When You're Ready To Leave, You're Going First Class

I have a confession to make: I've had a "fertzik" (40)-year love affair with the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and author, Art Buchwald. Yes, my husband, Howard, knows of his competition!

Buchwald is dying from kidney and vascular ailments and resides at a hospice in Washington, D.C. He described his decision to discontinue hemodialysis as his "last hurrah." Simply stated, he said, "If you have to go, the way you go is no big deal." In an interview with Diane Rehm, he reported that he is "very happy with his choices" and is eating McDonald's on a regular basis.

USA Today reporter, Cathy Lynn Grossman, writes that Buchwald "doesn't invest a lot of time contemplating the afterlife. It's not a Jewish thing," he says. He hews to the fundamental Torah teaching that 'it's what you do on earth and the good deeds you do on earth that are important."

One blogger wrote on March 31, "Art, may the weather be inclement, and the flight to heaven canceled tomorrow and many tomorrows after that. I hope you are standby for a long time. But when you're ready, may it be the best trip ever."

Art says that he has 'death on hold.' When Mike Wallace came to visit, the taxi couldn't find a place to park. Ms. Grossman concludes her piece by writing, "People likely will know when Buchwald finds his final parking spot. From somewhere unseen, will come the sound of laughter."

What pearls of wisdom have we learned from Art Buchwald's books and articles?

1. [From the front page of USA Today, 11/7/85] Washington - President Reagan upped the ante just two weeks before his summit with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev by suggesting that the time had come to "stop futzing around."

The press chief said, "Perhaps the President misspoke and didn't mean to use the word "futzing" at all...Gorbachev was getting impatient. "We can't speculate. We have to find out exactly what his message meant or cancel the summit."

A secretary came into the room and handed a cable to the KGB director, whose eyes almost popped out of his head.

"Our language experts have tracked down the word. "It's Yiddish and means 'fooling around, or not being serious.'"

"You're crazy. What is Ronald Reagan doing speaking Yiddish?" the Foreign Minister asked.

"It makes you wonder," Gorbachev mused. "Find out what his name was before he changed it to Reagan."

"Yes, sir," the KGB director said.

"And," Gorbachev continued, "also get me a Yiddish dictionary so I can answer him in kind."

"We can't, sir. They've all been burned."

2. "klayder" (clothing)
"The reason that I am considered one of Washington's best-dressed men is that I have my shirts made in Sri Lanka, my suits in Poland, my shoes in China, and my ties in Malaysia. This is not my doing--it's what my department store ["universal-krom"] sells, and whatever country it chooses to import my clothes from I have to go along with." [What happened to the expression, "Dress British; Think Yiddish"?]

3. "valn" (election)
"Where are the principal players in the 1996 presidential election today?...President Bill Clinton was recently spotted in the White House playroom trying to build a bridge to the 21st Century. Unfortunately, it turned out the bridge came without an instruction book."

4. "arestirn" (to arrest) [Re: Mike Wallace is handcuffed and arrested in NYC]
"Mike drove to a take-out restaurant on Third Avenue for meat loaf. The traffic police said his driver was double-parked. (Mike does not drive in New York City because he can never find a place to park without paying $20 an hour.)

Mike, who was hungry, went into the take-out. When he saw that the traffic police were saying unkind things to his driver, Mike exchanged unkind words with the police. They say he lunged at them. Mike says he never lunged at anyone in his life, including Barbra Streisand...Mayor Blumberg declared meat loaf the official New York comfort food."

[And Zsa Zsa Gabor spent 3 days in prison for slapping a police officer...U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney apologized for hitting a Capitol Hill cop in the head with her cell phone. Her story continues to evolve, says Argus Hamilton. Now she says that she was trying to find out once and for all whether cell phones cause brain damage.]

5. "meditsin" (medicine)
"Why do the [anti-depressant] pills cost half the price in Canada that they do in the United States? The reason they cost so much in the U. S. is that the drug companies have to pay for research, advertising, door-to-door marketing, and of course, Caribbean cruises, golf country club memberships, Broadway theater tickets, and ski trips for doctors whom they hope will prescribe their medicines. The drug companies call Canada a 'loss leader.'"

