Rejection In My Life Has Always Lead to Something Better!

As 2016 is about to begin, I realize that every "closed door" in my life has lead to a much better "open door!"

I still remember the day I was told when my contract was not renewed at a private school in Downey that "God opens doors and closes doors.  Consider this door closed."  I was devasted...but the closing of that door led to three wonderful years of my husband Dan and I living in the wonderful Atherton House which was and is one of the most happy times in my life.

When the Atherton House adventure ended, Dan and did many other things together while enjoying our little apartment on top of a garage at 14th and Ximeno in Long Beach, California.

Teaching skating at Brea and Costa Mesa and Paramount was a special time, and when the "door" at Paramount ended (I did not believe then that I'd ever teach skating again), a great new opportunity opened up for Dan and I to move to San Fransciso and work for JFJ in 1988.  We truly believed then that a new adventure was opening for us that could lead to a lifetime of travel and doing things that others didn't do.

But...

When Moishe Rosen decided that I should not work for JFJ again and told me so at a meeting in early December 1989, I was again devasted, but that "closed door" led to two much happier jobs for me in the San Francisco Bay area (one was teaching skating again).

And...then....

That closed door in JFJ led to Dan and I considering leaving JFJ and that opened up the door to move to Colorado Springs at the end of 1991 which led to nearly 25 years of a life in Colorado Springs, Colorado.  There, Dan and I bought and paid off a home and raised three beautiful children.  I taught skating in Colorado Springs and the kids became accomplished competitive skaters.  We all learned to ski and love the snow.  Life in Colorado was good.

All that skating and training led to my son Joel having an amazing adventure now with Disney On Ice Frozen.  Annabelle is a US Figure Skating Quadruple gold medalist and Rebekah has Five Gold Medals.  I wonder sometimes what those medals might do for their future, but it is great to have those credentials.

Now...

Certain doors have been shut for some of the members of my family in Colorado Springs.  Rebekah has left Colorado Springs for good after our family was banned from The Colorado Springs Conservatory (without explanation), the place that had been her "entire world and life."  I wonder now which direction her life will go, but that door being shut may have been the best thing that could have happened to her and our family.

Further Reading:

• Summary of My Family's Experience With the Colorado Springs Conservatory
• My Thoughts on 11-17-15 Gazette Article Regarding the Colorado Springs Conservatory
• Born Blue Musical Review (by a parent of one of the members of the cast)
• Remembering Born Blue's Preview at The Mezzanine - Wednesday, October 28, 2015
• A Parent's Review of Working - A Musical Put On By the Colorado Springs Conservatory June 18 through June 20, 2015
• My Comments on Linda Weise Receiving an Award for Compassion and Kindness
• My Thoughts and Opinion About the Colorado Springs Conservatory's Partnership With Harrison School District 2 and Mountain Vista Homeschool Academy
• My Thoughts and Wishes for Colorado Springs
• Why I May Not Recommend Moving to Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA
• Colorado Springs Conservatory Unpaid Invoice 
• Unpaid Colorado Springs Conservatory Invoice Update 12-19-15

Sushi Menorah!

Thank you to my friend Lori for sending me this photo. Hopefully  her husband Tom will make this for her next year! (Doesn't look Kosher to me...but so much fun!)

Happy Chanukah 2015

Why I May Not Recommend Moving to Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA

Colorado Springs is so, so beautiful, but I am not sure I recommend moving to this city.

In my family's 40 years here, there have been ups and downs, but the "downs" are outweighing the "ups" at this time, and as I reflect, I believe there is a "dark spiritual cloud" that hangs over this city which causes bad things to happen.

The recent senseless shooting at the Planned Parenthood Clinic on November 27, 2015, has perhaps been the last straw for me.

On a more personal note,  the deep sadness I feel beacuse of Linda Weise and the Colorado Springs Conservatory banning my entire family from even attending a performance (without being given an explanation) is a confirmation that Colorado Springs really is no longer a welcoming place.

The amusing article below is written by someone who I don't know who reflecting about our city, but I think it is appropriate to share with this blog post.

• Moving To Colorado Springs, Colorado – A Strange Experience

Here's another article on Colorado Springs featuring Olympic ice dancing champion Christopher Dean.  It is appropriate to also share thjs with my thoughts that I wrote in this blog post. 

