Turrialba Farmer’s Market and the Botanical Garden at CATIE

We headed down into Turrialba with Sam and Abraham to go to the weekly farmer’s market, hoping as well to pick up some cash, given that we have been having trouble finding ATM’s that will take our bank card.  We waited in line for a bank ATM; Sam was able to to get cash, but I was not.

Then down to the market; there were perhaps 100 vendors, with plenty of fruits and vegetables to be had; we got enough for the duration  of our stay.

But a fair amount of my time was spent herding Abe around the outside of the market, making sure he did not head into any of the surrounding streets.

Sam and Abe had come in a separate car so that Abe could head home for his lunch and early afternoon nap; Nancy and I, however, headed out of town to visit the Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza  (CATIE), a regional “institute for agricultural development and biological conservation in Central America and the Caribbean”.  It  claims to be the first graduate school in agricultural sciences in Latin America; for us, it was a chance to look at botanical gardens and perhaps learn something about area plants.

Near the entrance, we saw this table laden with fruits from the plants in the garden, some labeled, some not

Generally, the botanical garden had many interesting plants – I was focused on the fruits and flowers — but the labeling was somewhat haphazard, and overall the whole place had something of a run-down feel.

Here are some things we saw for which I could not find any labels: 

a plant with an oddly shaped yellow fruit (that is, each fruit had protuberances rather like a mickey mouse ; the leaves were hairy with spines

There were these plants looking somewhat like that maracas in the garden of our house, but skinnier

This log was trimmed with some delicate looking thin red fungus

I would have liked to have learned the name of this fruit or flower that was as hairy as a rambutan, but much smaller

(I had noted some on the back of the table shown above)

I loved the look of this plant’s thin purple leaves

There were several stands of bamboo.  This small one is shown here with a ficus tree, btu some were so large that they towered overhead

The ficus tree was labeled, as the photo shows.

And there was a kapok tree

at its base was this lovely plant with purple leaves and small flowers

This is a “cannonball tree”

This flower was called a devil’s tongue

And this the “rose of Venezuela

This large flower, the draconium pitteri, gives off a stench resembling carrion, drawing insects to be devoured (note the rose of Venezuela in the rear)

Then Angel’s trumpet

 the Matrimonio

and the penta (also called canastilla), coming in several different colors

On the pavoncillo rojo, note the delicate white flowers within each cluster

rabo de zorro

       
Here the monstera deliciosa, often seen in the US as a houseplant, is shown with its fruit

We walked past and through stands of torch ginger;

there were so many flowers in different stages of their development that we were able to get a good sense of the cycle

Here is a side and top view of the flower in its early stage

From the top view, we can see the central portion that is starting to emerge here

Here, the central part is entirely out and starting to drop its petals

which, here, are almost all gone

Here is a pink version
 

After visiting spending ninety minutes walking around CATIE, we headed home past the Maxi Pali supermarket where the ATM readily replenished my supply of cash.

A Visit to Cartago

Today Sam and Nafisa had to go to Cartago, the main city in the province, for Soraya’s first pediatrician visit.  Cartago is only 35 kilometers away but, given the quality of the roads, that means an hour’s drive.    They were able to get an appointment in Cartago with an excellent homeopathic pediatrician at 2 PM, later changed to 3 PM.  We left our house just in time for Abe to get his regular afternoon nap, using two cars and driving as caravan all the way to the outskirts of Cartago, where Sam and Nafisa headed of to the doctor;s office while Nancy and I headed downtown.  Our plan was to visit two of the outstanding tourist sites in town: the Basilica of the Virgin of the Angels, which houses a precious statue of a dark-complected Virgin Mary that has been designated as the official patron of Costa Rica; Las Ruinas, as ruin of the 19th century recontruction of a 16th Century church, also located in the downtown area of Cartago; and the Ruins of Ujurrás, the stone remains of the oldest church in Costa Rica, also dating from the 16th Century.  It turned out that this was an overly ambitious agenda given how late we were arriving in Cartago.

