Hello and welcome to geneburshuliak.com, a non-commercial, ad and cookie free collection of my Writings and Rantings!
Writings and Rantings? Yes indeed. The site consists of those two categories. The Writings are literary pieces more or less. There are short and long stories, fictional and non, some deathly serious, others comedic. You’ll also find political satire and plays, including a few musicals. The Rantings are letters and articles, published and not, that I have submitted mostly to newspapers.
So why did I, an ignoramus when it comes to computers and technology, create this homemade site? It was a struggle for sure, and without the help of my wife Rosemary and an essential bit from a friend, I’d still be batting at home plate, swinging and missing every ball zinging past me. Given my lack of expertise, why is it so important to me to put so much time and effort into The Writings, The Rantings and this site?
I am a Baby Boomer, the first American-born child of what were called Displaced Persons- homeless, stateless, sometimes shoeless refugees of the Second World War who had lost their homes and livelihoods to the violence of battle and occupation. These were people who lived in concentration camps not knowing where their next meal was coming from. Some had tattooed identification numbers on the web of their thumb and forefinger, a lifelong reminder of their shattered past. They preserved their dignity while the only clothes they owned- those on their backs- disintegrated into shreds and patches. Like so many immigrants of today, they struggled to hold together the most valuable things they had ever possessed: their families, their culture, their dignity.
To my expatriate ancestors, the United States represented a hallowed sanctuary after years of displacement and suffering. Here in this wonderful melting pot was a last chance to reunite with the people they had been so painfully separated from, real hope to rebuild stable, middle-class lives and bear children whose future would be secure. Here they could celebrate their religion and ethos as they adopted American traditions and customs. Their intense gratitude passed onto me.
As a child in the 1950’s and early 60’s, I remember staying with my Babushka Olga who lived on Second Avenue in Greenwich Village, directly across from what later became the Fillmore East. We had moved to Connecticut when I was a toddler, but a yearly summer vacation visit with her meant coming back to my roots. Whereas most of my Aunts and Uncles had found employment as cleaning ladies and janitors, she, a former teacher who could speak English, worked as the receptionist in the Boys Club of America headquarters on First Avenue, directly across from the United Nations. When I stayed with her, she’d leave the apartment in the morning, take the bus to work where I would join her at her job later in the day after a visit and protracted lunch with my Aunts who lived around the corner on 5th Street.
What a thrill it was for me to see her there, sitting at her desk so fashionably dressed and coiffed, greeting visitors with her lovely smile and grace. She was a stylish, a glamorous grandmother, whose only demand was that we converse solely in Russian, an ability she wanted me to never lose. On weekends, she was the soloist in her church choir and as the Commodore Theater morphed into the Fillmore East she’d wear shiny white patent leather go-go boots and above-the-knee dresses. Captivated by her joyful spirit, few people knew that her husband, my Dyedushka Eugene, a choir conductor of Russian liturgical music, had been arrested by Comrade Stalin’s henchmen for celebrating the Orthodox mass and banished to a Siberian gulag from which he never returned. But then, how much do any of us know about the silent sorrows so many millions of immigrants have born?
Perhaps it’s because I was named after my Dyedushka that her smile for me was so singular, a sunbeam I knew she shined on no one else. As she presided there at her desk, we’d huddle together and make plans for the evening- a nickel ferry boat ride to Staten Island perhaps, followed by pastries, coffee for her, milk for me, at a neighborhood café. She’d proudly introduce me to her co-workers, including her brother, my aproned Uncle Alex, his hands blue from mimeograph fluid, whom I was warned to pretend not to know, the office policy being not to employ relatives. She’d slip me a little money and send me across the street to the U.N. where I’d see the people who licked the stamps I collected. Then I’d take the bus back to her neighborhood and roam the streets, especially haunting the used bookstores for cheap copies of books I’d borrow from our town library. I accumulated quite a few Oz books with color plates that way, some Miss Piggle-Wiggles and an occasional Homer Price, and later Twain and Jules Vernes first editions. I was 10 years old when these visits began, old enough, my parents agreed, to travel alone by train and bus.
So what do all these memories have to do with my purpose in creating this site?
My Babushka, in fact, all my immigrant relatives, wanted one thing for me above everything else: that my life would be better than theirs, that I would not suffer needlessly, that I would have opportunities that had been denied them. I inherited their conviction that we were living in an enlightened place and a golden age where each succeeding generation would enjoy a better life than preceding ones had experienced. As a child observing their optimism, I believed in the universal values of the United Nations, the welcoming of the Statue of Liberty, and the hopefulness of Ellis Island that Babushka and I witnessed when we took those ferry rides. As a teenager and young adult, through the influence of her and the rest of my family, further abetted by progressive and caring teachers, I had faith in the liberal idealism of the Age of Aquarius: harmony and understanding, peace and love abounding. I grew up feeling that a welcoming place that I fit into snuggly had been reserved for me, as if I were an essential piece of a thrilling, picture-perfect jigsaw puzzle.
Can the children of today aspire to the future that I envisioned? Will they enjoy the legacy I was born to: that they will live happier and more prosperous lives than their parents did? I don’t think so. I don’t believe they do either. I fear we let them down, and they know it. I see a dystopian future for them, a potentially reversible horror of our making that so many of us respond to with a “What? Me worry?” callowness, if we bother to acknowledge it at all. And that drives me, and cuts deeply, with a jagged edge.
We are living in the most consequential moment humanity has ever faced, threatened by imminent, simultaneous extinction events both natural and man-made. Most of them, like the looming disasters of climate change, require immediate remediation. The proliferation of threatening indicators is all around us, a hissing fuse, getting shorter and shorter as we continue to indulge ourselves in self-destructive, potentially avoidable mistakes. The time to speak out is now.
Will American democracy fail? Will the idealism of our Founding Fathers crumble and devolve into dictatorship or chaos? Will the middle class survive? Has the lower-income class’s dream of joining it become hopeless? Can we end gun violence? Find peace in a nuclear-armed world? Feed and nurture all nations? Save ourselves from the looming dangers of A.I.? Lead green lives and clean the environment or doom our children to misery on an inhospitable planet? Restore the humanity of Jesus or succumb to the Age of Greed?
The issues are staggering. But are they insurmountable? When you consider that chimps and mankind share 98.8% of their DNA, is the remaining 1.2% that makes us human enough to make the difference that will save us and usher in the Utopia I dreamed of as a child? Or will it be the catalyst that makes us more effective at doing what our chimp cousins do best- slaughtering the unwelcome stranger?
This is why I must write. In expressing myself I find hopeful purpose and ultimately courage. And perhaps a dubious form of sanity that suits me.
You will find The Writings and The Rantings under the “Portfolios” heading. Simply click on the images to access them. Under each category, you will find a brief synopsis explaining the context, purpose and background that led me to write each piece. The plan is to upload new ones as the spirit stirs me.
So, thank you for sharing some of my laughs and tears and be sure to come back to check out my future postings.
Gene Burshuliak