• Christopher Dean's Colorado Springs: 'It feels like you can almost see the end of the Earth'

(On a personal note: Although Colorado Springs is a great place to skate, teaching skating in our city is hard because there are not enough rinks and too many coaches. That's my opinion...)

• Opinion:  It is difficult to make a living teaching skating in Colorado Springs

Remembering Garrett Swasey - Killed in Senseless Shooting in Colorado Springs

I couldn't sleep on the night of November 27, 2015 when I found out that Garrett Swasey was the police officer killed in the senseless shooting in Colorado Springs at the Planned Parenthood Clinic. I was up until 2:00 AM writing out my memories of Garrett.

Enjoy reading my memories and tribute to him at the links below:

• My Memories of Ice Dance Figure Skating Champion Garrett Swasey - Garrett Swasey Was the Police Officer Killed in Colorado Springs Shooting
• Remembering Garrett Swasey the Colorado Springs policeman killed 11-27-15

Hugs to all of us who knew him, skated and coached with him,and laughed with him.

I remember him holding my baby Annabelle sixteen years ago while I was teaching skating lessons at the Ice Arena at Chapel Hills Mall in Colorado Springs.

Garrett is mentioned in my book, MY SKATING LIFE: 50 Plus Years of Skating, when I talk about the magical Plaza Ice Chalet that was once in downtown Colorado Springs.

 More About Garrett Swasey in the News:

• Ice skating community mourns officer's death - From KRDO Colorado Springs Local Television
• Garrett Swasey, cop killed in Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shooting and dad of two, was once an Olympic ice dancing hopeful - By Keri Blakinger and Larry McShane, New York Daily News, Saturday, November 28, 2015
• I Do Not Recommend Moving to Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA

Review of Maus: A Survivor's Tale - A Graphic Novel by Art Spiegelman

I do not like reading books that remember the Holocaust, but something seems to always draw me back to reading them anyway.

When I visited New York City in October of 2015, I visited a Jewish friend who happened to be discussing "Maus" by Art Spiegelman with her daughter (on the phone) who was away at college.  I believe her daughter may have had an assignment to do on the books, but I'm not sure about that.

While my friend and her daughter discussed the books, my friend brought the books to me, and after I glanced at them, I knew I wanted to read both volumes.  I have always enjoyed comic books, but I knew that these particular comic books were not like any other I'd ever seen.  (My friend was shocked I didn't know about these books.)

The story is told in comic book form and are graphic novels and shows Art "Artie" Spiegelman interviewing his father.  The reader gets to know Vladek Spiegelman as an old and miserable man who lives in New York, but at the same time the reader travels back in time to the time when Vladek Spiegelman was a handsome and strong young man who married a wealthy and beautiful Jewish woman named Anja.

Vladek and Anja were a happy couple with a young son.  Sadly, that son died in the Holocaust when he was a very small child.  As the reader follows Vladek's story, he or she learns how terrible life in Poland was, but how even more terrible was life in Auschwitz.  Vladek suffered from hunger, brutality, and lice.  He was packed into trains and treated worse than an animal.

The Jews in the book are pictured as mice, the Germans are cats, the Americans are dogs, and the Poles are pigs.

This book was like no other book since it drained my soul  G-d seemed to have disappeared completely.  How could such horrible things happen to anyone?  It seems that G-d deserted the Jews in Poland and the people in the camps completely.  Of all the books I've read about the Holocaust, this one was probably that most upsetting.  It almost haunted me.

It also helped me understand why people in the past saved every little thing, even scraps of bread and paper napkins.  What was and is worthless to people today was "like a treasure" for Vladek Spiegelman since those in the camps had nothing: no food, no paper, no toilet paper, nothing...all was taken away from the people in the ghettos and even more was taken away in the prison camps.  It is amazing that he and his wife survived.  Sadly, Vladek's wife, Anja killed herself in 1968 and her diaries were destroyed after that by her husband.  They would have told more details and more stories, but what Vladek did tell his son is huge.

Arthur Spiegelman did an amazing job and his story deserves more than five stars. I will never forget his books.

My Visit to My Great-Grandfather Adolf Regenstreich's Grave in Ozone Park, Queens, New York 10-16-15

While I was in New York City for the About.com Expert Event annual conference, I decided to take the time to seek out the grave of my great-grandfather (my father Arthur Schneider's grandfather and his mother, my Grandma Fannie's father).

