[joe-frank-list] 'Small world karma'

[russellbell at gmail.com]

	Joe tells the story of 'The incredible shrinking man'.
(originally aired in 'He hesitated')
	12:30: Larry tells Joe he's found a great new place to hide
his scotch.  Larry observes that a lot of athletes at the Olympics
thank god for their victories; Joe and Larry talk about how ridiculous
this is.
	18:30: Debi tells Joe about the sacred women's dance circle in
Topanga.
	23:00: Debi tells about her trip to Europe with a boyfriend.
	26:00: Larry talks about god some more, how the Christian god
is more powerful than the Jewish god.
	27:50: 'My father was a German Jewish industrialist who
divorced his wife to marry my mother when he was 42 and she was a
17-year-old high school senior'.  (Joe's father, Meier Langermann, was
41 when he married Joe's mother, Friederike Passweg, who was 18.  He
turned 42 a month after the marriage, and she had turned 18 a month
before, so it was close.  He was born in Poland, apparently had a
factory in Berlin.  Ships' logs record his nationality as Polish.)
	'She was from a poor family that was delighted with the match
because it meant that they'd all be taken care of from that moment on
- and that's exactly what happened.  My father took some of them into
his business and subsidized and supported others, and he was always
there whenever anyone was in financial trouble.  And my father took my
mother's older brother, Ben, into the business, and taught him from
the ground up and groomed him to eventually take over the firm when he
retired.  But my father lost his business empire under the Nazis and
the family had to flee Germany in 1939, just before the war.  My
father managed to get most of our relatives out of Europe.' (Ben, his
wife and their daughters; Sabine Passweg, Friederike's mother;
Sigmund, Sonia, and Michael Spiegel, Friederike's brother-in-law,
sister, and their son, all made it to the US.  Friederike's father was
already dead.  What happened to Meier's first wife?  Did Meier and his
first wife have any children?  His parents were probably already dead,
considering his age.)  Meier built a new set of shoe factories in the
US.
	29:10: Joe says his father died when he was 5.  (He died 1943
October 8, aged 56).  Ben took over the business.
	29:20: Joe says he was close to Ben's 3 daughters, played
together, went to the same school, summered in the country on Long
Island together.  (Eva, born 1934; Ruth, born 1938; Frances, born
1941; Joe was born in 1938)
	29:50: 'Ben was a good-humored, big bear of a man who took
over the position my father had formerly held as patriarch of the
family.  He was invariably kind to me.'
	30:10: Joe and his parents (Frederika had married 'Freddy')
moved to the suburbs.  Joe started failing his courses, went to summer
school, hung out with the bad crowd, got into trouble.
	30:50: In a fight in high school, someone kicked Joe in the
groin; a tumor developed in his testicle, ended up with testicular
cancer, had an unfavorable prognosis, got surgery and radiation
therapy.  (Joe says this was before chemotherapy.)  He suffered
greatly.  
	33:00: One night in the hospital Joe prays and end to his
suffering, then thinks about all the other sick people in the
hospital, prays for them, then for all the sick people in the
world... until he decides that prayers are futile against so much
suffering, gets mad at god for allowing it.
	35:10: 'A year later, in 1965' (Joe was born in 1938, was in
high school 1952-1956.  In 'Karma, part 7' Joe says, '2 years before
(1965), I had had a particularly-virulent form of testicular cancer.
In 'Too close to home' he says he had testicular cancer when he was
23.) Joe's uncle Ben became ill, a liver ailment.
	36:00: Joe was in Macy's 1965 November 9, the day of the great
blackout (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_1965).
Joe went to visit Ben, but turned back.  (originally aired in 'Karma
part 7'; told again in 'Too close to home')
	42:40: Jack Kornfield visits a contractor with a serious brain
cancer.  The indicated surgery may make it impossible for him to
speak; he has to decide in a day.  He's only interested in his
spiritual life.  The surgery goes successfully: they got enough of the
tumor but kept his speech.  He became a counselor for the sick and
grieving, lived another 8 years.
	47:00: Debi tells of her father's (Noble's) death.  (I find no
evidence of Noble Zadler.)  She had to insist on more morphine for his
pain, then the removal of his oxygen mask, so he died.  She said it
was a beautiful experience.
	52:00: Debi tells of being at the Hard Rock Cafe in Washington
DC, her waiter was named Noble, on the first anniversary of her
father's death.
	53:00: Debi says 'intensive purposes', Joe corrects her.  (He
let it slide in 'Arena', about 16:10)
	54:20: Debi's cat kills a hummingbird.  She's upset.

	'You've been listening to Joe Frank "The other side".  This
program was called "Small world karma" with Debi Mae West, Larry
Block, Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield, and Joe Frank; edited by
J. C. Swiatek and mixed by Bob Carlson; production assistance: Esme
Gregson; music supervision: Thomas Golubic'

	http://jfwiki.org/index.php?title=Small_World_Karma

	A friend went to a sacred women's dance circle in Topanga (it
was the '90s - could have been the same one!); she told me they were
naked.

russell bell