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My Retirement Project
My Dad's Blog -
My dad has been and done a lot of things, but at the core, he’s a psychologist. He knows everyone has a rich internal life, and he has a deep need to connect with whatever lies below the surface. He likes trying to make store clerks laugh by telling them a joke. For him, it’s not just a way to have fun or kill boredom. He wants to eke out any genuine human connection he can get from their brief interaction. He wants to touch their soul, at least a tiny bit.
His natural foil is “customer service drone” types who speak in scripted platitudes, revealing nothing of themselves. I’m not sure he’s ever fully made peace with the fact that some people will never open up to him.
Once, when I was little, my dad and I were in a carpool with another kid and their mom. My dad tried to start a conversation with the kid’s mom: “Do you think there are people who are insane, but they still put their clothes on straight, go to work on time, and no one really notices?” I don’t remember what she said, but I don’t think she was impressed. I remember wondering: “Is he really talking about himself? Does he feel insane?”
Maybe you’ve got to be a little insane to have the kind of faith in humanity he does. But I’m grateful he’s my dad not just for his parenting skills, but also for the stories he has shared with me; unique experiences that could only have happened to someone like him.
Immortalizing some of his stories in writing, and allowing future generations to gaze into his soul, is exactly what my dad could be expected to do. And I truly believe it constitutes a public service.
Steven K-Brooks (Editor)
"WHO I AM"
My Yehudi Friend
In the wake of October 7, 2023 and its aftermath, the idea that Jews and Arabs might share a deep impulse to love one another, might seem absurd. Thus I have felt reluctant to share this story with the 72 blog88.org subscribers.
I have heard people say that it is governments which stir up hatred and violence. But a small group of “true believers” can ignite cascading violence, which draws in governments and escalates into war. In normal times, as neighbors, we may share a garden. But in another situation, I may feel the need to kill you as quickly as possible, before you can kill me.
Yet the profound reality is that the inclination to love is fundamental to human nature.
Last time I visited NYC was 26 years ago. My son was 7, being brought up at the end of a very rural dirt road. So I was glad that he had a chance to see the skyscrapers.
We had traveled to the city for the wedding of my wife’s best friend.
My one unforgettable memory is standing on the steps of the synagogue, wearing a white shirt with a yarmulke on my head, when an Arab man and woman walked by. The guy gave me such a hate look as to be unforgettable a quarter-century later.
Such a shame for someone to think they know how deserving of hate you are because they have identified you by your group.
This incident stands in sharp contract with an experience I had in 1977, when Egyptian President Anwar Sadat visited Jerusalem in an extraordinary gesture of peace.
Earlier that year, I had met a Yemenite fellow named Ali. I was living then in Buffalo, N.Y. In Buffalo, there were a number of neighborhood “bodegas” owned by Arabs, which is where I met Ali. I do not recall how it came up, but somehow I was identified as a Jew. Ali asked me: “Why do Jews hate Arabs?”
I was astounded and replied: “I’m Jewish, and I don’t hate Arabs.” Ali looked skeptical, like he did not trust my words. But a woman, also behind the counter (perhaps his sister or his wife), upon hearing me say that, just looked at me with so much love in her eyes that I knew she believed me and appreciated my sentiment.
Over time, Ali got used to me, and he started to call me “Cuz,” short for “cousin,” meaning that Arabs and Jews are descended from brothers, Abraham’s sons.
On the day that Sadat visited Jerusalem, I ran into Ali at a different grocery store about a mile from his, also owned by an Arab. Ali introduced me to the store owner: “This is Steve, my Yehudi friend.”
We hung out that afternoon, and over the course of the next few hours, other friends of Ali came by, and to each one, Ali introduced me as his Yehudi friend. That afternoon, as Ali’s friends came by, I was introduced as Ali’s Yehudi friend to 23 Arab guys. These fellows came from various countries.
Ali introduced me to a Jordanian guy. With pride, he told me that this fellow received a medal for killing a large number of Jews during one of the wars. The Jordanian fellow shut him up, embarrassed, not wanting that to be the focus on this day of peace.
This Jordanian fellow invited me to sit in his car along with himself and 3 other Arab guys listening to cassettes of Arab music. The one song which they particularly wanted me to hear, was sung by a woman whom they told me is the most popular singer in Egypt. The song was called “Peace in Al Quds,” which means “The Holy,” and is the Arab name for Jerusalem.
Another fellow, when introduced to me, proudly proclaimed: “I am an Egyptian!” After he left, Ali said to me: “I don’t know why he said he is an Egyptian. He is from Yemen.” I knew why: The fellow meant, “I am with Sadat in the quest for peace.”
