Thursday, December 31, 2020

A Picture's Worth

What's a picture worth in 2020?

1,000 words?  10,000?

One of these pictures was taken at the end of 2019 looking forward to the Start of 2020.

The other was taken this week, looking forward to the End of 2020.


Ah, so little has changed.  Same smiles.  Same head tilt.  Different order.

At the end of 2020 a picture isn't worth much.

The crises lie out of view.

We are changed in ways the picture can't capture.

So when we ask the kids what lessons they've gleaned from 2020 and they can't answer.  I think I understand.

It's still open, the wound too fresh, and most importantly it's not over.  Years end on December 31st, not viruses.  

But it will come.

We often don’t feel the impact of big things until much later.  

Even something physical like a punch to the gut, a bop on the head.  There is some immediate pain, but the real damage can take years.
  
What will last longer?  The grandparent cancelling all they look forward to, the parent trying to balance work and homeschooling from the same kitchen table, the lost years of childhood socialization, the lost school year, the single adult who lived for months without physical contact, the student who missed prom/graduation/freshman year, the business owner who was shut down through no fault or mismanagement, the career put on hold.  The adult "children" who again slept under the covers of their childhood binky.

And how about all the sandwiched adults worrying about their business, their aging parents, their aging adult children.

Asked to rank 2020 in terms of Work, Family and Personal a group of middle-age business leaders said:

Family ranked highest, with moments of sunshine through the clouds, an unexpected filled nest.

Even those most tormented by Work admitted to unifying moments:  The extra mile by the quiet employee, the appreciated company-funded healthcare, the government loan that built a bridge.

And here was the kicker.  No matter how good the balm of family moments or how rich the business pivot, their Personal well-being ranked far behind.

The business might have survived or thrived, the extra time with the adult kids might have brought new understanding, but deep down they are just are trying to hold it together because the maxim that "it's all gonna be fine" just didn't sound as believable in 2020. 

The nice thing about New Years is our mind change along with the calendar.

We talk about next year, not last year.  And that is the reason for the smiles which makes them believable and worth a lot.

Happy New Year.







Tuesday, November 3, 2020

Go Vote, We All Need Some Sleep

 I don’t sleep anymore

I know I’m not alone.  Nothing makes you feel less special than an article in the New York Times chronicling something you thought was yours.

According to the Mayo Clinic there are six keys to getting a restful night sleep.  Number six is "Manage Your Worries"

As someone said:  “Atleast in a nightmare you get some sleep.”

But it’s not just my nightmare, both sides believe this election is the beginning of the end if the other side wins.  

Eighty (80%) percent of Biden voters say that if Trump wins we slide into a dictatorship.

Ninety (90%) percent of Trump voters believe if Biden wins we slide into Socialism.

I don’t sleep well because I don't know the rules anymore.

I don't know what to believe.

I don't know where the guardrails are.

There is this fall back position that things always turn out all right, the pendulum swings back, what's the worst that can happen?

I don't even trust metaphors, truisms or conventional wisdom.

I want to believe that there are consequences for bad behavior.

I want to believe if you skirt the law you aren’t rewarded, if you skirt convention you’re not re-elected.

I can read history with all the clarity that distance provides and see that Nixon did something bad, he got caught, his own party turned their back on him, and justice was delivered.

This year isn't about listening to tapes 30 years later.  This is Mitch McConnell playing dirty poker in broad daylight, and winning. 

This is Lindsay Graham basically saying “read my lips” and then lying.  And there are no consequences.

I want to live in a country that believes in something, not someone.  

A country that believes in some science, some history, some ideas, some set of facts.  

I want to live in a country where institutions matter, where we can rely on medical testing or the CDC or NIH or the WHO or NATO or DOJ to protect us.

But it’s all been sullied now.

I hope this moment in our history is a parenthesis in our national narrative. 

A business colleague from Germany reminded me recently that "The world forgives when a country makes bad choices."

But will they forgive if we do it again?

Election Day used to be fun.  I would bring the kids into the voting booth, get a sticker.  


But now?

Springsteen said earlier this week we are "rudderless and joyless"

Fun has been stripped from our national narrative.

The bar for inspiration is so low that this 3-minute panel discussion from the Newsroom brought me backAsked what makes America the greatest country in the world?  The conservative says Freedom, the liberal says "diversity and opportunity.”  But wait for it…  

Watch the whole clip --link below-- because the answer isn’t just that we aren't anymore.  

But that we can be again.

 So go Vote.  We all need some sleep.

