Prattle of the Sexes
By Michael Kaufman
A while back I received a phone call from my friend Dominick. “Have you talked to Paul Friedman?” he asked.
“Not recently. Why?”
“You didn’t know he had had a heart attack?”
“Paul Friedman had a heart attack?”
“Yeah… I’m surprised no one told you. He’s home now. You should give him a call.”
Paul and I have been friends since our college days at New Paltz. I was the best man at his wedding. We rarely get together now but when we do, it is like old times…so much so that Paul’s wife Jean and my wife Eva-Lynne are appalled at our reversion to youthful immaturity and bathroom humor. For example, one of us will inevitably ask, “What is your favorite opera?” The other will answer with a slight mispronunciation that gives a lewd connotation to the title of a Verdi masterpiece. It makes us laugh (and the wives scowl) every time.
And we laugh when Paul does his impression of Mr. Nana, the man who delivered sandwiches from Nana’s Restaurant to the New Paltz dorms at night. Once, when he was finished distributing the sandwiches and there was no one else around, Mr. Nana told us a lurid tale that involved the perverse use of a Coke bottle by some of the local townies. Paul remembers it word for word and recites it with the exact accent and inflection of the original. Just thinking about it makes me laugh.
Now, braced for the worst after learning of his heart attack, I forced myself to call. Would his speech be slurred? Had he become permanently enfeebled? But he answered the phone in full strong voice.
“How are you doing?” I asked.
“Fine,” he replied.
“How is the family?”
“Good. How is your family?”
“We’re all good,” I said. “We should get together soon.”
“Yes, we should,” he answered. Before hanging up we said we would speak to our wives and make plans.
“How is he?” asked Eva-Lynne.
“Fine,” I said.
“What did he say about the heart attack?”
“He didn’t mention it.”
“And you didn’t ask about it?”
“If he wanted to talk about it he would have,” I replied.
She disagreed and insisted that “any woman” would have questioned her heart-attack-victim friend about it even if said victim did not introduce the subject. In the days that followed we took an informal poll among our acquaintances. The results should come as no surprise. All the men thought I had handled the situation wisely. The women agreed with Eva-Lynne.
I thought of all this as I read through the responses to my first posting at Zest of Orange, wherein I shared some thoughts about the manner in which I was informed by my employer that I had just lost my job. In addition to appearing here, the article was published in the Bergen Record, the Straus chain of local weekly newspapers, and elsewhere on line. I also sent copies to friends and family members. Clearly the article struck a chord. With few exceptions, however, there were noticeable differences between responses from men and women.
“Well, lucky you,” wrote my old friend, Jack Radey, “being at liberty in an economy just desperate to hire men in their early 60s! Well, there’s always the attic. I’m sorry to hear it.”
“Hey!” wrote high-school friend Alan Ellman. “Sorry to hear about you losing your job. I lost mine 3 weeks ago. We’re both in deep (bleep). Of course, since the economy is so favorable right now, I’m sure we’ll both find something very soon. AAAAGGGHHHH!”
“Capitalism is certainly proving its marvelous mettle these days, isn’t it?” wrote another high-school chum, the left-leaning Jon Rothschild. “But try not to worry,” he added. “It’ll all turn around once WWIII gets under way, just like it did last time.”
Another heart-warming reply came from Joe Popper, my old writing partner with whom I collaborated on some investigative reporting some 30 years ago: “Yo Mike,” he wrote. “Great column! Take good care, Joe”
So much for the men.
“My name is Daisy,” wrote a woman who had seen the article in the Warwick Advertiser. “My family also lives in Warwick. I read your story and I was so proud of what you wrote. You are a person with courage and integrity.”
“Loved your article,” wrote DeAnna, of Milford, PA, “but I am very sorry you lost your job. Seems we are all just a moment away and I do feel your pain. Thanks for taking the time to write. Good luck in your job search. I truly wish you and your family the best.”
My high-school sweetheart, Janet Metzlaar, sent a 650-word email sharing what she learned from her own experiences. “When…in spite of our good will and good effort there is no longer a place for us, we find ourselves at a moment of opportunity,” she declared….Not going into an office, not being surrounded by people who don’t get our contribution….this is a gift of time. It is a rare opportunity to explore what you really want to do and tap into the creative talents that have lain dormant while you pursued the tasks of the workday.” And, according to Janet, “If you can keep the panic attacks to a minimum and retain a sense of optimism, it may be the best thing that happened to you this century.”
Janet has faced more than her share of hardships this century and last without losing her sense of optimism. I find it admirable and wish I were less skeptical. Still, losing my job somehow doesn’t strike me as such a great opportunity.
The day the article ran in the Bergen Record I got a phone call from Paul Friedman. “I’m calling to tell you that I was just in the bathroom reading the paper,” he said cheerfully. “I saw your article…I almost fell off the toilet!”
We still haven’t talked about the heart attack.
Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.
Tags: Michael Kaufman
