Making Me a More Courteous Reader: A Lesson in Library Redemption

Making me a More Courteous Reader: A Lesson in Library Redemption

As someone who grew up Catholic, in an ethnic neighborhood dominated by Catholics, in a school populated almost exclusively with Catholics and run by men and women in religious orders, I became well schooled in tales of religious redemption.  Akin to this experience, it shouldn't come as any surprise that whenever I think about urban libraries from this same perspective, I identify much of what I experienced in them as the ultimate lesson in urban redemption.

It didn't start out this way.  But as a kid, I associated our public library with two things that were seemingly unrelated but equally significant to me.  One was perfect penmanship and the other, chocolate.

Now, at first glance, this may not add up.  But when I was a kid growing up in an enclave of recent immigrants from Poland and Italy on the East side of Detroit in the late 60's, among multiple generations of my large extended family, strong penmanship was clearly a precursor to the good life.  Why?  Because the nuns who taught me and my siblings at Holy Name of Jesus Elementary School said so. (I'll get to how chocolate figures into this in a minute).

Minimally, good penmanship could spare you a lot of grief up to and including a serious slap on the wrist with a yardstick or pointer.  But it could also curry favor with the nuns and get you special out-of-class opt-out assignments. Good penmanship put you in good standing in the hierarchy of grade school at Holy Name Elementary.  The Vatican may have had Papal Infallibility, but it was really the nuns who ran the tight ship of state that constituted parochial school in those days.  And if they weren't infallible, the nuns certainly made clear they were The Law.  They brought draconian discipline to three things when I was a kid—perfect penmanship was the first.  The other two were reading, and multiplication tables. 

With the U.S. military, we are often treated in movies to scenes of sergeants asking new scribes in formation to drop and give them 50 push-ups.  In much the same way, at any point in the life of a Catholic elementary school student, you could be asked to get in line, move into perfect formation, boys on the right, girls on the left. Walking quietly, hands at your sides, you could be spotted whispering to a colleague one minute.  In the next instant, regular as a heartbeat, you'd be stopped suddenly and asked by some vigilant nun what 7x9 was. 

Or once you were in your seat back in class, the nuns might ask you to rise, walk to the front of the room and write the alphabet in cursive on the chalk board. Sister Marie Blanche, my fourth grade English teacher, insisted that the consequences of not forming good letters were just as clear—all we had to do was check out the public school kids down the road.  According to her, juvenile delinquency and prison were two possibilities.  So I guess we might reasonably conclude if we weren't going to display to future employers that we were bright, smart, hard-working, honest and industrious, at least we could assure them through our strong penmanship that we were neat, orderly and law-abiding, as evidenced by our impeccable handwriting. Sister Blanche also made sure we were always carrying something to read with us where ever we went.

"Children, whenever you have 4 or 5 minutes of idle time, please remember that wasting it is a sin against God.  After all, you can always be practicing your multiplication tables in your head, and if you have a book, you can always find something to read."

Over the years, demonstrating competency in any of these arenas—reading, multiplication or perfect penmanship still continues to inspire a tremendous sense of child-like pride.  Even as a writer using a word processor for the past three decades, I still take amazing satisfaction whenever I write out a personal letter or card to someone, clear that my expressions of support or congratulations are far superior when penned in person.

As for reading, thinking back to my childhood in our small bungalow at 7590 Tappan Street, there were few books lying around the house.  We weren't exactly poor, and my mother often read to us, but there were other sources for books that didn't cost money.  Right after the Race Riots in Detroit in 1967, the Detroit Public Library expanded its book mobile program in our neighborhood.  So every other Saturday a book mobile parked itself in the church parking lot off Van Dyke at Holy Name. My mom subsequently sent my brother Raymond and me down there to check out books.

I’ve had this conversation with my long-time friend, Juliet Machie at Detroit Public Library over the years.  She never tires of hearing it.  If the nuns taught us to pursue reading with ruthless and unwavering discipline, it was the book mobile librarian from Detroit Public Library that actually inspired a love and excitement for reading. As we soon learned, we could check out any book we wanted.  No restrictions, except we had to return it in two weeks before we were allowed to check out another.  We were given a library card, and the equally important responsibility of bringing it with us when we checked out our books.  How fun.  How liberating.  How exciting.

So one day I was in the book mobile looking for something that might peak my interest.  My previous pick was a bust.  It was a bit beyond me, truth be told.  We had watched the movie A Night to Remember directed by Roy Ward Baker at home with my parents. I was mesmerized by the story of the Titanic, and wanted to check out the book by Walter Lord.  A copy of it wasn't on hand in the book mobile, so the librarian asked me to fill out a hold request slip.  In the back of my mind, I heard Sister Blanche admonish me to print slowly and neatly.  Perfect penmanship had appeared once more.

                                                            

On my next visit, the book awaited me, and I left so excited, the anticipation building on the near mile walk home. But it turned out to be a huge disappointment. The book had few pictures, and I lost my way in the rest of the narrative, and gave up trying to finish it shortly afterwards.

