he did not yell at nurses or scolded assistants; did not throw tools like many venerable surgeons I’ve observed in my many years of study and work. He calmly and quietly muttered some unintelligible words in his nasal voice, and if all went well, even tried to sing something totally unfamiliar. When asked what it meant, he replied –
– Do not worry, I am commenting on the progress of the surgery to myself in Latin…
Once at the front, after a complicated and successful surgery, a higher-ranking doctor who was there with an inspection, said in Yiddish after a modest dinner and a “front-line hundred grams” (*of vodka):

– Hirsch, you need to be more cautious with your cursing , special agents (*of NKVD) may know what  “mome loshn” means but may not understand who it’s directed to …
Colonel inspector also grew up in a shtetl , went to a heder and was able to understand  all the terrible curses on the heads of Germans , crappy instruments, war, dumb commanders , bleeding and this lousy life …

Once when I was present with my electrocardiograph during a heavy thoracoplasty surgery performed by Gregory Semenovich, I was also able to make out the words of an indecent song that I heard as a child from my father .

In my translation of an arbitrary and totally outrageous pronunciation (after all , the last time I heard this song seventy years ago !) One verse of this specimen of folk art translates roughly as follows:

Jew has sex with a Jew , goy has a goy ,
Rabbi has a rebbetzin and all enjoy …

It is known that in the USSR from NKVD to kindergartens people disgruntled with someone or something wrote anonymous complaints on a variety of subject to different organizations. Grigory Semenovich didn’t escape his. Clinic received a directive from the regional party committee with the request to verify the facts, investigate the matter and report back to the regional committee. The attached anonymous letter stated that the operating surgeon Obershmukler writes off a lot of valuable medicinal alcohol, but in reality he drinks the alcohol with no zakuski, while getting drunk with other physicians and operating nurses but the junior staff is never invited, as if they are not human… and these drunken parties cause harm to the Soviet state in general and all of medicine in particular.
Everyone knew that Gregory Semenovich cannot drink more than one shot during the evening. When they showed him the letter, he grinned into his mustache and said –
– Tomorrow is my surgery, send the commission, they will see for themselves …
The next day, Gregory Semenovich came to work with a large portfolio. Commission gathered soon – assistant director of the hospital Anna Artemovna, secretary of the local Communist Party organization, the chairman of the local union and chief nurse. Surgeon Obershmukler dumped a few thick monographs with bookmarks and a pile of printed instructions on the table.
– Please verify that I am following the guidance. This is a monograph with existing hand sanitizing methods, and these – he pointed to the printed sheets – are the latest instructions of our ministry. Now I’m going to wash my hands, and you will observe … Nurse, are you ready? Begin!
They began the long process of hand sanitizing while Gregory Semenovich explained.
– We are using the Fyurbringer’s* method with modification by Alfeld*. Sometimes we use Spasokukotsky* – Kochergin* method (*all these names could be medical-sounding gibberish). In all three methods the last stage is rinsing of the hands with a 70 % alcohol solution for 2 to 5 minutes; we will use 2 minutes. Nurse, give me a sterile napkin, start the stopwatch and slowly pour the alcohol on my hands!
Alcohol started trickling down on his palms, and then to the sink …
What are you doing! – screamed the Chairman of the Union, retired paramedic and a no stranger to drinking.
Last drops emerged from half-liter bottle.
– Now have to leave, patient is waiting, – Gregory Semenovich raised his clean hands and looking like a surrendering prisoner, shuffled over to the operating room …

Few more episodes.

In those years, our clinic expanded, changed staffing and simultaneously recruited several young graduates of medical school. One of them, Valya, came the first time to work in a mini-skirt. Minis were just beginning to come into vogue and assistant director Anna Artemovna stated that the Soviet young people and members of Komsomol cannot appear at work dressed like this. Reprimands did not help, and Anna Artemovna used every possible way to find fault with a young girl.

