The Fort - A children's story

“Dad, I want a tree house” said 5 year old David. David had spent the night at a friends house the other night, and the friend had a tree in the backyard that had some wooden stairs and a platform with rails. David was very impressed.

“But David, we don’t have any trees in our yard big enough to build a tree house” his father said in a sad tone. “Okay”, said David in an uncharacteristically upbeat tone. I’ll figure something out.

When Saturday morning rolled around, David told his dad he was going out into the cove to explore the vacant lot that was known as “the woods”. It was a simple pie-shaped undeveloped residential lot with trees and overgrown bushes and weeds. In the middle was a bunch of wooden boxes and a long log that had been strategically placed to serve as the neighborhood meeting place for the “8 or 9 kids in the cove”.

An hour later, David’s father went outside to get the newspaper, and he could hear a whimpering cry “Dad, help! I can’t get down!”. David’s Dad looked up above the vacant lot and saw David at the very top of a 40 foot tree, holding on for dear life! David’s dad called the fire department who rushed a bucket truck to rescue David. David explained that he wanted to see if he could turn the tree into a tree house. His dad knew he had to get a tree house before David got an even crazier idea into his head.

David and his Dad went to the hardware store and bought a bunch of lumber and proceeded to build a free-standing 2 story tree house with a roof, a ladder to go up, and a slide to go down. Since it wasn’t in a tree, they decided to call it a "fort". It took a full weekend to build the “fort” and David was as happy as he could be with the finished product. It was sturdy and strong.

David’s one year old brother, Sam, was too young to climb up into the fort, but every once and a while, the Dad would hand Sam up to David and they would play in the fort – sometimes for hours at a time. Sam could slide down the slide without any problem. A few years later, Molly was born and they got a dog named Maggie.

As David and Sam grew older they would still play in the fort, and many of the neighborhood kids would hang out in the backyard fort with them, doing whatever kids do at that age. The dog – Maggie, learned to take a running start to run up the slick stainless steel slide to get to the kids on the second story of the fort.

Eventually, Molly was handed up to Sam and David and the three of them would play all day long in and around the fort. The trees in the backyard had grown considerably by this time and the fort was camouflaged by the trees. When the kids were in the fort, it seemed to be closed off from the rest of the world.

Their father got remarried and they sold the house, but the new house they moved into had a big backyard and the woman the dad married had a 6 year old son named Josh. The father decided to take the fort apart, make any needed repairs and reassemble it at the new house. The slide - after 10 years - had rotted, so the father improvised by installing a cooper pole for the kids to slide down. Josh loved his new “fort” and played in it with his friends all the time. Josh had pictures of his favorite Basketball team in the fort and a box full of “personal treasures’ that only a 6 year old boy could find of value.

By this time, David and Sam had already gone off to college and Molly was into “girl stuff”. The father was happy that the “fort that love built” had found a new life with Josh. As time went on, Molly went off to college and Josh grew up and started to drive. The fort sat in the back yard with no one to play with it. Summer surrendered to winter over an over again, and one day the father noticed that the fort had become dangerously rotted and it was no longer safe. The father decided he had to take it down.

The father built the fort when he was 32. Now he was 57. He waited until a beautiful fall weekend to dismantle the fort, and started taking it apart gently, one board at a time. It was very emotional for him, almost like putting an old family pet to sleep. The compassion and respect the father had for the fort was, of course, because of all the memories he had of his kids playing there.

As he dismantled the fort, he noticed that a lot of the wood was still salvageable, and he decided that he didn’t want to let go of the memories of the fort, so he decided to let the fort live by re-using the wood. He built his wife a beautiful garden surrounded by the heavy wood posts that supported the fort, and he no longer felt so sad about taking the fort down.

Just as the kids had grown and changed, just as the father had grown and changed – the fort had grown and changed.

9/11 Ten Years Later: Are we safer?