For my next selection, I decided to ask the librarian for help in picking out something more suitable.  Happy to oblige, I can't remember exactly what she asked me.  However, I do have a vivid recollection of what she handed me:  A copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl.

                                                         

To this day, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory still stands out among the best books I've ever read.  Charlie and the Chocolate Factory transported me to another world, much like the Harry Potter franchise does for many young readers today.   

Imagine living in a small home with your grandparents, who once worked in a factory, and walking past their plant en route to school every day.  Hmm.  This was a picture all too familiar to me.  It wasn't much different than the trek we made to Holy Name Elementary each day with the stacks from Chrysler's Lynch Road Assembly Plant where my grandparents both worked billowing huge clouds of dark industrial smoke in the background. 

Once transported inside Willy Wonka's factory, I still remember Charlie, slightly hungry after a Spartan meal of watery cabbage soup, walking past the chocolate factory and literally drinking in huge breaths of the most wonderful chocolate aroma in the entire world, gulps of that smell sating his young and voracious appetite.

It is not hard to imagine a harsh and punishing world redeemed by the virtues of an endless stream of chocolate.  From there, the world of reading expanded for me.  I went on to read other Roald Dahl stories, and by the time I left our old neighborhood a decade later, and became the first generation in my family to go off to college, my love of reading translated directly into my chosen major in English literature, and my career choice.  Right after graduation, I went to work in the educational publishing industry.

But as I grew older, not surprisingly my reading tastes changed.  What I didn't realize until recently however, was how, in fact, my reading habits actually changed significantly too, as my life took me away from the library. 

I suppose I'm not unlike a lot of people for whom the library was absolutely central growing up, but faded in importance after college.  Much of that, I suspect, is economic.  As our means improve, convenience trumps the abundance of selection that initially has us spellbound at the doorstep of our first encounters at the library.  We get comfortable wanting exactly what we want when we want it.  It's easier to go to Barnes and Noble or Amazon online, than to wait several weeks for a popular bestseller on the holds list at the local library. 

What further complicated my reading habits though, was working in marketing for Border Books and Music in the mid 90's. In that role, books were as bountiful for me as chocolate was to Charlie.

Publisher's sent me endless samples, signed copies and galleys.  In addition, authors also came out to promote their books.  While meeting them in person often enhanced the experience, it also complicated things.  I remember pulling an all-nighter on one occasion to finish a galley.  Ann Patchett was coming to town from Nashville, and we had events lined up for her latest book, The Magician's Assistant. My wife and I also hosted a book club discussion at our home for Ann.

After reading her earlier book, The Patron Saint of Liars, I was super motivated to read her newest work. However in my marketing role, it wasn’t always possible to share the same enthusiasm for every author that crossed my desk.  That didn’t stop the galleys and signed editions from arriving.

Soon enough, I found my reading habits diverging wildly from my wife Kay's.  Whereas she would finish every book she started, even those that proved to be disappointing, my reading attention span plummeted.  If a book didn't grab my attention immediately, I moved on. If I made it to a certain point and the story sputtered, I moved on.  Again, so many books, so little time.

Kay found this practice a bit stunning. At one point, we went to our couple’s book club one month, and as the discussion got underway, I expounded at length on the book we had selected.  Others agreed with my perspective.  But Kay, in complete exasperation, looked at me and said, "How do you know that's true?  You never even finished the book!"

Everyone broke out laughing.  Clearly, I wasn't at a loss to talk about books.  But the sad hollow truth was I hadn't actually read many of them, so the experience was somewhat lacking.

Last fall, this odd self-limiting behavior ultimately began correcting itself.  I'm not suggesting it's horrendous to talk about books you haven't read.  That's been the job of booksellers since I first became one in 1982. It's only missing something if your own experience with stories is cultivated entirely through the collective views of others, and not shaped by your own immersion into the experience of reading it yourself. 

Sometime last August, Kay and I decided to attend the Celebration of Learning Event at the Columbus Metropolitan Library at the invitation of the Executive Director, my friend Pat Losinski.  The featured author was Isabel Wilkerson, a New York Times correspondent who had recently published her first book on the African American migration entitled, The Warmth of Other Suns.

As had become my habit, I went to research the author enough to "pass" in any conversation at the event. However, when I discovered the book was almost 800 pages, I decided to check it out at my local library. 

A funny thing happened on the way to the Ann Arbor District Library.  Although I've been working with libraries for over a decade, I had to admit to Josie Parker, the library director, that this was the first time in what seemed like forever that I actually checked out a book. OMG!  It's so much easier than I remember it.  I can type in my email address online, get into my account, place a hold and ask them to send it to the branch of my choice.  Ann Arbor has a branch right around the corner from my Kroger store, so I can pick up and drop off books on my way to grocery shopping. But something far more profound happened on the way to getting my book from the library. 

