Small Towns In Texas And Personal Friends

When we lived in Texas in the early 1990s, we found a house in a small town in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. We liked it there because the schools were excellent and the price of houses was still affordable.

Still, in spite of the many churches in the area and the good district, people used to say that small towns in Texas in general, and our area in particular, were run like old boys' clubs.

I never believed it, especially since the people we met, our friends, were just like us: professional, hard working, and devoted to their children. Many of them were active in the school and in different activities of the PTA.

But about a year after we settled there, I was involved in a car accident. In a four-stop intersection, a car failing to stop, hit my car. Luckily I was alone in the car and no one got hurt. The other car was a mini van, and it was barely scratched. We exchanged details, and as my car was damaged, I decided to sue the driver of the other car for the deductible on my insurance.

On the appointed day we met in court. I came on my own, it was, after all, a very straightforward matter. The other driver came with her husband, who was very chummy with the judge. Apparently they knew each other and seemed like good friends.

In the short time that passed from the accident till the trial day, the couple managed to sell the mini van and got a new car. Since it was in the days pre smart-phone cameras, it was no longer possible to see any evidence of the collusion and to explain to the judge what had happened exactly.

It took only minutes for that judge to rule in favor of the other party. Needless to say, none of my friends was surprised, I was stunned.

After several occurrences like that, I was relieved when we moved away and no longer lived in a place where the old boys system could affect the outcome of the simplest case of traffic violation.

However, this anecdote is not that different from the embarrassing opinion article  and television appearance of the doctor friend of the Shalom family who denounced the unfair treatment of the couple, and lamented their plight as an orphan (Silvan) and a widow (Judy).

Even if it is conceivable to imagine such gestures on local Television in small towns in Texas, we shouldn’t tolerate them here in Israel.

It is bad enough to think that for years people knew about Shalom’s secret hobby, and no one was brave enough to come forward and speak on behalf of the women he, allegedly, abused.

We are used to seeing  and hearing  upscale lawyers arguing of behalf of famous and infamous clients in an attempt to sway public opinion in their  favor. However, inviting personal friends to speak on national television, and appeal to viewers to feel sorry for fallen celebs, is not only manipulative and parochial, but it makes the media almost a partner in crime

The essay appeared in the Times Of Israel

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/small-towns-in-texas-and-personal-friends/://blogs.timesofisrael.com/small-towns-in-texas-and-personal-friends/

Judging A Town By Its Library

 MAR.18.2013 

 I have always loved libraries, as a child I walked to the local library, a 30 minute walk, twice a week to check out books. In those days in Israel we didn’t own books but got them from the library. In my private collection I only had my most precious books, about 30, those that my brother bought for me; among them were all the children books by Erich Kastner. 

Although thanks to that library in Haifa I could read all the books that I ever wanted , it wasn’t a  real library, there was no place to sit or to hang out. Rather it looked more like a storage place for books. Only when I was 24 year old and my husband and I were graduate students  at the University of Toronto did I get to see, for the first time, a real public library.

The main public library in Toronto is a beautiful building that has every possible book. There I spent many hours listening to recordings of Shakespeare’s  plays so that I could understand the plays that I had to read for my seminar. To this day before I go to see a Shakespeare play I study it in the same way.

Later when we arrived to Iowa City IA(where my husband Tzvi got his first job as an assistant professor at the university), the public library was the first sign that we  arrived to a small yet civilized place. The public library in Iowa City is prominently situated in the center of town. When we lived there the library was a happy place full with children and their parents, teenagers on their own, retirees with time on their hands to read the papers and people who just came to check out books.

 When we moved away from Iowa City to, what seemed like, a similar small town in Texas, I should have read the signs that this place was quite different from Iowa City when I visited the substandard library. Indeed, to compensate for the void in the library and supplement my daughters’ general education, I had to spend  days in used books stores looking for good books for them to read.

Several years ago, Tzvi had to undergo a medical treatment in the Mayo Clinic. Together We walked through, what seemed like, endless corridors to get to the public library in Rochester MI. When we finally found it, the well-lit library was literally one ray of sunshine in an otherwise gloomy period. 

Whenever I visit a new town, I check out , forgive the pun, its public library; by doing so you could learn a lot about the place and its priorities. Moreover, I believe that judging a town by its library is actually an efficient way to evaluate  its merit. If the library is friendly, generous, well- stocked, well- maintained and well-lit you could be pretty sure that you have made a good decision and have landed in  a good  town.