We made it to the Basilica, and it was certainly a mustn’t miss.  Lovely from the outside
           

especially seen against the background of the surrounding mountains





it was particularly lovely inside.  The columns were painted with a consistent pattern, as were the wooden walls

although there was extra painted detail on some walls

and some parts of the ceiling

Most of the statuary portrayed white people

making these two statues, one small and below eye-level

and one lifesize on a pedestal

stand out

As best as I could tell, the relic statue is kept in this structure behind the altar

This Pastoral scene could be found in one of the semitransepts

By the time we were done looking at the basilica, it was approaching 4 PM, and we figured we should skip the ruin in downtown, which was after all the ruin of a more recent reconstruction, and make a beeline for Ujurrás where, according to all reports, the ruins would be closing at 4:30 PM.  Unfortunately, as we arrived, families were coming out of the site, and the uniquitous parking jockey waved us away, telling is that closing time had been 4 PM.  We should have tried Las Ruinas in Cartago!
               
But driving toward Ujurrás put us on a different route back home than we had taken coming to Cartago – instead of going the “back way” over the mountains, we drove through the some dramatic countryside,

including extensive plantings of chayote

As we approached Turrialba, with dusk was getting nigh, we saw this nice rainbow

Guayabo National Monument

Christmas Day was a “quiet-around-the-house day” for us (unlike Christmas Eve – we were at home, but there were loud fireworks being set off in the next house up our mountain road), but the following day, the third day after Soraya had been born, we set off for our first touristic experience – a visit to the Guayabo National Monument.  We drove up the hill to Santa Cruz, then turned right for a trip over the hills to our destination.  This was a distance of only 13 kilometers, but what with paved but potholed  roads, combined with dirt roads that were even rougher, the trip took us a solid hour.  (We learned on our way back that there was a fully-paved approach route that was several miles longer but took much less time to drive)
Guayabo National Monument is an archeological site for a pre-Columbian settlement that was first occupied around 1000 BC.  From about 800 AD to about 1400 AD, the leadership of a group of people numbering about 20,000 at its height.  We followed two different paths and looked at the ruins.  What remains to be seen at the site are several stone structures.  All of the artifacts that have been found through excavations beginning in the 1960's are exhibited at various Costa Rican museums. There were a number of interpretive signs, but the place might have been more meaningful with an English-language guide – but she was on vacation that day, and it was not clear that a Spanish-language guide (Sam could have translated) was available either.

The first thing we could see along the path was this petroglyph featuring an alligator on one side and a jaguar on the other.

We continued to a viewpoint from which we could see the much of the site with the distant mountains in the background.

Here we are at ground level, looking at the “central mound,” an elevated platform on which it is believed that conical wooden structure was located, housing the leader of the community,

and then the main square in front of that mound, built in around 1000 AD

From there we walked beside the Calzada Caragra, the walkway which, when the community flourished, led from the entrance of the area to the leader’s residence.

The square mounds are believed to have formed the base of guard stations protecting the entrance to the Calzada.

These steps led from the entrance up to the Calzada Caragra

These round mounds are in pairs, like figure eights.  The interpretive signs indicated that such formations of this sort are unseen elsewhere

On the way home from the monument, we stopped off at Restaurante El Cruce, a very simple place that Sam and Nafisa had visited previously.  They enjoyed the tilapia sandwich platter that they had eaten on their earlier visit, while I had the fajitas (the meat was bit tough).

Visiting family in Costa Rica – Turrialba

This year’s winter vacation has a different twist – we have come to Costa Rica to help our son Sam and daughter-in-law Nafisa  while they have a baby, our second grandchild.  More than anything else, our role will be to pay attention to our twenty-month old grandson Abe and, thereby, help him cope with his loss of status as the only child who gets the full attention of his parents.

They live along the beach on the Pacific Coast, and we hope to get there eventually, but Nafisa is determined to have a home birth using a midwife (she  herself is trained as a midwife among other specialties), and the Costa Rican health system, although excellent in many ways, shows a strong bias toward hospital births with obstetric interventions, resulting in a high rate of induction of labor and delivery by Caesarian section.  There are no midwives in the region of Costa Rica where Sam and Nafisa live, so they had to travel to the vicinity of San Jose.  They found a midwifery team based in Turrialba, a small city (about 33000 people) to the east of San Jose, and because birth dates are imprecise, they had to find housing in the area so that they could be within range of the midwives when labor begins.  The lead midwife has a house "Casa Verbena," available for her clients in the hills above Turrialba, so that is where Sam, Nafisa and Abe are ensconced.