I actually finished The Warmth of Other Suns from cover to cover.  More to the point, I was so entranced by Isabel's account of African American life in the Jim Crow south, that once I finished it, I found her website online and wrote her a fan letter.  A week or so later, Isabel friended me on Facebook, and we began corresponding regularly.  For months after reading The Warmth of Other Suns, I talked and posted about the book constantly, and how I loved Ida May Gladney, Bob Foster and George Starling, the three characters whose family odyssey shape the narrative. During a visit to the New York Public Library, I even started talking with my cab driver about the book.

At one point, the driver stopped the car and asked me to write down the title and the author, so he could buy it for his grandchildren.  At the same time, he started telling me about his grandfather, whom he had met only once in his life, a farmer who lived in the Deep South in rural Alabama.  He said, he always wondered if something had driven his mother and grandfather apart, because she never took him south to visit his grandfather, even for his funeral.  As it turned out, his mother told finally confessed, “I brought you up north so I could raise you to be a stand-up guy who could think, and speak and fend for yourself.  And if you acted like that where your grandpa lived, you’d be killed for it.”

I sat there writing out the title and author of the book in stunned silence.  

The experience with Warmth of Other Suns has turned out to be so personal in so many ways.  Something more profound happens when you get your books from someone at the library. First of all, you connect with the person who recommended it, and in some cases, to others who are part of the story.  Isabel Wilkerson has linked me with my common past, and all those who migrated to big cities like Detroit. Ultimately, reading reminds us we have but each other and our stories to share.

Sari Feldman, director of the Cuyahoga County Public library recently suggested that in order to promote reading in her community, she asked staff to share what they were reading as part of their email signatures.  I started doing this, and the response has been incredible.  People have begun asking me about the books I’m reading.  Some responses even show up with an addendum about some favorite recent pick.  Kim Fender, executive director at the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County recently recommended In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson after finding out how much we both enjoyed Devil in the White City. 

So I guess my selections are formed by better intelligence now—rather than choosing from a slew of books sent along by those publishing and promoting them.  It’s as simple as returning to the basic practice of choosing books based on what those who love books are saying about them.  Similarly, my son Will has become friends with Marcia Warner, director of the Grand Rapids Public Library.  As a special treat, Marcia occasionally puts books or DVDs on hold for him that she thinks he’ll enjoy.  Amazing. 

By the way, I’m not suggesting that I finished The Warmth of Other Suns because I checked it out of the library rather than buying it online.  But at the same time, I am.  You not only get more connected to the selection in the first place, but there is a big connected world of book-reading, make-a-difference-in-their-part of the-world people out there with whom I’m getting acquainted through books.  The library is simply extending the invitation for me to join their party already in progress. 

Not only that, I’ve noticed other behavior changes.  Because I still read a lot of front list fiction and non-fiction, my selections are usually in high demand.  This prompts me to be more conscientious about returning books on time, or even a few days earlier.  Who wants to be a delinquent dilettante in your own community? And I’ve finally owned the fact that I really don’t do well reading a lot of books at the same time, so I only check out one item at a time.  I am also more conscious of the next book I want to tackle, so I spend more time reading blogs and other community information sources in advance to scope out my next selection.  An ultimate perk of a job working with libraries is taking full advantage of the opportunity to ask more librarians what they’re currently reading.  Their choices always get my attention, even the ones that don’t sound particularly suited to me.  All these changes from my frenetic past practice have me feeling like I’m returning to those simpler book-enjoying days on the East side in my old neighborhood, courtesy of the Detroit Public Library bookmobile.  

Overall, that’s a good thing.  But it occurs to me I’m overdue writing out personal thank you letters to Isabel Wilkerson and Pat Losinski, Juliet Machie, Sari Feldman, Marcia Warner, Kim Fender and Josie Parker and the legions of other library do-gooders out there.  Maybe I’ll put a chocolate bar in with my letters.  It’s clear the combination of chocolate and good penmanship continues to ignite bright magic. 

Ron J. Stefanski

Currently reading The Beginner’s Goodbye, by Anne Tyler, just completed In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson

The Sailing "to do" list: Waxing, and in a word, Jazzed

Tobermory in the North Channel, Lake Huron

We are getting ready for another Summer Sailing Adventure 2012 aboard Tres Joli. 

However, as I write, I look at the massive amount of work facing me in getting Tres Joli ready for launch, and I become depressed, completely catatonic and crestfallen.  The list of repairs, fixes, and details to attend is limitless.  Both boys are in the middle of college final exam preparations-- hardly a time to be bugging them, and foisting maritime maintenance responsibilities on their shoulders!  Kay is telecommuting still, and across state lines 5 days a week.  If I even have a prayer of enticing her into some sailing this summer, it is probably best not to start with a plea for work aboard ship, especially after her solo marathon to finish this year's taxes with little assistance from me.  So I start compiling the list of things the boat requires, but that just gets more maddening the more I write.