Newsroom/Jeff Daniels/Aaron Sorkin, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WxdaU9AsnU

 




Friday, June 12, 2020

Measuring Demand in a Time of Uncertainty

 


What do you do if you are in the business of market sizing and predicting consumer behavior and the markets get shut and consumers forced inside?

The COVID-19 pandemic is the biggest disruptor to hit the global economy, and our everyday lives.

When this is all over, what will people want? Other than shaking hands, what else will change?

As one of our analysts put it: “Next month, if we are set free, you may schedule that business trip that you should have taken last month. But you will run out to get that long overdue haircut. The trouble is, you won’t get two haircuts. That money is gone.”

Most recent crises were financially driven: The dot com bust, the financial crisis of 2008.  So while deliberately shutting down many sectors of the world economy is a moment without history, our experience from other sudden changes give us guidance about how sudden shocks to these industries are resolved.

We believe consumer response to this crisis will be faster and more robust because of the strength of the underlying economy when this began, which differentiates it from the most recent economic declines. There will be pent up demand. The market for various products will change, but how much and for how long?

How do we frame this moment?

We look to past events to learn how product demand is affected by market variables and then use projections of those market variables to anticipate how demand will evolve in the future. But it’s not just the mechanics, the process, the numbers, it’s how and why those relationships held in the past and why they might change in the future.

This is not BIG DATA. It’s deliberately small data with big analysis. We take topics where there is limited information like copper piping or flat glass and we create market data and insights.

We are like the archeologists who find a handful of dinosaur bones, but can create the entire dinosaur skeleton from them.  We take a small amount of information, and through associated data, research, and expertise, build it out into the entire picture of an industry.

But it starts with data.  Take the healthcare market for sanitizers and disinfectants. There is no published data on this market at the industrial and institutional level. So we look at the number of healthcare facilities in a certain region, the square footage of these places, and the facility type to estimate how much they are using. Then we might look at hospital expenditures, healthcare acquired infections, and how that is driving demand.

And then of course, there’s the human factor.  After various historical events we have feared flying, feared trains, feared crowds. Now we fear people, closeness, nose scratching and running out of toilet paper.

Market researchers are modern day fortune tellers.

But we don’t read palms.  Beyond the data it’s all about relationships and the factors that make them change.  Predicting the future is all about understanding the past, even in a time without precedent.

Friday, May 15, 2020

PPP is a chance to Pause, Plan and Pivot

 


PPP is more than just a Payroll Protection Program, it is a chance to Pause, Plan and Pivot.

There are any number entrepreneur/investor idioms being thrown around about how to run your business in a crisis: fix the plane while flying is the one being tossed our way.

We are in the midst of the third cataclysmic economic event of our company’s life -- We raised our first round of financing just weeks before the dot com bust, launched our business nine months before 9/11, and then we purchased a business that sold into the financial markets just months before my CFO came to me and said, “Lehman Brothers can’t pay their bill.”  I told him he was nuts.

Years ago, during one very productive time a member of my team asked: “We feel like Lucy in the chocolate factory, when do we exhale?”

There is never a break, the machine keeps producing candy, the clock keeps ticking, but now we are being given a moment to breathe, sharpen the saw, check the compass, fill the tank.

The PPP program, while not perfect, for many companies is doing exactly what it set out to do:  help businesses keep their employees while they reassess and recalibrate in a market that’s been deliberately shut down. And I think it’s a perfectly good way for the government to act at this moment without precedent.

There are lots of arguments regarding government help for businesses in times of crisis, but what is a business to do?  Currently the government requires us, for the public good, to move from our office, set up our employees to work remotely, and try to sell our wares in an economy that we are deliberately contracting.

So the crie de coeur of an entrepreneur is to pivot.  Change directions.  Make ventilators not cars, hand sanitizer not gin. But not everyone can and so instead of crashing the plane this program says we’re gonna give you 8 weeks to pay your employees, bring back those you may have furloughed and figure out how turn to navigate.

The government here is acting as a partner and saying, “Look, we’re gonna shrink your market and squeeze some of your customers and maybe even your margins, but instead of figuring this out in mid-flight, we’re gonna build a runway for you in the middle of the ocean, let’s see what you can do.”

When the program was announced we didn’t give it much thought because our first instinct is always to turn inward, toward the team, our group of advisors, never to the government. 

But we’re a midsized company.  We’re not too big to fail. We’re too important to fail. 