6. "aeroplan" (airplane) [Re: Americo-Shaft Airline Co.]
"The vice president for advertising said, "We show a pilot, a stewardess and a mechanic. They will each say, 'Welcome to America-Shaft Airlines. Fly with us at half the salaries we had before.'" [And "di muzik' plays "Fly Me to the Moon"]

7. "kholemen" (to dream) [Re: doctors who hire press agents]
"Dr. Rudolph Koenig, the jet set's favorite psychiatrist announced at a press conference at Studio 54 that he would no longer take patients who want to tell them their dreams. 'It takes too much time,' said Dr. Koenig, 'and if you've heard one dream, you've heard them all.'"

8. "fakt" (fact)
"Ronald Reagan is now developing a reputation for getting all his facts wrong. I believe the only way to fight this is by holding a weekly radio and TV show, along the lines of The Answer Man, in which people could call in and ask him questions so that his answers would not be filtered through the people covering him...

"Mr. Reagan, you've taken a strong stand against the government getting involved in the lives of its citizens. Can you give us a specific example of how it is doing this?"

"Yes. When this country was founded if someone was sick, that person could go to any barber and he would bleed you with leeches. But now, HEW has ruled that barbers have to be licensed before they can do it. Most barbers refuse to fill out the paperwork required of them, and instead of the American people getting better medical care, it is costing five billion dollars more a year."

9. "moyde zayn zikh" (to confess)
"At the end of each year a pundit must examine his work and confess to any mistakes he or she committed either by accident or through malice...I was amazed to discover I had made none.

Early in April I wrote an open letter to Coach Mike Ditka of the Chicago Bears, warning him that he would become the laughingstock of football if he ever sent in a lineman called 'The Refrigerator.'"

10. "oytomobile" (automobile)
"The latest way to protest the war is by e-mail ["biltspost"]...Besides e-mail another form of protest is the automobile bumper sticker. Here are some of the latest ones:

DRIVE CAREFULLY--VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY IS IN THE TRUNK OF MY CAR

MY SUV USES MORE GAS THAN YOUR SUV

HONK IF YOU THINK THE PRESIDENT IS DOING THE RIGHT THING

HONK IF YOU THINK THE PRESIDENT IS DOING THE WRONG THING

[and in 2006, Kinky Friedman started distributing bumper stickers with slogans like "KINKY FOR GOVERNOR: HOW HARD CAN IT BE?"]

11. "onshteln tsu" (to employ) "reybn" (to scrub)
"The manager continued, 'Wal-Mart is intent on making its employees happy. That lady over there is one of our best scrubwomen. She is from China and is highly prized by management because she doesn't speak English. Every time the U. S. Immigration Authorities raid the store she hide s under the quilts and they never find her. That is the kind of person who works for us."

12. "elter" (senior)
"I don't want to be a wimp, but senior citizens have to pay $140 for a prescription. To make it up to them, they only pay $5 to go to the movies."

13. "shpitol" (hospital) [Re: turning hospitals into co-ops and condominiums]
"Look, the average hospital room comes to $300 a day; and you have to take whatever they give you. If you bought the room, you could choose your own view, decorate it the way you wanted to, and make it into a second home.. .You wouldn't have to sit through boring admission interviews, the nurses couldn't tell you what you could or could not do, and you would not have strange medical students waking you up day and night asking what's wrong with you...

"Blue Cross won't like your idea," I warned.

"Tough, Blue Cross should have thought of it first."

14. "inflatsye" (inflation)
"In l980 a corned beef sandwich on rye at Ben's cost me $1.50, including a nice large slice of dill pickle.

The same sandwich today [while Reagan was in office] costs $3, although I noticed the rye bread slices are smaller and the pickle is much thinner." [FYI: in 2006, the price for a hot corned beef sandwich at Ben's on Long Island is $8.75.]

15. "byuro" (office) sexual harassment
"I beg your pardon, I was wondering if you ladies could help me define the difference between verbal harassment and old-fashioned flirting in the office. One of the girls replied, 'If you like the guy and think he's cute, he's flirting with you. If you don't like him, he's harassing you.'"

16. "raykh" (rich)
"I'd rather be nouveau riche than not rich at all."

[And, "Ver es hot di mateye hot di deye." Whoever has the dough has the say-so.]