We arrived at the airport in San Jose in the early afternoon, but the line at immigration took ninety minutes, and by the time we had secured our luggage, made it to the rental car facility, and obtained our rental car with the requisite insurance tripling the cost of the rental, it was after 5 PM and darkness was approaching.  We were anxious to see our family, but given the rough quality of many Costa Rican roads were did not want to risk driving all the way there in the dark.  So instead, we found our way to the Best Western Irazú few miles from the airport where we were able to snag last-minute reservations.  It was dark as we drove there, and traffic was a bit terrifying, but we used Waze to find our way there and despite a missed turn at a traffic circle we arrived fairly easily.  We arrived just in time to take advantage of a “welcome drink” coupon at the in-hotel restaurant.  The food in the restaurant was sufficient for our needs – I had Chifrijo as an appetizer which alone was close to providing enough food for dinner.

We called Sam and Nafisa to give them the bad news that we were not going to make it to Turrialba that day, and Sam gave me some really bad news – my father had died that very afternoon.  It had been very hard leaving the U.S. knowing that my father would likely not live until we returned, but we had promised Sam and Nafisa that we would come help out with the birth and there were other members of the family to stay with him.  Amazing coincidence:  on the plane ride from Fort Lauderdale to San Jose, shortly after takeoff, I began sobbing thinking about my father and his impending death.  Turns out this was just the time when he died.

The morning after our airplane arrival, we had the buffet breakfast (contents quite adequate), which was served in a room that opened up into the hotel’s garden, making the experience very nice.  Our room was a tad small, but for an airport hotel this was a good choice.

Then we hopped in the car and drove off to Turrialba, or, more precisely, to Verbena Norte, a tiny community located in the mountains twenty minutes outside Turrialba.  The roads to Turrialba were fine, but there were many potholes in the roads up in the hills —this would not have been a pleasant drive to make for the first time in the dark.  We finally reached our destination in the late morning - a three story house with a bedroom on each floor, a bathroom and a wrap-around desk on the main two floors, and a living room and kitchen on the main floor.  The view from the decks is glorious – we look out over the valley in which Turrialba is situated, with high mountains ringing the valley – two volcanoes (Volcan Turrialba and Volcan Irazú) are behind those mountains, although neither is visible from the decks. 

Turrialba is about 2000 feet over sea level, and we are another 1500 feet up, so that we can sometimes see clouds below us.  We can be in the rain, at the bottom of a cloud, and still see Turrialba clearly.   Or Turrialba might be shrouded by a cloud but we can see the distant mountains clearly.

And there is a fair amount of rain.  It is generally clear in the morning, but there is almost always an afternoon or evening shower. 

December 22, the day after our arrival, was the hardest – the memorial service for my father  was held back in New York.  At least we were able to watch by a group Skype call and, in fact, Sam and I were each able to deliver our eulogies for him.  That day, the midwife, Rebecca Turecky (who operates her practice under the auspices of a non-profit, Mamasol, that she originally created with a partner) came by in the afternoon to talk about plans for the birth and to get to know her patient a little better.  In the evening, we ate out at a restaurant called the Rio  that Turecky had recommended.  It was fine although perhaps a little pricey.  I had a stuffed canneloni that was pretty good, and Abe ate fully half of his adult portion of lasagna.  The special thing here is the desserts, though — we were too full to have dessert but on a takeout basis later in the trip we enjoyed a nutella cangrejo (a triangle of pizza dough rolled over nutella and shaped into a pretzel, then baked in the pizza oven), and a passion fruit mousse cake.  Yum!

