A Short Biography of Dr. Arthur Gelbart Chapter 2

Early Years

Arthur Gelbart’s actual given first name was Osias (pronounced Oja in English), the same name as his great-grandfather. When he came to the United States he chose Arthur as his English name, but Ozzie would have been a closer approximation. Arthur said his schoolmates teased him about his name and called him Osias koza (in Polish they rhyme). Koza is the Polish word for goat. Arthur said this teasing used to make him so angry.

Arthur lived in an apartment above his father’s shoe store along with his mother and his brother, Josef, who was 5 years older. It was a loving household, though his parents had marital troubles. Arthur’s father frequently snuck treats under Arthur’s pillow when he was sleeping. Arthur was a rambunctious child, and his mother had to bribe him to go to the Hebrew school he attended in addition to his secular school. She promised to give him a piece of salami, if he stayed for his lesson. Arthur loved salami his entire life, and no matter what his wife cooked for him, he would always have to polish it off with a piece of salami. During summer his mother would put Arthur and Josef on a train to visit their grandfather in the country, and she would pack salami sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs for lunch. Instead of waiting, they would eat them immediately–hours before lunchtime. Arthur also enjoyed sardine sandwiches. He would share them with the poor kids in his class at the school he attended. He couldn’t stand to see them struggling to eat a hard stale piece of bread, if they had brought a lunch to school at all.

Arthur was likely left-handed, but his mother superstitiously believed (like many other people then) that left-handed people were evil, so she made him use his right hand for schoolwork. However, he still kicked soccer balls with his left foot. Because of this, he became ambidextrous. 

Arthur Gelbart always liked money, and he recounted the only time his father struck him. His father was busy working in his shoe store, talking to a customer, and Arthur interrupted him and asked for money. An irritated Isador smacked him. On another occasion Arthur played a gambling game with other children and lost all his money. He went crying to his father and told him he lost his money. Isador replaced the money, but Arthur kept crying. Isador asked him why he was still crying, and Arthur lamented how he could have had more money, if he had won. Isador recounted this incident with much amusement many years later.

Arthur’s parents had marital troubles, and they put him in the middle, trying to get him to choose sides in their arguments. This was difficult for him, and years later they did get divorced, and he did have to choose who he was going to live with. He recalled going to teacher-parent meetings with his father, and when Isador and the teacher sent him outside to play, the adults fooled around.

Photo of Arthur and his older brother, Josef, circa 1940 when he was 10 years old. They played soccer when there was no snow on the ground, and they skied during the winter.

Arthur played soccer during the months when there was no snow on the ground, and he skied during winter. Soccer was by far the most popular sport in that part of the world then. Basketball and baseball were little known. According to Arthur, he was a much better soccer player than his older brother. The adults played on the town soccer field, and Buczacz had 3 teams divided along ethnic and religious lines. There was a Jewish team, a Polish Catholic team, and a Ukrainian Greek Orthodox team. Those were the ethnic groups that made up the town population. The population of Buczacz before World War II was about 15,000. (Today, it is almost entirely Ukrainian because most of the Jews were killed during the Holocaust, and the Poles were forced to leave.) According to the prevailing racist hierarchy, the Polish soccer team was supposed to be the best, the Ukrainians 2nd best, and the Jews the worst. In reality the opposite was true–the Jews had the best soccer team, the Ukrainians were 2nd, and the Poles were worst. When the Jewish team played the Polish team, the referees would cheat heavily for the Polish team, yet the Jewish team would win anyway. When this happened, all the Jewish fans would flee the stadium to avoid getting beat up by the irate and drunken Polish fans.

These ethnic divisions help explain how the Holocaust happened. When the Germans invaded Poland, they did not know Jew from Gentile. But the Poles were happy to point them out because of their deep underlying hatred of the Jews. The Ukrainians formed police gangs who helped Nazis hunt down the Jews. The Gelbart’s were among about 100 Jewish survivors of the pre-war population of 10,000 Jews in Buczacz The next chapter is about how the Holocaust unfolded in Buczacz and how the Gelbart family were among the few survivors.

References:

Gelbart, A. personal communication

Gelbart, I. personal communication.

