by Last night I went out to Huntington to a dinner to honor my brother who was named the Man of the Year by the Kidney & Urology Foundation of America Inc. Most of my pictures didn’t come out so well but here are a few, such as they are.
This is me and my friend Chris. It looks like she’s squirming to get away from me, right? That’s because I have Bleeding-Face-Cancer. (A blood vessel broke and bled out into my face.)
The party was held at the house built by banker Otto Kahn because bigots in another location on Long Island wouldn’t let him live where they lived (because he was Jewish). Here are the grounds behind his home. I kept thinking, ‘this is a beautiful place where I don’t live.”
Here is the house that Otto built. Here I’m thinking, ‘too much to keep clean.’
This is my father introducing my brother. I have to say, I was terrified when my father got up to speak. 1, because my father is not an expressive man, so there’s the no-experience-expressing-his-feelings thing and 2, because he never expresses his feelings, he’s a complete mystery, so God knows what he’ll say. “Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to take this opportunity to discuss capacitors.” (My father’s degree is in electrical engineering.) And 3, because he was following the guy who was honored before my brother, Dr. Zelig Frischer, who spoke about the years he spent in a Siberian concentration camp. Good freaking lord how is my inexpressive father going to follow that?? Cringe, cringe, cringe.
Thankfully, he realized there was no following that, and he was brief and gracious. Good job, Dad!
This is my brother Douglas, who is public speaker extraordinaire, so I had no worries when he got up. He was great and moving as always. I wish I had gotten a picture of his friends Jon and Kat. We all took out pages in the program to congratulate him, and I was so sure mine was going to be the best (it was a snippet from the television show Angel) but Jon and Kat blew me out of the water by congratulating him on winning man of the year which was great considering the women’s clothes thing. (God it was perfect. Jon and Kat, I learn from you.)