It's not that Tres Joli isn't a grand lady.  Paul and Sandy, her previous owners attended to her care exceptionally well, and outfitted her in a style to which we've all become readily accustomed.  But there is frankly nothing worse than looking at her hull in the marina yard, within walking distance of Lake Erie's shore, and seeing the kind of sorry, smooty grime that lays her beautiful markings low by the end of a long winter season.  Where to start?

A good place is probably at the marina, setting up a launch date. A timeline, methinks, will bracket all the work, and help to contain the endless litany of items.  In order to do that, of course, I need to make sure my account is up to date.  Fortunately, there is only $700 in outstanding balances for winter storage due, so that's the first of many checks we write for the boat this year.  I know, why bother complaining?  Everyone will just pipe in:  A boat is an endless hole into which we are destined to pour all disposable income. And we are on record saying that Tres Joli is more an investment in making memories, so best not to go down this path.  Besides Tres Joli certainly deserves more consideration than that.

She is a valued member of our family, and she's been hibernating all winter just waiting to entertain us for months.  We simply need to give her the attention she's overdue.  So the marina and I settle on a date:  May 4th.  This is the official start date for our Summer Sailing Adventure 2012.  That gives my long list some needed definition. 

Anyone out there wanna join us for the pre-sailing preparatory fun?

Last year, Will helped with the hull preparation.  We now have this part down to a five part science.  It mirrors scenes from the Karate Kid in which we chant "wax on" "wax off" about a thousand times until just moments before our arms fall completely listless and useless at our sides.  The hull is first rubbed out, and then two coats of hull wax are lovingly and diligently applied and buffed with an electric waxer to a high gloss.  Seeing the shining result always makes me feel like everything else is possible as the sheen of the near-new looking hull radiates against an emerging spring sun.  Everything is possible.

Two years ago Max and Don Treanor gave up an entire Saturday to rub out and wax Tres Joli.  They were so dedicated, never complained, it made me feel guilty and euphoric all at once.  Admittedly, it took our friendship to an entirely different level.  Show of hands, how many of you can lay claim to a friend who will spot you an entire Saturday to wax the boat before it's even in the water?  Yes, with the Treanors we've experienced the highs of many summer nights in Oyster Bay barging Tres Joli and In Transit II together while all the kids splashed around in the near frigid waters.  We've also hit the lows with Don's heart attack and health scare.  But nothing compares to waxing a boat.  What I've learned is simply this:  a friendship bonded by a day of boat waxing-- that is as precious as life itself.  After all, we ultimately learn that life is certainly not a given, but having a friend to help through the entire duration of an annual boat wash and wax ritual -- that's equally priceless and rare!

Of course, this year's feeling of overwhelmedness regarding boat work has its roots in being an "empty nester" I'm sure.  Usually there was at least one of the boys I could bribe into helping.  And I don't have the chops to call friends or their young charges for assistance.  Owning a boat, I need to remind myself, is about maintaining a certain amount of self-reliance.  So I start to get my head around doing what I know must be done-- I need to do most of the work for myself, and by myself without further complaint. Enough whining already.

But this only motivates me so far.  So I go back to the lists, and of course this gets me in front of a computer screen checking out all the sailing websites for all the items I think I will need for the boat.  It doesn't matter that Paul stocked the lockers of Tres Joli with enough repair parts and cleaning and fixing tools and materials that I probably don't need to buy much of anything-- a few new buffing pads, a bit more black spot-off.  Of course, this little online excursion leads me inevitably to yachtworld.com where I start checking out fantasy alternatives-- newer model boats that won't require the same hard toil to look bristol.  But with 2 kids in college, less than a freak announcement from the State Lottery Commission means we need to be content with our lot in life-- the good old boat that we have.

But as I peruse the sites, and find all manner of reasons to procrastinate further, I get an email from my marina landlord.  He shares his excitement about the coming season, and tells me they are also considering sailing to the North Channel this year.  This gets me all jazzed, because I have been planning a cruise there for 2 years now, and have twice come up short due to time constraints.  This year, I look over the sailing calendar with the grand sense of optimism that only sailors possess-- possessed of a fantasy that things are perfect and possible, even when my better judgment suggests that bliss lasts but a fleeting moment or two with all things maritime, whether on land or at sea. 

I am on the cusp of actually figuring out how to plan a cruising summer that will take us beyond view of Toledo's energy plants to one of the Great Lake's fairest cruising grounds-- Tobermory on the North Channel. I imagine gentle summer breezes as the sun sets after a glorious dinner of simple galley fare, shrimp and grits and a few really cold Coronnas and an equally well-chilled bottle of Conundrum. (I know my tastes are pedestrian, but keep in mind that just means I am easily satisfied.) 

Before long, I jump off all the sailing websites, respond to my marina landlord, and start looking at the chaos of the boy's pending work schedules, graduation commitments, Kay's work travel and mine, and a late summer wedding out west.  As I look over the months ready to circle open blocks of time into which I can insert even modest sailing plans, I am almost into August before realizing this exercise when taken down to its finest details will only make me feel like summer is gone before it even arrives (a feeling inspired already, in part, by the March Madness Summer Weather of 2012)

Tobermory perches me squarely into the realm of fantasy, more a concept than even a destination at this point.  I love the name, unusual, like a big word no one else has heard used in a sentence before.  This gets me jazzed, and moments later two communications take my enthusiasm even further. 

