Hot Chocolate for Seniors compiled by Jan Fowler, Balboa Press of Hay House, 2011, ISBN 978-1-4525-3945-4, 319 pages, $21.99
By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO –This is an anthology of positivity with more than 100 short stories, most not longer than three pages–covering such topics as unexplained but happy mysteries; love the second time around; remarkable pets, wartime occurrences, sports and outdoors adventures, sacred moments, successful aging, nostalgia, and life’s wisdom. It’s a book you can pick up for a quick pick-me-up.
Among the authors represented in Hot Chocolate for Seniors is Dora Klinova, a San Diego county resident who offers us three noteworthy tales. One called “The Little Messenger” tells of a bird that kept trying to get into the house through an upstairs window — the very window that soon would become the room for the newborn baby. The day the baby was born the bird disappeared. Was this coincidence, or a soul trying to reach its next incarnation ahead of schedule? Another story tells of her experience with the late and still missed weekly newspaper, San Diego Jewish Times, whose leaders sent her a small gray elephant, unleashing memories of a toy she had as a Jewish refugee child in Uzbekistan. The third, “The Pacifier,” tells of an infant who found a remarkable way to get her sleeping mother’s attention.
Like many other vignettes in the book, these stories prompt responses like “well, what do you know about that?” or “Can you imagine?” They’re not full reading meals, but rather light snacks, satisfying for the moment, and sometimes leaving you wanting more.
According to the book jacket, the anthology’s compiler Jan Fowler had a long career as a speech pathologist before becoming a columnist, Los Angeles-area television producer, and speaker on senior topics, as well as the founder of a nonprofit organization supporting Drug Court. Some of her stories also are included in the volume. One is “I Remember How The Fiddle Played,” in which she tells of a surprising encounter resulting from a poem that she clipped from a newspaper some decades before and carried around in her wallet. The poem by Pegasus Buchanan was called “Night Song.” Another of Fowler’s stories, “The Rummage Sale,” tells of persuading her children to donate their unused toys and clothes for the YMCA Rummage Sale. Their acquiescence earned them some money to buy any items they wanted at the sale. Can you guess what happened? A concluding piece “Senior Savvy” shares some of her wisdom. Of 14 points, I’ll quote three so you’ll get the flavor: “Mother was right — a smile may be your best asset.” “Avoid portion-distortion like the plague.” “Don’t ‘over-think’ problems. Instead, dive into solutions.”
Fowler cast a wide net in her search for uplifting stories. There are some stories from neighbors and friends, and others that she obtained permission from celebrities to reprint in this book. One story, unfortunately, was already a source of controversy when it appeared in other publications before this one. “The Girl With the Apple” by Herman Rosenblat told of his being imprisoned as a child at Buchenwald and being sustained in life and in hope by a girl who each day would toss him an apple over the fence. Many years later, in America, he met the same girl on a blind date, and after recognizing each other, they immediately married. A beautiful story, but one which historians said simply do not mesh with the awful facts of what life really was like at Buchenwald. Why do we care? Because fictionalized stories about the Holocaust presented as truth gives ammunition to the neo-Nazi Holocaust deniers, who dismiss the world’s worst genocide as a fantasy perpetrated by us Jews to win reparations.
But other stories undoubtedly are true, and for seasoning, there are contributions written by such celebrities as Rabbi Harold Kushner, former astronaut and U.S. Senator John Glenn, former California First Lady Maria Shriver, Tour de France bicyclist Lance Armstrong, and former TV anchorman Tom Brokaw.
Regarding the popular excitement that greeted the announcement that at age 77 he would return to space aboard the shuttle Discovery, Glenn commented that “older people have just as many dreams and ambitions as anybody else and …they should continue to pursue them.”
They also have wisdom, humor, whimsy, wit, knowledge, and reverence — as this anthology clearly demonstrates.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted at donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com