A Short Biography of Dr. Arthur Gelbart Chapter 1

A History of Dr. Arthur Gelbart’s Ancestors

Dr. Arthur Gelbart (1930-2014) was an Ashkenazi Jew born in the small town of Buczacz (pronounced Buchach) when it belonged to Poland. Today, Buczacz is in the Ukraine. Genetic studies of Ashkenazi Jews are contradictory, but the best study that used the largest sample size suggests they are an admixture of Middle Eastern Jewish men and southern Italian women. As early as 400 BC Jewish merchants began traveling around the world. They were seeking better economic opportunities than could be found in the kingdom of Judea which was repeatedly overrun and destroyed by expanding empires. Though Judea achieved some measure of independence for a while, the expansion of the Roman empire ended the existence of the Jewish state for almost 2000 years. The Romans ethnically cleansed Judea beginning in the year 37 AD when King Herod, a Jewish puppet of the Romans, conquered Jerusalem and exiled thousands of Jews throughout the Roman Empire. 

After King Herod’s death the Romans made Judea a province of Rome. The Jews rebelled from 66 AD-73 AD, but the rebellion was crushed, and Jewish men were enslaved and distributed throughout the Roman Empire. According to the Jewish historian, Josephus, 97,000 Jews were removed from Judea and enslaved. The Bar Kohba rebellion (132 AD-136 AD), an even more brutal uprising, was also crushed and more Jews were enslaved and exiled throughout the Roman Empire. Crusaders who invaded the region in 1096 AD produced more Jewish refugees from the remnant population of Jews.

Evidentially, Jewish merchants and freed Jewish slaves married southern Italian women and converted them to Judaism. The genetic evidence is an ironic twist because in Jewish tradition there is the belief a person isn’t Jewish unless their matrilineal line of descent is Jewish. There may have been a shortage of Roman men during this time period because so many Roman soldiers were killed or away on duty when the Roman Empire battled across Europe, North Africa, and Persia.

Ashkenazi Jews left Italy during the 9th century and settled in the southern Rhine valley region of what is now Germany where they developed the Yiddish language–a combination of Hebrew and medieval German. Many were merchants and skilled artisans, and the nobility, large landowners who used peasant labor, wanted Jews on their estates to improve local economies. Whenever economic times turned bad, the nobility often used Jews as scapegoats and unleashed ignorant peasants on them. Jews were forced to escape the wrath of the superstitious peasants who viewed them as nefarious outsiders. Throughout history, many Jewish communities were destroyed, long before the holocaust took place. A majority of the world’s population still holds an irrational hatred of Jews today. Most of the world still thinks it is a war crime when a Jew defends himself. 

The Catholic Church and their royal allies forced Jews to leave England, Germany, France, and Spain during the Middle Ages, but King Casomir of Poland invited Jews into Poland during 1343. The Polish nobility were seeking a boost to their local economies. Many countries did not allow Jews to own land, but by the 19th century, they could own land in Poland. By then an estimated 80% of the world’s Jewish population lived there. I can trace Dr. Arthur Gelbart’s ancestry back to some of his great grandparents–Osias Gelbart (1850-1913) and Nettie Gelbart (1845-1936). Dr. Arthur Gelbart’s grandfather, Markus Gelbart (1866-1943), was a farmer who raised bees and made mead from the honey his hives produced. He made his living selling mead delivered from his horse and buggy to taverns. He was a judge of local disputes, and his word was respected. He was also a famous poet, and the emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Franz Josef, invited him to recite his poetry at the royal court. (During this time period Poland was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.) Markus married Nettie Shneier, an orphan, and they had 6 children. She was an older woman with the same first name as his mother. Markus and Nettie were killed by the Nazis in 1943. I am his namesake.

Photo of Markus Gelbart, one of Dr. Arthur Gelbart’s grandfathers. I am named after him. He bears a striking resemblance to Arthur Gelbart.

Isador Gelbart (1899-1983), Dr. Arthur Gelbart’s father, was the 6th and youngest child of Markus and Nettie Gelbart. He was born in Zaleszczyki when it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Markus Gelbart couldn’t decide what kind of career Isador should have because his youngest son was physically small, and the kind of farm labor Markus performed was too difficult for him. Then, World War I raged across Europe, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire allied with Germany against France, England, and Russia. It’s unclear whether Isador enlisted or was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian Army, but he was in the cavalry by the age of 16 or 17, and he seemed to be headed for a career in the military. He recounted 3 incidents about his experience in the war. On 1 occasion he blundered and rode his horse behind enemy lines by accident. Instead of shooting or capturing him, an enemy officer turned Isador’s horse around and sent him in the right direction with a good kick on the horse’s hindquarters. On another occasion Isador found himself pointing his rifle at an enemy soldier at point blank range, while the other soldier held him at gunpoint as well. But neither soldier could pull the trigger. For some reason they could not fire, and they just stared at each other. Finally, Isador’s commander shot the other man in the leg, and they captured him. By astonishing coincidence, Isador met this same man many years after the war, and they became good friends.

