All publicity is good publicity.

Okay, it’s not Cindy Adams, but how great that my first print write-up was in “Roz’s Ramblings” the kitschy column of my mother’s 1971 Sisterhood bulletin from our Nassau Community Temple. Only on Long Island kids, only on Long Island.

This newly unearthed piece of ephemera was discovered during the Jewish Holidays when I embarked on an archeological dig of old family photos and memorabilia. As I often do, I turned to the past to help me move through the present.

The Bulletin had been buried for decades in a dusty shoe box between old pamphlets from Smokenders on how to quit smoking, yellowed clippings of busy-day recipes, and instructions on how to care for your Dynel wig. All offered a glimpse into a time and a place.

Kvelling taking place at Betty Edelstein’s home where daughter Sally has had a cartoon drawing accepted for $ by the Long Island Press!

 

Cartoon, LI Press 1971 “Can I return it if my parents like it?”

It seems my first cartoon published in the now defunct Long Island Press was newsworthy for Roz as was my mother’s kvelling.

As head of Sisterhood publicity, I wonder if Mom planted this piece or perhaps was overheard gushing about the news while under the hair dryer at the local beauty parlor. Apparently, the fact that I got paid for this cartoon was big new$ too. That ten bucks I pocketed kept me in Mad magazines for a year.

This was a time when I was committed to becoming a cartoonist and with the zeal, chutzpah, and confidence that only a 13-year-old could have,  I submitted my cartoons to The New Yorker, the granddaddy of magazines.   The returned cartoons and the kind rejection letters could fill a box. As could the sexist nature of the cartoons, the humor straight out of the Borscht Belt.

Vintage cartoon by Sally Edelstein 1969

Vintage cartoon by Sally Edelstein 1969

Temple Doings

The Sisterhood Bulletin was a treasure trove of a time capsule.

Plenty of doings at the temple. Along with their roaring 20s night, the big cover story was a plug for the sisterhoods “Mr. and Mrs. Night” ( tough luck single gals) presenting the Luxenberg’s exciting slide show of their summer trip to the USSR. Traveling to the Soviet Union was still a novel experience for this group of temple niks who likely were only one or 2 generations removed from being chased by the Russian Cossacks.

Who needed social media to be inundated by acquaintances’ travel photos?

Long before Instagram and Facebook subjected us to the endless stream of friends’ and acquaintances’ vacation pictures, we often suffered through slide shows of friends’ travelogues. Most vacations weren’t as exciting as the Luxenbergs, so collective groans were likely internalized when the Kodak carousel came out at the end of a dinner party for an hour-long display of a trip to the Pennsylvanyia Amish County.