Too important to our employees.  Too important to their families, to their children and their parents and their mortgage-holders and their insurance agents and their car leaseholders and their pets and their co-workers and our office leaseholders and our health insurance company and the hundreds of partners, customers and vendors who rely on the protection of this paycheck, from us.

This plan was conceived to help small companies and their employees.  We’ve been given the space, now it’s up to us to get back in the air and soar.

Monday, May 4, 2020

Graduation Cancelled, Life Postponed, the Kids are Alright





















Mine was cold and rainy.  Hers was sun-drenched.

We drank cheap champagne. Really cheap. She ate expensive Zingermans, and without the wait.

Someone must have had a disposable camera and taken these lovely pictures that show the grayness of the day and the distinct lack of pomp and circumstance.  Her day was meticulously documented on Snapchat and Instagram.

This weekend my daughter graduated from the same university I left 31 years ago.

Our speaker was unremarkable.  I had to Google the speech to remember who spoke and what he said.

She watched on Zoom.  Some friends put together a makeshift commencement speech and everyone worked really hard to make it nice.

Graduation is like New Year's Eve, lots of build up and often, no delivery.

Had we been in Ann Arbor there would have been complaints:  it's too hot, it's too cold, this person spoke too long or too short.  There was none of that.

The moms made up a poem and read it to the girls. Throughout the weekend everyone got Face-time with the graduate and it was memorable.

There's been an outpouring of concern, lamenting what these kids lost or how they were gypped out of their day.

Rituals are important, they create memories.  But sometimes it's the hiccup in the line of rituals that makes them memorable.

The graduation cancellation is a microcosm of the past 7 weeks. The frustrations and disappointments of daily life fade away and the world is a little fresher because we are putting a new stamp on it.

But I am impressed watching this generation surf these waves of disappointment: Interviews on hold, jobs postponed, internships cancelled, plans changed.

In the words of Pete Townsend, "The Kids Are Alright."

There have been tears during these four years.  I remember the moment she found out she had gotten in.  It was during winter break, when "everyone" had heard the day before.  The website kept crashing and then, the tears.

The moment she walked into that dorm, we drove away and I thought we'd never have her home again...Tears, although they were mine.
The ups and downs of life at college are bound to bring successes and disappointments.  But the moment she got a text from the University saying "classes are cancelled, go home," must have been the worst.

She texted me and said, "I think I just walked out of my final college class." (tears)

That's the part that stings.  Her mindset had been:  Two more months of closure, final parties, final trips to Skeeps, final favorite meals, and then someone tells you that you've already had the last one.  No more classes, no more crowded bars or pre-games.  Those are hard moments for a college kid. For
anybody.

But they rolled with it, made it home (more tears), adjusted their lens, found new ways to apply for jobs and finish out their classes. And at the end of the weekend, after all the planning and re-planning the consensus was, they felt loved.

It wasn't what they planned, and that's okay. A great lesson to finish out their college career.  "The kids are alright."







Thursday, April 30, 2020

Whither the handshake?

 


So what will really change when we emerge from our houses to the world’s altered landscape?

Yes, bowling shoes, buffets and salad bars will become remnants of a time when we could still breath near each other. But one staple of business meetings, interviews and 3-martini lunches, the handshake, is on the chopping block to become a COVID casualty.

During quarantine I’ve watched commercials and old television shows (Pre-March 1st) in  horror as people shake hands and then eat a meal. It’s suddenly as unpleasant as the endless videos showing a sneeze plume traversing the shelves of a grocery store and smothering the unsuspecting.

There has been some inspired improvisation, but nothing says hello like grabbing someone’s hand and making a sawing motion.

It’s one of the first formulas of adulthood from my father: Good eye contact plus firm handshake equals good impression. 

But what could replace it?

I’ve seen the boot touch, but it seems to require a bit too much dexterity to become widespread.

There is the Namaste bow, a slight bend at the waist, prayer hands in front, but I’m sure it will have its detractors.

The elbow touch, was demonstrated in all its uncomfortable awkwardness by Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders in their empty debate hall.

The fist bump, as well as the high five are way too close to the handshake, far too much skin contact.

There is the wink which has the advantage of obeying the six feet of social distancing but could get awkward real quick.

They say President Kennedy’s discomfort with headwear signaled the demise of the hat business in the United States. But like many things that might be returning we could see a reemergence of the fedora, the panama hat, perhaps the bowler leading to a return of the hat tip.

There’s always the curtsy or a bow one might do before a queen, but once we start having differences for men and women, there’s lots of judgment.

The end-of-the-performance bow, where the arm unfurls a la Liberace might make a comeback.