The fateful day of 9-11 started with a small newsflash coming across my computer at my office “plane hits World Trade Center”. The assumption at the time was that it was a small single engine plane, and that there was some plausible explanation…pilot heart attack, mechanical malfunction, or pilot error. I called a client on the phone to discuss some business, and as our conversation progressed I could sense his attention was elsewhere. He told me to turn on my office TV.

By this time, it was evident that it was a large passenger jet and the newscasters were correctly assuming that large commercial passenger jets don’t just hit buildings, especially iconic buildings in the middle of Manhattan on a clear day. The next couple of hours were without a doubt the first and only time I have ever felt that America – and my way of life - was under attack. It became personal for me at that moment. Are my kids and wife OK? What should I do? After all, another plane hit the WTC building #2, the two buildings collapse, the Pentagon gets hit, the White House evacuates, the plane goes down in Pennsylvania – and thousands of planes are in the air and all potentially flying missiles. I made a judgment call and stayed at my office and manned the phones as my anxious clients called in one after the other wanting to know what to do with their investments (I’m a financial consultant). Eventually, the assault ended, but there was a stark realization that the thin veneer of stability and civilization in America had been shattered. Now we had to pick up the pieces and make sure this never happened again.

How has America changed since 9-11? Of course. There is a threat awareness that exists with our law enforcement and the American public. Yes, our airline system is safer. Yes, we are aware of the threat of Muslim extremism as a primary threat. But if I was to sum it up, our government has utterly failed to get ahead of the curve when it comes to protecting America’s national security, or even defining what the national security threats are to America. Our border between Mexico is wide open to Mexican gangs, smugglers and extremists who wish America harm. That is a national security issue. Our manufacturing base has eroded to the point of almost non-existence, and as a result our balance of trade with the rest of the world is upside down. That is a national security issue. Our dependence on foreign countries as our creditors has compromised our foreign policy. That is a national security issue. Our dependence on Arab oil, our refusal to drill in Alaska, and the lack of a coherent alternative energy policy has financed Muslim extremism and hardened the intractable positions of many Arab countries. That is a national security issue. Lastly, the inability of our government to function within a budget and actually accomplish meaningful legislation that puts America’s interests ahead of partisan politics has eroded our confidence – and the confidence of the world in our ability to correct the course America has charted for itself. The fact that America is no longer perceived as the traditional “safe haven”, and has abandoned traditional allies without a clear foreign policy objective is a national security issue.

Maybe we need to be more vigilant about the greatest threat to America. The people we elect.

The Real Tradegy is the UN

The CA 07/27/11 article (A7) entitled “Officials: 800K African children could die”, is particularly tragic in the fact that such a large scale human disaster may have been easily avoided had the UN been less obsessed with the political agenda of the majority “non-aligned movement” (NAM) that controls the General Assembly. For those who don’t follow the antics of the UN, the NAM consists of 118 countries controlled by the 22 member Arab League. The NAM membership is diverse, including most of Africa, the Mideast - and most small countries without a political alignment with the USA, Europe, China or Russia. Originally the NAM was formed to protect the territorial colonialism of it’s small member/states – a legitimate concern when it was formed in 1961, and still a legitimate concern today.

However, it wasn’t long before the NAM became controlled by the influential members of the 22 member Arab league, and specifically the dictates and agenda of the 12 countries that make up the wealthy oil cartel . This “automatic majority” in the U.N.’s General Assembly gave the NAM total control over the agenda of this once important and effective body. Even though the Wikipedia definition of the NAM describes it as having concerns for human rights and other admirable traits, many of it’s members are dictators, human rights abusers, and banana republic’s with little regard for human life, much less human rights. Of the thousands of resolutions passed by the NAM since 1961, 96% obsess against Israel and for the Palestinian movement. In other words, the U.N. agenda has been hijacked by the anti-Israel Arab League at the expense of the legitimate needs of many around the world – including the 800,000 dying children in Africa.

