"Outa My Mind"

Short Stories From a Long Life..

THIS IS A SUMMARY OF ALL THE STORIES IN "OUTA MY MIND."

PREFACE

This preface is interesting if you can stand reading something serious once in a while. The critical portion of the preface is the part where the publisher objected to the way I had written something. I left it in despite the publisher! I had said that every story in this book has a "surprise ending" and I was (and still am) annoyed at people who turn to the last page of each story before they read the story to find out how it will end! I find that to be so goddamned childish I can’t finish this sentence without an expletive! It negates the cleverness I used to write these stories. It negates the quality of writing descriptions, character studies and the tension that goes with a well-written short story. If you can’t read a book without going to the end don’t buy the doggone book!

Story #1, OOMALAH
These are stories that have a lot of truth in them but are mostly imaginative. For instance, this first story in the book, OOMALAH, has to do with the Hawaiian Island of Oahu where I spent about ten months in the Army before going on into actual combat. All the physical incidents are really the truth. I did find a skull in the ground where the GI’s were making an airfield necessitating the destruction of a papaya orchard. (And I still have the skull!), I did go to Moe the tailor, I did live in the house of Mr.King who did write all those Hawaiian classics.
But the story of Oomalah is imaginary. I just had to find a story that went with that skull! It certainly is an interesting, imaginative story that any sensitive person would love.

Story #2.....THE ONE
This tale is incredibly accurate as a description of the Holy Land under the Roman occupation. But I made up the ending.....where I found it hard to believe the story of Jesus and made up an alternative. I won’t tell you the alternative....you’ll have to read the story, which has its own excitement. The Holy Land had to be a tough place to live in when the Romans occupied it. This is a particularly well-written story, because I was so careful not to offend anyone.

Story # 3.....THE FOURTH FLOOR
This story is absolutely untrue. It has a tension built in where you begin to wonder why I am telling you this story. But in a well-written description I take an episode of a man’s life when he is distraught over losing his wife. I have just lost my wife and we brought her to the Riverside Memorial Chapel in New York City. I found that the Chapel was very much like my description of it which I got from a funeral of one of my patients. The idea for this story came to me when I went to see this woman in the off-hours, between patients, because I had a very busy day and I had to see this woman who had just passed away. A funeral chapel is no place to go to in the off-hours, I gotta tell you! It does something to your mind; like writing this story!


Story # 4......A PASSING OBSERVATION
This is an absolutely true story....not a classic, but it happened. For some unknown reason I have always felt that this particular tale is like a theme written for an English class where the teacher asks you to describe an interesting event in your day and she’s going to mark it on the basis of tension.. ..

Story # 5......COLONEL MAX was a riot! I gave this story to him and his wife although they were living at the time we visited them in a not particularly attractive apartment. They were most appreciative at the accuracy of this story. It is the honest truth and is a delight to read. They subsequently lived in their mother-in-law’s fabulous apartment in Boca Raton after she passed away. Max was exactly as I depicted him: an exceptional person and lots of fun. But don’t play pool with him!

Story # 6....58TH AND BROADWAY This is an imaginary story. I practiced Dentistry on the corner of 58th and Broadway for some 45 years and we saw innumerable people who were run down by automobiles on that corner and this idea just occurred to me one day recently. There is a lot of truth in there but you have to like a Mexican accent like I do to appreciate this entirely.

Story # 7 ....POP This tale is about a genuine man whose character was most interesting. This is all autobiography and it’s all very absorbing, especially the ending which was a bad dream. As I said in the story, a shrink would have a field-day with this exposure of my persona. I won’t tell you the ending because it is so wild, but not as wild as the truth, which is the ending of the sequel which is the next story.

Story # 8, THE REAL STORY ....You have to have confidence that the truth can be so unbelievable! I really mean unbelievable!

Story # 9.....TRUE WITNESS
When someone tells me a tale about his family in Russian Poland before and during World War II I simply cannot ignore it; especially such a subject as this one. A friend told me about his uncle en passent (as a means of passing time.) He had no idea that it made such an impression on me that I immediately wrote this tale and re-wrote and re-edited it many times. It is not enough that I wrote this story: I wrote two poems which were actually written by one of the characters in this story and I translated one of them into Yiddish, which was her native language. Of course they are in English in this book. But for those who are interested in Yiddish as a language I would be pleased to send you a copy. Because they are the creations of one the characters I made up for this story out of my mind. Perhaps I should not take credit for it!.
This amazing story is not true, but it could be. There is so much reality in this tale it never ceases to excite me! I think that you would be better off reading these stories than watching television! Of course I have every intention of watching Tiger Woods in whatever contest he will appear. He is a phenomenon all by himself. But Tiger Woods to the contrary, these stories are exciting in a different way and you’d be best advised to read them. It has twists at the end of each story. If Tiger had such a twist he would be a golfer like I am, which is nothing to brag about.