Anna Artemovna was a partisan nurse and after the war she married a former guerrilla commander, barely finished college and once admitted that after the college has not read a single book.
Once she burst into the staffroom, where doctors spent their free time and in a raised voice began berating Valechka for her transgressions. Valya didn’t have to look for words and said loudly –
Why are you attacking me like a Fury?
Assistant director froze for a few seconds.
– Girl! What did you say to me? I am an honest woman! I have a husband! It’s you who is shaking her tail, flashing your panties and bare hips to everyone, be ashamed! I would never put on skirt like this!
-Of course, at your age you have nothing to flash and have nothing to show, and no one wants to see it anyway!
From the far corner came a hoarse voice nasal voice of Gregory Semenovich –
-Anna Artemovna why are you boiling so much? Fury is not a prostitute, as you though. In Greek it means an evil vindictive woman and it may not be too far from the truth.
– You are and old man and on her side…
Anna Artemovna left the room and slammed the door.

Grigory Semenovich didn’t have a lot of work in our hospital. He dealt mainly with adhesions after the placement of artificial pneumothorax, occasionally performed therapeutic thoracoplasty and some others. For several days after a surgery, even on weekends, he visited his patients, punctured the pleural cavity, changed wound dressings and made new prescriptions.

During those years he lived with his wife in a small two- story Khrushchev-style apartment building, she was often sick, and he felt lonely. I often picked up duty hours in the therapeutic ward to make extra money. Grigory S. came to me in the duty room and we had long conversations …

Grigory S. was born in the early 20th century in a small shtetl near Minsk , and as all the local kids went to heder – elementary school at the synagogue. Since the childhood he started helping his father who was a cobbler, but always wanted to study and become a doctor.

The boy was born with a small genetic defect – a slight cleft lip and had surgery in his childhood to repair it. For the rest of his life he remembered the majestic figure of the surgeon in a long white coat and mask with clean hands raised up in the air…

After the revolution, Grisha went to Minsk and began working as a mechanic at the depot at the railroad station, while attending a night school. After 2 years local Communist cell, the trade union committee and the director gave him a referral to the technical school. Grisha successfully graduated and enrolled in medical school.

Student years were difficult – Grisha worked nights as a nurse in a hospital, then as a surgeons’ assistant and studied hard.  He often participated in simple surgeries …
Then graduation. He, a Jewish guy, son of a shoemaker – a medical doctor! Joy knew no bounds!
But he was yet to become a surgeon …

Initially he worked in Polesia, in a remote village in a forsaken district hospital with 10 beds. He worked alone, treating all diseases, delivering babies. Queues at the reception were huge, and after a day at work – night house calls …
The following year they hired a midwife, and then came a paramedic – life became a little easier. Grisha set up an operating room, started performing minor surgeries. The village had no electricity so he arranged for a power generator near the hospital. When the old steam generator started huffing and puffing at night – the whole village knew that there was a patient or a birth.
After three and a half years he was sent to a surgical residency.
Gregory never came back to the village, he was sent to the district center to work as a general surgeon. At the age of almost 30 his lifelong dream came true!

At the new job young surgeon met a charming female colleague, an obstetrician -gynecologist, who started working there a couple of years prior.
Her name was Rachel. She was a tall, stout, pretty blonde. Her face had a disproportionately large nose that made her embarrassed …
Her path to medicine she was easier than Grisha’s – her parents were able to get medical education during the Tsarist years and escape from the Pale of Settlement – her dad was a pharmacist and her mother a midwife , and they were allowed to live in big cities .
Rachel was three years younger Grisha, 16 centimeters taller without heels and 15 kilos heavier …
Grisha always liked big women. He realized that it was his destiny and started a proper siege.
Fortress did not especially resist, Rachel liked miniature men and, in particular, Grisha. After a few months a simple wedding took place in the yard of a small house, where young people found an apartment – just a friendly dinner. Toward the end of the event happy and tired groom took a nap in the corner. Rachel took him in her arms like a baby, and carried him into the bedroom next to her powerful chest   to the applause of the remaining guests.

