• Old Photos: Kansas City 1914

    Giving the Life Magazine a break, we continue onto the May 1914 issue of the Rotarian Magazine which was largely dedicated to Kansas City. Filled with photos and articles where mustachioed men took turns extolling the virtues of Kansas City, its businesses, theaters, schools, real estate and architecture. If you are bored at work a fan of Kansas City history, you should be reading this magazine already. 1914 was the year when the Kansas City Union Station was opened and the magazine dedicates the cover and several pages of photographs and essays to the “largest Union Station in the world”.

    The largest Union Station in the world
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  • Master and Margarita At The UMKC

    After reading an article in the Pitch imploring me to see the Master and Margarita at the UMKC I knew I had to go. The Master and Margarita is one of only a few books that I read more than once and discovered something new every time. It is also one of a few Russian masterpieces  that no matter how well translated could not be fully understood by a foreigner (that would be you); it’s somewhat similar to me trying to decipher Cris Packham’s pop-cultural references (not that I don’t try). The book was written during the times of the strictest censorship when even a hint of anti-Soviet criticism could literally threaten the writer’s life and that’s why Mikhail Bulgakov had to insinuate just as much as he wrote down. The average Soviet reader could easily read “between the lines” and see the satire in the most innocent dialogues and descriptions. Some of the references were to the specific characters in the author’s life and are not easily recognizable but the barbs thrown at the Soviet bureaucrats, censors, informers, dimwits, careerists, sellouts and the regime itself were obvious to the people who still encountered them in their everyday life for another 50 years after the book was written.
    Not too many people risked producing it on the stage or on the screen, it could not be easily condensed and the characters were so well-known and beloved that any such attempt would be criticized by the fans. That’s why I was pretty skeptical going to the UMKC performance. I didn’t expect the cast to have an understanding of the book required to convey it onto the stage and it couldn’t possibly be shortened to fit into the regular length of the theater performance. What I saw was pretty amazing and truly one of the best theatrical performances I’ve seen in my life – honest, funny, enthusiastic, smart, inventive and, although not very close to the book, with plenty of Blugakov’s spirit in it. Once you get past the fact that some male roles are played by girls (i.e. Koroviev and Azazello), the character of the devil – Woland is wearing hooves, and the Cat Behemoth is a black guy with the red Mohawk dressed in some kind of leather corset and a shaggy trench coat, everything else falls in place. The actors were outstanding but Patrick DuLaney who played Woland was on par with the Russian actors who played this role in the movie versions of the Master and Margarita. He was able to convey Woland’s millenniums-old age, his exhaustion with life, his disgust with people which could only be defeated by the true love and selfless sacrifice. Julane Havens as Margarita was also very impressive, as a sensitive, sensual, defenseless but determined woman ready to sacrifice everything just to be with Master. The actress who played Hella gets a special mention, nice job keeping every male eye locked on the stage!
    I also would like to specifically praise the costume and stage design. The Soviet people are all dressed in the same gray uniforms lovingly adorned by red stars; even their underwear is gray (as was revealed later and you missed it). I also liked the use of projection screens.
    During the show I (illegally) made a few videos, sorry, serious-looking-bearded-usher-guy, I didn’t spend years in the KGB school in the USSR to be told what to do by the Man.

    (By the way, in the bottom part of these videos you’ll see a jackass who didn’t feel it was necessary to take his stupid hat off in the theater; maybe the usher should have concerned himself with this view-obstructing clown instead of making sure I can’t record a low-quality video.)

    httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPQqevnTdiw

    httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw9F3GrppVM

    httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOpHIxKJqdk

    After the show I overheard  one lady ask her friend if she enjoyed the show, “it was too weird” was the reply. It’s hard to convey the whole complexity of the book on the stage to an unprepared viewer, but to people who understood it was an amazing effort worthy of a professional venue.

    P.S. Alan Scherstuhl is my new Facebook friend on the condition that I will never have to pronounce his last name.