Story # 10....A CASE OF LIFE OR DEATH
This is a murder mystery. Who got killed? The killer goes to a legal specialist to find out what he should have done to get the cops off his back. Read it carefully. Twisty! So help me, I have never killed anybody in my lifetime, so far as I know. But that doesn’t mean I never wanted to! You never know what is in the human mind.

Story # 11....OVER THE HILL
A singer hits the audience right between the eyes. This really happened and if one of your friends performed this way you would be inspired to write about it. Angie Ross is the singer. He used to be a film editor in Hollywood. I have had a great many exciting people among my friends, patients and relatives. A formidable memory and a knack for telling the story is all one needs. Angie had a voice that was a rarity. His voice was a tenor that became a baritone in the deeper registers. It enabled him to sing love songs with a terrific tremolo that was more than impressive. Angie was very much interested in self-improvement. He had never gone to college so he educated himself in music and bridge. He had, on its own stand, the largest dictionary I ever saw. He practically memorized it!

Story # 12.... THE DANCE OF LIFE
Of all the stories I have written none shows off the extent of my learning more than this one.
It is a tour de force. It is the most unreal of all my stories but it shows a verifiable understanding of history and the politics of the world. Read it, please, with your tongue in your cheek. It has a wild ending! There are so many sub-plots in this tale! I also revealed the knack for humorous dialogue which I developed in the 26 musical plays I have written. Come to think of it this is an extension of the nights when I was a counselor in a boys camp and the kids would ask me to tell them a story. Most of the time they wouldn’t be able to fall asleep!

Story # 13....SABCHA
This is about one of our best friends. Her name nowadays is Sabina but I do not know what she was called in the concentration camp. I understand from her husband that nobody has the real story from her, even her two daughters. I had to get it from him. She does not like to speak about her experiences. You can’t blame her, if this story is any indication. It is full of tenseness alleviated by an occasional expression in Yiddish. I had to leave out most of the Yiddishisms to get it published for the American public. That is too bad. Yiddish is very expressive. This is one of the stories that has all the symptoms of a happy ending. We will see what the real ending is like if we live long enough.

Story # 14.....COINCIDENCES When you start writing your autobiography I hope you are aware that you might bore your readers if you don’t have an interesting life, whatever you may think about it. I am amazed that now that I have written four books of short stories, a book of poetry, one biography (of my maternal grandfather who was a world-famous poet) that was published, a biography of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, (that was used for a course I taught about FDR at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida, for years’n years), a book of essays that will turn the world on its ear when it is published, a book describing the creation of New Cities and three books of letters. Oh, of all the things to forget, I also wrote a book of one-act plays, a significant musical show called MORRIS! MORRIS! and a three-act play that is great (Alec Baldwin thought so, anyway!) I spent 21 years at the Garden State Yacht Club writing one musical shows per year! I used to write nice music....not as good as my lyrics.

The following stories are all the absolute truth. ( 14 a-i) They are all coincidences that have occurred to me or one of my friends, relatives or patients. Read them all but you don’t have to have your tongue in your cheek....they are all true. I cannot say too much about each one of these stories without ‘giving away’ the punch-lines of each one

Story # 14a ....Allan....
Instead of writing a biography of my middle brother Allan I am writing about him as variegated characters in several stories. This is to demonstrate the various characters that made up his personality. He was really a talented, many-faced, creative person. This story tells just a few things about him: he could be surprised!

Story # 14b....Mister President
This faked me out beyond belief...and when this character became President of the United States I couldn’t have been more surprised. I did not vote for him. He was too Conservative for me.
But truth really is stranger than fiction!

Story # 14c....The Landing and the Angel:
This is a true story, as all of these "coincidences" are. Wartime was always surprise-time and this was ridiculous If I tell any more then I will give away the coincidence. All I can say is that, for this kind of a wartime experience, this story has no equal.

Story # 14d....Moe The Tailor:
I told you in the story "Oomalah" about Moe the Tailor. He deserved more space than I gave him. He was very knowledgeable about Waiwah and the Island of Oahu. I often wonder what became of the characters that find their presence in the pages of my books.