Gregory S. and Rachel worked at the district hospital for a few more years, when they encountered the first trouble – they did not conceive. Pregnancies ended in miscarriages, doctors’ advice did not help, and to get the advice they had to go to the regional center or to Minsk. And the young family decided to move to Minsk, the capital.

In the early 1930’s, doctors were needed in all hospitals. Without much difficulty and patronage Rachel and Grisha got jobs in their respective specialties, and moved into an apartment with Rachel’s aunt.
Finally, nature took its course, Rachel became pregnant and in 1936 and delivered a healthy girl.
In the fashion of those years she was named Svetlana.

Time passed quickly, maternity leave has ended. Not so young mother-doctor knew that to send the infant to the nursery meant to put the long-awaited child in danger. A thought to leave work did not cross her mind. They had to find a nanny. One of the former patients suggested his distant relative – Alesya – a 16-year-old girl, an orphan from a distant village, almost illiterate , but familiar with young children , decent and clean .

They took the girl took into the family and she raised Svetlana from the age of 8 months! They even looked similar, both were round-faced blondes, only  Svetlana had green eyes and Alesya’s were blue …
When friends asked the Alesya where she works, she nonchalantly replied “I do not know, some surgeon” …

Few more years passed. Svetochka started in kindergarten. Alesya helped around the house and attended night school. Grisha and Rachel worked hard and taught Alesya all they knew themselves – from cooking to nursing care. They took care of her future – Alain finished seven grades, passed the entrance exams and in the autumn of 1941 was supposed to go to nursing school.

Grigory Semenovich didn’t have a lot of work in our hospital. He dealt mainly with adhesions after the imposition of artificial pneumothorax, occasionally performed therapeutic thoracoplasty and some others. For several days after a surgery, even on weekends, he visited his patients, punctured the pleural cavity, changed wound dressings and made new prescriptions.

During those years he lived with his wife in a small two- story Khrushchev-style apartment building, she was often sick, and he felt lonely. I often picked up duty hours in the therapeutic ward to make extra money. Grigory S. came to me in the duty room and we had long conversations …

Grigory S. was born in the early 20th century in a small shtetl near Minsk , and as all the local kids went to heder – elementary school at the synagogue. Since the childhood he started helping his father who was a cobbler, but he always wanted to study and become a doctor.

The boy was born with a small genetic defect – a slight cleft lip and had surgery in his childhood to repair it. For the rest of his life he remembered the majestic figure of the surgeon in a long white coat and mask with clean hands raised up in the air…

After the revolution, Grisha went to Minsk and began working as a mechanic at the depot at the railroad station, while attending a night school. After 2 years local Communist cell, the trade union committee and the director gave him a referral to the technical school. Grisha successfully graduated and enrolled in medical school.

Student years were difficult – Grisha worked nights as a nurse in a hospital, then as a surgeons’ assistant and studied hard.  He often participated in simple surgeries …
Then graduation. He, a Jewish guy, son of a shoemaker – a medical doctor! Joy knew no bounds!
But he was yet to become a surgeon …

Initially he worked in Polesia, in a remote village in a forsaken district hospital with 10 beds. He worked alone, treating all diseases, delivering babies. Queues at the reception were huge, and after a day at work – night house calls …
The following year they hired a midwife, and then came a paramedic – life became a little easier. Grisha set up an operating room, started performing minor surgeries. The village had no electricity so he arranged for a power generator near the hospital. When the old steam generator started huffing and puffing at night – the whole village knew that there was a patient or a birth.
After three and a half years he was sent to a surgical residency.
Gregory never came back to the village, he was sent to the district center to work as a general surgeon. At the age of almost 30 his lifelong dream came true!