One fellow chastised Ali, saying that Ali drinks beer and is therefore, not a good Muslim. This fellow was not warm to me, and my guess is that he was really chastising Ali for calling me his Yehudi friend.
Of these couple of dozen young Arab men I met that afternoon, only three reacted negatively toward me, but the encounters were overwhelmingly enthusiastic. I felt and still feel that the basic human instinct is to love one another and that war and killing is an aberration caused by situational danger and fear. In Buffalo, we could enjoy one another; in Jerusalem during wartime, things could be quite different.
When I now recall the guy who gave me the hate look as I stood on the steps of the synagogue, I wish I had thought of saying to him, “a salam alaikum,” which in Arabic means, “Peace be unto you.
Reflections on turning 78
By Steven K-Brooks
When he was about my current age, fellow Realtor® and former Brattleboro Selectboard Chair, the late Hugh Bronson, told me that with age, his mind was as sharp as ever, but slow. Before he could contribute to a conversation, it had moved on to another topic. I wanted to tell Hugh that I have always had that problem, but I did not get the words out on time. Having been a bit goofy and forgetful my entire life, now at 78 “senior moments” just seem normal.
The pandemic pushed me into retirement. With reports of corpses piling up in refrigerator trucks, struggling to keep a breath ahead of congestive heart failure, what the hell was I doing risking death “out in the field?” I quit on a win with a miracle deal, attaining home ownership for a young couple with 5% financing, in a market which had gone crazy with out-of-state buyers snatching up properties, sight-unseen, with multiple competing above-full-price cash offers.
So what has retirement been like?
My therapist told me that it can take 2 years to mentally transition to retirement. Wow!
Now, nearly 3 years out, the feeling that I am neglecting something I should do, has almost ebbed. Even now I might feel guilty for opting for a nap on an afternoon when I had planned to work on my garden. When I was handling real estate transactions, there were daily demands and deadlines. It could be a disaster to miss contractual deadlines, such as last date to conduct inspections, followed a few days later by the notification deadline for inspection claims; or the other big one, last date for mortgage loan commitment (which if bobbled could result in your client’s forfeiture of a $10,000, or more, deposit, and a cancelled purchase contract.
And that brings me to an unexpected realization which came with retirement : The incredible worry that if you screw up, there could be irreparable consequences to your client’s family’s well-being and hopes for the future. Now that’s a lot of stress! Yet it was only when I was able to let down the burden, that I actually realized what a pressure-cooker I had been in for the nearly 3 decades of my professional life.
It is tempting to confound social effects of my retirement with effects of the pandemic. For me, retirement forces me to come to terms with friendship in my life. The lockdowns and fears of the pandemic (now officially over by decree of the President of the United States) interfered with morning coffee at the Co-op Cafe, listening at the next table to retired academics talking wisely about daily events, or a one-on-one conversation at Tulip, or even a foray into The Works. But interesting as these intellectual morning coffee “salons” may have been, none of it led to genuine friendship for me.
For nearly 30 years my daily social life was short and intense friendships with clients seeking a home, and co-broking with other Realtors®. Sometimes this friendly collaboration could get rough, even combative. But even if you got into an occasional dogfight: No matter how uncivil it got, you might break bread together at the next Realtors® Breakfast. As a colleague advised me: “We have to work with the people we have, not the people as we would want them to be.” (Funny thing, just after I had written that last sentence, this now retired colleague, Mark Linton, with whom I had not spoken for years, called to ask how I am doing and to wish me a happy birthday.)
Mark’s call reminded me that friendship does not depend on the frequency of contact, but that the essence of friendship is trust and support. I am blessed that my professional life brought many friends and satisfying relationships into my life. With retirement comes the challenge of cultivating new friends, fewer but more long term.
– 30 –
An Uncommon Mentor
Joe Lowe, our neighbor in Buffalo in the 1970s, owned several apartment buildings. A licensed plumber, Joe took care of most repairs himself. Joe pretended to be just the super, a role which allowed him to create covert psychodramas.
One time, Joe took me with him to collect rent from a tenant. On the way, I think he tested me by driving slowly while nodding off at the wheel and drifting straight at parked cars with his eyes half-closed. Apparently Joe did this in order to test my reaction. I just sat there smiling: I knew that Joe knew what he was doing.
I was standing behind him. He handed me his briefcase and rang the tenant’s bell. The woman came to the door, and even though Joe normally collected the rent; when she saw me holding the briefcase, without a word, she reached past Joe to hand me (a complete stranger) a couple hundred, cash. Joe did a lot of antics like that, never explaining anything. I think he wanted to show me how little it took to transfer the rightful authority of a Black man to a white-identified, total stranger.