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  • Grigory Semenovich Obershmukler

    I don’t make New Year Resolutions, but I start every year hoping to interview an Old Jewish Person®. Then I realize that I have no interviewing skills, or patience or determination to actually do it, and soon another year rolls around. So this is probably as close as it gets to having a narrative on this blog. This text is translated from an older gentleman’s blog I’ve been following for many years. He lives in Israel and seems to be retired after a long career as a physician. His stories are always fascinating, honest, and told from an old Jewish doctor point of view I find so relatable. If you read Russian you will find his blog to be a unique personal account of the long-gone era, mixed with tragic and funny stories he encountered in his latter years while working in Israel with ex-Soviet immigrants. And if you are Russian-impaired, you have to rely on my crude translating and editing skills. Translating takes a long time and there only so much of it I can do at work so this is only the first part. I also edited out an episode that cannot be possibly explained to a non-Russian reader without writing a small book. Part 2 that covers WWII and the years after is coming up sometime in the future.

    In the early sixties, after three years of working in a rural area, my family came back to Minsk. I got a job in a TB clinic; my wife was hired as an ambulance doctor.

    Soon I’ve met an interesting man in the clinic.

    It was our consulting thoracic surgeon Grigory Semenovich. He was a distinguished man, a veteran of WWII, a PhD. Actually, when he was born in the beginning of the 20th century he was named Hirsch, his father was Simha, so his full name was listed in the passport as Hirsch Simkhovich. Not willing to pronounce such a tongue twister, people at his Worker and then Medical school called him Grisha, and later Grigory Semenovich. His last name was Obershmukler, which is translated from Yiddish means “chief smuggler”. It’s hard to say how his ancestors got that name, but in the early 19th century by the order of Tsar Alexander I all the Jews in the Empire were required to produce last names. And then it all depended on the imagination of barely literate clerks and happy owners of new names.

    When I met him, he was an old man of sixty, small in stature around 160 cm (5’2’’), with a large bald spot surrounded by a narrow rim of gray hair. Thick black mustache streaked with gray, barely concealed a rough scar on his upper lip – a reminder of a childhood surgery. He had nasal and slightly hoarse voice. During surgeries he had to stand on a step-stool.
    All this combined – a tiny height, baldness, big mustache and a voice – made for somewhat of a strange impression , although he was a good surgeon , very well-read and educated .

    Grigory Semenovich had his habits.

    During surgeries, when complications and difficulties arose, he did not yell at nurses or scolded assistants; did not throw tools like many venerable surgeons I’ve observed in my many years of study and work. He calmly and quietly muttered some unintelligible words in his nasal voice, and if all went well, even tried to sing something totally unfamiliar. When asked what it meant, he replied –
    – Do not worry, I am commenting on the progress of the surgery to myself in Latin…
    Once at the front, after a complicated and successful surgery, a higher-ranking doctor who was there with an inspection, said in Yiddish after a modest dinner and a “front-line hundred grams” (*of vodka):

    – Hirsch, you need to be more cautious with your cursing , special agents (*of NKVD) may know what  “mome loshn” means but may not understand who it’s directed to …
    Colonel inspector also grew up in a shtetl , went to a heder and was able to understand  all the terrible curses on the heads of Germans , crappy instruments, war, dumb commanders , bleeding and this lousy life …

    Once when I was present with my electrocardiograph during a heavy thoracoplasty surgery performed by Gregory Semenovich, I was also able to make out the words of an indecent song that I heard as a child from my father .

    In my translation of an arbitrary and totally outrageous pronunciation (after all , the last time I heard this song seventy years ago !) One verse of this specimen of folk art translates roughly as follows:

    Jew has sex with a Jew , goy has a goy ,
    Rabbi has a rebbetzin and all enjoy …

    It is known that in the USSR from NKVD to kindergartens people disgruntled with someone or something wrote anonymous complaints on a variety of subject to different organizations. Grigory Semenovich didn’t escape his. Clinic received a directive from the regional party committee with the request to verify the facts, investigate the matter and report back to the regional committee. The attached anonymous letter stated that the operating surgeon Obershmukler writes off a lot of valuable medicinal alcohol, but in reality he drinks the alcohol with no zakuski, while getting drunk with other physicians and operating nurses but the junior staff is never invited, as if they are not human… and these drunken parties cause harm to the Soviet state in general and all of medicine in particular.
    Everyone knew that Gregory Semenovich cannot drink more than one shot during the evening. When they showed him the letter, he grinned into his mustache and said –
    – Tomorrow is my surgery, send the commission, they will see for themselves …
    The next day, Gregory Semenovich came to work with a large portfolio. Commission gathered soon – assistant director of the hospital Anna Artemovna, secretary of the local Communist Party organization, the chairman of the local union and chief nurse. Surgeon Obershmukler dumped a few thick monographs with bookmarks and a pile of printed instructions on the table.
    – Please verify that I am following the guidance. This is a monograph with existing hand sanitizing methods, and these – he pointed to the printed sheets – are the latest instructions of our ministry. Now I’m going to wash my hands, and you will observe … Nurse, are you ready? Begin!
    They began the long process of hand sanitizing while Gregory Semenovich explained.
    – We are using the Fyurbringer’s* method with modification by Alfeld*. Sometimes we use Spasokukotsky* – Kochergin* method (*all these names could be medical-sounding gibberish). In all three methods the last stage is rinsing of the hands with a 70 % alcohol solution for 2 to 5 minutes; we will use 2 minutes. Nurse, give me a sterile napkin, start the stopwatch and slowly pour the alcohol on my hands!
    Alcohol started trickling down on his palms, and then to the sink …
    What are you doing! – screamed the Chairman of the Union, retired paramedic and a no stranger to drinking.
    Last drops emerged from half-liter bottle.
    – Now have to leave, patient is waiting, – Gregory Semenovich raised his clean hands and looking like a surrendering prisoner, shuffled over to the operating room …