Turned out that the midwife had come by just in time, because Nafisa had her baby the very next morning.  In fact, her labor began at about 3:30 AM.  The previous two days, in the course of visits to the fruit and vegetable store and the butcher, Sam and Nafisa had pointed to a municipal park where we might think of taking Abe so that he would not be in the house, freaking out about his mother going through labor; they took us to a smaller park where he had become used to playing.  All these plans turned out to be unnecessary, and indeed our basic reason for coming was moot in that Abe slept right through the labor and birth, and awoke to find himself a big brother.  (Despite his parents' repeatedly telling him about the impending birth and building up his concept of being a big brother, his initial reaction was somewhat bewilderment.)

I slept through it too, but my wife Nancy was awake and was able to help the birth team.  And just after 6 AM, as I was finally waking up to the sound of a birthing pool being inflated, the labor got serious and at 6:23 a beautiful baby girl, Soraya Moana Levy-Jiddawi, came into the world

Nafisa's perspective on her birthing experience.

The following day, we started to explore the grounds of the house where we were staying.  There was a trail that switch-backed down the hill,

past a variety of interesting flowers, including heliconia

the maraca (another form of heliconia)

and ginger plants

There were a number of banana  

and orange trees, but the fruits were all too high to reach.

Underfoot there were trails of leaf-cutter ants
 

Harold Levy

This is the eulogy I prepared for the memorial service of my father, Harold Levy.  As delivered, some items were left out because my others who spoke before me had already mentioned them.  Sam's eulogy follows

Hal grew up in the Depression. He was born into an Orthodox family, living first on the Lower East Side, then in Bensonhurst.  He enlisted in the army and served in served in Germany. 
                       
He never gloried in his combat experiences, as some veterans do.  In fact, I never heard him talk about combat until a couple of weeks ago, a story I’ll tell near the end of what I have to say.  I remember him talking about the ennui, about falling asleep while marching.  Hal was a champion sleeper.  If you asked him how he had slept the response was always that he had slept well all night.  I also remember a story he used to tell about basic training — there was one soldier who was also first to the table and first to ask, pass this, pass that.  So one day, they maneuvered him to sit at one end of the table and, instead of waiting for him to ask to have things passed, they just upended the table so that everything just slid right down onto him.

Another World War II story related to anti-Semitism.  For Hal, basic training was his first exposure to world outside New York, and for many other at basic training, it was their first exposure to Jews.  In 1944, a number of soldiers were assembled to ship over to Germany to serve as replacements for casualties.   Was it only a coincidence that every one of the replacements was Jewish?  Sure, let them be the first of the group to be killed.  The rest of the soldiers in that basic training group went over to Europe as a unit, and ended up at the Battle of the Bulge, where the group was decimated.  

For Hal, “liberal” was never a dirty word.  He was proud to be considered a liberal  Democrat.  When he left the service, he joined the American Veterans Committee, a left/liberal response to the conservative VFW and American Legion.

He married Beatrice Kachuck, his college sweetheart; they first lived with her parent in Brooklyn, then in Queens, then Levittown.  In Levittown, he became active in local politics.  Back then, the Margiotta machine in Nassau County was the toughest Republican machine in the whole country: a Democrat couldn’t get elected as dogcatcher.  Hal was active in the local Democratic committee, and many of his  life-long friendships came from among his fellow activists:  Norman Levine, Dave Schechter, Don Hirschhorn, Wilbur Lew, Stan Harwood. 

He and Bea found more success pushing to improve the public schools. The dynamic back then was that people without children (relatively rare in the veteran-heavy suburbs) as well as people with kids in Catholic schools, did not want taxes to pay for public schools.  The Committee for Better Education, rather than the Democratic Party, was the instrument that Hal and his friends used for bi-partisan work to improve public education.  But meantime, the Democrats had losing candidate after losing candidate, Adlai Stevenson and so forth.

This group formed the tradition of Fourth of July at Jones Beach.  We would aim to show up at 6 AM, early enough to nab a grill to cook eggs, bacon and the like for breakfast.  There would be screwdrivers and Bloody Marys, but we would head down to the beachfront for swimming, then come back for breakfast.  The tradition included reading the Declaration of Independence, then as now printed in full on the back page of the first section of the New York Times.    The day would go on after the beach at someone’s house.  As the Levittown group spread out, tradition continued with going to Julian Kane’s house in Great Neck.
               