Isador was promoted to captain, but the war ended the following day. At the time Isador considered this a great tragedy and contemplated suicide. However, he recovered and opened a shoe store in Buczacz, Poland that he managed until World War II. He married Regina Klarreich (1900-1985) and had 2 sons–Josef and Arthur.

Isador saved his immediate family during the Holocaust but lost his parents and all his surviving siblings including a brother and 2 sisters (2 older brothers died long before the war). The details of how Isador saved his family are the subject of a later chapter. After World War II the U.S. Army appointed Isador as a civilian administrative official in Germany. Despite losing most of his family to the Nazis, he protected former Nazis from vigilantes who wanted revenge. This put his own life in danger, so he quit this job. The C.I.A tried to recruit Isador as a spy. They wanted to drop him behind Russian lines using a parachute, but he declined this job opportunity. Instead, he moved to Germany where he met his 2nd wife–Elsa. (His divorce from Regina is also the subject of a future chapter.) He worked during the day and went to school at night and became a lawyer at the age of 60. He owned an apartment in Munich and a vacation home in Switzerland. He died in Lugano, Switzerland at the age of 84.

Isador Gelbart (2nd from the left) with his grandchildren (Susan, Elizabeth, and Mark) along with Dr. Arthur Gelbart. This photo was taken about 3 years before his death.

Regina Klarreich Gelbart was born in Nadvorna, now part of the Ukraine. Her parents were Samuel Klarreich and Henie Krenmitzer Klarreich. She was a generous woman who invited homeless bums over for every Shabbas dinner. She prodded Arthur to invite them back for the following week’s Shabbas dinner after they finished eating. As a young child, Arthur found them disgusting and smelly with snot stuck in their long beards. Nevertheless, he always followed his mother’s orders and invited the poor men to return on the next Friday night. Regina was an excellent cook and often made chicken soup, chopped chicken liver, fish court bullion, and meatballs in brown gravy.

Regina Klarreich Gelbart. She was a generous woman who fed homeless bums.

Regina had relatives living in the U.S. and was determined to leave Europe after the Holocaust. After the war she separated from Isador, but they reconciled. However, the reconciliation was short-lived, as I will discuss in a later chapter. Regina and Arthur moved to the U.S. during 1947, while Isador and Josef stayed in Germany. Regina and Arthur settled in the Bronx borough of New York City where she worked as a restaurant cashier. She was a tough old lady living in a bad neighborhood and often had to play tug of war with her purse in the apartment elevator. During 1972 a Puerto Rican teenager stabbed her and shoved her down a flight of stairs. Following this incident, Arthur moved her to a condominium in Hallandale, Florida where she lived out the rest of her life. She died on a bus ride to the store in 1985. She never learned how to drive a car.

References:

Boher, D. et. al.

“The Matrilineal Ancestry of Ashkenazi Jews: Portrait of a Recent Founder Event”

American Journal of Human Genetics 78 (3) 2006

Costa, M. et. al.

“A Substantial Prehistoric European Ancestry Amongst Ashkenazi Maternal Lineages”

Nature Communications October 2013

Gelbart, Isador Personal Papers

Nobol, A. et. al.

“Y Chromosome Evidence for a Founder Effect in the Ashkenazi Jews”

European Journal of Human Genetics 13 2005

Potok, Chaim

Wanderings: A History of the Jews

Fawcett Publications 1978

Migratory Ducks and Southern Chorus Frogs at Phinizy Swamp

Phinizy swamp is a 20-minute drive from my house, and I like to go there as much as I can. I always see something different. It’s the only location where I have ever heard an alligator bellow. I visited this swamp shortly before Christmas, and I was expecting to see some migratory ducks that breed up north but spend their winters in the south. I was not disappointed.

I‘m identifying the duck in the foreground as a red-headed duck (Aythya americana) and not the closely related canvasback duck (A. valisineria) because it has a gray back and not a white back. I think the bill is blue but in this light I can’t determine the color for sure. Canvasback ducks are supposed to be the best tasting ducks when they have been feeding on wild celery. Otherwise, they taste ordinary.

