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Dear Friends,

Please click on the link below to read about my latest publication news.

http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewnews.asp?id=26900

Thank you,

Alan D. Busch

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Dear Friends, please click on these links to read original short stories by Alan D. Busch. You'll be taken to Authorsden.com where most of my work in presenly posted as well as my latest published pieces in several media and news of upcoming publications. Lastly, please take a moment and let me know what you thought of the writing. Praise welcome but by no means required. Constructive criticism or questions are always very welcome.

Sincerely,

Alan D. Busch

http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewshortstory.asp?id=40228

http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewshortstory.asp?AuthorID=79100&id=40319

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Dear Readers,

My Father, Albert I. Busch, DDS, Z'L passed away on October 16, 2008. I am currently working on a book tentatively entitled Stuff My Father Won't Tell Me, a memoir of our last weeks and conversations together. Please feel free to comment on this and other forthcoming chapters as I revise them.

Sincerely,

Alan D. Busch


Difficult to Leave

My father makes it very difficult for me to leave sometimes. Another Friday has arrived. Erev Shabbos, the Eve of The Sabbath, is the time when he begins to reflect. You see … my father is fashioning his cheshbon ha nefesh, his life reckoning, and I am his witness. It affords me the opportunity to see things from his inside out, to look out upon the world and see it as he
does. My father and I sit down together. He paused for a moment or two.

“Dad, are you all right?”
“Do you remember what you said?” he asked me with an expression of concern.
“About …?” I wondered.
“How you thought I was going to die when Bobbie (my dad's wife) brought me
to the emergency room?”
“Yes, I remember that very clearly …”

It was almost 4:00 on a Friday afternoon. My father lay atop his bedcovers, his head scrunched up against what appeared to be four fluffy pillows. He has appeared worn out these last several days. The “recovered and spry” dad of two weeks ago, the dad about whom I fancied might beat his cancer, seems long gone. He hasn’t changed out of his bedclothes in several days.

“Well, I wasn’t ready to die that morning son.” I listened. What is the appropriate response when one’s father says that?
“In fact,” he continued “the thought never entered my head.”
“Well, I ‘gotta’ tell you Dad, you looked terrible. I mean your skin was yellow.
You were feverish, the diarrhea was unrelenting. I thought to myself …. I really
did: ‘This is the end.’ “

Speaking of death does not disturb my father. He accepts it because he can do nothing to prevent it. I never stop learning from my father. He grimaced.

“Pain in your gut, Dad?”
“Some yes.” It’s been coming more frequently, he noted.
“I took a couple of Vicadin.”

We had gone out earlier to take care of some business. Wore him out.

“Dad, what kind of pain is it? Sharp, dull, stabbing, throbbing?”
“No. None of those. It feels ‘sore’.”
“Sore?” I wondered.
“You know, how I felt as a kid when I had eaten too many green apples.”

Now whether my father is giving me a sanitized explanation of his pain, I’m not
sure, but his grimace does not suggest “sore” to me.

“Dad, you rest this weekend,’ I advised, immediately recognizing the
presumptuousness of my recommendation.
“I’m not sleeping so well these days, Son.”
“He sleeps very little at night,” Bobbie informed me several days before of how
little he sleeps and spends hours walking around the apartment. “He does not
want to stop moving.”
“Know what I prescribe Dad?” I asked only partly in jest.
‘What?”
“Take a half cup of wine, just wine, a half cup only and a book. Climb into bed
and I guarantee you’ll be asleep within minutes.”
“Son,” my father said sternly, “I don’t drink.”
“Dad, this is not drinking. Half a cup of wine,” I pled. It was getting close to 5:00. I would have to leave soon.
“Do you have several minutes yet? Have I told you that story?”
“About … ?”
“Why I don’t drink …”

I sat back down and listened as if I had plenty of time. After all, this was my dad. Perhaps traffic would be light on a late Friday afternoon.

“Your mom and I went out to a friend’s dinner party, and I got stupid drunk. I never did like the stuff but that night … well anyway we got home, but I couldn’t make it up the stairs. Your mother was livid. So there I lie so drunk I couldn’t help myself. Then your brother Ron came out.”

Dad’s face reddened at the recollection.
“Daddy, why are you sleeping on the stairs?”
“I’m conducting a comfort test of these stairs, Son, and I think it’s not a good
idea to sleep on the stairs.” My father did not like recalling this story.

“Alan, understand?”
“Yes Dad.”
“Go home Son. It’s getting late,” he counseled. I turned to leave. He looked so far away.
“Alan, thank you,” he said excitedly. He remained seated. “You know I was
thinking back when you were a baby. You were born with a club foot. Did you
know that?” His eyes became misty. “No Dad I didn’t,” I managed to choke out
those four words.

In truth, I had heard it untold times before, but for my father, each time seemed as if it were the very first time. “And I used to turn your foot and turn your foot, again and again” he said
painfully and tearfully, showing me how he did it by twisting his hands in the manner of one who is wringing out a wet towel.

