Happy birthday Myrna!

Myrna Knepler enrolled in my memoir-writing class after retiring from teaching at Northeastern Illinois University. Having a smart woman like her as a student could have been intimidating, but Myrna is so sweet, so patient and so downright fun that you just can’t be nervous around her. Plus she has a terrific laugh!

Myrna saw a story in the New York Times about people with birthdays on September 11 and showed up in class Wednesday with an essay on the subject. Here’s an excerpt from Myrna’s essay:

I am one of those whose routine compliance to a request for identification at the bank, the airport, and the doctor’s office elicits comment, and sometimes commiseration. Yes, my birthday is September 11th. Unlike other days marking tragic events like Pearl Harbor, this event, like the festive 4th of July is known by the date it occurred. Most people can’t help commenting.

People who share that birthday are quoted in the Times article as coping in various ways. Some still limit their birthday celebration even years after the 2001 tragedy. Others try to ignore what they see is only a coincidence. Myrna said she tends to do the latter, but there is always some sense of tragedy on her birthday morning. She turns on the radio, or opens the newspaper, and there it is. In the New York Times, a September 11 birthday is described as a conundrum.

Every year since, there is a strange confluence of events for those born on Sept. 11. It might be a point of pride to share a birthday with literary lions (D. H. Lawrence and O. Henry) or celebrities (Maria Bartiromo, Brian De Palma, Valentino and Moby), but sharing the day with a national tragedy is a conundrum.

In 2001, Myrna was supposed to celebrate her birthday at dinner with two of her daughters. Instead, they spent the evening at the Red Cross.

There were lots of people there, and strangers talked easily to one another. The Red Cross was overwhelmed with people wanting to give blood and give us an appointment for another day. We grabbed a bite to eat and went home.

One of the women interviewed in the New York Times story will turn 40 next year, the tenth anniversary at Ground Zero, and says she doesn’t look towards that birthday with the dread she might have otherwise. “The events of that day made aging seem like such a minor worry.” I have a feeling that might be how Myrna feels, too. I’ll say this: I’m sure glad Myrna was born, and I feel oh so fortunate she found her way into our memoir-writing class. As the Beatles like to say, Myrna: “I’m glad it’s your birthday. Happy birthday to you!”

That's Michael Miles on the right.

When I interview someone over the phone for a story I’m writing, I always tell the person on the other end that the conversation is being recorded. I don’t always tell them I’m blind, though.

And so it went when I interviewed Michael Miles. Miles was program director at Chicago’s legendary Old Town School of Folk Music before striking out on his own as a musician. The University of Illinois Alumni Association had asked me to write a class profile about him for its website.

Just this year, the Chicago musician returned from his second trip to Morocco, a five-city tour that came at the invitation of the U.S. State Department. Miles’ diplomacy, though, was of a different sort – to use the language of music to communicate.

Miles said the trip went well until a tour guide made an unexpected detour. “It was a school for the blind,” he said into his phone, unaware that the woman on the other end was, well, one of those. “I mean, how can I make connections with a bunch of people I can’t speak to,” he said. “Especially if they can’t even see me?”

Uh-oh. Awkward. Do I ‘fess up? Tell him I’m blind? Is it unfair for me not to tell him? I remained silent.

The blind children sang a song, he said, And then the founder of the school, who was also blind, got up to make a speech. “He’d been there for 30 years and he was retiring,” Miles said. “He was making his final speech and I was like, wow, why am I here? I’m not the right person to be here.” After his speech, the school’s founder asked Miles to play a song. “And I thought good lord, what do I do now?”

Sitting on the other end of the phone, I was dumbfounded. They’re blind, Michael. They can still hear. Strum your banjo. Play them a song! But I didn’t say any of that. I didn’t say anything.

One reason I don’t always tell people about my blindness during phone interviews is that I’m afraid it will make them nervous. One good thing about blindness: it’s not that common. Many Americans have never encountered someone who is blind. It’s normal to be taken aback, and during an interview I want people to feel comfortable. Be themselves. So unless the topic comes up naturally (they hear my talking computer in the background, ask if I can drive out to see them, something like that) I don’t bring it up.

So leaning back in my office chair, I kept the recorder going and just listened as Miles continued. He’d written a song with some kids in the United States, he thought maybe that song would work with the blind kids in Morocco. “It’s just one line, all my friends are here, yeah,” he said, singing it to me over the phone. “I sing it, and then you sing it, and it goes through chord progressions, like a rock and roll song.”

One of the Moroccan musicians touring with Miles was also the host of Morocco’s equivalent to ‘American Idol’. He translated the words for the children and led them in singing the response to Miles in Arabic. ”What it did, it was like a moment of connection, where in fact, I made contact with everybody and everybody could participate.”

My guess is that the kids at that school were feeling the exact same way. Except in their version, the American musician was the lucky one. He’d been allowed to participate with them and their Moroccan idol!

I never did tell Michael Miles I was blind. I didn’t mention his visit to the school for the blind in my story, either, but he may have figured it all out when I wasn’t able to write captions for the photos he’d sent.  You can read the entire story on the UIAA web site and see more photos (with captions Michael Miles added later) there, too!

That’s some of the Eastview kids, who all liked reading and learning about Hanni.
Photo by Andi Butler, www.mrsbillustrations.com.

After receiving so many positive comments to my post about our visit to Eastview Elementary School last June, I decided to write a radio essay about how much I learned –and continue to learn – from three special boys I befriended there.