These are male and female northern shovelers (Spatula clypeato). This is the first time I have ever seen this species. They use their broad bills to sift through bottom mud for small animals and vegetation. 

These are scaups. I can’t tell whether they are greater scaups (A. marila) or lesser scaups (A. affinis). The renowned ornithologist Ed Forbush recalled seeing a mile long raft of scaups in Florida circa 1900. This species along with all migratory ducks are much reduced in populations since then because of overhunting and habitat destruction.

Female and male shovelers.

More shovelers.

I also saw flocks of blackbirds, robins, and a great egret.

For the entire time I was visiting the swamp I heard the constant call of many southern chorus frogs. I did not see any, but here is a photo taken by Dirk Stevenson. Surprisingly, they breed during the colder months from November to March.

Most of these species of ducks breed during summer in prairie potholes located in the upper Midwest. Farmers plough over vast areas in this region to plant wheat and other grains, thus eliminating habitat. The Supreme Court is on the verge of deciding the executive branch can’t enforce environmental regulations that protect wetlands, along with a host of other desperately needed regulations without having Congress explicitly pass legislation for each minute part of the regulation. The name of the case is Relentless Inc. vs The Department of Commerce.  How ironic that a Supreme Court decision could result in the extinction of dozens of species of ducks.

A 13,500 Year Floral History of the Great Dismal Swamp

Scientists recently published a study of the floral composition of the Great Dismal Swamp over the past 13,500 years. The Great Dismal Swamp is about 154 square miles in extent and is located on the border between North Carolina and Virginia. Most of it is a protected National Wildlife Refuge. The scientists took sediment cores from 7 different sites in the swamp. They analyzed the pollen composition and charcoal content (indicative of fire frequency), and they carbon dated the layers. From 13,500 years ago to 10,300 years ago the region was dominated by a cold temperate forest consisting of oak, hickory, pine, spruce, fir, alder, birch, and hemlock.

Alder became particularly abundant during the Younger Dryas cold reversal that sent average annual temperatures plummeting following the Boling-Alerod warm climate phase. The Boling-Alerod warm climate phase is considered the beginning of the end of the last Ice Age. Alder forms shrubby thickets alongside streams, and it was likely good habitat for beavers. Curiously, there was an unusual increase in the abundance of alder at a site in south Georgia near Warner Robins during the Younger Dryas. Conditions for this species must have been just right during this climate phase. Perhaps, receding wetlands caused by lower precipitation left behind moist soils that alder could quickly colonize. Hemlock increased in abundance about 12,000 years ago when northern temperate forests still prevailed here for the most part.

Map of the Great Dismal Swamp and the current distribution of vegetation types. From the below referenced study.

Pollen composition graph over the past 13,500 years from the Great Dismal Swamp. Also, from the below referenced study.

Between 10,000 years ago to 9000 years ago, sea level rose and correspondingly the water table rose. Widespread grassy marshes began to develop with peat and floating mats of aquatic vegetation. Fire frequency increased 7000 years ago, further favoring the spread of grassy marshes.

3900 years ago, fire frequency decreased and forested swamps replaced the grassy meadows. Tupelo, cypress, and Atlantic white cedar (a disjunct species) dominated the wetlands until the colonial era when Europeans attempted to drain the swamp with ditches and began to clear cut the forest. Before the arrival of Europeans Indians lived on the outskirts of the swamp, but later they moved to the interior and lived as refugees alongside escaped slaves.

The actions of man have greatly changed the character of the swamp. Following heavy logging early during the 20th century, a fire raged for 3 years from 1923-1926. Today, the Great Dismal Swamp hosts a forest dominated by red maple, sweetgum, tupelo, and pond pine. The latter species grows in pine pocosins–a type of drier wetland with sandy peat soils and shrubby thickets. White cedar requires stable water tables and frequent fires and is now less common than before European colonization.

Pine pocosin. This type of environment has become more common in the Great Dismal Swamp since man’s efforts to drain it.

Atlantic white cedar has become less common in the swamp due to man’s activities.

Note: The scientists who wrote this study assume jack pine grew in the region during the late Pleistocene based on their belief that a cold adapted species would occur here. However, as I’ve mentioned in a previous blog article, jack pine pollen can’t be distinguished from shortleaf pine pollen, and I hypothesize shortleaf pine (a species found in the region today and as far north as Ohio) is geographically more likely to be the species that occurred here then.