In 1961, we moved to Freeport. Levittown was all-white, as I recall (in fact, restrictive covenants preserved that) and Hal and Bea wanted to raise their children in an integrated community.  In Freeport, Hal assumed a leadership position in the local Democratic Party.  The place was still very Republican, and anti-Semitic to boot. I remember a story about time when Hal and some others went to complain to Police Chief Elar about something.  The chief knew very well was Hal’s name was but, throughout the meeting, he addressed Hal as “Mr. Goldberg.”
   
Victories began to come for the local Democrats.  Gene Nickerson was elected as County Executive, and a centrist Democrat, Herb Tenzer, was elected to Congress.  Hal continued the struggles to keep the public schools funded; Democrats were able to form coalitions with liberal  Republicans to get good people elected to the school board and bond issues passed.

I became active in anti-war movement.  Hal was initially reluctant about that, worried about splitting the Democrats and opposed a Democratic President. Eventually, though he became active in that.  I remember our weekly Sunday morning vigils at the Freeport Post Office (where Tenzer had his congressional office).  I was among the organizers but Hal would also join us from time to time

There was a huge change in 1968.  We had been supporting a local left candidate, Al Dorfman, running in Congressional primary, and supporting Gene McCarthy in primary against Johnson.  National reform leader Al Lowenstein picked our district as the one in which he would seek office, effectively pushing Al Dorfman out of the race.  (Dorfman was shunted over to running for District Attorney).  Lowenstein brought scores of young activists from around the country to support his candidacy.  We housed several of them, both during the primary campaign, in which I participated, and in the general election, which took place after I had left for college.   Hal was in the thick of it, leading the Freeport part of the campaign, and our candidate was elected, although he was able to serve only one term, because the Republicans defeated him by redistricting after the 1970 census, taking a large bloc of heavily Democratic voting areas out of his district.

During these years, I had my own political activities and Hal had his.  I never  worked closely with him on same campaign, but I had the chance to do so in 1971.  Charles Evers, the brother of Medgar Evers, was running for governor of Mississippi. The hard work of registering voters was done, and this was the beginning of getting black population to run for office.   Evers wanted to motivate local people to engage in campaigns, and to put themselves forward to run for legislative positions, so that he could run on a slate of candidates throughout the state and not be all by himself on the ballot.  The national Democrats sought experienced electoral campaign organizers to come to Mississippi to work in each legislative district.  Hal was one of those, and Dan and I went along.  We were assigned to Tunica, Mississippi, south of Memphis.  I was exposed for the first time to his qualities as a political organizer, cajoling local people, very much against their economic interest (because the white establishment was in full control of the economy) to step forward and run for office, helping put together election campaign.   He was deeply engaged in the community, and within the only ten days we were there, he brought forward candidates, created election committee, and formulated a basic campaign plan.   During the course of a long weekend trip we took to Memphis several years ago, Nancy and I visited Tunica, and then then-head of the local NAACP, Calvin Norwood, remembered with gratitude Hal’s efforts  more than forty years before.

Hal’s commitment to his community rested side by side with his engagement with his family.  He loved his family, both his immediate family and his extended family.   I particularly recall his engagement with his grandchildren.  A memory he loved to recall was his first introduction to Sam, the first of his grandchildren.  He and Rona came down to DC within a day of Sam’s birth.  He came to the hospital, but was nervous about holding his new grandson.  “Nancy said: pick him up, pick him up.”  I heard him remember that fondly many times; he repeated that story when he first met Abraham, and when he spoke to Sam and Abe over phone during his final days.

Hal loved to travel.  He did this during both marriages.  He traveled separately with Bea, and with Rona, but he took particular care to travel with his broader family.  Every summer we would travel as a family.  Most often it was to upstate NY – Scroon Lake, Loon Lake, Lake George, once there was a splurge visit to Mohonk.  Each year we would go to a different place, with Dan and me wanting to go back to where we had been the year before.  But we also went to Maine, to Quebec, to the  Carribbean.  I remember one six week swing through Western US.

