These writings. produced in the last fifteen years, reflect the journey from work as a psychiatrist to retirement. I retired in 2003. I then became a member of the Osher Foundation Lifelong Learning Institute at Brandeis University and the Fromm Institute at the University of San Francisco. I have been trying to expand my ability to play, exploring my role as husband, father and grandparent. I wouldn’t say that humor is everything. but it’s scary to think of life without it.
Pete wrote this for the back cover of his book Stepping Stones a few years before his death on August 13, 2015.
The stories in his book are available below.
Pete’s obituary is at www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/sfgate/name/arthur-reider-obituary?id=16690573
Ferdinand Blumer in his 82nd year was a believer in life’s small pleasures. His admiration for his late wife, Margarite, had been huge. Warm and gregarious, she created comfort with people wherever they went - making up for his lifelong shyness.
One day in an adventurous mood he went out into his back yard. He was intent on attracting a particular bird whose call he had memorized precisely but who remained aloof to his overtures....
Just before the sign pointing to the beach I turned away from the tar topped road onto the sand in the salt marsh. The tide was out. The sinuous sandy trail soon led around a dune banked with thatch - still wet - and wisps of green plants holding on mightily.
I thought I was all alone but as I rounded the turn my grandmother, Rena, was running. It amazed me how her short squat body, her thin legs coming out from her ballooning black silken running shorts, could move so well, so tirelessly as her feet sunk into the bottom of the wet sandy estuary....
Characters
DOLORES 35, a swimmer at the Puritan Health Club.
PHILIP 44, also a swimmer at the Puritan Health Club.
MR. BOUSH (BOOsh) 56, the owner and manager of the Puritan Health Club.
ELANA 21, MR. BOUCH’s assistant.
SCENE
A garishly furnished office in downtown Boston. It is dominated by a huge desk behind which sits Mr. Boush smoking a large cigar. He is hefty and wears his dark hair slicked back....
Barbara knocked on the frame of the open door. A woman in green track suit answered, “Whadya want?”
“Is this the Bernfield residence?”
“No.” She paused. She was smoking a cigarette. No filter. Her iridescent green track suit had seen better days. “This is the Bernstein residence.”
“Oh,” said Barbara, trying to sound upbeat, as if she had heard good news. “Well, I thought it was the Bernfield residence….”
“It’s not,” said Mrs....
An elderly Asian servant sweeps the doorstep proteceted by a surgical mask.
Not a particle of the past transcends the warp of that shallow chalice tipped up to the mouth.
The cement for these houses was poureed about 1930.
Nothing substantial - no wine - no wafer - crosses the lip of 83 years.
… no getting ourselves back to the garden.
There is just the sound of Joni Mitchell’s voice....
The chilling northeasterly wind hit me full in the face as I came out of Gosman. I buttoned my Navy P jacket - a souvenir of World War II - thinking what amazing warmth that single layer of wool afforded. I had just come from Carol Shedd’s class on The Old Testament. While sitting there, immersed in reading to myself, the ancient words from Exodus had jumped out at me across time: If thou at all take thy neighbor’s garment to pledge, thou shalt restore it unto him by that the sun goeth down for that is his only covering, it is his garment for his skin; wherein shall he sleep?...
The sun bouncing off the windows downtown keeps getting more and more golden. It is sundown and the houses below-looking down Lake Street-are darkening fast. But the day doesn’t want to give up. The light from the west leaps across the hollow beneath me and catches the windows of the buildings on the hills to the east. Now it’s fading just like I knew it would a few moments ago. But it was good while it lasted....
Scarcely had I caught my breath after the second grade in Leb Missouri, when I was face to face with an entirely new cast of char in a totally new venue, New York City. Queen of the players on dazzling stage was a willowy woman with weightless flaxen hair moved in sudden nervous starts but once in motion floated effortles creating for me the image of a grand, highly visible, Tinker Bell....
After the West Nile virus came the Kitchen virus. My wife’s friend, Myrna Slotkin, got it first. Then it spread to Vera Popovsky. Soon it infected the eleven other members of her Wednesday morning book club. Convoys of trucks delivering colossal metal stoves and gigantic refrigerators - all of them stainless steel (colors are out) - converged on suburban Newton creating massive potholes the blame for which fell upon the mayor, nearly costing him reelection....
Day 1
Today is Max’s birthday. He’s three. Max has a sister-Zoe. She’s not so old. Zoe is about one and a half. They live on a steep hill with trees in Oakland, California. Max likes to do stuff on his own and in his own way. He doesn’t like it when people pet his hair. His hair is light brown and arranges itself in a curve like a lovable sleeping kitten....