The first, another email from landlord Bill telling me that they are sponsoring the Pink Boat Regatta this year at Toledo Beach Marina and wants to know if we'll participate.  I say yes without much thought, and as I research the Pink Boat Project online, I get even more jazzed.  A young guy named Tom Watson has painted his 28 foot Triton Pearson "Darwind" pink and decides to sail around the world to fulfill a lifelong dream and raise $1,000,000 for Breast Cancer Research.  So we are signed up, reading to start posting, and line up pledges for a race on September 15th to support Tom Watson's noble sailing project. 

Click here to Join the Pink Boat

Then, as good fortune has it, as I finalize my laundry list of sail maintenance items, I receive another email.  It's official:  my nephew Levi is going to fly from his home in Bethesda Maryland to join us aboard Tres Joli the first weekend he gets out of school.  Jazzed some more now.  As Will, Dan, Jake, Evan, Colin and Tyler will attest, there is nothing I enjoy more than taking others out sailing with us, especially those new to the sport. 

Despite every cautionary flag thrown down by knowing friends who have witnessed firsthand some of my "misadventures" at sea, which parenthetically have never included loss of life or serious injury, I remain confident that others can trust the safety of their firstborn sons to my care.  I consider reminding folks that I first had Will aboard a sailboat when he was 8 weeks old, but the fact that we ran aground as he began teething doesn't inspire confidence among any who've already heard that story, and certainly not among friends who know me less well.  Yes, I'm jazzed.  New crew to Tres Joli.  Yet another impressionable mind waiting to be spellbound by what we do with wind and water and our wiley winsome ways. 

Oh, yeah, what about that long list of things that still need to be done? Who cares?  I now have a Pink Boat Project, and Levi's homecoming aboard Tres Joli at the top of my list.  The rest will follow. 
 

Why is this night so special?

Generally speaking, I think Passover is one of the most under-rated holidays in the religious canon. I sometimes think in the back of my mind that it really requires a major branding and marketing awareness campaign in order to give the celebration its proper due.  I'm not just talking about its time- honored role in the Judaic tradition.  But elements of Pesach can be found in all three tenets of the largest faith traditions on the planet-- Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

I first learned this back in college.  I was transported by my then-girlfriend home to her family for Passover one year.  It was my first Seder, and one I will long remember.  I had falsely concluded that I was dating someone so altogether different from me in so many ways. We had been raised so differently, me in an ethnic, devout Catholic home, her in an orthodox Jewish one.  As I entered the dining room, there were the symbolic foods of the Seder plate-- bread, wine, salt, water, eggs, lamb, and horseradish. Where had I seen this all on display before? 

As it turns out, these were the same foods my mother gathered each year and put into our Easter food basket and took to church on Easter Saturday for the special blessing. My mom would dutifully take us to church in the morning, and after the service we returned home where the food was held sacred; what wasn't eaten was burnt later with flame, and not thrown in the trash.  The food couldn't be reheated and was eaten cold as if we were on the run. Each of the elements held a special meaning-- symbolizing different aspects of the deliverance of the people of Israel from slavery into freedom, and the Passover's intimate connection to an Easter redemption that followed.

For my parents, whose own parents came to America as immigrants, this tradition was upheld with great reverence. My parents weren't encouraged to speak Polish in their home, and were raised to become fully assimilated into the mainstream American culture of the 50's. But at the same time, they held fast to certain customs, and the blessing of Easter baskets with special foods connects me to past and present traditions that I find ever more meaningful as the years pass.

Is it the universal emphasis on spring renewal, celebration of the good, bitter and sweet legacy of the past that I find so compelling?  Or the redemption in a newfound freedom from oppression? Or is it the connection that Passover provides, a pathway that connects me back to my own ethnic Catholic past?  Passover certainly validates for me that for as much as we differ, we are all of us one in the same, united in our common bonds of humanity.

Passover connects us all by bisecting our diverse stories.  In these we hear and see our love of family and fellowship.  We look forward to the special foods and quirky traditions of an intimate holiday repast-- Jack and Judy's songs and costumes in years past, our now vegan and traditional culinary spread, our potluck of different tastes. We rejoice in the joy of the youngest among us, Ethan and Sarah, as they beg the important questions.  Why is this night so special?  We see the earnestness in their faces, yearning for us to tell them. And we did!

With Bill's guitar version of Die-die-yaynu, Caroline's recent Nightingale Award, Rick's technology download inspired by his recent way cool CNBC fame, and Edie's book talk about the latest and greatest reads (Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson or the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks).

Being part of the Trapp, Nolish, Broida Passover tradition over the years is a joy to behold.  This year at Rick and Shawna's we were introduced to the fifth question, why is there an orange on the table on this night?