A dancing friend suggested parties mirror each other like the Macarena or the Electric Slide. Again this could favor the more gifted or rhythmically inclined.

It’s very hard to be bad at the handshake, other than being too soft or too strong which is only then known by the recipient. Being bad at a dance move as you walk up to a table of strangers might not be the entrance one is looking for.

Perhaps the hand clap: You walk up to a table and each of you burst into a round of mutual applause. But when do you stop?

The wave:  Not the hand wave, but the wave they do at stadiums. You enter a room of strangers and everyone stands one at a time. Yes it’s one-sided but very welcoming. It could encourage people to show up late for meetings.

The hand over heart is a gesture sometimes seen on stage by grateful performers or speakers as a way of thanking their audience. While often confused with cardiac trouble, it might fit the occasion.

But is there anything that could really replace the intimacy of the handshake: the grip, the ability to get close to someone, the chance to really size up a person from the start?

Should the coronavirus linger in a divided country unable to agree on much, perhaps exchanging a hand wipe, a pair of latex gloves and a thermometer are the best way to kick things off.

Saturday, April 18, 2020

How We Got Here...Notes to Myself



February 28 Corona is taking over, the Virus not the beer.

February 29 The market is down 2500 points, a daughter in Florida on Spring Break, another in New Orleans...Mardi Gras.  My son takes the subway in New York every day to work.

March 2 Pete Buttigieg wins Iowa, or not.  Went to see a novelist speak at an overcrowded independent bookstore.  She said it feels like we are in a flashback sequence of a pandemic movie when things were normal, and we didn’t know what was ahead.

March 3 College kids are being recalled from abroad.  My business trip to London gets cancelled

March 4 A friend cancels his 50th birthday party. I wash my hands until they are chapped. 

March 9 I took the subway in New York and the Amtrak home.  Someone coughed on the train and everyone got up and left the car.

March 10 Biden’s deficit in Michigan has turned into a 20-point surplus, how?  The market is plunging.

March 11 Everything changed.  The market approached bear territory, the World Health Org classified it a Pandemic and Trump is addressing the nation.

I’m supposed to go to the Washington Capitals game tomorrow, but the DC government said there should not be gatherings over 1,000 people.

March 12 The headlines scream:  The day the sports world stopped

March 13 We move employees home.

March 14 One daughter comes home from New Orleans.  

March 15 My College senior texts me: “They just cancelled graduation”

March 17 Today a new term, “shelter in place” where New Yorkers may have to stay where they are.

March 18 They are saying months now. The Treasury Secretary says we could be in for 20% unemployment. They want to send everyone $1000 checks. We get our son home from New York

March 19 OpenTable said reservations in its top cities from Boston to Washington went to zero, as in none, not one.

March 20 Images emerge over China and California with clear skies.  Fish in the Venice canals.  Car plants close in Detroit. Tax Day gets moved

March 21 Once impressive companies like Airbnb, WeWork, and Uber sound like terrible ideas.  Sharing offices, using other people’s cars and houses?

March 23-The Washington Post has a sports page, but no sports section

March 24 I see a bird building a nest outside my window.  He too must be working from home.

March 25 On a conference call I actually saw a squirrel digging for acorns.  And finding them.  The Olympics are postponed

March 26-India and the UK close for 21 days.  Three million people in the US file for jobless claims

March 29 2,000 people have died

March 30 Here comes the week that matters:  Will people pay their rent, their mortgages, their employees?  They build a field hospital in Central Park

April 1 One rag put it perfectly: “At least 835 people died today, the stock market dropped almost 5 percent and it just feels like Wednesday.”

Death toll predictions skyrocket to 100,000-240,000

April 2- We are making salary cuts.  The DNC postpones the convention and Wimbledon is cancelled

April 3 6.6 million file for unemployment.  A friend’s mom dies, and we have Shiva by Zoom

April 6 The Queen speaks to calm everyone

April 7 The UK Prime Minister goes into intensive care.  Some good news, they think the curve is flattening

April 8 The most oft repeated phrase at our Zoom Seder is not Dayenu, but “I can’t hear you”

April 9 Bernie Sanders drops out of the Presidential race

April 10 Economy in free-fall, cries the headline.

April 11 I'm halfway through Tiger King

April 12 Talk of "re-opening" the country emerges in earnest.

April 13 A raccoon comes up to our porch and looks in the window.

April 14 More cars on the road then there have been, people are emerging.