Chicago Public Radio titled the essay Writer Beth Finke Goes from Teacher to Student, and aired it as a back-to- school piece. If you missed hearing it on the radio, you can listen to it online here. A clue to those of you who are as much of a computer nincompoop as I am: in order to hear me reading the essay, you have to hit the “download” link after you get to the page. Enjoy!

Photo courtesy Audrey Mitchell

In honor of our infamous Illinois ex-governor, the topic for my memoir-writing students last Wednesday was “guilty.” Hanna, the matriarch of our class, came back with an essay that was, in a word, stunning.

You might remember Hanna from a previous blog post. Hanna grew up in Germany. Her family was Jewish, and Hanna escaped on her own before World War II. Others in her family didn’t make it out in time.

Hanna was only 20 years old when she arrived, alone, in the United States. The essay she brought to class Wednesday was about her first visit back to Europe in 1965, thirty years after she left.

This is our first trip back to the places where we had the first part of our lives, I to Germany, Eugene to visit his brother in Slovakia. I simply had to confront my past and verify that it really happened to me.

Before World War II, Hanna’s parents owned a butcher shop in Mannheim. After Hanna’s father died, her mother ran the shop. Then Adolf Hitler won the election, and things began to change.

Our delivery van was parked on the street and Heini was responsible for its upkeep. He had been with us for at least 25 to 30 years had started as a butcher apprentice and sausage maker. His wife Rosa had been with us for about 15 years, she arrived from the countryside the day I was born and worked as a sales lady.Rosa and Heini had met and got married in our house.

Hanna’s essay goes on to describe one memorable day at the butcher shop.

The atmosphere is tense. The problem is that Heini is sitting in our van every afternoon making a show of reading the Sturmer, the most anti-Semitic newspaper published in Germany. My mother and brother are very upset about this and my brother tries to talk about it and suggests that if he wants to read the paper in our van, he should read the local paper not the Sturmer. Heini is responding that the paper is an official publication and he can read it where ever. “It is not against you. It is about the other Jews. He keeps on reading it in front of our shop.

During their 1965 trip to Germany, Hanna discovers that Heini and Rosa survived the war and were running a Bierstube and restaurant.

I had to now confront them.

Eugene and I are sitting in a booth by a window .We are the only customers and we had ordered. Heini is waiting on us. He brings the beer.”Heini don’t you remember me? I am the Hannelore. Long silence. He calls Rosa to announce that I am there. He does not quite believe that it is the girl that he remembers. Rosa is crying.

They sit together to talk about their lives, then Rosa scurries out to prepare a special meal.

Rosa had made my favorite meal. Fresh asparagus and Schnitzel, a plum cake for dessert. I feel good, she remembered. We are talking and Heini tells me that he had been in the German army and how much they all suffered during the war. He tells that they had sent him to the Russian front which was brutal the worst. I am looking at him and heard him say. “The reason why I was sent to the Russian front is because I had worked for a Jew for 30 years. It was all your mother’s fault.”

Rosa started to cry again. Hanna remembers finishing the meal in silence.

All I could think of. It was your mother’s fault.

Hanna turned 90 this year. She lives alone, takes Para-transit or public transportation to get to class each week, and she affectionately refers to her walker as “Speedo.” I’ve had the privilege of meeting Hanna’s children, and they are smart, spunky and witty – just like their mom. The Chicago CBS station interviewed Hanna on her birthday this year, describing how she has embraced technology to write her memoirs. Hanna has macular degeneration – she makes regular treks over to the Chicago Lighthouse to use special software that enlarges the words on the screen.

This year marks the 70th anniversary of Hanna’s escape from Germany to America. “I’ll tell you this, Beth,” she says. “I’ve always been very, very lucky.” Hanna makes the rest of us feel lucky, too. Especially on Wednesdays, when Speedo escorts her into our classroom so she can share stories with us.

Hanni and I have a soft spot for those Yankees. Starting after this weekend.

The Yankees come to Chicago this weekend, and like always, I’m rooting for my White Sox to sweep ‘em. I must admit, though, that a story on espn.com this week has left me with a soft spot for those Damn Yankees.

Last Tuesday Manager Joe Girardi and pitchers David Robertson, Chad Gaudin and Joba Chamberlain surprised my fellow Seeing Eye graduate and baseball fan Jane Lang as she left her house with her dog Clipper on the way to that night’s Yankees game. From the ESPN story:

They didn’t have a limo. They didn’t have a fleet of Suburbans. They had only sneakers. They were going to make the journey with her.

“Oh my God!” Jane said.

“We think you’re amazing,” Girardi said.

“Follow me,” Clipper seemed to say.

You have to understand what a two-hour, one-way journey to a baseball game takes for somebody like Jane. She’s been blind since birth, and these trips have not always turned out well. Once, some kids decided it would be fun to spin her around a few dozen times. Another time, she fell onto the subway tracks and was nearly killed. But ever since she got a guide dog, she’s been intrepid.

Jane’s special trip to Yankee Stadium Tuesday was part of the Yankees’ “Hope Week.” When the whole thing was over, the Yankees gave $10,000 to The Seeing Eye in Jane’s honor. I’m wondering if they plan on taking advantage of a special deal the Seeing Eye provides to big donors: if you donate $5000 or more to the Seeing Eye, you have the privilege of naming a puppy. Just imagine. When I return to the Seeing Eye after Hanni retires, I might be matched up with Derek Jeter!