Jewish Post, Indianapolis, Marion County, 2 January 1981 — Page 10

MHHIHHHi

January 2.1981 TlwJawWtPoatwid Opinion

By Dr. Jerome H Bla^

—The

Social Calendar By JEAN HERSCHAFT

It was an Israel Bond dinner for Meade Esposito, a nonJew beloved by many if not most of the 1500 guests who filled The Sheraton Center Hotel for his testimonial dinner-dance. The Bonds group registered over 1000,000 in sales. Esposito was embraced, kissed and hand-clasped by all as he headed a reception line as a huge Menorah was visible this Hanukkah

It was a Brooklyn affair as Esposito is a Brooklynite, termed by all affectionately “the most powerful democratic leader” in New York. Boro President, Howard Golden, was host; Israel’s Ambassador Yehuda Blum was the principal speaker. And, Joey Adams, comedien, author and media personality kept the evening hopping with his humor, gags, his “roasting” of Esposito and his card $ calling. Meade enjoying the tributes with his wife and adult children. Ex-Mayor Abe Beame, in for the salute, followed by Roy Cohen, attorney, who started professional life with Sen. Joe McCarthy in the early ’50’s. Roy said it with a $5,000 bond

purchase and Abe with a $1,000 one.

The Schreiber Family of the Royal Farms Stores, $25,000, while Max Shulman, head of Mays Dept. Stores dittoed with $25,900. Congressman James Scheur, $10,000 and Congressman Fred Richmond, both from Brooklyn, with $5,000. Assemblyman Harry Smoler, who recently won reelection and still clings to the “oldest aged 67 Assemblyman in the New York Legislature”, made it $5,000, while Howard Golden, the host checking in with $500. There were many, many energetic responses to Joey Adams’ electric approach

to card calling. Hilariously successful!

Of course, the always sound and able Ambassador Blum’s address on Israel’s situation and the United Nations’ continued

failures, sensitized an audience.

For the record, the gentile Esposito is affiliated with a synagogue: B’nai Israel, Brooklyn, also with hisUdrut and The lateraatlsaal League for Soviet Jewry...a dedicated sup-

porter of all.

He also this year made a generous contribution to Pioneer Women via a Brooklyn Chapter.

* * •

A campaign to aid the Israel Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is being conducted by Ms. Dely Monteser Wardle, 2575 Palisade Avenue, Apt. 3E, Riverdale, N.Y. 10463. Aviva Cantor Zuckoff is supplying her with mailing lists, thus she found me. Ms. Wardle notes that the Israeli Society responded to her call for help when she discovered five starving horses in the Sinai. “They rescued them,” she notes. She specifies “small contributions” to avoid any conflict with other fund raising activities anywhere. Israel’s SPCA mainly aids stray cats and dogs with meager funds. That’s the “whyfore” of the appeal. # • •

A new book just off the press “Giselle Save The Children", a true story about four Hungarian sisters in the Holocaust determined to carry out the title’s words spoken by their mom before she perished. The story written as a fastpaced fiction thriller was written by Giselle Herth in colloboration with professional writing ace, Peggy Mann. Giselle, incidentally, is today an active member of B’nai Zion, the mother of two adult children. One son is a TV and radio producer and one daughter, a teacher. Giselle as most Hun-

garian women, is a glamorous-looking woman today. Everest

is the New York publishers.

*00

Congratulations to Harvey M. Krueger, newly-elected president of American Friends of the Hebrew U. He is a 51-year-old investment banker with Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb, Inc. Also, to Juliah B. Veneiky, of Peoria, 111., who was elected chairman of the Board of the American Friends. 0 0 0

Special Orchids to writers to this column: Bobbie Abrams of American Associates of Ben Gurian U., and Leonard Strauss, of U.S. Sports Israel, for their kind words in aporeciation of past columns dealing with their organizations.

U. Of San Francisco Team To Tour Israel

SAN FRANCISCO - Israel will get a taste of American collegiate basketball as the University of San Francisco basketball team has been invited to a 16-day promotional tour of Israel in May. The Don’s, who now are 7-1 in the season, finished with a 22-7 record last year but were barred from post-eeasoo play

because of infractions of NCAA rules. The Israel Basketball Association issued the invitation to the team, which was facilitated by Rabbi David Davis, professor of Judaic studies in the Jesuit-affiliated institution, according to the San Francisco Jewish Bulletin.