April 15 Out of boredom the girls dye my gray hair.  I look like I'm wearing a Dracula wig.  I learn, too late, that you can't just rinse it out.  It needs to grow out. This could take awhile

April 16 People in Michigan march on the Capitol chanting "Set us free"

April 17 Trump tweets "Liberate Michigan"  The stock market rallies on signs of a positive clinical trial, 22 million unemployed

Sunday, April 12, 2020

How we got here...Notes to myself

 

Notes to myself:

February 28 Corona is taking over, the Virus not the beer. 

February 29 The market is down 2500 points, a daughter in Florida on Spring Break, another at school in New Orleans preparing for Mardi Gras.  My son takes the subway in New York every day to work.

March 2 Pete Buttigieg is wins Iowa, or not.  Went to see a novelist speak at an overcrowded independent bookstore.  She said it feels like we are in a flashback sequence of a pandemic movie when things were normal, and we didn’t know what was ahead.

March 3 College kids are being recalled from abroad.  My business trip to London gets cancelled, not so much for fear of getting sick, but getting stranded.

 March 4 A friend cancels his 50th birthday party. I wash my hands until they are chapped. I flinch every time I scratch my nose.

March 9 I took the subway in New York and the Amtrak home.  Someone coughed on the train and everyone got up and left the car.

March 10 Biden’s deficit in Michigan has turned into a 20-point surplus, how?  The market is plunging.

March 11 Today everything changed.  The market approached bear territory, the World Health Org classified it a Pandemic and Trump is addressing the nation.

 

I’m supposed to go to the Washington Capitals game tomorrow, but the DC government said there should not be gatherings over 1,000 people.  Are they going to cancel?

 

March 12 The headlines scream:  The day the sports world stopped

March 14 One daughter comes home from school in New Orleans

March 15 My College Senior texts me: “They just cancelled graduation”

March 17 Today a new term, “shelter in place” where New Yorkers may have to stay where they are.

March 18 They are saying months now. The Treasury Secretary says we could be in for 20% unemployment. They want to send everyone $1000 checks. Biden is sweeping the primaries

We get our son home from New York

March 19 Restaurant reservation site OpenTable said reservations in its top cities from Boston to Washington went to zero, as in none, not one.

March 20 Images emerge over China and California with clear skies.  Fish in the Venice canals.  Car plants close in Detroit. Tax Day gets moved

March 21 Once impressive companies like Airbnb, WeWork, and Uber sound like terrible ideas.  Sharing offices, using other people’s cars and houses?

March 23-The Washington Post has a sports page, but no sports section

March 24 It feels like the world stopped spinning

March 25 The Olympics are postponed

March 26-India and the UK close for 21 days.  Three million people in the US file for jobless claims

March 29 2,000 people have died

March 30 Here comes the week that matters:  Will people pay their rent, their mortgages, their employees?

They build a field hospital in Central Park

April 1 Axios put it perfectly: “At least 835 people died today, the stock market dropped almost 5 percent and it just feels like Wednesday.”

Death toll predictions skyrocket to 100,000-240,000

April 2- I tell my employees we are making salary cuts.  The DNC postpones the convention and Wimbledon is cancelled

April 3 6.6 million file for unemployment.  A friend’s mom dies, and we have Shiva by Zoom

April 6 The Queen speaks to calm everyone

April 7 The UK Prime Minister goes into intensive care.  Some good news, they think the curve is flattening

April 8 We have Seder over Zoom.  The most oft repeated phrase is not Dayenua, but “I can’t hear you”

April 9 Bernie Sanders drops out of the Presidential race

April 10 Our office landlord writes us notes telling us the office is open and clean, even though we can’t go there.

Deaths top 100,000.

Saturday, March 21, 2020

The Kippah Drawer via JewishFiction.net

The Kippah Drawer


The Kippah Drawer
By Rob Granader

The drawer was stuffed.
 
When he tugged at the wooden knob, a fluff of velvet and satin bulged out. It always happened when he opened this drawer, one of only two drawers in his small dining room. He never emptied it. He’d only overstuff it, which required him to kneel down, his eighty-nine-year-old knees crackling like dry twigs as he picked up the escaped yarmulkes, kissing them gently before packing them back in the drawer.
 
Except for the one he had on his head for that evening.
 
Yossi lived alone and only wore his yarmulke on the Sabbath, but his drawer runneth over with not one or two or three of these skullcaps worn by Jews to show their reverence for God. He had dozens upon dozens, his drawer a time machine of simchas, happy occasions.
 
