tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7811833696422558673Thu, 19 Dec 2024 03:25:56 +0000retrospectexpectationsagingchangeEssayswomenDay DreamingOut of my Mindchildrengood timesrelationshipsself expressionBookDancingDressFoodGenerationMannersPhiladelphiacareerdaughterfatherhoodfeminismhealthcarehonorpersonal universepoliticsretirementsonsurgeryyoung peopleAlcoholic BeveragesBig LeaguesCole PorterCongressCurrentFamilyGreat DepressionHollywoodKaddishLiteratureManhattanMarriageMassachusettsMt. EverestMusicNew feminineNewsOp EdPoetPrayerRip Van WinkleSalemShort StoriesSpeechStraussThe CompassTravelWilkes-Barr PAWorkmen's CircleYiddidhartcartoonscoffeecommon mancouragedipdistractionsdon't worryeloquencefeminine mystiqueglobal messgoal settinghabitshospicemantramoralistsmotherspartiespeabody essexresolutionsrevengesenior promsocial securitysportssuffragettesurrendertyranny of petty thingswaltzwealthyacht clubWelcome to the world according to Joe Taylor, nonagenarian, who says of octogenarians, "I went through that phase". Joe's wit and wisdom comes out in his essays, memoirs, cartoon gag lines, and now his blog. Sit with Joe for awhile and you're sure to stick around.http://joe1915.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com (Joe1915)Blogger26125en-usnoWelcome to the world according to Joe Taylor, nonagenarian, who says of octogenarians, "I went through that phase". Joe's wit and wisdom comes out in his essays, memoirs, cartoon gag lines, and now his blog. Sit with Joe for awhile and you're sure to stick around.Welcome to the world according to Joe Taylor, nonagenarian, who says of octogenarians, "I went through that phase". Joe's wit and wisdom comes out in his essays, memoirs, cartoon gag lines, and now his blog. Sit with Joe for awhile and you're sure to sticnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7811833696422558673.post-1204494102756407662Fri, 30 Apr 2010 20:22:00 +00002010-08-01T16:34:25.875-04:00 On March 21, 2010, family and friends of Joseph Taylor gathered in Salem, Massachusetts to remember Joe's life.  Below are the eulogies for this amazing man, wonderful friend, and loving father. Eulogy for Joseph Taylor Yosef ben Moshe v’Batya Good afternoon!   I am Rabbi Steven Fink of Temple Oheb Shalom in Baltimore.  I am grateful to Rabbi David Meyer of Temple Emanuel http://joe1915.blogspot.com/2010/04/joe-taylor-memorial-service.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7811833696422558673.post-8301495035317507205Mon, 28 Dec 2009 18:13:00 +00002010-02-13T18:11:40.114-05:00 Joe was always looking forward to something so I wasn't surprised when he sent the description of this cartoon on in November.  I thought it proper that I fulfill his request and post it this week.  Joe changed the caption a couple times. Originally it was to “decide if we want to go on”, but Joe never had any doubt about that. Later he sent another possible http://joe1915.blogspot.com/2009/12/happy-new-year.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7811833696422558673.post-1245759866160842427Sat, 05 Dec 2009 18:33:00 +00002009-12-09T14:06:14.237-05:00On December 5, 2009 Joseph L. Taylor made his transition from this life. He will be missed by all who knew and loved him as well as those who never met him because Joe brought something powerful and amazing to every life he touched; a strength of character and conviction that was compelling and contagious. The following excerpts are taken from the chapter entitled The Finish Line in his memoir http://joe1915.blogspot.com/2009/12/finish-line.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown)3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7811833696422558673.post-5941620502074625610Wed, 25 Nov 2009 19:15:00 +00002009-11-25T14:21:05.134-05:00fatherhoodKaddishPrayersonThis piece is mostly true but it contains some extrapolations relating to other members of the family. The tiny infant lying in his crib, common and ordinary as a specie of human being but paradoxically awesome in the commixture of helplessness and future potential, looks up uncomprehendingly at a face he would later understand is that of his father. Father is smiling lovingly, yet hesitantlyhttp://joe1915.blogspot.com/2009/11/own-kaddish.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7811833696422558673.post-2955034330816223552Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:05:00 +00002009-11-10T08:59:12.567-05:00couragehonorwomen Karyn and Mary are the two most courageous and admirable people I have ever known. They are both wheel chair bound, yet they are the two most cheerful and outgoing people in our condominium of about 200 residents. Karyn is able to walk for a very short time with the aid of a walker, but the only occasions upon which I have seen her doing so are a few times when she has come to my apartment two http://joe1915.blogspot.com/2009/11/two-women.