More tragic than the above mentioned abuse of “voting blocs” within the UN General Assembly is the hypocrisy of the NAM movement itself: The NAM has been colonialized by the Arab League at the expense of the tragedies unfolding in their own backyards. Even the” global political left” (the socialists, the anarchists etc. -and I include President Obama in this category) have bought into the anti-Israel Arab League agenda while ignoring the human tragedies that could have been avoided – had the UN had its priorities straight. Those on the left, who claim the moral high ground and loudly champion “human rights”, have given political support to this grossly anti-Israel movement at the expense of more pressing global issues - and this hypocrisy only serves to de-legitimize their credibility and the credibility of the UN itself.

Shep Fargotstein's speech at Margaret"s 50th b-day party at Jims Place 06/21/2011

I want to thank everyone for coming today to celebrate Margaret’s 50^th b-day. Margaret is a lucky woman to have so many good friends.

I’m going to be as brief as I can be – but as many of you may suspect, I find this opportunity to address all of Margaret’s friends’ simply irresistible…….

Of course, I am going to get around to professing my undying love for Margaret …….as any man with half a brain would do…. if he were in front of so many of her friends.

But I think it is important to roll back the clock 37 years to 1974 when Margaret and I first met. Margaret was 13 years old, I was 20, and she was dating my little brother Bill. Margaret was dropped off at my parent’s house at 6pm to get a ride with Bill to go to his Bar Mitzvah party. Margaret rang the doorbell. I jumped out of the shower, wrapped a towel around my waist, and answered the door dripping wet.

Keep in mind I don’t remember ANY of this story, but later Margaret told me I looked like a Jewish Fabio.(Haaa) Margaret was 13 years old, undeveloped, and absolutely of no interest to me at the time. BUT, this obviously left a lasting impression on her. I guess it was the first time she has been flashed.

Margaret was the only adolescent that I ever flashed in my life. Had I known flashing little girls was so effective, I might have ended up in jail. (Haaa)

You have to give Margaret credit, she is tenacious, and she gets what she wants..even if it takes decades (haaa)

Fast forward 25 years later to 1999. I have been divorced for 13 years. Margaret was newly divorced. Leslie (Bill’s wife), my sister-in-law, unbeknownst to me was playing matchmaker and invited Margaret and I separately to their house for Sukkus.

I remember that evening as if it were yesterday. As Leslie and Bill introduced us, Margaret walked across the room, we shook hands, and she gave me that Margaret smile.

I remember saying to myself “She’s a good looking Jewish woman – bad hair and too thin, but she has lots of POTENTIAL.”

Margaret……I am pleased to announce that you now have great hair, you’re not too thin (Haaaa), and even though you get better and better every year like a fine wine, you still haven’t reached your potential. (laugh?)

I now have to confess to you the real reason why I was attracted to you….it was your beautiful smile.(Ahhhh)

Margaret, I was going to read the 2 page letter that my father wrote in 1970 to one of my sister’s question “What is Love?”. But it was too wordy, and it wouldn’t have been “MY WORDS”.

It hasn’t been easy blending our families, but looking back, there is nothing in my life - that was worthwhile - that wasn’t difficult on some level. Marrying you was the best decision I ever made in my entire life.

You are a great friend.

You make me laugh. (I love your perverted sense of humor)

You are a great cook.

You’re a sexy, beautiful woman

And, of course, I love you.

The U.S. and Israeli relationship

The unique US/Israeli relationship is not just a manifestation of a mutually beneficial political foreign policy alignment, nor is it simply a relationship based on mutually shared security interests or some other abstract idea.

The U.S./Israeli relationship is based on tangible political, social and religious values shared by both countries. The relationship, in anthropological terms, is a matter of shared knowledge, beliefs, and values. The U.S./Israeli relationship is based on a bedrock of shared culture, and more than anything else, this explains the deeply emotional ties between the two countries.