We learned, in deference to the women of Passover, a feminist once asked, "When will women enjoy the same rights as the men?" The answer she was told would be found when there was an orange on the Seder plate. The orange in this sense symbolizes the sweetness of bringing both women and gays into the full celebration of their rights, and an end to their oppression and slavery as the Israelites endured in the past.

This of course begs the last question of our evening, embodied in the picture (attached) from our Seder celebration tonight:

"Orange" you glad to know why this evening was so special? For me, one important reason is that it was spent in the company of these wonderful extraordinary women, connecting me to Gerry and Vicki and Anka and all those women not present this night, but whose spirit, customs and traditions remain so powerful and alive.  For it is ultimately revealed to us on this night, as on so many others that in the end we have but each others and our stories.  

Shalom! 

Stark View of Juvenile Justice: What Have We Learned in 20 Years?

What have we learned about juvenile justice in Detroit over the past 20 years?  After reading your coverage in Sunday’s front page about Joshua Brown, and the tragic death of Kade’jah Davis, it appears we’ve learned precious little. My heart grieves for Ms. Davis’ extended family and friends.  We should know by now that the injustice here isn’t limited to the fact that her alleged perpetrator wasn’t tethered.  It cuts way more deeply and broadly than this.  On what basis can I make this claim? 

Because just over 20 years ago, on March 13, 1991, my grandmother Vicki was killed in her Eastside home by a newspaper carrier who was 14 years old at the time.  Unfortunately, as we’ve witnessed time and again, we seem remarkably unable to make any substantive changes to prevent these crimes, which impact community life for all of us in the metropolitan Detroit area.

Back in 1991, excessive caseloads and haphazard information and record sharing between the Family Independence Agency, the MDOC and the local police authorities were epidemic.  For instance, no one was able to “connect the dots” and identify that my grandmother’s killer was being commended for meeting the terms of his probation, and recommended for “step-down” to a juvenile center and release on the very same day that he was apprehended for another assault in a neighboring jurisdiction.  His arrest warrant ultimately lapsed and he returned free into the community at large.

People always ask me, didn’t the prospect of his release scare me? Not nearly as much as the facts in front of us, and the imminent threat this poses.  25,000 people are currently under some form of MDOC “supervision,” and over 5,000, or 20% are in violation of their parole or probation.  These are staggering numbers, in case you were thinking this problem is limited strictly to residents of a decaying inner city.  Admittedly, those who let Brown slip through the cracks need to be held accountable.  But the Free Press failed to report on one other important measure in this equation—the size of correction officers’ caseloads.  Let’s not put the blame solely in one place—if we all don’t rise up together to address this epidemic, we will all stand lamentably arm in arm at the grave of another hapless victim. 

Because the facts regarding Kade’jah Davis’ death appear suspiciously similar 20 years later:  an entirely preventable crime, and a perfect storm of missed opportunities to put a safety net of corrective measures and protections into place. 

While the myriad causes of juvenile capital crime continue to baffle, we see a startlingly similar pattern here: corrections officers overwhelmed with extraordinary caseloads unable to track probationers; prosecutors without the necessary tools to enforce stricter penalties early on to deter delinquent behavior; and a dearth of interventions that would separate serious offenders, and minimize their exposure to an arc of increasing violence and crime.  Kim Worthy is right on the mark again.  Holding the system accountable for keeping violent offenders off the streets is a basic first step. 

Taking a look back, I can’t help but concur with juvenile prosecutors who at the time of my grandmother’s murder shared with me the unintended consequences of a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1967 that has measurably impacted how we adjudicate juvenile justice.  “In Re Gault” gave juveniles accused of crimes the same due process rights as adults. The case involved Jerry Gault, who at 14 was sentenced to seven-years in prison for a prank phone call.  This case established the constitutional right to legal counsel for children facing delinquency proceedings, an important right.  But is it also possible the pendulum has swung too far, limiting the courts’ and prosecutors’ ability to intervene early with juvenile delinquents?  If early crimes are not being evaluated and treated as potential red flags for violent repeat offenders, is it possible the first clear view of judicial consequences appears when perpetrators have ultimately graduated to a life-altering capital crime?

When I look at the record of Joshua Brown, I see a young man first apprehended at age 10 for a serious assault.  His first offense is dismissed for lack of evidence.  His second offense at 13 of burning a kid with a cigarette lighter is dismissed because the complainant didn’t appear.  The third crime, grand larceny, at age 15 receives probation.  At age 18, arrested for home invasion, followed by drug charges, he receives probation.  And the case goes on and on.  If true, what have we told Joshua Brown in the process over the course of eight years?  What does this say about us, and our collective community safety net?