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7811833696422558673.post-1741779361580807929Mon, 12 Oct 2009 01:37:00 +00002009-10-12T09:56:40.739-04:00changeexpectationsresolutionsThere is a big, big pile some where in the world. It is the most enormous pile ever stacked up, disappearing into the infinity of the sky, but you cannot see it. Everyone on earth helped make this heap. Everyone felt real good when they tossed their contributions onto the ever-growing pile, and most people felt bad when, although the pile never stopped growing, it never achieved its purpose. http://joe1915.blogspot.com/2009/10/invisible-pile.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7811833696422558673.post-743930825140994709Tue, 22 Sep 2009 16:25:00 +00002009-09-23T15:09:09.297-04:00healthcarehospicemotherspeabody essexwomenLaurie retired from her job after a long stint as Director of a school for learning disabled children. She felt that she was burned out. Today, Laurie works part time for a group of doctors, evaluating children for learning and psychological problems; she is a docent at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem MA; at the Audubon Society on the North Shore of Boston she teaches children about the http://joe1915.blogspot.com/2009/09/mother.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7811833696422558673.post-613927453860717068Wed, 09 Sep 2009 12:19:00 +00002009-09-09T08:19:00.448-04:00changeCongressCurrentNewspoliticsI just cancelled my subscription to a daily newspaper after sixty-eight years of subscribing in Chicago, Cincinnati, St. Paul, Philadelphia and to the Boston Globe. No, I am not losing my eyesight, nor am I running out of money or moving to Paris, where like a proper Parisian, I will read Le Monde. It's simply that I am fed up with what the papers write about and the predictability. Actually ithttp://joe1915.blogspot.com/2009/09/end-of-era.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7811833696422558673.post-4884123494275001270Mon, 07 Sep 2009 12:40:00 +00002009-09-07T08:40:00.302-04:00agingchildrendaughterMarriagerelationships A husband and wife are sitting in the den after dinner. He is reading a newspaper and she is sitting at a desk writing a letter. In the background a stereo is playing Chopin piano music. She turns her chair around to face him. She: (stops writing) I’ve been thinking. I want to buy you a new wristwatch. He: A new watch? I have a watch, it’s old, but it still works. Thanks, but onehttp://joe1915.blogspot.com/2009/09/post-nuptual-agreement.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7811833696422558673.post-2472534880491020914Fri, 04 Sep 2009 13:00:00 +00002009-09-04T09:00:00.960-04:00careerEssaysexpectationsFoodretrospectyoung peopleThe first time he spoke to me was when he served the coffee at the end of the dinner. After placing the cup and pouring from the silver pot in his hand he said, “I forgot to bring the sugar and cream. After a pause he added shyly, “This my first day her and I don’t remember everything yet.” Although I have difficulty remembering busboys and waitresses, I had noticed him because he walked as http://joe1915.blogspot.com/2009/09/busboy.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7811833696422558673.post-8355462969282796017Tue, 25 Aug 2009 14:54:00 +00002009-08-25T11:19:32.367-04:00expectationsfeminismNew femininerelationshipsAs if we don’t have enough portentous questions to solve, let me add another. Who will replace the vanishing Playboy Magazine “Playgirl” as the next popular ideal of American Beauty? With obesity in both sexes already beyond fifty-percent and growing, can the longings of the American male accommodate themselves to the reality of the New Feminine, or – or what? There is a self-parodying joke http://joe1915.blogspot.com/2009/08/further-thoughts-on-new-feminine.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7811833696422558673.post-2379978349377188550Fri, 14 Aug 2009 14:01:00 +00002009-08-14T10:09:47.857-04:00Bookcommon maneloquenceManhattanWilkes-Barr PAWorkmen's CircleYiddidhThe many scholarly books on the subject describe the newcomers to America as “waves of immigrants and “hordes of New Americans;” refer to their habitats on the Lower East Side of Manhattan as “tenements” and “railroad chain cold water flats”. The streets were described as teeming with “rickety pushcarts’ and their goods for sale; and filled with children at play, dodging pedestrians and street http://joe1915.blogspot.com/2009/08/eloquence-of-common-man.