After Sam and Joe were born, he made sure to travel with each of them separately, taking Elderhostel trips with each of them as well as taking the whole family on trips, such the beach community where we all went on Tuscan coast – Forte dei Marmi – as well as inland Tuscan cities of Florence and  Lucca.

And then there was Stone Pond, the house in New Hampshire where he and Rona would spend time each summer, and where they stayed the entire summer after they retired.  Hal would wake up every morning, and then, as I recall about 8 AM, he would head down to the lake for a bracing swim in the chilly water.  They (and we) went hiking, especially on Mt Monadnock; we would see the Peterborough players, and  Monadnock music.  When we visited there was always a lobster dinner.       
This is our family gathering place. Hal was so frustrated when his disabilities made it too hard for him to go to Stone Pond.  Even though he was not using it himself, it was important to him that he be paying the bills, enabling the family’s use.  The place was always on his mind.  Chingchai’s watercolor of the view of the lake from the cabin was always on the wall of his room where he could see it. He was happy each time he heard abut someone from our generation, or the next generation, going to sty there, and he was very reassured to keep hearing that the ensuing generations are intent on keeping the house in the family.
               
Hal married his college sweetheart.  Bea was an atheist, and we were raised as secular children.  Yet Hal always enjoyed the Jewish traditions.  Not only the bar mitzvahs, but high holidays with Bea’s parents (who were secular when Bea was growing up but got a bit religious as they got older).  I did not want a bar mitzvah, and Hal was fine with that choice, but he was pleased, I think, when Dan decided to have one.   Maybe he was  disappointed that our children did not.  He enjoyed the family rituals of Hannukah and the annual seder, including the Freedom Seder that he celebrated beginning around 1970, in which we celebrate Passover as a feast for the liberation of all peoples, not just the Jewish people.


To all appearances, Hal and Bea has  a perfect marriage.  It seemed that way to me. He was devastated when it ended, as was I, and much of the rest of the family.  One of Bea’s sisters reproached her for smashing her idealized image that at least one person she knew had the perfect marriage.

I am so grateful that he found a new soulmate in Rona, with whom he happily spent the rest of her life.  It is intriguing that Rona and Bea were so similar.  Similar build, similar intellect, similar commitment to social justice.  Similarly feminist, and similarly strong-minded and insistent that things be done her way.

His feeling for his family extended beyond immediate family to nieces, and nephews, and their mates and their children.  He became a surrogate father / brother to many of them, offering counsel and comfort through hard times.  His counsel was not necessarily advice, but just someone to talk to.  I heard about this from someone in the Amsterdam community whom he befriended over the years.  She was having some issues, I’m not sure exactly what, and got some help from Hal. What she said was:

“Hal was a good listener.  He was also non-judgmental. And when he was approached for advice he didn't throw it out at someone, (didactically), instead he led the person along the path of figuring out the best solution at that time.”

And he was especially delighted to build relationship with the grand-children of his cousin Aaron.  In his last days, he urged Dan and me to maintain our relationship with Elisa, Sharon and Jeremy; and we told him, of course, they are family.

He was saddened to have lost contact with many of the Kachuck family, after Bea made it clear to her family that they had to choose between him and her.  But he was so very pleased when, as Bea descended into dementia and stopped caring about contact with Hal, he was able to reconnect with members of the Kachuck family, especially Gloria, Michael, and Rozzie.

Hal had a wonderful community at the Amsterdam.  When they first moved there, I could not help wondering, why would you leave your great house in Rockville Center?  But he and Rona made a great choice moving here.  He built a network of friends and got love back as well as great care.  When it came time for him to move from independent living to assisted living, then skilled nursing, Dan and I urged him to think about moving to DC, so that he would be closer to us.   He chose not to do that, thinking not only of the family in New York with whom he would have less contact, but also about his own community there at the Amsterdam.  The residents and staff made him feel he belonged, and for that we are very grateful.

Hal Levy spent his life giving love to his community, to his friends, to his family.   These last few days we have seen a reflection of that love in the outpouring of response from his friends and extended family, who visited when they could (sometimes at great effort), and called when they could not.

