When I was a child, my mom watched Jeopardy! whenever she could. I can’t remember how often or when it aired; I just know I knew Art Fleming’s and Don Pardo’s voices very well.

At first watching was largely aspirational—it seemed like a grownup thing to do. Eventually, it was competitive: every once in a while I’d be right where my mom was not.

Back in the 90s, I actually passed the Jeopardy! test and made it into the pool of potential contestants. Alas, I never got the call. At the time, I had to travel to take a written test in person. Those who made the cut did trial runs. Today, the test is online. I’ve taken it a couple times, but I’ve not made the cut. Either I’ve gotten dumber or it’s gotten harder—I think it’s both.

During Covid work-at-home days I’ve been able to regularly peek in on the show as a break. I’m glad, too. I came to fully appreciate the staff that writes the answers, and the incredible performance of Alex Trebek. Impeccable pronunciation always. Unflappable. That he’s been doing the past couple years while being treated for cancer is almost unbelievable. But I’ve seen  it with my own eyes.

He’s going to be impossible to replace.

As is Sean Connery, the best Bond ever. Sad as their passing is, it’s funny that they left about the same time: one of the funniest recurring Saturday Night Live skits featured a fictional celebrity round of Jeopardy! that had Darrell Hammond playing a surly, foul-mouthed Connery and Will Ferrell playing Trebek. (Trebek apparently loved the SNL skits but believes that Eugene Levy did the best impersonation of him.)

RIP to Trebek and Connery, and here, have a laugh.

When today’s guest blogger Bindy retired, the local public TV channel, WTTW, did a feature on her and her store, Eureka. Click on the image to see it.

I am pleased to feature Bindy Bitterman as our Saturdays with Seniors guest blogger today. Bindy owned and managed Eureka, an amazing and eclectic little shop in Evanston, Illinois until 2015, when she retired at age 84. She moved to The Admiral at the Lake after that, and is a writer in the memoir class I lead there via Zoom. This Wednesday, November 11, is Veteran’s Day, so I thought it the perfect time to publish this story Bindy wrote about befriending a few veterans during World War II.

So Long to A Beautiful Friendship with an Unlikely Beginning

by Bindy Bitterman

I wish I could find the Chicago Tribune photo: 5 8th graders in 1944. We’d had a rummage sale, and raised enough money to donate a radio/phonograph to the Jewish USO downtown AND sponsor a breakfast there. What a day that was! Marty, Mel, and Al were there, three sailors from New York who’d been assigned teaching duties at Navy Pier. I never saw Al after that day, but Marty and I would become wartime pen pals as he moved on to other tasks at other destinations. And Mel! Gorgeous, wonderful Mel — our connection lasted until he died this year.

From its beginnings on that Sunday in 1944, our friendship expanded to include parents, spouses, and kids, mine and his. It reached from the suburbs of New York, where my husband Richard and I visited them, to our home in Chicago’s Rogers Park, where they visited us. It still continues with his wife, Helen, and his musician son.

I said gorgeous and I meant it. Mel was gorgeous into his 90s, and maybe he still was when he died. But that’s a minor part of his wonderfulness: he was dear. He was deep. He was kind. He was a great father and a great friend. He took life seriously but laughed throughout it. He and Helen loved kids, and when they came to visit ours, they brought their guitar and their kid-friendly songs and jokes and riddles and tongue-twisters (not all of them music to MY ears; some I thought a bit too vulgar). Of course, my kids loved every one of them. And they adored Mel and Helen.

That first day we met, I had taken the three sailors home with me to meet my parents. My mother, all charm and graciousness, immediately won their hearts. A bond developed. Shortly thereafter, when Mel married Helen and brought her to Chicago, the couple started visiting frequently. During a phone conversation Just a month or so ago, Helen reminisced about my parents and their lovely Chicago apartment.

Yes, we’re still in touch. I drop her a line or two on my prettiest note cards every few weeks now.

Because I didn’t for a while.

When my husband Richard died, Mel and Helen were still healthy. But they moved into an assisted living facility in their Long Island area, and shortly thereafter, Mel began showing gradual signs of dementia. I couldn’t bear to think of either of them, but especially Mel, in that condition, but I kept calling every few months as I had done through the years. After a while, though, it became too painful. No calls, no notes.

Their son phoned a few months ago. Mel was gone. A piece of my heart went, too.

But Helen and I are back in touch. She and Mel were married 77 years, I think. She’s well into her 90s, too, but seems pretty chipper.

Didn’t someone in our group say something about putting your sad thoughts in a basket? I need a trunk!

I work for PHIUS (rhymes with Prius), the acronym for Passive House Institute US. PHIUS is a nonprofit that works to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions from buildings. By applying some straightforward principles like airtightness, excellent windows and doors, active ventilation and heat recovery, and lots of insulation. Projects built to our energy standard use 40 – 60 percent less energy than conventional buildings. Project teams seeking to hit net zero targets are seeking PHIUS certification because they reduce the amount of renewable energy needed to hit the target. (We recently certified an apartment building that produces more energy than it consumes and the excess is used to charge electric cars.)  These buildings are supremely comfortable and quiet, and they have superb indoor air quality. They’re especially good at mitigating covid risks, and they’re good where smoke from wildfires is an issue.

PHIUS trains architects and builders, we evaluate and certify building projects (think LEED only better), we set certification standards, and we conduct research.

Passive house is a misnomer of sorts–the method and certification can be used in any building typology, including apartments.

