You can figure out more or less when this conversation took place, one between Barbara and her maternal grandmother, Mary Caplan – known in the trade as ‘Momsie” – from the topic under consideration. I can only assume that the older woman had in mind a memory from her childhood: sitting in a horse-drawn sled on a winter’s day somewhere in the Pale, swaddled in blankets to keep warm. And now, she said, men are walking on the moon. She was expressing her wonderment, but also, it was her way of saying, cut me a little slack (my paraphrase). So much has changed in my life, it’s no wonder I can’t keep up. Momsie was born in 1898.

My father, believe it or not, was born only two years later, just in time for a brand-new century. His story of long ago involved going to the movies as a child, before anyone thought to show them in opulent palaces like the Radio City Music Hall, the Roxy, or Loew’s Paradise on the Grand Concourse. Instead, these very early silent films were shown in a room with a bedsheet hanging from a clothesline, which served as the screen. I think he said it cost something like a penny for admission. BUT, if you sat BEHIND the ‘screen,’ two kids could get in for that one cent. (My mother, by the way, was born in 1903, which, as we all know, was the year when Orville and Wilbur Wright made their first flight.)

A lot had changed by 1941, when Frank and I were born. Still, our refrigerator had a motor on top of the box, with a freezer compartment only big enough to house an ice tray. We had a victrola that you had to wind up every so often to keep it going. (I still have a small collection of 78’s, shellac recordings from the early 1920’s, the ones that have survived all these years.) There was a rotary phone that sat on a small table in our foyer; needless to say, neither my brother nor I ever used it until well into our teen years. (No wonder that both of us HATE talking on the phone.) Several days ago, I got friend Ezra to install Apple Pay on my iPhone 12, because there was NO WAY I was going to tackle it on my own.

Maybe I’m wrong, but I have the notion that, at a certain point, most of us reach the point of, I can’t keep up anymore. I’m happy the way I am. Don’t bother me. I spent a full term in high school learning to touch-type with all ten fingers. There’s no way I’m going to compose declarative sentences on my iPhone using two thumbs.

Here’s an example of me in full curmudgeon mode. I needed three bagels to serve with cream cheese and lox for lunch on the second day of Rosh Hashana, because barbecues are for carnivores. I began what should have been a routine food-shopping mission at a store on Rehov Yaffo. I walked in, surveyed the selection, and left faster than anyone can say ‘Skip-to-my-Lou, my darling.’ In general, the motzi-lechem-min-haaretz products here in The Land, the pitas, the laffas, the baguettes, the focaccias, the breads in general including challah, all are of such quality to please the palates of even the most demanding, fastidious carbophile. And yet, the country as a whole has dropped the ball when it comes to bagels.  What you usually get instead are puffy white bread things with a whole in the middle, and that will simply not do. (Don’t even discuss a bialy, because they don’t exist here.)

Across the street was another option, Sam’s Bagels, where they produce a more-or-less tolerable product. Anybody here? Yes there was indeed a young employee almost out of sight standing in the back playing (what else?) on her phone. I began to utter, ‘I’d like three bagels please,’ when she directed me to the front of the store where there had been installed one of those devices on which you’re supposed to indicate what you want. You know the kind; make your selection, put in your credit card, and wait for them to call your name. That’s called ‘get you in and out in record time.’ The young lady was kind of enough to change the menu from Ivrit to English, and then she disappeared – probably to return to the important business on her phone. Let’s see. I don’t want a bagel with stuff on it for now, which is what’s on the screen; I just want three run-of-the-mill naked bagels to take with me to put in the freezer for consumption later. Do I go back on the screen; do I go forward; are there any directions? This is stupid. It will take me five to ten minutes to figure out how to use this device, whereas it would take me five to ten seconds to enunciate what I want. Why am I doing this?

Needless to say, I left this establishment as well. They have another branch on the midrahov a few blocks away. Let me try there. As I neared that branch, I could see the same daunting apparatus by the entrance. At least there, an employee was helping a customer place his order. But by this time, I was on a mission. Any store in which I could not communicate my order in simple English sentences would not get my business. How about Muffin Boutique, which up the block? There, I didn’t even have to say anything. The bagels, listed by type (plain, onion, everything, etc.) were on display in front of me. All I had to do was pick out three, put them in a bag, and walk up to the cash register. I probably could have done the entire transaction without saying a word, but, being in a chatty mood, I did exchange a few pleasantries with the young man working there – in English, of course. I’m convinced that there is a sub-section among us who would welcome doing the transaction on the keypad on their phone or some other automated device, but I’m more than willing to admire their expertise from afar. I’ve spent my life improving my command of a language, and I’ll stick with what I know. Three bagels, please.

(Part 2, on a similar theme, will appear shortly.)