“What time do you have?” he asked me.
“4:45.”
“4.45! You better get going. I don’t want you to be late for ‘shul’.” I gathered my things.
“Have a great weekend,” I said.
“Good Shabbos,” he responded, as if correcting my salutation. He kissed me on
my cheek with the stubble of three days’ growth of beard.

Though traffic did run surprisingly quickly, it seemed as if it took me forever to get home.

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Tefilin and Teacher

I was running several minutes behind. I feared I was going to miss the Rabbinical Kaddish for my dad who had passed away several weeks before. In my rush to be on time, I made a mental note to take my Parkinson’s meds before I ran out the door. I had begun to slow down, my movements were becoming labored and I sensed a slight increase in what I call my "trembling index" which, should it exceed a certain level without additional medicine-makes it virtually impossible for me to put my tefillin on.

"Oh no! 6:03!" I glanced at the time on my cell phone. Brochos had begun promptly at 6:00.If there were already a minyan, I had approximately four minutes before it reached the Rabbinical Kaddish. If I cut through the alley, I could be in shul in less than a minute. I rushed over and down the hallway to the beis medrash."Al Yisroel v'al rabbonam …” I tried to catch up, but my heart was pounding, my legs and left hand trembling rather noticeably.

This wasn’t the first time this had happened. The worst part is not the temporary physical incapacity but the self-consciousness I feel. I don’t want anyone’s pity or assistance although Rabbi Louis has helped me to rewind my tefilin and fold my tallis on more than several occasions.“Calm down a bit,” I muttered to myself, realizing then I had forgotten my meds.

Minyan was crowded that morning. Two new fellows had shown up to my right. Ordinarily a table of three, we had grown to five. I felt cramped. “This is not going to work,” I thought, clumsily trying to unfold my talis. My fingers were stiff and uncooperative. I gathered up my stuff. “I need lots more room,” I thought while opening the door to the main sanctuary. I could hear the chazzan …"Yishtabach shimcha ..." “I’ve got to get back in there before “Shema” I thought, managing finally to get my talis and tefilin on after ten minutes.On such mornings, the privacy does help.

“Borechu es …”

I checked my Rosh quickly and reentered the beis medrash in plenty of time for Shema.

“…ukshartam l’os al yadecha v’hayu letotafos bein einecha …” I felt better. I had really earned it.

Find Thyself A Teacher

Actually, it was he who found me when I wandered one evening into the traditional minyan where he served as gabbai. The only thing I knew about yiddishkeit was that I didn’t know anything about yiddishkeit. I do not know why Mr. Irwin Parker took a personal interest in me but I am thankful he did. Perhaps I reminded him of someone he had lost in his first life. An apothecary by training in pre-war Poland, who later survived Mauthausen, Reb Isser, as I affectionately came to call him, stooped forward, a result of the beatings the kapos had inflicted. The same perpetrators broke his nose repeatedly. Never reset properly, it became permanently misshapen, its tip misaligned with a crushed bridge. Other beatings damaged his eyesight, causing his left eye to float.

One afternoon he took out a small blue velvet bag from inside the portable bima.

“Roll up your sleeve,” he nodded toward my left arm. “Slip your arm through this loop and slide it up to your bicep.”

“Like this?’ I wondered, my legs shaking.

“No, no. You see this knot? It has to be on the inside facing your heart.”

“Oh, okay. I got it.” We tightened the slip knot to my bicep and wound the black leather strap seven times around my forearm.

“Nu?” he waited. “Mach a brocho …”

“ … al mitzvas tefilin?” I asked reluctantly.

“No no!”“ … le haniach tefilin, right?”

“Yes. Now the Rosh. Remember? Bein einecha.”

“Okay, got it. How’s this?” hopeful I had gotten it right.

“Ach, a yiddishe man!’ he kvelled.

I felt like such a kid. Being shown the ways of our fathers by a righteous man who had survived their worst travails was a humbling experience. Reb Isser bore the moral authority of one whose quiet tenacity to overcome permanent injuries provided indisputable proof that a new pharaoh had, in fact, arisen to destroy us a generation of years before. Being with and learning from older men had never been a problem for me. As a boy, I had been taught to rise up before the hoary head. What struck me though at first about Reb Isser was his uncanny resemblance to my grandpa Harry Austin (Astrinsky).

I invited him home one afternoon for a cup of tea. When I showed him a photo of my Grandpa Harry, he was nearly speechless, but it wasn’t his likeness alone that attracted me. Exactly as I had seen my grandpa do years before, Reb Isser put a sugar cube between his lower lip and gum before he sipped his tea. More than merely a quaint custom, I knew it represented nothing less than a sweet fragment of an old world.

Reb Isser once likened the tefilin shel yad to a telephone hand set and the shel rosh to itsreceiver. Our tefilos, extending the metaphor, are long distance calls which, he hastened to emphasize, become less costly if dialed frequently-a divine telephone service package if you like.