For the past 14 years, PHIUS has convened the PHIUS Annual North American Passive House Conference in cities across the country, bringing together hundreds of engineers, architects, educators, policymakers, and energy consultants to talk about their projects, share lessons learned, discuss policy and code experience and to just celebrate.

We couldn’t do it this year for obvious reasons. We did hold a series of online panel discussions last week organized around profession. That is, Monday was builders, Tuesday was educators, Wednesday was architects and Thursday was developers. We had the usual technical glitches and Zoomie stuff, and while it didn’t substitute for the in-person event, it was a success.

A handful of universities have integrated our designer training into their architecture curriculum—and the educators panel brought faculty from those institutions together. A highlight of their panel—and of all the sessions IMHO—was a video featuring students who’ve taken that class and earned PHIUS CPHC certification. They can now design passive buildings! Judging from the ones I’ve met, and those in the video, our future is in good hands.

I’m biased, of course, but it’s the most inspiring and most optimistic thing I’ve seen for a long while. Give it a watch when you get a chance.

Roberta Siegel, our Saturdays with Seniors guest blogger today, is working on a book about her father. Henry Naftulin’s parents and older siblings immigrated from Kiev — he was the first to be born in America, he served as a medic in World War II, and later worked as a scientist and inventor at the Michael Reese Research Foundation in Chicago. Roberta started writing her book after working to obtain a promised Bronze Star for her father. The effort was successful, but the book remains a work in progress. Today’s post is an excerpt from the section about Henry’s life at home with his family after the war.

Regards to All — Take a Pill. Go fly a Kite. A Skokie Story.

by Roberta Siegel

Roberta is on her father’s lap, celebrating her first birthday with him and her sisters.

The first time I remember being treated to a Dad version of nursing care I was no more than six or seven. I needed to take my first non-child-friendly pill. Most likely an antibiotic, it was school colors: yellow and blue.

Dad came straight up to my room after a long ride home from a day’s work at the foundation. Must have been cold outside: I could feel it on his woolen overcoat. he sat on the edge of my bed in the darkened room and gave me instructions on how to take a pill. “Just let it sit on your tongue, right in the middle,” he said. “Now, take a small sip of water and hold it in your mouth so you can feel the pill float like a little boat on the lake.” I picked up the small glass of water next to my bed and did as I was told.

Sure enough, the pill had enough air in it to float around in my mouth. “Now, swallow the water.” I followed his order, and sure enough, that worrisome pill floated right on down my throat. My dad excelled in the art of breaking down a task into its smallest components, then rearranging them in a novel and efficient manner. He did that every day, in all sorts of situations.

One of our favorite shared memories is the day we three girls went out with Dad to fly a kite. Days when Dad had the three of us on his own without Mom stood out. So much so that all three of us shared it with him the day he passed away.

That special day, the four of us trooped over to the playground behind Kenton School. After walking past the two houses to the north, we crossed Main Street to the school grounds carrying a regular paper kite along with us. It’s tail was rags tied to the bottom for ballast. I’d brought the kite home from Alexander’s Five and Dime along with kite string and an urgent need to send it aloft.

So, here we were, on a lovely early spring day with the wind blowing just enough for a good launch. The kite sailed magically up and up. As we let out more and more string, we ended up letting it out so far that the kite looked tiny. The spool of string was almost empty!

Turned out dad had been letting the string out long so we wouldn’t hurt our hands. Now that the kite was established, he handed it off to us. We took turns holding the string, feeling the strength of the unseen wind buffeting the kite.

Then came the moment that made it magical and memorable. Dad found some paper hidden in his jacket — along with a pen. He gave each of us a piece. “Write a wish on it!” he said, explaining we would send our wish up to the sky. Then he poked a hole in the middle and slipped the stick holding the remains of the string through it. The wind took the messages all the way up the kite string to the kite.

I don’t know what my sisters’ wishes were, but I remember mine: I wished this day would never end.

A few clicks (and a credit card) and Voila! Soup!

Here’s a plug for an online outfit that we highly recommend when you want to give some warm fuzzies to friends and loved ones: It’s called Spoonful of Comfort.

Basically, they’ll send your choice of soup to your lucky friend, in a giant jar, plus rolls, plus cookies, and they even throw in a nice stainless ladle.

We learned about it when a friend emailed me after he learned I’d been hospitalized for covid. He ended his email saying, “I’m going to send you soup.” I thought he was joking. But one day we got a big box with ice packs with poblano chowder, dinner rolls, chocolate chip cookies and the aforementioned ladle.

It was delicious, and we’ve sent a half dozen care packages since. (For the record, two chicken noodle, three chicken and rice, and one clam chowder.) I’m happy to say that every recipient has been as tickled as we were to receive our soup!

Our most recent went to our doctor friend, Colleen. Beth and Colleen have been fast friends since high school when both were waitresses at the Marshall Field’s Oak Room in suburban Oak Brook. Colleen was a great comfort to Beth during my stay at Northwestern Hospital. She’s been a great support for both of us during my recovery. And, especially early on, she asked questions that I could help her with because it was new to all of us, including the docs.

And so, what better way to say thank you than sending Colleen and her spouse some clam chowder!

We’ve been thinking about Colleen a lot lately, as covid has surged again, straining hospitals, doctors, and nurses. I’ve been thinking about every terrific person at Northwestern that got me through.

So apart from soup, let’s all say thank you to Colleen and all the medical professionals that we’re exhausting again: Wear your mask. It doesn’t matter who you plan to vote for. Let’s take care of the people who take care of us or they will not be able to take care of us.