I got a great nights sleep. Slept til almost 9. Took care of some work/business stuff. Conference call at 10. Hung with Beth til she left for her Art class.
Great lunch with Fergus. Tacos from Tacolicious at the Ferry Building. They have an abbreviated farmers market on Tuesday and Thursday. I don't remember how it came up but Ferg asked if I ever made a crystal radio as a kid. I don't think I ever made one that worked. It reminded me of a story my dad used to tell about his friend George Nitzberg. They both came from the pink side of the Jewish chicken farming community in Petaluma, CA.
George fought in WWII. According to Al, George was on a bomber that got shot down over Germany. He got captured and put in a POW camp. Years later, they were talking about where they were when they heard the war was over. Per Al, George admitted he was in the camp but would never reveal how he got the information. EVER.
I told Ferg the story. He said he knew how to research POWs and might look George up.
The rest of my day: someone dropped off a gift basket of sorts, made up of local products to nosh on; phone calls to a mechanic to get my boat fixed. Bilge pump not working. I had to pull out the old pump and send a photo to the mechanic. Really exciting. Ok - I am obsessed with my boat and fishing.
Got my weight back down to 170#. So close to my current goal of under 170#.
Noshed with Beth on our gift basket. Simple salad for dinner. Watched our HBO shows: Mrs. Fletcher and Silicon Valley.
Then, Ferg started blowing up my phone with archival Nitzberg data.
He located George Nitzberg's army POW record.
Next, he located some of George's brother Leo's records:
Leo's army record
Leo fought in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade against the fascists in Spain in the 1930s. Above is record of his passage back to the U.S. Leo was a very tough individual. He worked on the docks in San Francisco as a longshoreman back when they unloaded cargo by hand. He died in 1981.
I remember attending reunions of the veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade with my family. They sang a beautiful song that resonates with me still: Viva La Quince Brigada. Click on this link to hear Pete Seeger sing it. For Ferg, I found an Irish version: Viva La Quinta Brigada.
The world is under attack again by Fascists right now, under the guise of "Populism". Be ready.
Leo and Georges dad, Sol Nitzberg was tarred and feathered in Petaluma, California in 1935 for organizing striking apple pickers. He, like my grandfather Meyer, was a communist. Something like this could never happen again in the United States, right?
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