George Lardner, in his epic book “The Stalking of Kristen” makes a similar case covering his daughter’s murder at the hands of a juvenile offender in Boston in 1992.  Time and again, Kristen’s perpetrator fell through the cracks of the community’s dragnet.  George’s investigative reporting on Kristen’s case was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1993.  Sadly, the facts sting with a sickening familiarity.  Another beautiful life felled. Another violent crime that could have been prevented if only the labyrinth of the corrections system had seen and responded with the proper tools in place to the clear and menacing signs. 

When will we learn?  I hope for Kade’jah’s sake, along with Vicki’s and Kristen’s and countless others, we start abiding these sobering lessons, and get working together.  Trust me, the consequences for inaction lie in full view. 

Ron J. Stefanski is an educational publishing executive and free-lance writer who currently resides in Ann Arbor, Michigan

Vicki's Recipe for Rhubarb

Vicki’s Recipe for Rhubarb

My grandma Vicki came to this country from Poland when she was 6 years old.  After spending a decade or so in St. Clairsville, a coal mining town in Ohio, she came north with my grandfather to pursue their fortune in Detroit, working for Walter Chrysler in the Lynch Road assembly plant.  Vicki reminded me of a cross between Rosie the Riveter, and Edith Bunker on the popular All in the Family series.  She came packaged in the same colorful aprons and housedresses, with a Polish accent, and the same homespun, pragmatic outlook on life. 

Vicki was definitely a character that defied the imagination.  She had the equivalent of a sixth grade education, but my father and I were convinced she received intensive training at a Special School for Grandmothers, a place where grandmothers are sent to learn how to be the way they are.  After all, where else would Vicki have picked up on all the things grandmothers the world over seemed to share in common?  Take cooking for example. My grandmother Vicki clearly went to a special school for cooking lessons.  Where else would she have learned how to use bacon fat in just about every recipe from frying food to baking pies?  Where else could she have learned to cook in such mass quantities (often without a written recipe) even after her sons had moved away, her husband had long passed, and she lived alone?

My grandma Vicki learned that homemade pie was a cure-all for many of the misfortunes that befall most people.  She also learned if one homemade pie was good for you, then ten must be ten times better.  I know this because I was at her house one day.  She lived in one of those post-war two story brick bungalows over on the East side of Detroit off Gratiot.  I was taking her to the Sign of the Beef Carver for an early dinner, and then grocery shopping.  As we traveled down the baking aisle at Farmer Jack's that day, she asked me what kind of pie I liked. 

“Do you’ns like rhubarb pie? Maybe I’ll make you’ns a rhubarb pie to take home.  Your dad likes that rhubarb pie. Yeah, y’know that’s what I’ll do,” she rattled on.

Sure.  What else was I going to say? That was all she needed to know.  It was enough to prompt her to make a rhubarb pie for us every week afterward for months on end.  My dad and I would go there on Tuesdays, always Tuesdays, to take her on errands and grocery shopping, since she did laundry on Monday, and had a standing hair appointment on Wednesday.  And each week when we returned from her weekly errands—to the butcher, the pharmacy, the bakery, the fortune teller—Vicki presented one of us with a freshly baked rhubarb pie.  The rhubarb came right out of her backyard, a bumper crop she cultivated along the edge of a chain link fence that framed her postage-stamp sized victory garden. She continued this practice throughout the entire summer, even as her supply of rhubarb dwindled.  Vicki was a pioneer of the Great Depression, by definition a person of extraordinary thrift.  Undaunted, she began to stretch the remaining, thinning rhubarb each week by adding tapioca and more sugar. 

These became more interesting concoctions as the months progressed. After bringing home an anemic green rhubarb pie one week, only to find one still on the counter untouched from the week before, I went to my dad and told him she needed to be stopped.  He wouldn’t hear of it.  “You can’t tell your grandma to stop baking us pies, that’s ridiculous!”  So I went back the next week to take her shopping, convinced I needed to take matters into my own hands.

As we were browsing the vegetable aisle at Farmer Jack’s, I started in, “Grandma, you know, you don’t have to make us a rhubarb pie every week.  That seems like an awful lot of work. It’s okay if you don’t.”

   

She nodded appreciatively, as if she understood.  The next week I showed up in her kitchen, and there on the counter was another creation.  I wasn't sure exactly whether it was a pie.  It was in a pie dish, that much was certain.  But this one was covered in a weird mound of white frothy ooze.  She was standing there, wiping her hands in her apron and beaming. 

I blurted out the most enthusiastic reaction I could muster, “Oh wow, is that another pie?”

“Yeah, you’ns don’t like the same thing all the time, so I made something different this time.” And with that, she presented me with a Green Tapioca Rhubarb Meringue pie.

What I’ve learned in the years since she has been gone is that with little formal schooling, Vicki had more wisdom than most folks with college degrees.  Although her work life was spent on the factory floor, and the only elected office she ever held was as president of the Women’s Auxiliary of the VFW, she remained convinced that she could solve many of the world’s most pressing problems—hunger, world peace and domestic violence, with recipes conjured up in the confines of her tiny kitchen. 

