Day: April 17, 2018

When Dennis Yushak’s father died, he took over the family deli and grocery in the small town of Shushan, N.Y., a few miles north of our farm. Dennis had planned for a different life, but he threw himself into this one, along with his wife Debbie.

Denny, as he is known here, decided to focus on making the best meat products – sausages and beef and bacon – in the area, and his meats are legendary. Customers, including many chefs from Albany and Saratoga and New York City, come all the way to Shushan to get meat from Yushak’s deli for their  homes and restaurants.

The Bog’s hamburgers are famous, they are all from Yushak’s, so are the sausages  used in the pizza at the Round House Cafe.

Denny is something of a rabbi up here as well as a meat wizard.

He loves the New York Mets, and is philosophical about them, as he is about everything else.

He is a warm and open man, his eyes believe the dry humor that makes him so much fun.

Every few months, I get the urge to take  his portrait, and he always smiles and gives me his bemused look, he never can figure out why I want to take his photo, but he is much too kind and polite to say no.

Today, I even got a tour of his freezer out back. I often see Denny dress up in a jacket and his fur hat and had back into the freezer to  prepare his meat. He is very proud of his reputation and has the kind of relationship with his customers that  used to be the foundation of the small family business.

I am so grateful there are no giant box stores nearby to drain the blood out of Denny’s store. Denny is a testament to what community mans, and how our social fabric is torn and broken when every store must be monstrous and cheap. I could walk into Wal-Mart every day for the rest of my life and never be known.

Soon, the summer people, the campground people, the tourists, will be coming to Yushak’s for sandwiches and dinner and food for company. Dennis is the King of all he surveys, the deli counter his throne. It will be busy in there, long lines and big orders, but Denny will not ever lose his cool or snap at a customer.

He knows everyone by name.

We are extremely fortunate to have Denny and Yushak’s around.

Today I his big and tasty crab cakes there, thinly sliced American cheese and Denny’s own recipe for baked beans, chopped sirloin, coleslaw and Apricot chicken sausages.

I brought my camera. Denny laughed the second he saw it. “Haven’t you already taken a photo of me?, he asked.

Yes, I said. And I’m going to take another.

And I got a portrait I love of a good man whose like took a curve but who made the absolute best of it, for him, and for a lot of other people.

We stopped into the Mansion to see how Diane and her Baby Sue are doing after nearly a week together. The answer is that they were doing wonderfully. Red seemed eager to meet the baby, and Diane said she would love to have Red say hello, so I asked him to jump up on the bed, which he did, and then he curled up with the two of them for more than 10 minutes.

Diane, who loves Red almost as much as she loves her new baby, was overjoyed to be cuddling with them both at the same time. “I will always love you, too,” she said, “you need to be loved too.” This is true. Red needs to be loved and knows how to love.

Sue, a “realistic doll” created for older people with memory problems, has had a profound impact on Diane. She is not restless or angry or frustrated any longer, as she says herself in this revealing video, she wants to love and be loved, and the baby has given her a way to love and be loved.

I came into Diane’s room after lunch, she was lying  in bed with the realistic baby doll in her arms. I brought her a comforter and a change of clothes, and she immediately swathed Sue in it. I told her I ordered a bassinet for her and it is coming in a day or so.

She seemed excited to hear it, she can hardly take her eyes off the baby.

This experience has been powerful and revealing, for me and for the staff and certainly for Diane. It has worked beyond our expectations, and it was precisely what Diane needed.I think the bassinet will also be helpful, Diane likes to leave the baby in a safe place when she leaves the room, and she doesn’t quite trust the bed when Sue is alone.

This has been a profoundly satisfying experience, we really have transformed the reality of Diane’s life, she was always so frustrated and anxious and restless. She has a purpose now, a mission, and most importantly something to care for. She can love and be needed at the same time.

Come and See.

A few days ago, Winnie, a resident at the Mansion Assisted Care Facility in Cambridge, asked me if I might sell her one of my books. She has read most of them, she said, and enjoyed them, but she hasn’t read any of the newer ones. I brought her a copy of Second Chance Dog, and she had never heard of Frieda and was excited about the book.

Winnie looked a bit down to me, I asked her if she was all right. She said it was her wedding anniversary, she said, and my book was a welcome present.

i asked how long she had been married, and she smiled at me, and said “64 years.” I asked about her husband, and she said he still lives at the farm where they have spent most of their lives together.

“I’ve asked him if he would want to come her and live, and he says no,” she said, “He said he would rather die than come here.” Winnie practices acceptance of life and respect for it, as do I, but I could she felt a little down and Red and I stayed for awhile and spoke with her.

She said her children were taking her and her husband out to dinner at a local Italian restaurant to celebrate their 64 wedding anniversary, She was looking forward to that. I’m glad I picked today to bring her her book.

Happy Anniversary, Winnie. If you care to write Winnie or send her anniversary wishes, you can write her c/o The Mansion, 11 S. Union Avenue, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.

The Mansion residents love to be photographed, I think for some it is a recognition that they matter, an acknowledgement of their sometimes battered sense of identity and worth.

Ruth began asking me to take a picture of her and Ken, they have been married a long time and are inseparable, around the time her surgery was scheduled for August.

There was an urgency to the photo that I recognized, I’ve seen it before, people want a record of themselves and their loved ones at certain times. I don’t ever ask the residents for medical details they sometimes offer them and sometimes take it for granted that I know.

At the Mansion, time has a different meaning, and I always look to see if I can sense the urgency of one request or another. Wayne came to me today and asked if I could get a stuffed dog for him, and one for Tia, a staffer with a small child. He wants to make sure her kid has a gift.

That gift is important, but not urgent (I have the dogs). I think Ruth’s was urgent.

Since the staff is not allowed to share medical information with me, as a volunteer, I often don’t know, although it eventually becomes clear. So I asked the printer of my photographs to print a photo of these two that I took last week. We had it framed and I brought it to the Mansion today.

Ruth and I have a great connection, she is direct and always hopeful. We have already been through some hard times together.

Ruth was very happy to get it, we did talk about the new clothes she might need after her surgery, I told her I was on it.  Ruth always offers to pay me back when her Social Security check comes but I told her we have an Army of Good to help her and we don’t need any payment.

I love seeing my photography used in this way. Ruth called Lucas, the maintenance supervisor and asked him if he would hang the photo over their bed and he went right off to do it.

I smile every time I think of it.

You can write to Ruth and Ken c/o The Mansion, 11 S.Union Avenue, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816. Ruth is always ready to smile, Ken too.

 

Another in my Willa Cather Girl photo series.