Caring For An Aging Mother

The woman who sat before me told the same story I have been hearing with increasing frequency. Her widowed mother was reaching the where she no longer take care of herself. After the husband’s death, the mother had Blass rejected all invitations to come and live with children and that she was perfectly capable of keeping up the apartment. Despite the fears of the children the elderly woman had managed quite well. Recently, however, the daughter had noticed certain changes that were increasingly disquieting to her. Mother had become extreme^ forgetful of late, often repeating the same story without realizing it. She was no longer as neat as she used to be. She was also becoming very suspicious, insisting that people were taking her things and demanding that bank books and other important documents which for years had been entrusted to the daughter for safekeeping, be returned to her, even though it was becoming increasingly clear she would misplace them if they were. The daughter had also been informed by neighbors that recently Mother was found wandering in a confused state and was returned to the apartment by a police officer who found her address in her handbag. For weeks the daughter had been dismissing these symptoms as just the usual absentmindedness and forgetfulness that are part of the normal process of aging. But, as the symptoms persisted and the incidents added up, it was becoming clear that Mother was reaching a point where she could no longer live by herself and where she needed someone to look after

her.

THERE WERE TWO alternatives, both of them unpalatable. Mother could give up her apartment and come to live with her daughter, but the arrangement offered only a slight improvement since the daughter worked full time and except for the evening hours, mother would be left alone in a large house all day subject to all the dangers of her old apartment plus the added hazards of strange appliances and steep staircases. A home for the aged, a residence for senior citizens, or ultimately, a nursing home, provided the care and attention mother needed, but the thought of putting her mother away overwhelmed her with guilt..“What's wrong with me?” my visitor asked tearfully. “My mother was able to find room for her mother in a crowded apart-

ment and we have no room for a parent even with a whole house to ourselves?” I found myself wondering, is our generation indeed such a selfish, ungrateful, and unfeeling generation by comparison with previous ones? The woman before me was obviously not one who was looking to shirk her responsibilities to her mother. I SUGGESTED to my visitor that perhaps she was being overly hard on herself by comparing her mother’s generation with her own. Firstly, over 50% of the women in America are working today, many of them full time. The daughter, therefore, was not in a position to give her mother the attention which the older woman who was always a full time housewife had given to her mother. To come and live with the daughter would have meant isolating herself in a large house for the greater part of the day where she would experience a great deal of loneliness besides exposing herself to many hazards which a large house has to of-

fer.

Secondly , the emergence of suburban living has created a youth-oriented culture where older people may feel very uncomfortable and out of place. Unlike the mother’s era where the older and younger generations lived side by side and there were contemporaries available

who offered friendship and companionship, these emotional necessities are often lacking today in the youthoriented suburban communities. The yotmger person living in suburbia has few resources to turn to /or aid in dealing with an aging parent. Frequently, in our mobile society 9ven immediate family is now scattered far and wide so that the entire burden often falls on one child. Thirdly, thanks to advances in medical science, the span of life has been extended significantly and with it also the incidence of senility has been increased tremendously, making the problem far more prevalent and more serious than it was in Mother’s day. AS WE TALKED, it became clear that in the long run a parent can feel abandoned even while sharing the home of a child while another parent can sit in a nursing home secure in the knowledge that her children truly !ove and care for her. Their concern and love manifest themselves in constant visits from children and grandchildren, frequent telephone calls, cards, letters, and periodic gifts. Once again, as in so many other areas of life, it is not the external physical surroundings which make the difference, but the internal frame of. mind which

counts

Just Between Us

Frustrated A thlete

I always thought an Orange Bowl is chock full of Vitamin C and Rose Bowl, $40 a doz-

en.

Boy was I ever wrong! I married a ^ ^R^^man and his JR team. Propped ^RkM^Rup in his chair, Mintz surrounded by an unending supply of liquid nourishment, he enters into a metamorphic state of euphoria equal to none. As long as he can watch, he doesn’t care if he sits through shots of last week’s game or previews of this week’s lineup. He’ll revel in slow motion, stop action, and instant replay.

At the half, the debris around him piles up. So much so, I get fearful that an unexpected spot check of the neighborhood would result in a condemned violation being slapped on the room. No such luck! I should know the “spot checker” would probably be a man and he too was at the

half.

You’d think at the half a normal person would get up, change the intravenous bottle. check to see if more than your eyes were functioning, re-acquaint yourself with the tamily, take your pulse, flex

your vocal cards or notice that the season has changed. Nope. At the half, everyone knows you have to watch highlights of the first half, followed by interviews of people who chewed over the way they played the first half and predicted what they were going to do the second half. There Isn’t even any future in looking forward to the game being over. Then there first is a complete re-cap of the game by the announcer, followed by scores of scores. By the time the season is finally over, my husband has racked up a modest total of several hundred games he’s watched in a complete state of inertia. By the time the season is over, the kids have grown, I’ve redecorated the house, changed my haircolor, lost ten pounds and threatened lu start divorce proceedings. No need to panic. I’ll never leave him. If he wants to watch S3 games in color on the networks of his choosing, so be it. Who can leave a man that spends $40 a dozen for long-stemmed roses to put into my Rose Bowl and sends me to Florida so I can refill my Orange Bowl? $