At the new job young surgeon met a charming female colleague, an obstetrician-gynecologist, who started working there a couple of years prior.
Her name was Rachel. She was a tall, stout, pretty blonde. Her face had a disproportionately large nose that made her embarrassed …
Her path to medicine she was easier than Grisha’s – her parents were able to get medical education during the Tsarist years and escape from the Pale of Settlement – her dad was a pharmacist and her mother a midwife , and they were allowed to live in big cities .
Rachel was three years younger Grisha, 16 centimeters taller without heels and 15 kilos heavier …
Grisha always liked big women. He realized that it was his destiny and started a proper siege.
Fortress did not especially resist, Rachel liked miniature men and, in particular, Grisha. After a few months a simple wedding took place in the yard of a small house, where young people found an apartment – just a friendly dinner. Toward the end of the event happy and tired groom took a nap in the corner. Rachel took him in her arms like a baby, and carried him into the bedroom next to her powerful chest   to the applause of the remaining guests.

Gregory S. and Rachel worked at the district hospital for a few more years, when they encountered the first trouble – they did not conceive. Pregnancies ended in miscarriages, doctors’ advice did not help, and to get the advice they had to go to the regional center or to Minsk. And the young family decided to move to Minsk, the capital.

In the early 1930’s, doctors were needed in all hospitals. Without much difficulty and patronage Rachel and Grisha got jobs in their respective specialties, and moved into an apartment with Rachel’s aunt.
Finally, nature took its course, Rachel became pregnant and in 1936 and delivered a healthy girl.
In the fashion of those years she was named Svetlana.

Time passed quickly, maternity leave has ended. Not so young mother-doctor knew that to send the infant to the nursery meant to put the long-awaited child in danger. A thought to leave work did not cross her mind. They had to find a nanny. One of the former patients suggested his distant relative – Alesya – a 16-year-old girl, an orphan from a distant village, almost illiterate , but familiar with young children , decent and clean .

They took the girl took into the family and she raised Svetlana from the age of 8 months! They even looked similar, both were round-faced blondes, only  Svetlana had green eyes and Alesya’s were blue …
When friends asked the Alesya where she works, she nonchalantly replied “I do not know, some surgeon” …

Few more years passed. Svetochka started in kindergarten. Alesya helped around the house and attended night school. Grisha and Rachel worked hard and taught Alesya all they knew themselves – from cooking to nursing care. They took care of her future – Alesya finished seven grades, passed the entrance exams and in the autumn of 1941 was supposed to go to nursing school.

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I haven’t been to St. Joseph for almost 20 years. Long time ago St. Joe was the first to get a riverboat casino and it seemed like a good idea to drive for an hour and a half to gamble away my meager earnings. I haven’t been back since. Either I wasn’t that impressed or more money-wasting venues propped up nearby, whatever the reason, St. Joe just never again appeared on my list of places to visit.  Then the Pitch wrote about a new pizza place, the last weekend of nice fall weather was coming up, and suddenly it seemed like why not St. Joe.

St. Joe is famous for its Glore Psychiatric Museum.

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When Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev came back from his trip to the United States he had the answer to all of the USSR’s agricultural and other problems – corn. A directive was issued and pretty soon corn was being planted everywhere with joyous reports pouring in from all corners of the country  even from places where corn had no chance of maturing due to the short growing season. Just like in the Special Olympics it wasn’t the results that counted, people got points (and awards) for participation.
I thought about overachieving and stupidity when I came home the other day to see my neighborhood lined with blue trash carts.

With these trash carts the City of Olathe is about to start its recycling program. I am skeptical about the benefits of recycling and until now did not participate in the program since it was not mandatory and cost an additional charge. My household doesn’t produce enough recyclable materials as outlined by the City to even bother. As a matter of fact we just don’t have that much trash in general. When the City supplied everyone with 95 gallon trash carts few years ago I immediately traded down to a smaller 65 gallon size and even that is almost always half-empty. I hardly ever have any items that fit the description other than an occasional phone book, a rare plastic bottle, or a piece of cardboard, so the 65 gallon cart represents about 65 times more volume of recyclables my family can produce in a year. The City did a test-run and feels that I will have enough stuff to fill it every two weeks. Obviously this is not going to happen.