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7811833696422558673.post-1710329440174106408Wed, 29 Jul 2009 11:42:00 +00002009-07-29T07:45:35.270-04:00WILLIAM JAMES, THE PHILOSOPHER, SAID that everyone has as many different selves as there are people who know him. Each person, from his wife and children to the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker, perceives the same man differently. Ever since I heard that in Philosophy101, I have been confused. Who really am I? Which one of me is the real Joe Taylor? For that matter, who are you?http://joe1915.blogspot.com/2009/07/who-am-i.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Joe1915)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7811833696422558673.post-2126652266906559671Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:45:00 +00002009-07-17T09:31:01.747-04:00agingDancingDressexpectationsMannersPhiladelphiasurgerywomen(The following is an edited version of an article Joe wrote a few years ago. Joe had minor surgery at Salem Hospital Thurday, July 15. He will be home Friday and is, of course, already back to business.)It happens everywhere I go. There was girl in Philadelphia once, she walked toward me on a center city street. She wore a shiny tan skirt, a white blouse, blond hair falling to her shoulders, http://joe1915.blogspot.com/2009/07/hospital-joe.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7811833696422558673.post-874352758319089002Thu, 09 Jul 2009 19:00:00 +00002009-07-09T15:00:02.103-04:00Day DreamingEssaysretrospectrevengeself expression(Continued from July 8, 2009)The art of day dreaming grows with practice. (I should have spent as much time on my violin). From childhood fantasies fed by envy, it was a natural progression to the satisfying fancies of revenge. At the reunion I noted the wrinkling of childhood and adolescent beauty. I gloated that I was one of the few who was still working at his music. (I had played in a http://joe1915.blogspot.com/2009/07/day-dreamings-revenge.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Joe1915)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7811833696422558673.post-2686770867795905183Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:53:00 +00002009-07-08T14:53:00.515-04:00childrenDay DreamingEssayspersonal universeretrospectself expression(continued from July 7, 2009)My talent for [daydreaming] appeared at an early age. To my mortification, I saw that many of my childhood contemporaries were clearly more handsome, more clever, more worldly than I. From first grade on they received more valentines from the prettiest girls. In eighth grade they won the music memory contest and in High School they were the first to obtain a http://joe1915.blogspot.com/2009/07/rewards-of-day-dreaming.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Joe1915)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7811833696422558673.post-5611175057215377482Tue, 07 Jul 2009 18:44:00 +00002009-07-07T14:53:31.019-04:00Day Dreaminghabitsretrospectsurgerysurrender(I should preface this post by stating that Day Dreaming was first published in a literary journal in Winter 1999.)The ability to pass time gracefully is an art that makes idleness attractive. Recently I was housebound and largely immobilized for two weeks recovering from surgery for a bone spur. Happily, I was well prepared to endure the inactivity. While some may have chafed at the enforced http://joe1915.blogspot.com/2009/07/day-dreaming.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Joe1915)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7811833696422558673.post-6028840516179751527Sat, 04 Jul 2009 13:29:00 +00002009-07-04T09:29:00.604-04:00aginghealthcareOut of my Mindpoliticssocial securitysportsI doubt that the hereafter will hold anything as engrossing as our quadrennial presidential elections; as absorbing as the cultural and political clashes between the Eastern and Western worlds; as portentous as the debates about global warming and stem cell research, as much fun as the World Series and the Super bowl. Nor is the next world likely to offer the intriguing, awesome, ludicrous, http://joe1915.blogspot.com/2009/07/life-after-life-and-before.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Joe1915)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7811833696422558673.post-3406914476595377532Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:40:00 +00002009-07-03T14:40:02.444-04:00agingartchildrenfatherhoodgoal settingOut of my Mindretirementretrospectself expressionMy seventies were for summing up. I thought about the person I had become and what I meant to others. I thought about the after-life of fatherhood when the true pleasure of being a father is found in happiness for what the children have become, for what they have done and how they have grown in the doing. In the nineties one must find new motivations for going on. The goals I had set for http://joe1915.blogspot.com/2009/07/just-like-starting-over.