    Few more episodes.

    In those years, our clinic expanded, changed staffing and simultaneously recruited several young graduates of medical school. One of them, Valya, came the first time to work in a mini-skirt. Minis were just beginning to come into vogue and assistant director Anna Artemovna stated that the Soviet young people and members of Komsomol cannot appear at work dressed like this. Reprimands did not help, and Anna Artemovna used every possible way to find fault with a young girl.

    Anna Artemovna was a partisan nurse and after the war she married a former guerrilla commander, barely finished college and once admitted that after the college has not read a single book.
    Once she burst into the staffroom, where doctors spent their free time and in a raised voice began berating Valechka for her transgressions. Valya didn’t have to look for words and said loudly –
    Why are you attacking me like a Fury?
    Assistant director froze for a few seconds.
    – Girl! What did you say to me? I am an honest woman! I have a husband! It’s you who is shaking her tail, flashing your panties and bare hips to everyone, be ashamed! I would never put on skirt like this!
    -Of course, at your age you have nothing to flash and have nothing to show, and no one wants to see it anyway!
    From the far corner came a hoarse voice nasal voice of Gregory Semenovich –
    -Anna Artemovna why are you boiling so much? Fury is not a prostitute, as you though. In Greek it means an evil vindictive woman and it may not be too far from the truth.
    – You are and old man and on her side…
    Anna Artemovna left the room and slammed the door.

    Grigory Semenovich didn’t have a lot of work in our hospital. He dealt mainly with adhesions after the placement of artificial pneumothorax, occasionally performed therapeutic thoracoplasty and some others. For several days after a surgery, even on weekends, he visited his patients, punctured the pleural cavity, changed wound dressings and made new prescriptions.

    During those years he lived with his wife in a small two- story Khrushchev-style apartment building, she was often sick, and he felt lonely. I often picked up duty hours in the therapeutic ward to make extra money. Grigory S. came to me in the duty room and we had long conversations …

    Grigory S. was born in the early 20th century in a small shtetl near Minsk , and as all the local kids went to heder – elementary school at the synagogue. Since the childhood he started helping his father who was a cobbler, but always wanted to study and become a doctor.

    The boy was born with a small genetic defect – a slight cleft lip and had surgery in his childhood to repair it. For the rest of his life he remembered the majestic figure of the surgeon in a long white coat and mask with clean hands raised up in the air…

    After the revolution, Grisha went to Minsk and began working as a mechanic at the depot at the railroad station, while attending a night school. After 2 years local Communist cell, the trade union committee and the director gave him a referral to the technical school. Grisha successfully graduated and enrolled in medical school.

    Student years were difficult – Grisha worked nights as a nurse in a hospital, then as a surgeons’ assistant and studied hard.  He often participated in simple surgeries …
    Then graduation. He, a Jewish guy, son of a shoemaker – a medical doctor! Joy knew no bounds!
    But he was yet to become a surgeon …

    Initially he worked in Polesia, in a remote village in a forsaken district hospital with 10 beds. He worked alone, treating all diseases, delivering babies. Queues at the reception were huge, and after a day at work – night house calls …
    The following year they hired a midwife, and then came a paramedic – life became a little easier. Grisha set up an operating room, started performing minor surgeries. The village had no electricity so he arranged for a power generator near the hospital. When the old steam generator started huffing and puffing at night – the whole village knew that there was a patient or a birth.
    After three and a half years he was sent to a surgical residency.
    Gregory never came back to the village, he was sent to the district center to work as a general surgeon. At the age of almost 30 his lifelong dream came true!