Reference:

Willard, D., et al.

“Roles of Climatic and Anthropogenic Factors in Shaping Holocene Vegetation and Fire Regimes in Great Dismal Swamp, USA”

Quaternary Science Reviews July 2023

Smilodon fatalis skull Found in Southeastern Iowa

A new study documents the recent discovery of a nearly complete saber-toothed cat skull found in southeastern Iowa. Nice specimens of saber-toothed cats are rare in the mid-continent of North America because populations of large predators are naturally lower, and processes of preservation are uncommon in many regions. Whenever they are found, the remains of saber-toothed cats usually consist of just a few teeth or partial bones. There are just a few nice specimens known outside of the La Brea Tar Pits, California. Nearly complete skeletons of Smilodon have been found at Hurricane Cave, Arkansas, the First National Bank Site in Nashville, Tennessee, and Arredondo II in Florida.

Photo of the saber-tooth skull found in Iowa. Photo from the Iowa State News Service.

The Iowa specimen is from a male thought to be 2-3 years old. It was about a year from being fully grown, yet the scientists who examined it estimated it was from an individual that weighed about 550 pounds. One of the canines was broken. The scientists believe the canine was broken when the big cat attacked a Jefferson’s ground sloth (Jeffersonii megalonyx). Ground sloths were covered in armor (like armadillos) and thick fur and had long claws built for digging extensive tunnels where they often sheltered. This species weighed about a ton or 4 times the size of a saber-tooth. The canine could have been broken during a struggle or if the cat bit down on a hard part of the sloth’s body instead of the soft throat. The cat died within a few days of this incident.

The specimen is estimated to be between 13,600-13,400 years old. The environment of southeastern Iowa then was an open spruce woodland interspersed with grasslands. Evidence suggests saber-toothed cats became extinct a few hundred years after this specimen lived.

Reference:

Hill, M.; and D. Easterla

“A Complete Sabertooth Cat Cranium From the Mid-Continent of North America and its Evolutionary and Ecological Context”

Quaternary Science Review 307 May 2023

Eurasian Cave Lions (Panthera spelaea) may have ranged into Southern Canada During the Pleistocene

During the late 1960’s C.S. Churcher supervised the excavation of 12 bluffs along the South Satchkatchawan River near Medicine Hat, Alberta. This locality is a buried river valley with fossiliferous sediment 300 meters deep, but in most places the fossil remains are too deep to be recovered easily. However, the river is eroding into bluffs and uncovering bones dating to at least 4 previous Ice Ages and interglacial phases. His team found 1,224 specimens, including bones of pronghorn, bison, horse, caribou, white-tail deer, mammoth, camel, and possibly llama. A few years ago, a new team of scientists, led by Ashley Reynolds re-examined some of these bones and made at least 1 surprising discovery.

C.S. Churcher examined a saber-toothed cat foot bone found during his excavations here and believed it compared favorably to this species but didn’t definitively identify it. This new team of scientists decided it definitely did belong to an adult saber-tooth (Smilodon fatalis). This is the most northerly known occurrence of this species, and the only known saber-tooth remains found in all of Canada. Conversely, a lynx tooth (Lynx sp.) that C.S. Churcher definitively identified as belonging to a Canadian lynx (Lynx canadensis) was reviewed by the team, and they decided it could not be distinguished between Canadian lynx and bobcat (Lynx rufus). Pleistocene bobcats were larger on average than modern bobcats, and their teeth overlap in size with those of Canadian lynx.

Image of the foot bone the new team of scientists determined was from a saber-toothed cat. From the below referenced paper (Reynolds 2019).

In my opinion the most interesting find of this new study is the “tentative” assignment of a lower leg bone to a Eurasian cave lion (Panthera spelaea). C.S. Churcher believed it was from a giant American lion (P. atrox), but this team of scientists considered it too small to be from an American lion, yet too big to be from a jaguar–the 2 species of pantherine cats known to have occurred in North America. Eurasian cave lions were larger than modern African lions on average but smaller than American lions, the largest species of lion to ever walk on earth. Eurasian cave lions are known to have ranged from Beringia (Alaska, part of the Yukon, and the Bering Strait when it was above sea level) west across Asia and all the way to what is modern day England. They are known to have lived north of the ice sheet during Ice Ages when it covered most of Canada, while American lions lived south of the ice sheet. But it is possible when glaciers retreated during interglacial and interstadial phases, that cave lions wandered farther south. American lions ranged as far north as the Yukon during warmer climate phases based on 1 specimen dating to 66,000 years ago. An American lion foot bone has also been found near Medicine Hat. During some climate phases it is possible 3 big cats shared the range in this region–the 2 species of lions and saber-tooths. There is fossil evidence of Beringian wolves, a robust extinct ecomorph of the timber wolf (Canis lupus), as far south as Wyoming. Reynolds does acknowledge the specimen tentatively identified as cave lion could be from a smaller than average American lion. An analysis of DNA, if possible, could definitively identify which species it is.