There were nights, now more than before, when he couldn’t sleep. He’d been alone for so long, but he had felt it more keenly in the past year. He wasn’t sure why. Perhaps it was his bladder, waking him in the middle of night, now frightening him in some way. Or maybe that large bed that he once shared with his wife was getting bigger as he got smaller, and so when his leg stretched to the vast emptiness on the other side, the chill from the untouched sheets would startle him and jerk him awake.
 
On these nights he would lie there hoping, praying, that he would fall back to sleep. When it did not happen, he’d get out of bed and tread the cold floor of his apartment to the drawer. And with the thin light that hung above, he’d dive his hand into the drawer and swim it around as if he were picking out a raffle ticket. He’d open a yarmulke and hold it up to the light, stretching his arm and pulling it close to read the names and dates of the people imprinted on the inside.
 
There was only one that needed no reminding. One navy blue kippah with gold trim and the date June 26, 1950. It was the lone remaining artifact from his wedding day. It was the one he wore most often and the one he could find, by feel, in the dark.
 
When a Jewish child turns thirteen, the family buys a set of one hundred kippot and imprints them with the name and date of the event. Every time a Jewish couple gets married, another hundred or so get printed. Sometimes Yossi wondered why he didn’t go into the kippah business instead of the accounting business. Some guests would take the head coverings and wear them for the service, others dropped them in a box outside the sanctuary when the service was over, and some never picked them up. Still others, at the end of the service, absently left them on their heads or stuffed them in pockets to be found the next time they put on a suit.
 
Yarmulkes come in many flavors. Soft knit ones that only stay on with a clip. Others are velvet, hemmed in by a lace border, grabbing the head whether covered in hair or freshly shaven.
And while Yossi and Malka never had children, thereby never having the extra seventy-five or so yarmulkes from a simcha of their own, he had not missed a Shabbat service in fifty years. He had seen hundreds of b’nai mitzvot as boys and girls walked across the bima and made their case for being an adult in the eyes of the Jewish people. He’d pocketed dozens from weddings.
 
So each week as the guests filed out of the sanctuary for the free food, sweet wine, and small cakes on doilies, he’d put a skullcap in his coat pocket.
 
And his collection grew.
 
“This is what you decided to collect?” Malka said one night as he filled the drawer. “Fabergé eggs wouldn’t work?”
 
But for him the collection was a symbol of many things: his Judaism, his friendships, his years. For Yossi the filled drawer was like a collection of mitzvot, of good deeds, that built on itself over his life. This was the physical manifestation of all those prayers which made his life worthwhile.
 
“How do your fancy friends measure their worth?” he’d once asked Malka after a service where the bar mitzvah “theme” was some kind of video game. “Do they know how ludicrous they look standing in the sanctuary dressed as a Martian making Star Wars puns?  Are they proud that their grandfather can’t get through the Hamotzi without notecards?”
 
“Their assets, is that the measure? Their bank accounts, their houses? The vacations, the deals from long ago? They don’t tell their story,” he’d said.
 
They couldn’t go into a dark room and watch the movie of their lives in a way that was as fulfilling as sitting on the floor recalling all the days of his life in synagogue. Maybe others had some ledger of good deeds, but for Yossi there was his drawer. It wasn’t just that he’d attended all these events, but they represented days he’d spent in prayer, words he’d chanted over hundreds of hours of ancient texts. This was a visual representation of all he’d done.
 
“But none of them are ours,” Malka would say.
 
“They are all ours,” he said. “We’ve been to every one of these.”
 
“We didn’t matter,” she said.
 
“Without us maybe they wouldn’t have had a minyan,” he said.     
 
When they were younger Yossi and Malka would invite friends to their Friday night table. Malka would prepare the same dishes her mother had cooked from some recipe brought from the old country, scrawled on small slips of paper and stuffed into notebooks. And Yossi would pass out kippot to his guests, trying to find ones that might interest them. He’d find the wedding of a mutual friend or the bar mitzvah of a child they once knew. He wasn’t sure if people ever noticed this planned coincidence, but sometimes it made for good conversation. Occasionally guests would walk away with a kippah by accident; it was the only time his drawer ever got smaller.
 
But inevitably he’d find these guests and remind them that he wanted the kippah back.
 
Now Yossi stood at the synagogue Shabbat table with his thimble of Manischewitz wine, looking at the faces, as he had for years. He and his friends used to congregate near one end of the long, sweets-filled table. They would edge out the children who reached for handfuls of cakes.
 
