We arrived back in the US after over seven months away. The return has been smooth and fun—we’ve been connecting with old friends, spent some quality time with Helen, and hit the road on our cross-country return road trip.
Culture shock? No way!
In 1973 I came back to San Carlos from my first trip outside the US, and my first trip to Israel, feeling like a stranger in my own home. I had been changed so dramatically, and yet my friends and my world had remained the same. I experienced a bit of that again this time, as we swung onto Route 1 “The Providence Highway” south of Boston, a clone of El Camino/Aurora Avenue/Sprague Avenue and many other such thoroughfares across America. Size matters, and the size of America, or at least the size of the stores along Route 1, made me shake my head. We’d woken up in Paris, amid boutiques and cafes and little shops crowded together selling hats and gloves and shoes and everything else, and we were going to sleep amid Target stores and TGI Friday’s restaurants.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that…
Not that there’s anything wrong with that…we spent some good money at Target and other big boxes along Route 1. It just took a bit to adjust to it.
We arrived in Boston, were met by Helen at the airport and spent our first night at her place in Brookline. In the morning she drove us out to the home of our friends Suzanne and Jeff in Sharon, where we’d left our car in a snowstorm on Halloween. With the help of a jump from AAA, we got the car going and drove it to the Toyota dealership, where they brought it back to life and prepared it for the road ahead. The next two days we did some shopping, some reading and resting, and eased ourselves back into the swing of things here.
With Suzanne and Jeff in Sharon…no snow or dinner by headlamps this time
We had some fun, as noted, at Target, where we broke down and bought a GPS device to help us get home, and the local Salvation Army store. Advice: when shopping at Salvation Army, find one in a nice leafy suburb like Sharon…their throw-away clothes are much nicer. We had some time with Helen, which was great, and met some of her friends and JOI activist colleagues. We joined our hosts at the WaterFire Festival in Providence on Saturday night, which was very cool. We saw Emma and Hannah there! Sunday brunch we ate with other friends in Newton, on their backyard deck in the nice spring sunshine, and after a shopping spree at Israel Books in Brookline, we hit the road west.
First stop: Northampton. These first stops—Sharon, Newton, Northampton—were all places and people we visited in the fall on our outbound road trip. It was great to revisit them, and regale them with some of our travel adventures. We were in Northampton from Sunday evening to Tuesday morning, which included time for a haircut, a bit of shopping, a great lunch out in the countryside and relaxed reentry into American life. Neil and Jonah, father and son in our Northampton family, spent the weekend with three other of Jonah’s friends at Bonnaroo, and returned after a seventeen hour drive from Tennessee with some good tales of their own to tell. Northampton—quiet streets, cute stores, organic everything, PC-to-the-max…I’m good for about 36 hours there. We just got out in time.
An example of the understated marketing that is everywhere in Niagara Falls, Ontario
Next stop—Niagara Falls. No one told us that Niagara Falls, or at least the Canadian side where most of the hotels are, is a mix of the Jersey Shore and a very bad county fair. OMG! An awesome natural wonder, and on one side, a place as crass and tacky as any you could imagine. Quiet restaurants, romantic strolls, lingering for hours over dinner…this was not to be. We were not in Paris anymore. Oversized casinos, monsters and freak shows, believe-it-or-not wax museums, everything supersized and deep fried… and everything costs $20. This was not culture shock—this was electric shock.
A river view above the falls on the American side
In Niagara Falls, and elsewhere along the way during these first days, I got an idea of what is driving New York Mayor Bloomberg’s campaign against sweet drinks. People in this country are huge. Of course they are—that’s not news, but it is incredibly noticeable in contrast to the places where we’d just come from. Parisians somehow eat very well, and late at night, and most fit into their skinny jeans in the morning, no problem. Belgium and Netherlands, same story. Israel—pretty similar. Every place has exceptions, of course, and problems with obesity and health are global problems. But sitting and watching the parade of people passing by the arcades and fast-food joints of Niagara Falls, I got the feeling that I was watching an epidemic pass before me. No, I don’t think I want fries with that, thank you.
Niagara Falls–breathtaking geography
In the morning we visited the American side of Niagara, exploring the great and un-commercialized state park there with its close-up views of the Falls. This is where Nik Wallenda was going to tightrope across the Falls three days after our visit. That’s amazing.
My dad spent his teenage years in Niagara Falls. In 1924, when he was eleven years old, he was adopted out of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum in New York City by his uncle Barney, and brought to live upstate. Barney ran a bar and speak-easy during that time, which was also Prohibition, and my dad’s youth was spent working around the place. He left after high school and returned with my mother on their honeymoon in 1946.
The Maid of the Mist–a great view of the boat ride up to the Falls
While I didn’t see any remains of Uncle Barney’s place, I really liked being there, and seeing the views of the awesome Falls that my father saw as a kid and that he and my mom saw on their honeymoon. Despite the wax museums and other schlock, the place is a natural wonder.
Next stop—Cleveland, or more specifically, Shaker Heights and our friends Margy and Aaron Weinberg, formerly of 39th Ave NE, Seattle and Congregation Beth Shalom and the very early days of Seattle Jewish Primary (now Community) School. How great to see them!
With Margy and Aaron around their wonderful garden table in Shaker Heights
They welcomed us in like long-lost landsmen, we ate a great dinner, went to a minyan so Margy could say kaddish for her dad, took a walk around their very classic old neighborhood, and exchanged stories late into the night. Their kids are great—Nadav lives in Tel Aviv, did the army, looking for a start-up that needs him. Tali is starting grad school in the fall in speech pathology. Aaron’s research at Case Western and Margy’s amazing volunteer work in the community are both being recognized. It was just a blast to reconnect after a long time. We felt immediately at home with them, and look forward to seeing them again soon.
With Avi and Rob Dobrusin–doing some family history research
Next stop—Ann Arbor, and my cousin Rob Dobrusin and his family. Rob is my second cousin—his grandfather and my grandmother were siblings and immigrated together from Latvia. We grew up not knowing that the other even existed—it appears that his grandfather was “not a very nice man”, as Rob says, and was very estranged from the rest of the family, to the point that his descendants were not connected at all with the descendents of my grandmother or the other old-country relatives as result of some family squabble that took place in the 1930s. We all got to know each other only through Beth, who happened to be at Brandeis with Rob, and who made the connection after hearing that I was related to a lot of people named Dobrusin through my mother. Rob is the Conservative rabbi in Ann Arbor, where he lives with his family—his wife Ellen and children Avi and Miki. It was a real treat to spend some time with them and get to know them a little bit. We took a great evening walk around Ann Arbor and the campus of the University of Michigan, and exchanged stories of the family. Many of my stories were new to them, and Rob’s stories were new to me. Rob and his son Avi are very interested in our family history, and in fact Rob is heading to Latvia on a ‘roots trip’ in a week’s time. It will great to hear his stories upon his return. Our small family just grew!
Next stop: Chicago. To be continued…
Location. Location. Location. 