Michael Jackman, Writer

It’s Christmas season again. Time to republish this essay, newly revised this year. – mj

Each year for Christmas Santa brings me a dilemma: How should I, a follower of the six-pointed star rather than the cross, reply to the endless stream of “Merry Christmas” wishes?

Scenario: It’s December 20 and I’m at my local walk-in hair joint. Today’s stylist tames my graying locks and makes hairstylist chit-chat.

“Have you got big plans for Christmas?” she asks while combing and snipping. The dilemma begins. How do I respond? So many choices between naughty and nice.  My mind races through possibilities:

[Read the rest of this entry...]

Oh my – it’s Thanksgiving again – time to post my radio essay first broadcast on WFPL Louisville, 89.3 FM, January 4, 2002. Copyright © 2002 by Michael Jackman.

In scattered families, the holiday break is time for the ingathering of the exiles. So there I was last week, driving to Amelia Island, Florida from Louisville for a mini reunion with mom, sis, nephew, and sis’s new husband, who were coming down from Boston.

We’d lost my stepfather rather suddenly to cancer last year, and this was the first time we’d all be together since then.

Family reunions are stressful. Fifteen hours on the road spread out over two days gives one ample time for fear. Luckily, this year I didn’t have to go it alone–I brought along Dana, who I’d just started dating a few weeks ago.

“It’s not like you’re meeting my family,” I said. She just looked at me. “Okay, you are meeting my family, but it’s not that kind of meeting my family.” [Read the rest of this entry...]

Yay me – a new online publication, Scribblers on the Roof, picked up a jazzy poem I wrote, “New-sach.” Just found out today. “New-sach” is kind of after the style of Harriette Mullen (of her Trimmings period). To riff in her style is not as easy as it looks! That little poem busted my ass to write. Anyway, here’s the link. Enjoy. There’s a big picture of me on the site too – as big as the poem. It’s an older picture, which means a younger picture.

In other news, my wife was about to put in the “donate to English Club book sale box” Eudora Welty’s One Writer’s Beginnings. I didn’t know we had a copy of One Writer’s Beginnings. You’d think after seven years I’d at least know what books she had. Anyway, sorry English Club, that’s one for the Michael pile.

A benefit to support Kentuckians for the Commonwealth’s efforts against mountain top removal mining, sponsored by The Writers Workshop Project and New Southerner Magazine

• WHERE: Glassworks (1st floor), 815 W. Market St., Louisville, KY
• HOST: Michael Jackman
• READINGS BY: Michael Jackman, D. Cameron Lawrence, Meagan Neal, Marianne Worthingon and others.
• MUSIC BY: Leigh Ann Yost and Friends
• AND: Books & CDs on sale, Door Prizes
• Suggested Donation $5 and up

“You can’t run away from [adversity]. You do what you have to do, no matter what it takes, as long as it’s honest.” – David Loeb Kahn (David Loeb ben Natan v’ Frieda Leah)

In honor of David Loeb Kahn, my wife’s beloved grandfather, I’m reposting here three pieces I wrote about his life for his 100th birthday celebration at Keneseth Israel synagogue. These vignettes presented his life corresponding to some of the blessings we say during Shabbat (Saturday) services, and were read at that time.

1. P’sukei D’zimra/Shacharit – Verses of Praise/Morning Blessings

In 1920 David was 10, living with his family in Kamenka, in the middle of the Ukraine. Later that year, the family would begin its two-year journey to the United States. Kamenka had only one synagogue, and Nathan, David’s father wanted to share his love of Hazzanut with his son. Nathan took David to different synagogues to hear the cantors of the day. One trip was to Odessa, perhaps to firmly fix in David’s mind the traditions they would be leaving behind for the Golden Medina.