Lower leg bone that compares favorably to that of a Eurasian Cave lion. It was found in Alberta. Image also from the below referenced paper (Reynolds 2019).

An older study of lion genetics determined cave lions diverged from American lions 340,000 years ago, but a new study found a much younger date of divergence. The ancestor of the 2 may have diverged as recently as 165,000 years ago during the Illinois Ice Age. The ice sheet that covered most of Canada genetically isolated the 2 populations. This same study found an interesting pattern of colonization, extirpation, and recolonization of Beringia by both lions and grizzly bears (Ursus arctos). Both of these species prefer open plain environments. This type of ecosystem expanded in Beringia during glacial maximums, and these 2 species were common during Ice Ages but disappeared during interstadials when the environment became marshy and more forested. Giant short-faced bears (Arctodus simus) lived in the region during wetter interstadials but disappeared during grassland dominated stadials. Perhaps Arctodus had large home ranges and low reproductive rates and became extirpated from the region when glaciers to the south cut them off from meta populations. Grizzlies are able to survive during the present day forested and wetland dominated environments in Alaska because they no longer have to compete with Arctodus.

Map showing colonization, extirpation, and recolonization of Beringia by lions and grizzlies. From the below referenced paper (Salis 2020).

References:

Reynolds, A., K. Seymour, and D. Evans

“Late Pleistocene Records of Felids from Medicine Hat, Alberta including the First Canadian Record of the Sabre-toothed Cat Smilodon fatalis“

Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 56 (16) 2019

Salis A. et. al.

“Lions and Brown Bears Colonized North America in Multiple Synchronous Waves of Dispersal across the Bering Land Bridge”

Molecular Ecology 24 6407-6421 2020

Vacation 2023–Jekyll Island Again

We visited Jekyll Island again last May, but I didn’t write about it until now because my blog was on a kind of hiatus then. When we were leaving the island, a light rain was falling, and I saw many marsh rabbits foraging on the grassy roadside. I didn’t want to stop in the middle of the road to take photos of them. This is more of a pictorial than an essay.

I think this photo is humorous. A man is oblivious looking at his cell phone while a deer dashes right toward him.

Raccoons are abundant on barrier islands. Seafood and trash make for a healthy raccoon diet.

Spanish-moss draped live oak. I love this species.

More Spanish moss draped trees.

Evidence of sea level rise. The ocean is encroaching on many barrier islands. This pine tree is a victim.

A laughing gull and a great egret.

Sandpipers.

I don’t know what species of jellyfish this is.

Barnacle encrusted horseshoe crab shell.

Loggerhead turtle nests are protected from raccoons with mesh cages.

Brown pelicans.

I saw 1 of these fishermen catch a nice flounder.

Locally caught shrimp and flounder were delicious.

Pleistocene Roses (Rosa sp.)

The tradition of giving roses to mom on Mother’s Day is recent, but the Rosa genus is ancient. Fossil evidence of roses dates back to the Eocene over 33 million years ago. Genetic evidence suggests roses are closely related to strawberries (Fragaria sp.) and blackberries (Rubra sp.), and the 3 diverged about the same time. There are 360 species of roses, and they occur across Eurasia and North America. Cultivation of roses began in China during the 1700s. Today, there are thousands of varieties. The genetic study (referenced below) determined the modern cultivated rose is a hybrid between the Chinese rose (Rosa chinaensis), and various European species of roses. The former has the desirable characteristic of repeated blooming, while the latter grow more vigorously.

Many people mistakenly think roses they find at abandoned homes sites or in the woods are native. Most are probably cultivated roses that have persisted because they are long-lived. However, there are at least 2 species of wild roses that are native to southeastern North America. The Carolina rose (Rosa carolina) prefers dry prairie openings within eastern forests, and they thrive on dry sandy sites. The swamp rose (Rosa palustris) grows on wet ground in swamps and marshes and can tolerate more shade. The abundance of each during the Pleistocene likely varied during different climate fluctuations.