Hal was ready to die at the end: as he said to us, I’ve had a good run. He did not wish to live without being able to move his limbs and feed himself.  But he had a final wish, which he expressed in the first combat story I ever heard from him. 

He was not speaking much at that point, a day or so after he got out of the hospital.  He was slurring his words, but he said something that sounded like Herzog and bridge.  As I bent over, it was clear he was talking about having exploded a bridge.   I had always assumed from his marching stories that he carried a rifle in infantry, but he began speaking clearly about how he had handled a mortar, and so had exploded the bridge. 

And he began to speak clearly about life in combat.  “I was scared all the time.  I was afraid of being hit, and being out there to die all alone.   That was the worst thing."

Hal did not want to die alone, and he did not die alone.  His extended family was with him; they came to say goodbye, to share memories, to share their love, to be with him, until the end.

We will miss him terribly.

Our closing for his death notice:  
In lieu of flowers, please honor his memory and follow his example by committing your time, energy and money to electing a progressive Democratic candidate in a swing district.  In the alternative, you might consider one of his favorite  institutions, the American Civil Liberties Union.

Sam's Eulogy

I love my grandpa Hal very much. Because I'm not going first, I believe it would be redundant to name all of Hal's qualities, as I'm sure people have already talked about his kindness, his gentleness, his love for life and his love of people. Simply put, Hal was the kindest person I've ever met, and I will always hold him as an example of what a friend, husband, brother, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather should be.
Rather than talk about his qualities, I'd like to share a few memories that I will always hold dear:
- Grandpa Hal and Grandma Rona walking me to school (or to Ontario Park - I can't remember…) and singing "On the Sunny Side of the Street"
- Hal rubbing my back to help me go to sleep or relax and saying "Sweet Sam"- this strikes me as odd now, because, as I think of it, Hal's first wife, my Grandma Bea used to rub my back the same way and also said, "Sweet Sam". I ALWAYS BELIEVED THEM 
- Hal showed me how to ride my first two-wheeler in Rockville Centre (he was an incredibly patient man) and then I promptly got hit (albeit lightly) by the neighbor who was backing their car out of the driveway.
- Eating mortadella and fresh baguette
- Drinking coffee and having fresh squeezed orange juice for breakfast
- Bourbon Manhattans (straight up with a twist)
- Climbing Mount Monadnock (he did so well into his early 80s)
- The pride he took in his family (he was so proud of his kids- Paul and Dan (and their spouses Nancy and Chingchai, and he was so proud of Shari and Mitch, and their spouses Dave and Lisa)
- Hal loved his brother Mel (I have the vaguest recollection of Mel holding an unlit cigar at Rockville Centre) and his sister Pearl so much!
- He loved his grandkids and grandnephews and cousins and nieces and nephews with an amazing fervor. As Nafisa and I await the birth of our second child, we sometimes wonder how in the great world we'll be able to love Abraham so much, and love our new baby so much…Hal gives us the example: he loved so many people and was able to give each and every person he loved 100% of his heart! His heart was enormous! He was able to add people to his heart with such ease, without compromising his love for anybody else.
- I loved looking at the photos of the people he loved so much that are tacked to the wall in the cabin in New Hampshire and that were on the fridge in Rockville Center. I'll always think of the photo of the tiger that he and Rona saw while on the back of an elephant (I hope I got that memory right?)
- I am hoping someone can help me fill in this partial memory- Hal would tell me about either sneaking into baseball games (would this be the Brooklyn Dodgers or the Yankees?) or selling peanuts or tickets as a way to get into and watch games?
- I will remember him recounting his games of stickball in the street when he was a kid…I have always tried to picture him playing  ??
- I will always remember going out on the canoe or on the little white and yellow sailboat.
- I will always remember our trip to Seattle and the sailing trip we took from Puget Sound. I got to know Phyllis Levy and Lou, and their wonderful kids on that trip.
- I remember Hal reflecting about his time in the army when we visited the WWII memorial, a relief of a mortar team brought tears to his eyes…