In this third year of the Russian Revolution, Lenin and Trotsky were building their soviet empire. South in the Crimean peninsula, the tide was turning: the Reds were decisively beating the Whites. Just that February Bolshevik forces had marched into Odessa. Later that year a special congressional report commissioned by President Wilson would estimate that by September 29,000 Jews had been murdered in Ukrainian pogroms.

It’s this context of revolution and pogroms that makes it all the more remarkable that Nathan took his first born on the long, 225 mile coach journey through the dusty towns, farms and fields to Odessa, just so they could share the soaring melodies and operatic style of the Hazzanut of the day. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Rest Peacefully, David Kahn, Beloved patriarch of the Kahn family. You became not only a grandfather after I had no grandparents, but like a father-figure to me as well. I will miss you. Because of you, I learned that families can be loving and involved with each other across generations and so much more.

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/louisville/obituary.aspx?n=david-loeb-kahn&pid=135262361

KAHN, DAVID LOEB, 100, of Louisville, passed away on Friday, October 30, 2009.

David Kahn was born July 10, 1909 in the small village of Kamenka in the Ukraine. He immigrated with his parents and three siblings to the United States, arriving at Ellis Island on July 2, 1922. They settled in Louisville, where Dave went to Male High School. After graduation, Dave went to work for Levy Brothers clothing store. It was during this time that he met and married Reva Waldman. For 31 years Dave operated a 5 & 10 cent store at the corner of Preston and Walnut St. (now Muhammad Ali Blvd.). In 1969, he was forced to give up his store to urban renewal. He then went to work for Hildebrand’s and later Allied Sporting Goods. He retired completely at about age 75 and enjoyed his time with Reva on long walks, traveling some to see his children and grandchildren, and many volunteer activities.

For the past nine years, Dave Kahn resided at Four Courts Senior Center, but continued to travel to visit his family. He even celebrated his 98th birthday in the San Francisco.

Dave Kahn has been a very active member of the Louisville Jewish community. His family was one of the founding families of Keneseth Israel, where almost everyone considered Dave a “family” member. He attended services two to three times a week into his 100th year. He served as a member of the Chevra Kadisha (Jewish Burial Society), and this past May helped officiate at the funeral of his younger brother, Eddie Kahn, in Detroit. At Four Courts, Dave was honored as one of their most active residents. He befriended the entire staff and regularly visited other residents to offer his support. Dave was known by family, many friends and acquaintances as a senior statesman and role model for how one can enrich one’s life by serving others. Dave Kahn at 100 touched the lives of many and was an inspiration to all.

He was preceded in death by his wife of 66 years, Reva Waldman Kahn.

He is survived by his two children, Arnold J. Kahn and C. Ronald Kahn; four grandchildren, Cindy Pastard, Dana Jackman, Stacy Kahn and Jeffrey A. Kahn; four great-grandchildren, Daphne Pastard, Nathan D. Kahn, Chloe Rose Shaw and Annabel Shaw; as well as many nieces, nephews and their children.

The funeral will be held on Monday at Keneseth Israel Synagogue, 2531 Taylorsville Road, at 11 a.m. with visitation from 10 a.m. The family will receive guests at the Glenview, 5100 U.S. Highway 42, Monday from 2-4 p.m. and Monday through Thursday from 7-9 p.m. Arrangements: Herman Meyer & Son.

Donations in his memory may be made to the David and Reva Waldman Kahn Educational Fund at Keneseth Israel Congregation in Louisville.

While waiting for more editors to realize the stunning beauty of my writing   I find I’ve started on another ten-minute play (six minutes written of draft 1) and new short story (just a couple of pages scratched out in the morning that I stole from prepping for courses).

The short story idea is one I’ve had since I went to a writer’s conference in NY in March, but I needed a little bit of research. I don’t know if I’ll keep the opening, but I like it because it takes place in New York, in digs I’m familiar with, and it features my scary, too fancy, supersized writing desk Jeff Jamner sold me when I was doing radio commentaries. I think it represents the hubris of my main character, a writer.