    At the new job young surgeon met a charming female colleague, an obstetrician -gynecologist, who started working there a couple of years prior.
    Her name was Rachel. She was a tall, stout, pretty blonde. Her face had a disproportionately large nose that made her embarrassed …
    Her path to medicine she was easier than Grisha’s – her parents were able to get medical education during the Tsarist years and escape from the Pale of Settlement – her dad was a pharmacist and her mother a midwife , and they were allowed to live in big cities .
    Rachel was three years younger Grisha, 16 centimeters taller without heels and 15 kilos heavier …
    Grisha always liked big women. He realized that it was his destiny and started a proper siege.
    Fortress did not especially resist, Rachel liked miniature men and, in particular, Grisha. After a few months a simple wedding took place in the yard of a small house, where young people found an apartment – just a friendly dinner. Toward the end of the event happy and tired groom took a nap in the corner. Rachel took him in her arms like a baby, and carried him into the bedroom next to her powerful chest   to the applause of the remaining guests.

    Gregory S. and Rachel worked at the district hospital for a few more years, when they encountered the first trouble – they did not conceive. Pregnancies ended in miscarriages, doctors’ advice did not help, and to get the advice they had to go to the regional center or to Minsk. And the young family decided to move to Minsk, the capital.

    In the early 1930’s, doctors were needed in all hospitals. Without much difficulty and patronage Rachel and Grisha got jobs in their respective specialties, and moved into an apartment with Rachel’s aunt.
    Finally, nature took its course, Rachel became pregnant and in 1936 and delivered a healthy girl.
    In the fashion of those years she was named Svetlana.

    Time passed quickly, maternity leave has ended. Not so young mother-doctor knew that to send the infant to the nursery meant to put the long-awaited child in danger. A thought to leave work did not cross her mind. They had to find a nanny. One of the former patients suggested his distant relative – Alesya – a 16-year-old girl, an orphan from a distant village, almost illiterate , but familiar with young children , decent and clean .

    They took the girl took into the family and she raised Svetlana from the age of 8 months! They even looked similar, both were round-faced blondes, only  Svetlana had green eyes and Alesya’s were blue …
    When friends asked the Alesya where she works, she nonchalantly replied “I do not know, some surgeon” …

    Few more years passed. Svetochka started in kindergarten. Alesya helped around the house and attended night school. Grisha and Rachel worked hard and taught Alesya all they knew themselves – from cooking to nursing care. They took care of her future – Alain finished seven grades, passed the entrance exams and in the autumn of 1941 was supposed to go to nursing school.

    Grigory Semenovich didn’t have a lot of work in our hospital. He dealt mainly with adhesions after the imposition of artificial pneumothorax, occasionally performed therapeutic thoracoplasty and some others. For several days after a surgery, even on weekends, he visited his patients, punctured the pleural cavity, changed wound dressings and made new prescriptions.

    During those years he lived with his wife in a small two- story Khrushchev-style apartment building, she was often sick, and he felt lonely. I often picked up duty hours in the therapeutic ward to make extra money. Grigory S. came to me in the duty room and we had long conversations …

    Grigory S. was born in the early 20th century in a small shtetl near Minsk , and as all the local kids went to heder – elementary school at the synagogue. Since the childhood he started helping his father who was a cobbler, but he always wanted to study and become a doctor.

    The boy was born with a small genetic defect – a slight cleft lip and had surgery in his childhood to repair it. For the rest of his life he remembered the majestic figure of the surgeon in a long white coat and mask with clean hands raised up in the air…

    After the revolution, Grisha went to Minsk and began working as a mechanic at the depot at the railroad station, while attending a night school. After 2 years local Communist cell, the trade union committee and the director gave him a referral to the technical school. Grisha successfully graduated and enrolled in medical school.