The swamp rose is a native species of rose. It can tolerate some shade and prefers moist conditions.

Rose hips are edible. They taste like apples.

Roses produce an edible fruit known as a hip. They supposedly have more Vitamin C than an orange. The hips I’ve eaten taste like apples. Birds also like to eat the hips, and wild roses, like so many other berry-producing species, depend on birds for dispersal, though some seed-eating birds eat and digest the seeds and don’t aid dispersal. Most cultivated roses don’t produce hips because they are bred to have tightly clustered flowers that prevent pollination.

Reference:

Raymond, O; et al.

“The Rose Genome Provides New Insights into the Cultivation of Modern Roses”

Native Genetics 50 2018

Old Man Caregiver

I rarely get sick. My healthy constitution is fortunate for us because we would be in a real bind, if I was incapacitated. There is no one in our families willing or physically able to take care of Anita. Most home health care aids can’t transfer her, and anyway the kind of care she needs would be outrageously expensive. Most insurance policies do not cover that kind of care–a fact most people discover when they are forced to take care of an elderly parent. In the 28 years I’ve taken care of Anita there have been plenty of times when I felt under the weather or was just tired and didn’t feel up to taking care of her, but I soldiered forward because we had no choice–there was no one else who could help. However, there were a couple times when I was nearly incapacitated.

When Daphne was 2 years old she was restless one night and couldn’t fall asleep. I tried rocking her to sleep. (I rocked her to sleep until she was 4 years old when Anita made me stop. After that, I tucked her in bed until she was 11 when Daphne decided she was too old for that too.) Daphne barfed all over me. I attributed it to the heavy meal she ate for supper, but a couple of days later I realized she had the stomach flu because I felt nauseated and began barfing and shitting repeatedly. My mom came to help take care of Daphne, but I still had to take care of Anita. This was really the first time I ever had the stomach flu in my life, and I was 35 years old. I was able to stop expelling bodily fluids long enough to help Anita when she needed it. Since this first bout of stomach flu, I have suffered from food poisoning once (a seafood sub from Subway) and stomach flu a few more times, including a bug that made everybody who had it literally shit on the bed, but I’ve always been able to remain a caretaker for Anita without seeking help. I even barfed on myself while driving us home from a trip. I stopped at a McDonalds, cleaned up, and continued driving home.

The other incident that nearly incapacitated me occurred when Anita was in Sunday School. Anita liked to get dressed up for church where she would listen to an old lady who taught creationist crap debunked by scientists 40 years earlier. Anita didn’t believe in this nonsense, but she went for the social interaction, and she wanted Daphne to experience the kind of church-going upbringing she had when she was young. (While they were in Sunday School, I’d walk on the track around the church. People always interrupted my walk and tried to convert me. I am agnostic and think religion is brainwashing for simple-minded people.) Earlier during the week, Anita purchased high-heeled cowboy boots to show off at church. She was unsteady on the high-heeled boots, and when I transferred her from the wheelchair to the more comfortable lounge chair she sat in during Sunday School I sprained my lower back. The pain didn’t become incapacitating until a few days later on Thanksgiving.

I awoke that morning and could not move without an intense sharp pain in my lumbar region. It felt like someone was sticking a knife in my kidney. I could barely move, let alone get out of bed. I could not stand up straight. Nevertheless, Anita had to pee, and I had to transfer her from the bed to her bedside commode, then from the commode to her wheelchair. I executed the transfers while bent over at the waist. My back hurt with every step I took. But I got through it. After a few days the intense pain went away, but some days, my lower back always hurts a little. I learned to live with it. I can’t stay in bed all day when my back hurts. Anita depends on me.

I worry about what’s going to happen when I get older. What if I get too senile to take care of her? It takes quite a bit of strength and endurance now, and I am in excellent physical shape for my age. There are not many 61-year-old men who can do a set of over 60 pull-ups. But everybody’s physical and mental abilities decline with age, and it is unlikely I will be the first person on earth to live forever. I’ve already developed essential tremor disorder. My head began shaking involuntarily 2 years ago–an affliction I inherited from my mom’s side of the family. Essential tremor disorder is associated with a high risk of developing dementia. I’m still mentally sharp and have not experienced any signs of dementia myself. I spoke on the phone with one of my mom’s living relatives. Apparently, members of my mom’s side of the family who have this are fine until their late seventies, then they decline rapidly and die within a few years. Maybe, I will be able to take care of her until my end. Maybe, I will outlive her.