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Joe1915)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7811833696422558673.post-4871404515772651655Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:58:00 +00002009-06-30T11:22:18.560-04:00agingcareerexpectationsOut of my MindretirementIn a few months I will be ninety-four years of age. No wonder I have been thinking about how long I want to live. Thoughts like that sneak up on you. When I "retired" from my career (I have had three more careers since then), it felt like playing tennis with the net down. For the first time in my life there were no expectations of me. No one could fire me, flunk me or flay me. But now that Ihttp://joe1915.blogspot.com/2009/06/when-im-94.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Joe1915)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7811833696422558673.post-6356794811534090400Sun, 28 Jun 2009 11:33:00 +00002009-06-29T09:24:06.799-04:00changefeminine mystiquefeminismretrospectsuffragettewomenChange, we are told (correctly) is inevitable, and essential within our culture. No surprise then that even femininity has changed, for women have become more like men (I am simply observing, that's what writers do). Women today are more assertive, more competitive with men (often out-performing them); many women speak the coarse language that was once a male prerogative. Women are as frank http://joe1915.blogspot.com/2009/06/change-and-feminine-mystique.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Joe1915)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7811833696422558673.post-7283379451896618738Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:29:00 +00002009-06-24T08:49:15.468-04:00changeCole Porterdipgood timesHollywoodMassachusettspartiesSalemsenior promStrausswaltzyacht clubyoung peopleI was struck by "change" at a party I attended recently. The setting was a Yacht Club, the hosts a couple in their mid- twenties celebrating their one-year wedding anniversary. Apart from the parents and assorted relatives, the other guests, also, were young. The crowd seemed to be performing a pantomime, for the shrieking noises of the band and the tumult of voices trying to rise above the http://joe1915.blogspot.com/2009/06/yacht-clubs-and-dip.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7811833696422558673.post-720902925646829711Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:02:00 +00002009-06-22T12:33:24.700-04:00distractionsexpectationsGenerationgood timesretrospecttyranny of petty thingsIn my day one wage earner could support a family; civility was the expectation; most people had a healthy touch of narcissism that made them want to look attractive. The bobby-soxer is now quaint but the girls in their plaid skirts, cardigan sweaters and saddle shoes were cute. Owning a securely financed home was the rule. T-shirts and sweatshirts were attire for the backyard. Schools taught http://joe1915.blogspot.com/2009/06/in-my-day-one-wage-earner-could-support.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7811833696422558673.post-6481273751490614567Mon, 22 Jun 2009 01:30:00 +00002009-06-22T11:57:11.767-04:00don't worryglobal messgood timesGreat DepressionSo, lets all clap for upward change in the current global mess. Don't worry. I was born more than a decade prior to the Great Depression, and spent my childhood in the nation's recovery from it. Times were different then, as different as they are now from what had been the status quo. Nevertheless, I lived the major part of my life through times that were good. Good times will return. They http://joe1915.blogspot.com/2009/06/let-good-times-roll_21.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7811833696422558673.post-3370011831117060730Fri, 19 Jun 2009 20:05:00 +00002009-06-22T12:30:25.899-04:00Alcoholic BeveragesBig LeaguescartoonschangecoffeeDancingDressFoodGenerationLiteratureMannersmantraMusicRip Van WinkleSpeechTravel"Change" is the mantra of the day and change means making a difference. But "difference" is an insipid word for the cataclysmic changes that, from decade to decade and from generation to generation, have altered the way we think and behave. No aspect of life in this country -- our speech, our dress, our manners, music, literature, dancing, our expectations, the foods we eat, the concoctions thathttp://joe1915.blogspot.com/2009/06/new-feminine.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Joe1915)0