    Student years were difficult – Grisha worked nights as a nurse in a hospital, then as a surgeons’ assistant and studied hard.  He often participated in simple surgeries …
    Then graduation. He, a Jewish guy, son of a shoemaker – a medical doctor! Joy knew no bounds!
    But he was yet to become a surgeon …

    Initially he worked in Polesia, in a remote village in a forsaken district hospital with 10 beds. He worked alone, treating all diseases, delivering babies. Queues at the reception were huge, and after a day at work – night house calls …
    The following year they hired a midwife, and then came a paramedic – life became a little easier. Grisha set up an operating room, started performing minor surgeries. The village had no electricity so he arranged for a power generator near the hospital. When the old steam generator started huffing and puffing at night – the whole village knew that there was a patient or a birth.
    After three and a half years he was sent to a surgical residency.
    Gregory never came back to the village, he was sent to the district center to work as a general surgeon. At the age of almost 30 his lifelong dream came true!

    At the new job young surgeon met a charming female colleague, an obstetrician-gynecologist, who started working there a couple of years prior.
    Her name was Rachel. She was a tall, stout, pretty blonde. Her face had a disproportionately large nose that made her embarrassed …
    Her path to medicine she was easier than Grisha’s – her parents were able to get medical education during the Tsarist years and escape from the Pale of Settlement – her dad was a pharmacist and her mother a midwife , and they were allowed to live in big cities .
    Rachel was three years younger Grisha, 16 centimeters taller without heels and 15 kilos heavier …
    Grisha always liked big women. He realized that it was his destiny and started a proper siege.
    Fortress did not especially resist, Rachel liked miniature men and, in particular, Grisha. After a few months a simple wedding took place in the yard of a small house, where young people found an apartment – just a friendly dinner. Toward the end of the event happy and tired groom took a nap in the corner. Rachel took him in her arms like a baby, and carried him into the bedroom next to her powerful chest   to the applause of the remaining guests.

    Gregory S. and Rachel worked at the district hospital for a few more years, when they encountered the first trouble – they did not conceive. Pregnancies ended in miscarriages, doctors’ advice did not help, and to get the advice they had to go to the regional center or to Minsk. And the young family decided to move to Minsk, the capital.

    In the early 1930’s, doctors were needed in all hospitals. Without much difficulty and patronage Rachel and Grisha got jobs in their respective specialties, and moved into an apartment with Rachel’s aunt.
    Finally, nature took its course, Rachel became pregnant and in 1936 and delivered a healthy girl.
    In the fashion of those years she was named Svetlana.

    Time passed quickly, maternity leave has ended. Not so young mother-doctor knew that to send the infant to the nursery meant to put the long-awaited child in danger. A thought to leave work did not cross her mind. They had to find a nanny. One of the former patients suggested his distant relative – Alesya – a 16-year-old girl, an orphan from a distant village, almost illiterate , but familiar with young children , decent and clean .

    They took the girl took into the family and she raised Svetlana from the age of 8 months! They even looked similar, both were round-faced blondes, only  Svetlana had green eyes and Alesya’s were blue …
    When friends asked the Alesya where she works, she nonchalantly replied “I do not know, some surgeon” …

    Few more years passed. Svetochka started in kindergarten. Alesya helped around the house and attended night school. Grisha and Rachel worked hard and taught Alesya all they knew themselves – from cooking to nursing care. They took care of her future – Alesya finished seven grades, passed the entrance exams and in the autumn of 1941 was supposed to go to nursing school.

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  • Tuna of the Prairie

    I had always imagined Flint Hills to be a rocky desert-like area in the Central-Eastern Kansas where one could walk up to the nearest cliff and chisel away a piece of flint big enough to make a tomahawk. I guess I’ll add this to the list of many other things that didn’t turn out the way I imagined. Driving the Flint Hills Scenic Byway was somewhere on my list of things to do and it turned out to be probably one of the best, most relaxing day-trips from Kansas City, filled with nature, views, history, vast spaces that make you feel small and roads reaching all the way to the horizon. It’s hard to imagine covering these hills on foot, living on remote ranches, surviving without all the conveniences of the modern age. It’s fun to think about things like these while flying at high speeds in a comfortable vehicle with the windows down and the radio up.
    The South end of the Scenic Byway is at Cassoday, KS, population 130, with just about as many signs proclaiming it to be the Prairie Chicken Capital of the World.

    Prairie Chicken, also known as the “Tuna of the Prairie” are nowhere to be seen, probably busy hiding from the 130 hungry Cassodayans. The signs are the most photographed object in Cassoday.

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  • Rear End Sightings

    Yep it’s a gym!
    back of the truck

    “Straight Talk Express” has left the city.

    back of the truck

    His name is not “The man upstairs”, his name is Jesus

    back of the truck

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