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Marjorie Gottlieb Wolfe
Syosset, New York
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A south Florida "politsyant" (policeman) was investigating a case. Even before he finished dialing 561-...., he somehow knew he'd made a mistake. The phone rang once, twice - then someone picked it up. "You've got the wrong number!" a husky male voice snapped before the line went "toyt" (dead).
Mystified, the policeman dialed again. "I said you got the wrong number!" came the voice. Once more, the phone clicked down. "How could he possibly know I had the wrong number?" the policeman asked himself. A cop is trained to be "naygerik" (curious), and concerned.
So, he dialed a "driter" (third) time. "Hey, c'mon, the voice said. "Is this you again?" "Yea, it's me. I was wondering how you knew I had the wrong number before I ever said anything."
"You figure it out!" The phone slammed down.
He sat there for a while, the receiver hanging loosely in his fingers. He called the man back and said, "The only thing I can think of is "keyner nit" (nobody) ever calls you."
"You got it!" The phone went dead for the "ferter" (fourth) time.
Chuckling, the officer dialed the man back. "What do you want now?" asked the man. "I thought I'd call just to say 'shalom-aleykhem' (hello)."
"Why?"
"Well, if nobody ever calls you, I thought maybe I should."
The policeman could "farshteyn" (understand) loneliness and the need for love He knew that when your "mazl" ((luck) is rotten, it's usually a person who can bail you out. It's not a "bukh" (book), a magazine article by feisty Dr. Phil McGraw, Oprah, or a good "vakatsye" (vacation) in Florida that save the day. It's the person who can push the right buttons.
Barbra Streisand understood that we all need someone. Rmember her words?
People who need people are the
luckiest people in the world. We're
children, needing other children,
and yet letting our grown-up pride,
Hide all the need inside...
Remember the movie "Castaway"? Jack Tom Hanks) finds himself on an undisovered "indzl" (island). He's completely alone until he discovers a "koyshbol" (basketball) manufactured by Wilson. Soon the basketball is given a "ponim" (face), hair, and personality. Wilson breaks the aloneness.
Human contact becomes more important as we age. My mother, Jeanette Gottlieb, who passed away a few years ago, remained active until her mid 80s, teaching Bunka (Japanese needlepoint) in four different Long Island adult ed programs. Yet, each year, when I returned from a four month stay in Florida, she would ask, "Marge, you didn't BUY a home there, did you?" (I rent a condo in Lake Worth.) If you read between the lines, she was really saying, "If you move to Florida FULL TIME, I'll miss you terribly."
Why is it so "shver" (difficult) to admit that we need people? A richer, healtier life is available to us when we are willing to swallow pride and let other people know we need them.
Think about it. Without people, we have no stories. The late Chaim Potok wrote ("Old Men at Midnight"), "Without stories there is nothing. Stories are the world's memory. The past is erased without stories."
The actress, Greta Garbo, is purported to have said, "I want to be alone." In truth, few people, especially seniors, want to be alone. Barbara Bush once spoke at Wellesley College. She said, "At the end of your life you will never regret not having passed one more test, not winning one more verdict or not closing one more deal. You WILL regret time not spent with a husband, a child, a friend or a parent."
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