But slowly his group dwindled. Yoni stopped coming when his wife got sick. Isaac had been missing since he fell six months ago. Moe had stopped driving. But most of them just died.
 
And now he’d go to the end of the table, less interested in pushing the kids out of the way. He felt the distance from everybody, even the rabbi, who would come over and shake his hand, saying, “Good Shabbos.” But it was the new rabbi, not the one he knew for all the years. Not the one who buried Malka. He referred to this new rabbi, who always looked past him, spending more time with the people whose names graced the building’s walls, as the CEO of the synagogue.
 
Yossi looked down at the carpet between his feet and the long, white tablecloth, remembering the mark his friends had left. The big, faded stains from where his friends had spilled wine or crumbled a cookie under their feet, or where frosting was driven into the carpet. There was nobody left in the room to remember these men who built this synagogue not with their money but with their attendance. And one day they would replace the carpet or get new linens, and there literally would be no sign left of the people who stood in these places for all those Saturday mornings.
 
At the other end of the table, away from the wine, was a group of kids, friends of the bar mitzvah boy, all with matching yellow corduroy yarmulkes, the ones that the family had given out that morning. And they were dropping them on the floor without kissing them, spilling grape juice on them. One used it as a napkin to wipe the frosting from his mouth.
 
And it was at this moment that he knew it was time. He knew those kids would never have a drawer because they didn’t understand the power of ritual, the respect of the velvet,  corduroy, or knitted, cloth.
 
And so he put his small cup down and walked to where the boys were roughhousing. They stopped when this old man stood in the middle of their pushing. Yossi knelt before them picking the yarmulkes off the floor, kissing them and placing them on their heads. But there were six boys and only five kippot. So he reached into his inside pocket and took an extra one he had brought, and gently planted it on a boy’s head.
 
The boys said nothing, then slowly walked away, but not before grabbing another piece of cake.
 
Later that day as he ate his lunch alone at home, Yossi reached for his kippah, but it wasn’t on his head. It was June 26th, and he was looking for the blue one with gold trim. His own private anniversary celebration. He reached into his pockets, then looked at his drawer, but nothing. His chest tightened, he grabbed his glasses and looked again, tilting his head to one side then another to let the light pass him by and illuminate the darkened corners of the drawer. But it wasn’t there.
 
The sweat formed on his forehead and dripped into his eyes. He got up, a bit too quickly, banging his head on the opened cabinet. He reached for his head and couldn’t tell if it was sweat or blood, but he didn’t look. He hurried to his room, thrusting his hands into his jacket pockets, first one, then the next. It wasn’t there.
 
He feared that in his moment of generosity he had given it away. He grabbed his tallis bag from the counter, and there he found the kippah.
 
Yossi went to the bathroom to check on his forehead and the damage he may have done.
 
Late that night he couldn’t sleep and found himself on the floor in front of the kippah drawer. He dug down to the bottom and played with the oldest ones. He opened them slowly as some had not seen light in years. He realized that most of the kippot were of people he no longer knew or who had died some time ago. He remembered not so much the specific event, as they all ran into each other after a while, but his memory and these mementos of his friends and the couples who used to grace his Shabbat table were all he had. The only thing he had to spark their memory was this piece of cloth resting at the bottom of his darkened drawer.
 
These were his photo albums, his home movies, all waiting just for him. What a waste to sit in the dark for all these years. He realized that one of the only things that would spark a memory of him, or of Malka, might be this blue kippah he held in his hand.
 
It was time to empty the drawer.
 
It wasn’t sad thoughts that drove him to this decision. It wasn’t the empty bed or the quiet Shabbat table. There was no diagnosis, no threat, external or internal. It didn’t happen in a doctor’s office or a hospital waiting room. Standing over this drawer he found the strength to dispose of his one remaining asset.
 
And so he set out to give away a kippah a week. But his small synagogue didn’t have enough events. It would take him years, which he knew he didn’t have.
 
Each week The Jewish News arrived at his apartment, and he’d find the announcements, and then he would show up, whether he knew the family or not. And then he would plant a kippah on the heads where they were needed.
 
He no longer went with one extra kippah in his pocket. Now he walked around, his pockets full.
 
As usual he would show up early, find a seat, especially in these unfamiliar synagogues, participate in the service, watch the ceremony — the baby naming, the bar or bat mitzvah — and maybe stand and say Kaddish for somebody, for anybody who had nobody saying Kaddish for them. And then he would wait for his chance.
 