One day, Joe got arrested on some minor infraction. My then wife, Carol, and I got a ride with a friend to bail Joe out. He was not in the downtown lockup, but in one of the outlying towns. After paying the bail, we waited in a room where there were a couple of guards. Joe was released in that room. We went to the car.
The first thing that Joe said when he got in the car was: “Crazy old N____r!” Later, Carol’s explanation was that he was articulating the disrespect he had experienced from the guards, while in jail. All the way home, Joe endlessly repeated: “I am a Negro. . . Not a N____r!” obsessively.
Joe, of course did not say, ” N_____r,” but rather he said the actual word. Not that long ago, writing about this incident, I would have spelled out the word, reasoning that I am simply giving an account of events, not using the “N” word pejoratively. It does detract from the impact of certain stories not to spell out or actually say this word, but I think it is more important not to signal in any way to other people that it might be OK to use that word.
Steven K-Brooks
Ode to Poverty Row
By Steven K-Brooks
Poverty Row in Whitingham got its name as the historic location of the town’s poorhouse.
In the mid 1980s we lived in a cabin without utilities, wore used clothing, and spent money freely only on wholesome, organic food. Before our son was born, I took whatever low-paying job I could get. Sometimes a low-paying job brings you in contact with wealthy people. When I began to work for Mr. & Mrs. Lumbar (name fictionalized) the irony was lost on me that their home was located on Poverty Row. Some people have a second home in Vermont: The Poverty Row house was a third home. Their first home was a Gramercy Park penthouse, and they also owned an ocean-front home with a sailboat.
Mr. Lumbar was the retired CEO of a major financial institution. You would recognize the name of this company immediately.
As an on-call, hourly aide, I was sent to help Mrs. Lumbar with her husband, who had Parkinson’s. My presence gave Mrs. Lumbar a break and a chance to leave the house for a few hours. Mrs. Lumbar would call the agency on short notice, requesting my services for the minimum permitted time of four hours. It seemed that she was being frugal, only calling when she absolutely could take it no more and needed relief, and then only spending the minimum. It was marginal for me to travel there and back in order to work 4 hours at $7.50 an hour, maybe 3 times a week.
When, in nice weather I would take Mr. Lumbar for a walk, I had to keep a grip on his belt because one of the effects of the disease is that his gait would speed up involuntarily. If unchecked, he could end up unable to stop, and fall. Other than walks, it was challenging to find productive ways to spend the time. I engaged Mr. Lumbar in conversation. I learned about his childhood. His parents had sent him to an exclusive school with a progressive agenda. He hated it: He wanted to be a regular kid and go to public school. (Shades of Rosebud!)
One day I brought my Smith-Corona portable word processor, and suggested that I would interview Mr. Lumbar about his life, thinking that we could create a legacy for his family. Mrs. Lumbar did not try to hide her dismay. She thought I was trying to get them to hire me for more hours. One day Mrs. Lumbar went shopping and left her husband in my care. At lunchtime, I looked in the refrigerator to see what I could prepare. I saw that there was Mott’s Apple Juice and three quarts of strawberries which were in danger of excessive over-ripeness, begging to be eaten before they went bad. In addition to proposing that I prepare sandwiches, I suggested making a blender drink of apple juice and strawberries. Of course, Mott’s Apple Juice and the non-organic strawberries were not up to my usual standards, but I try to work with what is available.
Mr. Lumbar was shocked.
“If you put strawberries in a blender with apple juice,” he said, “and just drink them down by the glassful; you will soon go broke!”
“I will?” I thought. And here we had been doing it all the time… and with organic apple juice and organic strawberries! No wonder we lived in an off-the-grid cabin instead of in a penthouse with two vacation homes. We had tossed all our money down our gullets, wasting it on fresh, organic food! Soon after that I stopped accepting the Poverty Row assignment. The commute from Westminster to Whitingham was an hour each way: Two hours of uncompensated travel in order to work at low wages for 4 hours. I guess I am not the patron saint of the impoverished well-off.
Retired from active real estate brokerage, K-Brooks lives in Brattleboro and writes on Blog88.org. Contact Steven K-Brooks at IntoxicatingWriting@gmail.com. The opinions expressed by columnists do not necessarily reflect the views of Vermont News & Media.
Potato Harvest: Small Boxes Big Yield
As she shoots video of me filling bags with newly-dug potatoes, my neighbor Jensen draws me out with thoughtful questions.
I think I am starting to get the hang of this blogging thing!
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