That’s because she learned how to live right as a graduate of that Special School for Grandmothers.  She became an extraordinary student in the larger lessons of life.  She had learned that you can’t believe everything you hear. But as they say, a smart person believes half of what they see, and the genius knows which half.  Vicki was ingenious at knowing which half, because she had faith.  But this faith in human nature ultimately blinded her to the fact that another human being might have something against her, or would take something not theirs to take.  That’s why twenty years ago, Vicki let someone into her kitchen one day, began to feed them, and was killed in the process.  Remains of a mostly uneaten pie were found in her Frigidaire when we went to clean out her house days later. 


Nowadays, whenever I make rhubarb pie for friends or family, I see Vicki so vividly in her kitchen, her apron dusted with flour.  I think of all the work across the planet devoted to pursuing domestic tranquility and world peace.  There’s so much work left to be done.  But the place to begin is very clear.  


Start small in your corner of the kitchen by making someone a pie.  Keep in mind, if you make one each and every week, there will still never be enough rhubarb pie to go around.

Ron's Edible Adaptation of Vicki's Rhubarb Pie

• 1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch double crust pie (I use Crisco instead of Vicki's bacon fat)
• 2 cups diced rhubarb (try to pick the fattest, red juicy stalks and leave the green ones!) 
• 2 1/2 cups hulled strawberries 
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 teaspoons cornstarch
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons butter, diced
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg (I'm not a nutmeg person, so I eliminate this)
• 1/2 lemon's worth of grated lemon zest (I added this too)*
• 1 tablespoon white sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

* I can't imagine Vicki displaying the patience to grate a lemon!

Baking Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C). Divide the pie pastry in half; roll out half into a circle on a floured work surface, and line a 9-inch pie dish with bottom crust. Roll the remaining half out into a 10-inch circle on a floured work surface, and set aside.
2. Mix the rhubarb, whole strawberries, 1 cup of sugar, flour, butter, and nutmeg together in a bowl. Pour the filling into the crust-lined pie dish.
3. Cut the remaining crust into 3/4-inch wide strips (use a scalloped edge pastry cutter for a prettier crust). Moisten the rim of the filled bottom crust with a bit of water, and lay the two longest strips in a cross in the middle of the pie. Working from the next longest down to the shortest strips, alternate horizontal and vertical strips, weaving the strips as you go. Press the lattice strips down onto the bottom crust edge to seal, and trim the top crust strips neatly. Mix 1 tablespoon of sugar with cinnamon in a small bowl, and set aside.  Okay, truth be told I added this entire step.  In truth, Vicki would not have the patience to create a lattice with the dough.  In fact, she worked the dough too much on most occasions, and her crust wasn't as flaky as it should be, so I have added this, knowing she'd smile on the result.
4. Bake in the preheated oven for 10 minutes; reduce heat to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Remove pie. Sprinkle the top with the cinnamon-sugar mixture, and return to oven; bake until the crust is golden brown and the filling is bubbling, about 30 more minutes.
5. Nota Bene:  Vicki was notorious for going outside to put her wash out on the clothesline while there was a pie in the oven.  She would invariably return to the kitchen to the smell of burnt sugar.  As a precaution, especially if the rhubarb is especially juicy, I place a cookie sheet underneath the pie with some baking soda in case some of the filling spills over.  

A Healthy Tribute to Two Real Sweethearts this Valentine's Day!

Ron’s Favorite Scones are Now Vegan!

As a tribute to his dear son Dan and sweet friend Caroline, for Valentine’s Day this year, Ron gave his kitchen crew the assignment to take his decadent, delicate homemade scones and make them with vegan-only ingredients.  No small task given that their richness comes from traditional eggs and butter.  But they happily went to work.  Check them out.  The result:  New Better than Ever Vegan Scones! Amazingly delicate just as before.  Sweet tribute to Dan and Caroline, two Vegan Sweethearts!

The Not-so-Secret NEW Vegan Scone Recipe

1 stick vegan vegetable spread

2 cups flour

¼ teaspoon salt

6 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons cream of tartar

2 egg-equivalents*

1/3 cup almond milk (you can also use rice or soy milk)

* Egg equivalents were made using 2 tablespoons of ground flaxseed, mixed with 3 tbls. of water for each egg (so this recipe would use 4 tbls. flaxseed + 6 tbls. Water)

Grind the flaxseed, measure out 4 tablespoons and put in a bowl with 6 tablespoons of water, and mix together and let sit. Using a pastry blender, cut the vegan spread into the flour and salt.  Mix until it looks like course ground cornmeal.  Add the sugar, baking soda and cream of tartar.  Take the flaxseed mixture and fold in using a wooden spoon until the mixture is fully blended.  Form the mixture into a long 3” tall rectangle on a floured surface, then cut into triangles.  Sprinkle the tops of each with sugar, and press dried fruit into the tops of each as you desire. Bake in a pre-heated oven for 6-8 minutes at 450 degrees. 

Serve with jam or fruit spread.  Enjoy them in good health, and thank Caroline and Dan for their inspiration!