Adolph Regenstreich

Until recently, all I knew about Adolf Regenstreich was that he was the father who came from Romania of my Grandma Fannie Ragin Schneider.

My Grandma Fannie was one of the youngest of 8 children   The names of Adolf's children were Rachel (always called Rae), Theodore (nickname was Teddy), Molly, Dorothy, Clara, David (Dave), Fannie, and Sidney

The oldest sister was named Rae (short for Rachel) and Rae was actually Grandma's half sister since Adolf's first wife, Golde, died when she was very young.  Adolf remarried Esther after Golde died and Esther, like Adolf, died of tuberculosis when she was very young.  I seem to remember Grandma telling me that her older sister Rae and her other older sister Molly did most of the cooking!

When the siblings (with the exception of Teddy) moved to California, they changed and shortened their last name to Ragin. (My uncle Bobby told my husband that Adolf Regenstreich real name had been Abraham Jacob Levine, but to protect his family, he changed his name to Adolf Regenstreich so he could somehow avoid having to serve in the Romanian-Austrian army since men with Jewish sounding names were drafted first.)

Fannie Ragin (Regenstreich)

Rae's grandaughter, Luci Rollins Janssen, connected with me and my father recently.  She found us after searching through ancestory search websites!

Rae Regenstreich Rollins

During a very recent trip to Luci's home, I was shown a photo of my great-grandfather's gravestone and also given a copy of his death certificate.  He died in 1914 in New York City.

So....early on Friday morning, October 16, 2015, I made a call to find out exactly where in the Acacia Cemetery Adolf Regenstreich was buried.

First I was told abruptly, "Call back Monday," but when I told the person that answered the phone that I would not be in NYC Monday, I received a call from Susan (on her day off) who ran the office at Acacia Cemetery.  Susan "bent over backwards" to help me find my great-grandfather by asking someone named Marcia who was answering the office phones to search for my great-grandfather on the microfiche records. Susan then gave me detailed directions over the phone on how exactly to find Adolf in the very huge cemetery which is the largest Jewish cemetery in New York City!

After I talked to Susan, I got on a subway train in mid-town Manhattan and took a hour plus long subway ride to Ozone Park, Queens.  When I got off the train, I met and linked up with my study partner, Dena Leff, from Partners in Torah (Dena lives about 30 minutes from the Acacia Park cemetery), and together we found Yassir 41 where Adolf Regenstreich was burried. Dena explained that that area was a section of the Acacia cemetary that was for a certain synagogue.

We stepped into a huge space and began searching for Adolf's gravestone.  It seemed like a hopeless thing to do, since there were so many graves in that space.

For a moment, I thought I found the gravestone, but realized the grave I found was for someone named Harry Regenstreich, not Adolf.  (Was Harry a relative?  Maybe...I took a photo of Harry's gravestone which said he was 25 years old when he died in 1902.  My father says that Grandma Fannie's oldest brother Teddy stayed in NYC to take care of a relative or brother...was Harry Regenstreich related to that person?)

I just kept searching and searching and walked by gravestone after gravestone.  I was about to give up, but finally, I found Adolf Regenstreich's stone!  It was huge and was in the very center of Yassir 41, on the left and only 13 spots from the center entry!

I shook when I saw his stone and grave.

Jo Ann and Her Study Partner From Parners in Torah Dena Leff at Jo Ann's Great Grandfather's Grave

After taking many, many photos, Dena read some Hebrew prayers outloud and then she told me that I was supposed to talk to my great-grandfather and tell him about his family, so I began to talk and talk and told my great-grandfather about my Grandma Fannie and I told him all about his other children, Grandma's brothers and sisters, who I got to know well when I lived with Grandma in the late 1970s.




This was a very memorable experience, and was made even "more memorable" because Dena was there.  In the approximately 14 years I've studied with Dena and Partners in Torah, Dena and I have only met face to face three times:  In 2007 when she organized a "Spur of the Moment Bar Mitzvah" for my son Joel, in 2014 when my daughter Annabelle and I attended her daughter Shira's wedding, and on Friday, October 16, 2015 when I visited my great-grandfather's gravesite.  Dena and Partners in Torah made that experience so, so meaningful!  And...all three experiences were the best learning experiences ever!

Before we left, Dena instructed me to put a rock on top of my great-grandfather's gravestone to show that he had been visited.