Michael
Stein was a much older gentleman I came to work for, summers, when living in
Boston. Mr. Stein worked with a Dentist, Herb Berman (who had a crush on my
wife at time,
which
is yet another story), trying to put together a business case for the
government to buy, via Berman and Stein, a "painless" dental drill
which could be used, no less, for filling cavities while under fire. But ah, I
digress.
Mr.
Stein's wife, a local Jewish heroine having successfully served as President of
the Boookline Mental Health Association for several years at least before I knew
her, hired me in summers to drive the "station- wagon" to pick up
various supplies, and do deliveries to various businesses around Boston hired
by the Brookline Mental Health Association in an "Sheltered Worksop" type
environment.
Mostly
patients would perform piecework, manufacturing tasks for a rate, set by the
organization, and receive a percentage of the funding and obtain skills for
future use outside the institution.
Michael
Stein taught me how to drive the station wagon when the whole point was to
never, and I mean never stop, for a light, stop signal, crossing guard, nobody,
nothing, never stop, never stop, never. Through backyards he showed me
"routes" from everyplace to every other place, never stopping, while
I thought he might possibly be crazy.
Well,
now I find myself, at fifty-two, no less, looking for those same old routes. I
like to keep an even pace without stopping and starting and I've come to see what
Michael Stein meant.
He
was just a shark, needed to keep moving, moving at all times, moving and I
don't know why but that same thing seems to be happening to me.