Yossi was content being there, “in the bleachers,” as he would say, apart from it all. Happy not being the “entertainment.” But when Malka was alive and they would attend events, it always bothered her.
 
“I don’t like being part of the chorus,” she would say. He had no interest in being center stage. The stress of pleasing all these people, the expectations were too much for him. He never understood why it was important for her to mingle with these fancy people who turned sacred services into social events.
 
So instead they would go to the service but leave before the Kiddish or the reception. Yossi felt disconnected from this world, but for Malka, during the three hours of the service, she felt like she was one of them. And isn’t that what these special occasions were meant to do? To make you believe you are who you want to be? So in shul she wanted to be them, and could be. He didn’t possess the power to fool himself.
 
But now, all alone, he was a guest of the best. He was at the biggest ceremonies and sometimes even stayed for the most lavish parties, mingling at the buffet, walking through the ballroom with a glass of red wine, a handful of challah he’d pulled from the middle of the loaf.
 
No one questioned the old man in the dark suit. He knew it would have made Malka happy as he walked the floor, his wedding kippah on his head.
 
And he’d look for his opening, finding a boy with his head uncovered. Yossi would grab a kippah from his pocket, kiss it, and place it there.
 
For months he would go to events to which he wasn’t invited, landing kippot on the heads of unsuspecting children. He did not know where these kippot would end up, who would drop them on the floor, who would let them fly off their heads in the parking lot. But there were some young men in that group who might reach for them one time, or see them in the mirror when they went to the bathroom that night, maybe even put them in a drawer in their home as a reminder of an event they’d never attended. These kippot were less time machine than eternal life. As long as someone wore that kippah and saw the names inscribed, then those names mattered. Week after week Yossi would dispense the kippot around town at every event where he could find a barren head. All throughout the summer and fall, and into the winter, he followed this pattern as his drawer emptied. Soon he could open the drawer without anything jumping out, and finally he was digging around the bottom finding old, faded ones.
 
On Friday nights he would open the drawer and decide which ones he’d give away the following day. In some way he was saying goodbye to these old friends before he sent them to a new head, perhaps a different house and an empty drawer.
 
The morning after he got the diagnosis, he stuffed into his pockets all the kippot that were left. Into the pants pocket, the outside jacket pocket, the inside pocket on each side, and he put the blue one on his head for the last time. He walked a little faster than usual, and maybe a little faster than a man his age should, that morning.
 
The Beckendorfs were having a bar mitzvah. When he arrived he saw a spread of lavender kippot on a wicker plate. Yossi took the plate and shook out all the lavender kippot into the wooden bin by the door. And then with great care he took the remaining kippot from his pockets, looking at each name before he lay its kippah on the tray.
 
Eternal life, he thought — that’s what he was giving these long-forgotten members and their moment in time before iPhones and Snap stories recorded everything, when the only memories were in the minds of the people, most of whom were gone. But now someone might take these kippot with them and perhaps read the name and at least ask the question: Who were these people on these dates so long ago?
 
Yossi sat in the back and could feel his heart grow as he watched the rows of children, their heads covered with the random kippot from his drawer.
 
When the service ended Yossi made his way to the Kiddish, but not before stopping at the wooden bin to take for himself one of the lavender kippot the Beckendorfs had so carefully chosen.
 
Instead of standing in his usual spot, away from the partygoers, Yossi stood amid the bar mitzvah boy and his friends.
 
The young boy who was now a man stumbled, tripping over one of his friend’s feet, his lavender kippah frisbeeing to the floor. The boy reached down, but Yossi was faster.
 
“Let me help you,” Yossi said. And with one move Yossi placed a blue velvet kippah with gold trim on the boy’s head. He held it there in place for a moment and closed his eyes.
 
The young man looked up at the old man but said nothing.
 
“Thank you,” Yossi said.

And the boy ran off, one hand holding the kippah in place.

         
Copyright © Rob Granader 2020

Rob Granader, after law school, reported on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC for a number of print news outlets in the mid-1990s, publishing more than 350 articles and essays in over 50 publications. In 1998 he started MarketResearch.com, where he is currently the founder and CEO. Rob’s work has been featured in the Washington Post, Washingtonian magazine, New York Times, and Mariashriver.com. He has won writing awards from Bethesda Magazine and Writer’s Digest and attended various workshops including the Key West Literary Seminar and the Writer’s Digest Conference in Los Angeles. He has a BA in English from the University of Michigan and a JD from The George Washington University. His writing can be found at 
www.RobGranader.com or his blog at https://expatlondon.blogspot.com