The play is just an expression of my own pain and uncertainty with a certain family relationship. Hopefully I can transform it into something useful. Useful being defined as someone wants to see it on stage. And the audience goes, *applause* *applause*

Oh, I also received a poetry rejection from Tikkun last week. C’mon guys. Make room in your pages.

In the quest for publication, this month has some good news: Newsoutherner.com has published my latest poem, “Challah” for its fall issue. Check it out and the company it keeps, here.

On the other hand, Ploughshares rejected my latest short story. But I’m pretending not to notice.

A new addition to the Idea Festival of Louisville, The Festival of the Written Word features workshops, readings, panel discussions, lunch, and “A Novel Affair” wine reception. Workshops serve the community and high school students. I’ll be teaching a fiction workshop that morning. Locations and sponsors include Spalding University, Actors Theater of Louisville, and the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft. More information and registration at www.ideafestival.com/?1729

(I just received an e-mail from someone who remembered this radio commentary by title from the air and from my self-published book Planned Spontaneity, so I thought in honor of that e-mail I’d post it on the site. Thanks for the e-mail!)

First broadcast on WFPL Louisville, 89.3 F.M. June 21, 2002. Copyright © 2002 by Michael Jackman. To purchase a reprint, contact me.

It was a week of broken things. For instance, while driving home from the auto shop, basking in cold, sweet air from the repaired air-conditioner, I heard banging coming from the undercarriage.

After I drove the car back, Steve at Firestone said, “We couldn’t find anything. We think it’s your catalytic converter disintegrating from the inside. And by the way, your hood release is broken.”

His advice that I just keep driving despite the banging from a doomed catalytic converter did not comfort me.

A few days later, when Dana and I decided to go bike riding we found her bike had hatched a flat tire. And that same week, her grandfather’s refrigerator and central air both quit, as did my phone, and a computer hard drive.

So I shouldn’t have been surprised, during this week of broken things, to find a just-hatched bird trembling on the sidewalk in front of my apartment.

It was naked and pink. It opened and closed its beak and waved curved wing bones that looked like amputated forearms. Its beak still had the little egg-tooth it used to peck its way out.

“How sad,” I thought, with resignation.

Then, because I was tired of broken things, I decided to try to fix this bird.

Any nest from which the hatchling had fallen was high enough that by returning the bird I would have risked becoming a broken thing myself. So I took Bird–that’s what I named it–and put it in a cloth-lined basket.

I frantically searched the Internet, where I learned Bird’s chances were poor, but that I should keep it warm and feed it small worms from the garden every fifteen minutes from dawn until 10 p.m.

I ran outside with an old spoon and a plastic cup and tried to remember how to find worms, something I hadn’t thought of since I was eleven and fishing for sunnies in Flushing Meadow pond. After a lot of sweaty, fruitless digging, I remembered to turn over a rock–and there they were.

With a few earthworms in a cup, scissors, a pair of small tweezers, and an egg timer, I got to work nursing Bird. The worms were surprisingly strong and fast–and I felt bad about cutting them up, but Bird needed me.

It lay on its back, all beak and potbelly. Its tiny legs had tiny claws. At a tap of the tweezers it opened its mouth and stuck out its tongue. Put the piece of worm in far enough and Bird swallowed.

Soon, Bird demanded worms between feedings. A couple of times it chirped. When I observed that Bird’s digestive system was fully operational, I hoped for the best.

At 10 p.m. I put Bird’s basket out of reach of the cats, turned on a lamp to keep it warm, and went to sleep, wondering where I’d find the energy for another exhausting day of worm scrounging, chopping and feeding.

But the next morning I found Bird curled up and cold, looking even lonelier than when it lay twitching on the sidewalk. I buried it.

Sometimes the world seems full of broken things, from disintegrating catalytic converters to orphaned hatchlings, and everything in between. There’s a sadness in all this disrepair, but I learned there’s also some solace in trying to get things fixed.