17. "shraybn" (to write)
"Just when you think there's nothing to write about, Nixon says, 'I am not a crook.' Jimmy Carter says, 'I have lusted after women in my heart.' President Reagan says, 'I have just taken a urinalysis test and I am not on dope."

[In 2006, when Don Imus, radio show host, asked Kinky Friedman why he was announcing his candidacy for Governor of Texas, Kinky replied that he needed more closet space.]

18. "arumforn" (to travel) [Re: only the old folks have the physical strength to travel at holiday time]
"I was flying home from Florida the day before Thanksgiving and noticed that everyone on the plane was over 70 years old...But the worst part of the trip is when I arrive and they treat me like the village idiot. Sometimes I wonder if they're right. Anyone who flies 3,000 miles to play Scrabble with his offspring can't be too well in the head."

19. "gebeks" (pastry) "beker" (baker) [Re: Kenneth Starr investigation]
"Take Simpkins, the pastry chef in the White Houe. He works in the kitchen and has never met the president or Monica Lewinsky or even fed scraps to Buddy. Starr has decided Simpkins should testify against the president and reveal the recipe for his chocolate eclairs, which possibly were eaten by Monica Lewinsky. Starr's lawyers tell Simpkin if he doesn't testify he will be making rye bread for the rest of his life on the mothballed battleship Missouri."

20. "kokteyl" (cocktail) party [Re: one-liners for the inevitable cocktail party]
"My husband is a lawyer and writes prenuptial agreements for Donald Trump"

"My daughter is hoping that her drill instructor turns out to be Mr. Right"

"My son is in Linda Tripp's wiretapping class"

21. political "sam" (poison) [Re: P-chip rating political talk shows]
"Why don't we rate political talk shows to prevent adults' minds from being poisoned by what they see and hear? For example, if a presidential candidate was slated to appear on the Larry King show, a notice would go up on the screen: 'The candidate you are about to see is going to lie through the teeth about his plans to save the country. You are advised to keep anyone of voting age out of the room while the guest is being interviewed.'"

22. "tsigar" (cigar)
"One of the greatest honors of my life was to be elected 'Cigar Man of the Year,' a distinguished award presented by the Cigar Manufacturers' Association. The payoff for attending the dinner was that I was given a year's supply of Havana cigars. (This was before the United States put an embargo on Cuban tobacco.)...cigars became a very important part of my life--they were my pacifier, my security blanket, even my Valium. Whenever I was feeling good, I put one between my lips, and whenever I was feeling bad, I lit one up."

23. "de r Yid" (the Jew) [Re: his job as a bellboy during the "Summer of '42"]
"There was a resort hotel in New Hampshire called the Mount Washington Hotel, located (not surprisingly) at the base of Mt. Washington, on 10,000 acres of land known as Bretton Woods...I was hired as a bellboy, thanks to my experience at the Nassau Hotel the previous summer. There were no questions asked about my race, creed, or religion, which was surprising Not long after I arrived at the hotel, I discovered that the Mount Washington did not take Jewish guests. I can't be too sure how they felt about Jewish employees, although as the summer wore on I suspected that I was under heavy suspicion of being 'one of them.'"

24. "barimtkayt" (celebrity) [Re: Arnold Schwarzenegger]
"This is a great country and we thrive on celebrities that are so well-known that you don't even have to use their last name. All you have to do is say 'Arnold' and someone will tell you the latest joke. Being governor of California is a dirty business, but someone has to do it." [And now,--Kinky--the dude, thinks he can be the next governor of Texas!]

25. "kol-post" (voice mail)
"For the past year I have been telephoning people all over the United States to discover that they're not there. They have been replaced by voice machines and answering service. I was determined to get through to someone just for the heck of it. My target was Ken Starr. I was told, 'Mr. Starr is on a conference call.'"

"Interrupt the call to tell him that I smashed into his car in the parking lot and I'd like to give him the name of my insurance company." [It worked!]

26. "flien" (to fly)
"There is no doubt that traveling with a child is a memorable experience that everyone would like to forget. Lindbergh had the right idea. He flew the Atlantic alone."
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Marjorie Gottieb Wolfe adheres to the philosophy that "Vi lang di oygn zenen ofn darf a mensh hofn." (Where there's life, there's hope. Literally, while the eyes are open, a person may hope.)