In addition to the fact that I never volunteered to participate and wasn’t consulted with before the cart was dropped off in my driveway I literally don’t have any room in my garage to keep two 65 gallon containers. Hardly anyone in this neighborhood has more than one-car garage and most of the people already keep their regular trash carts out on the street (against the regulations), so now it will be adorned by two giant trash bins per household. However, the main non-benefit of the recycling program is a mandatory increase in the cost of the trash pick-up. While no one has to participate, everyone has to pay supposedly to attain a “long‐term stabilizing benefit to recycling because landfill costs are increasing”. Now I am torn between wanting to get something for the money I suddenly have to contribute and the realization that I will probably never have enough recyclables to even bother rolling the cart out on the pick-up day. Most likely I will just return the cart and curse the City every time I pay the bill.

I realize that many people believe in recycling, Jesus Christ, hope and change, world peace and  global warming/cooling or both. Nothing wrong with that. What I find idiotic is the city investing in enough of the $65 trash-carts for every house, special trucks and equipment, with many people like me who will opt out of the program for various reasons. I have no idea how many people will return the carts or just leave them outside as decorations. The time will tell. I wouldn’t have any problem with just a price increase without the recycling gimmick, I realize that the costs are rising, but what may be a good idea for some, was imposed on all by the same type of thoughtless overachievers who long ago were planting corn inside the Arctic circle.

In the meantime you are welcome to drop off your recycling at my house – it’s already paid for.
If you have thirty minutes of spare time, watch this episode of Penn and Teller Bullshit, maybe you’ll recognize yourself.

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A little historical aside before I get to the subject.
If you ever drive on I-70 past the sign “Historic Downtown Rocheport” don’t waste your time getting off the highway. Here is a 1-second tour of the place.

Now get back on the road, you still have a couple of hours to go.

St.Louis Japanese Festival is one of the better-organized, meaningful and entertaining festivals in the country. I visited it once before and enjoyed it so much that I didn’t have any reservations about going there again.
The Japanese Festival is once-a-year occasion when otherwise shy Americans release their inner Japanese, normally hidden deep inside, wrap themselves in shower curtains and prance around in uncomfortable wooden flip-flops pretending to like weird-looking food.

My favorite Japanese traditional entertainer Masaji Terasawa was there once again making spun sugar sculptures, origami figures and making fun of the public.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6RRdVvMny8

I have few clips of his performance.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEmquClM-zw”

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfU1bMlBNrg”

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Om4ZSP6CBUc”

The Sumo demonstration was probably the highlight of the day since we decided not to stick around for karaoke.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kyfYldKDQM

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KteGdvDOQE

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0butoszJB6c

On the way back I was tempted to get some “Free water in the name of Jesus” but decided against it, just in case it turns into wine and causes me to get a DUI. I wasn’t so sure I could count on Jesus to pay the ticket.

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*The better-looking photos in this post are taken by my kid.

I usually try to give my travel posts clever (in my opinion) or rhyming titles, but no rhyme comes to mind to name this report about my trip to Minneapolis.

Five months out of the year Minneapolis is an exciting, great-looking, interesting city 500 miles to the North of Kansas City. During the other seven months it closely resembles the Fortress of Solitude – a snow-covered and icy hellhole where people are using an elaborate tunnel-like system to move between the buildings without getting a frostbite. It also houses the first sign of Apocalypse – The Mall of America.

If you are driving to Minneapolis, the longest part of your route passes through Iowa – Khrushchev’s favorite state. Iowa is famous for its old people and various, not always pleasant, smells along the highway. Iowa’s population is so old that just by driving through we temporarily dropped the average age in the state to 68. To fight the smell problem Iowans installed gigantic fans in random places.

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