A Doll

A Doll

When Gal was four… we were living in Paris at that time… we came to California on vacation. In addition to Disneyland… the San Diego Zoo and other marvels… there was one place Gal was in awe… ToysRus…

Being at the Barbie age… she wanted to get a couple of Barbies… one of them was a black female Barbie… she already had a Ken… so she bought some dresses and some other stuff… She might remember what other stuff we got…

About a year later we went to Florida on vacation… Gal wanted a doll so we stopped in a Woolworth in Miami and went to the toy department looking for the Barbie section… and we found it, but… impossible to find a black Ken… Luckily one of the sales clerk spoke French… and he had heard Gal ask about the black Ken… he interjected and told us… black dolls are far from being popular over here… When I told him that they were sold in California… he told me that California is different…

Today… some thirty odd years later… I wonder what color dolls did the Obama children bring with them in the White House…

Gratitude

Gratitude

This morning, as I was driving in San Jose I crossed two “bums” as my friend Bill defined them…. I must say it surprised me… because Bill is very learned in his knowledge of the English language… why did he choose that term… to depict these two unfortunate men crossing the street…
Are we really set to consider ourselves in an “us versus them” world… a world divided into privileged and under privileged… and if that is so… where do I fit in… have I graduated upstairs… because I look far from looking like a “bum”…
But did I… did I graduate from “bummery”… just because I am clean and drive a car…
When I look at these “bums”… I feel a deep sadness, knowing that I detached from them just because of sheer luck…
Lucky that I stopped taking Requip and went through Deep Brain Stymulation (DBS)… and for that I am deeply indebted to the Neuro-surgery staff at Stanford…

Thank you…