The face of Jonathan Frid, the actor who played Barnabas Collins, the vampire on the television series Dark Shadows. The production crew went over budget on the make-up. It was a low budget show. Barnabas was seeking a cure for vampirism, but an injection caused him to age rapidly. I am not aging rapidly, but I am slowly becoming an old man. I worry about not being able to take care of Anita when I get old.

I discovered an alarming statistic when researching material for this chapter. A study of hundreds of caregivers and non-caregivers over the age of 66 found caregivers had a 63% higher mortality rate than non-caregivers. Caregivers had 23% higher levels of stress hormones, and a 15% lower level of antibody response to disease. Caregiving can be grueling, as I think I have illustrated in the previous 13 chapters. Health professionals even give it a name–caregiver stress syndrome. I’ll never go to a doctor to treat mine. Doctors cost too much money, and I have no faith in their abilities. It was a doctor who put us in this situation in the first place. I treat my stress syndrome with alcohol–a much cheaper and more reliable solution than what the medical industrial complex offers. Alcohol may not be the answer for some people, but it is for me. Alcohol has a bad reputation today, and a consensus of medical professionals think therapy and modern pharmaceuticals are the solution. Of course, this is how they make money. Before modern medicine people used alcohol to treat everything, and it didn’t cost them $82,000 for a doctor’s appointment (only a slight exaggeration).

My memoirs are complete for now. If my life was a football game, I would probably be in the beginning of the 4th quarter, and I think I have 20 years left. I don’t know if I will have more chapters to add.

The End

Oh Yeah…We Solved that Conflict

It was my favorite time of the week–a Friday at 7:00 pm. I sat in front of my big screen computer, listening to Judas Priest’s “Devil’s Child” at high volume with a full wine glass resting near my mousepad. I drank at an accelerated rate and used my pen as a pretend drumstick. The lid to the pen flew away, and I felt the alcohol re-igniting the high I achieved when I drank 3 glasses of wine between 5:00 and 5:30 before food from supper slowed the absorption into my bloodstream. Suddenly, Daphne stood behind me.

“Mom needs you,” she said.

I followed her down the hallway to the bedroom on the other side of the house where she hangs out when she’s home from work. Anita was looking through her clothes. She was angry.

“I called you 3 times,” she said.

“I was listening to music.’

“I know. I can hear it all the way in here. I want you to hang these clothes in the closet. I shouldn’t have to call you. My throat hurts.”

I put the clothes on hangars and placed them on her side of the closet. I didn’t want her to be angry with me. It was a buzz kill. She rolled into the bathroom to brush her teeth, and I returned to the computer and chose Ozzy Osbourne’s “No More Tears” as my next jam out song. I enjoyed listening to the song, especially Zakk Wyld’s awesome guitar riff, but I couldn’t shake the buzz-killing after effect of the conflict. But then, I was struck with a sense of Deja vu. We had this argument before. And we solved it. The solution was simple. I used to take the home phone with me to the computer, and she would call me using her car phone whenever she needed me. Somehow, we had gotten out of the habit of this method of communication. I couldn’t wait to remind her of the solution. I walked across the house and told her to call me when she needed me, and I showed her the house phone. It was like oh yeah…we forgot.

We never forgot that solution again. Anita makes sure I have the phone when I go to the computer every Friday night between 6:30-8:00. I enjoy a silly, not secret, guilty pleasure during this time and pretend I am a disc jockey, and I share music from YouTube to Twitter and Facebook. I also make stupid, drunken comments in Yiddish and Spanish in the comments section. I have fun.

A selfie of me at midnight on a Friday after a bottle of wine and an edible. I have fun. It is what I live for.

It seems like we have had hundreds of conflicts that were resolved and then the solution forgotten and finally re-remembered, but I can’t think of any others. Many are probably minor matters, but they add up. Remembering the solution is the key to having a good, long-lasting relationship. Anita and I have been together so long, we have had conflicts over issues we already resolved a long time ago, but it was so long ago we forgot the solution until 1 of us remembers.

For a while, I fantasized about putting out a shingle as a marriage counselor. I’m sure I would be better than a trained psychologists fresh out of school.

This chapter is short, but I wanted to include it to illustrate this important point. My memoirs are winding down. I’ve got 1 chapter left.