Whether one views the mitzvah of tefilin as did Reb Isser or as a bridge that joins us through avodas Ha Shem to the Exodus and forward to today’s tomorrow, Reb Isser was the handiwork of The One Above, one of His original prototypes of which there have been few copies.

Alan D. Busch
2/9/09


“

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Tefilin and Teacher

I was running several minutes behind.

I feared I was going to miss the Rabbinical Kaddish for my dad who had passed away several weeks before. In my rush to be on time, I made a mental note to take my Parkinson’s meds before I ran out the door. I had begun to slow down, my movements were becoming labored and I sensed a slight increase in what I call my "trembling index" which, should it exceed a certain level without additional medicine-makes it virtually impossible for me to put my tefillin on.

"Oh no! 6:03!" I glanced at the time on my cell phone. Brochos had begun promptly at 6:00.If there were already a minyan, I had approximately four minutes before it reached the Rabbinical Kaddish. If I cut through the alley, I could be in shul in less than a minute. I rushed over and down the hallway to the beis medrash."Al Yisroel v'al rabbonam …” I tried to catch up, but my heart was pounding, my legs and left hand trembling rather noticeably.

This wasn’t the first time this had happened. The worst part is not the temporary physical incapacity but the self-consciousness I feel. I don’t want anyone’s pity or assistance although Rabbi Louis has helped me to rewind my tefilin and fold my tallis on more than several occasions.“Calm down a bit,” I muttered to myself, only then realizing I had forgotten my meds.

Minyan was crowded that morning. Two new fellows had shown up to my right. Ordinarily a table of three, we had grown to five. I felt cramped. “This is not going to work,” I thought, clumsily trying to unfold my talis. My fingers were stiff and uncooperative. I gathered up my stuff. “I need lots more room,” I thought while opening the door to the main sanctuary. I could hear the chazzan …"Yishtabach shimcha ..." “I’ve got to get back in there before “Shema” I thought, managing finally to get my talis and tefilin on after ten minutes.On such mornings, the privacy does help.“Borechu es …”I checked my Rosh quickly and reentered the beis medrash in plenty of time for Shema. “…ukshartam l’os al yadecha v’hayu letotafos bein einecha …” I felt better. I had really earned it.

Find Thyself A Teacher

Actually, it was he who found me when I wandered one evening into the traditional minyan where he served as gabbai. The only thing I knew about yiddishkeit was that I didn’t know anything about yiddishkeit. I do not know why Mr. Irwin Parker took a personal interest in me but I am thankful he did. Perhaps I reminded him of someone he had lost in his first life.

An apothecary by training in pre-war Poland, who later survived Mauthausen, Reb Isser, as I affectionately came to call him, stooped forward, a result of the beatings the kapos had inflicted. The same perpetrators broke his nose repeatedly. Never reset properly, it became permanently misshapen, its tip misaligned with a crushed bridge. Other beatings damaged his eyesight, causing his left eye to float.

One afternoon he took out a small blue velvet bag from inside the portable bima.“Roll up your sleeve,” he nodded toward my left arm. “Slip your arm through this loop and slide it up to your bicep.”“Like this?’ I wondered, my legs shaking.“No, no. You see this knot? It has to be on the inside facing your heart.”“Oh, okay. I got it.”We tightened the slip knot to my bicep and wound the black leather strap seven times around my forearm.“Nu?” he waited. “Mach a brocho …”
“ … al mitzvas tefilin?” I asked reluctantly.“No no!”“ … le haniach tefilin, right?”
“Yes. Now the Rosh. Remember? Bein einecha.”“Okay, got it. How’s this?” hopeful I had gotten it right. “Ach, a yiddishe man!’ he kvelled. I felt like such a kid. Being shown the ways of our fathers by a righteous man who had survived their worst travails was a humbling experience.

Reb Isser bore the moral authority of one whose quiet tenacity to overcome permanent injuries provided indisputable proof that a new pharaoh had, in fact, arisen to destroy us a generation of years before. Being with and learning from older men had never been a problem for me. As a boy, I had been taught to rise up before the hoary head.

What struck me though at first about Reb Isser was his uncanny resemblance to my grandpa Harry Austin (Astrinsky). I invited him home one afternoon for a cup of tea. When I showed him a photo of my Grandpa Harry, he was nearly speechless, but it wasn’t his likeness alone that attracted me. Exactly as I had seen my grandpa do years before, Reb Isser put a sugar cube between his lower lip and gum before he sipped his tea. More than merely a quaint custom, I knew it represented nothing less than a sweet fragment of an old world.

Reb Isser once likened the tefilin shel yad to a telephone hand set and the shel rosh to itsreceiver. Our tefilos, extending the metaphor, are long distance calls which, he hastened to emphasize, become less costly if dialed frequently-a divine telephone service package if you like. Whether one views the mitzvah of tefilin as did Reb Isser or as a bridge that joins us through avodas Ha Shem to the Exodus and forward to today’s tomorrow, Reb Isser was the handiwork of The One Above, one of His original prototypes of which there have been few copies.

Alan D. Busch
2/9/09


“