Story # 14e....Walter:
Truth is stranger than fiction and this is evidence of that aphorism. We had our share of politics and this was part of it. If I failed to name the leading character you would be wondering who he was.

Story # 14f.....The Sisters:
This is a painful reminder of the after-effects of a world war. It just was not fair, the things that happened to this family. I wrote "The Fourth Floor" after the funeral of Esther. This is one of the wildest coincidences you ever heard.

Story # 14g....Ethel Rose:
Ahhh, Esso! Such a wonderful woman! She succeeded in concealing a whole universe of experiences from us. I don’t know why. It might have made a great story! We would have thought even more of her had we known the secrets she concealed from us. But this incident was scary.

Story # 14h...Karl:.
He was as unforgettable as any man can be...: one of the characters who added a certain balance to he richness of my life. That’s all I dare say about Karl!

Story # 14i....Mosei Keino:
This true incident is one of the reasons I wrote (above), "Wartime was always surprise-time." If you are interesting your lifetime will attest to it. Everything and anything I experienced when added to these pages is exciting. This really happened just as I wrote it: believe it or not. There are deeper concerns here that you are entitled to find.

Story # 15..........REMEMBRANCES (The stories from this one to the end are not coincidences)
This is sheer autobiography, but I have the feeling it is just universal enough to be interesting.
I have lived a long, long time and that alone could be plenty boring. But these items are just different enough to attract your attention. Read it and see!

Story # 16........PERCHANCE TO DREAM
Did you ever wish you never had that dream? Was this a dream or did it really happen? I was never sure. There was a murder. I have never been sure whether I did that killing. But let me tell you that I was in enough doubt that I really came home from Camp Leonard to witness the destruction of my old home. This is another reason for me to have gone to a shrink! (I never did go!)

Story # 17......NICHOLAS
Aha! This is my piece de resistance! It is the most exciting story based on a newspaper article I have ever written. A kindergarten substitute teacher tells her class that Santa Claus is a phony. What happens from then on? Only a writer with my imagination, who gives free reign to his characters, experiences this kind of trauma. It is trauma: there is no better subject in the lexicon of the English language. You must read this! The characters actually trade arguments!

Story # 18......RELOCATION
If you watch the History Channel on TV you might be inspired to take some action: either to vote one way or another, alter your portfolio of securities or write a story just like this. I had been impressed by the idea of global warming and the melting of the ice in the polar areas of the earth. What more does a febrile imagination such as mine have to see? Outside of The Great Flood, which I wrote two years later, this is a possibility that stirs one up to create imaginary tragedies. It is a valid possibility. This is not a true story; but is it?

Story # 19.......ANNIE
We had a house on Lake Hopatcong, in New Jersey, and Annie was one of our neighbors. My sons do not have the same degree of imagination or the same type of character assassination as I do so they muight disagree with my estimation of Annie. But all the facts are true here, including my trip to the garbage disposal place, so it’s a matter of putting two and two together. Some people will get "five" but I always come up with four. Murder is murder, regardless of the name.

Story # 20.......JEREMY
This is the wildest story I ever wrote. It is not the funniest or the dreamiest. It is not the most intellectual or the most historical. It is the most upsetting doggone piece of writing I’ve ever done..bar none! Of course it is not true. You simply cannot get away without reading this story!

Story # 21.....THE POOR FISH
There was an article in the New York Times in 2003 which described a fish in a fish-store which could speak in English and Yiddish. That intrigued me. I thought of my brother Allan who was quite a linguist. He could converse in English, German, Yiddish, French, Chinese and Japanese. So I wrote a story that held a lot of truths but the main portion of this story is "made up" to produce a funny, sad, interesting tale that was based on the article in The Times. You have to read this. It justifies my thinking that I am a writer. Of course this had a great deal of truth in this. It is my brother Allan one hundred percent!

Story # 22.....MERRIE CHRISTMAS
And a merrie Christmas to you! Don’t believe everything you read in the newspapers. They can be wrong, especially in their headlines. This is a murder mystery with a fetching headline. Anything I add will give the killer away. This is the second story I have written about Santa Claus, by the way. Have you read Nicholas? That’s the ultimate.

Story # 23......SCRAMBLED EGGS.
This is a great finale to my first book of short stories. It is the undeniable truth in every detail and the details are insanely funny. Insanely? When you describe psychological problems you can laugh at them if you wish. But there is something sad about people being so "out of it" that they are just too bizarre. This is really too funny to be true but sad enough to be real. This is the absolute truth! (I just found a picture of the hero of this story and his oriental girl-friend!)