- I will remember Rona's lobster dinner and Hal's grilled shish-kebabs in New Hampshire
- I will remember Hal taking his morning swims in Stone Pond (and marvel at how that could be enjoyable because its extra frigid in the morning!)
- I will always remember the first time (and the second and the third) that Hal held Abraham in his arms. He loved that boy and I know he loves our unborn baby too. I was so proud to know that my grandpa saw me as a father!
- Nafisa shared with me her memory of when she first met Hal and Rona; they had driven down from NY and picked us up at our home on Irving St. They took us to their favorite D.C. restaurant, Busboys and Poets on 14th St. and the nervousness that Nafisa had felt, instantly melted away. They made her feel so comfortable and at ease. They took us to the Cherry Blossoms afterwards. Nafisa loved that Rona would ask strangers to take our photo. Hal and I would get slightly embarrassed. Hal found life-partners who were so different form him in Bea and then in Rona. Both life-partners required the infinite amount of patience that Hal possessed. The payoff was enormous though, as they were also such special people, both diligent in making the world around them a better place!
- I loved looking at all the books Hal and Rona had, he was a voracious reader up until the end-I'll remember that they had a special dictionary on a dictionary stand in both Rockville Centre and Stone Pond.
- I will remember Hal (and usually Rona) coming to my basketball games at Jelleff (Hal was a baller by the way-Brooklyn College---if anyone has a photo of him playing or in his uniform I'd love to have it!), my soccer games all over the place, and even to my high school track meet in White Plains, NY. I will remember their proud faces at various graduations of mine as well.
- Hal always loved my friends and asked about them- especially my good friend Dario.
- I will remember Hal and Rona listening to NPR- they were so good at the puzzles! Hal was a humble intellectual---reminds me of the quote that the more you know, the more you realize you don't know.
- I will remember riding with Nafisa and Hal and Rona in the red Toyota on the way back to NY from Joe's UConn graduation. It was on this ride that I realized that Grandma was starting to get confused…it was frightening to watch a person with such sharp intellect confuse the seatbelt for a telephone…she could not have had a better and more supportive partner than Harold Levy.
- I will remember all of the people who sat by Hal's bedside in his final weeks. I appreciate all of you so much; it helped me deal with the fact that I could not be there, to know that so many of his loved ones were holding his hand, calling to talk to him, and giving him Bourbon Manhattan by sponge! A special thanks to Phil and Karen Alterman Levy, who have given Hal so much love and support, especially once he and Rona moved to the Amsterdam.
- I am so thankful that my amazing brotherJoe Levy was spending time with Hal basically every other week over the last few years. I love you Joe.
- Joe tells me that Grandpa, when they were saying their goodbyes, wanted Joe and me to be ourselves, and trust ourselves.
- I appreciate Sharon Blynn's words- calling Hal her "heart light" and sharing the Khalil Gibran quote have helped me…I appreciate all the Blynn's and their loving spirits- Hal certainly did!
- 93 years is a long time; Grandpa had seen so much. NYC, the United States, and the world have changed so much since 1924…he did indeed "have a good run"
- I will miss how Hal smelled
- I will miss his smile
- I will miss his Shell belt buckle.
- I will miss him telling me, whenever we were saying goodbye on the phone, to give Nafisa a big kiss on the forehead
- He lovedNafisa Levy-Jiddawi so much
- I will miss him saying Beee-you-ti-ful and Deee-licious---I have been saying that to Abe as much as I can.
I will miss my grandpa Hal so much, and am so glad for the time we were able to spend with him.

Dissing Trump on the wall of his hotel using projected light

In the news recently has been the work of protest projectionist who has been casting messages in light up onto the lintel of the Trump International Hotel, featuring the Emoluments Clause, the legend "Emoluments Welcome" and "Pay Trump Bribes Here."

Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, Eugene Volokh has an analysis of the legal issues.  I had a chance recently to look at the legal issues specifically from a DC law perspective.  As I read the cases, under current law, the hotel would not win a lawsuit against the projectionist (I leave aside whether the DC Council could adopt a content-neutral law regarding the projection of light communicating messages onto the buildings of others).  Here is what I found