Greetings by Harry live on after all

This folder full of little poems led me to another discovery about my dad: He mailed them to greeting-card companies, only to be rejected by all. Throughout his life, he seemed to think outside-the-box of ways to make extra cash through writing. (Click on photo to enlarge)

Harry crafted countless poems throughout his well-lived life,
On every theme conceivable, and (we think) without help from his wife.

Now, we’ve learned, he also tried to sell some rhymes to those,
Who made appealing greeting cards with sympathetic prose.

These poems date from ’58 through 1966,
They mention all occasions – no words of politics.
Apparently they never sold, but stayed inside his files,
He surely knew that one day we’d be reading them with smiles.

Enjoy these sample rhymes and photos from Harry’s greeting-card years.

Anniversary

It seems unkind and quite unfair,
That other fellas have their hair,
But even though I’m bald, it’s true,
I’ll still show them a thing or two.

For on my anniversary,
The other fellas envy me,
Because they know that this is true,
They may have hair – but I have you.

                    * * *

There are a million, million stars,
Throughout the sky above,
They shine on Jupiter and Mars,
And you and me, my love.

In all of space, with all of life,
The miracle, to me,
Is that we two are man and wife,
For all eternity.

                    * * *

Pandora had a little box,
Which opened up one day,
And out came all the troubles,
Which plague us all today.

But nothing ever worries me,
My troubles I’ll abide,
As long as you and I can be,
Together, side by side.

                    * * *

A picture’s worth a thousand words,
At least, they say it’s true,
But pictures can’t describe my thoughts,
No, only words will do.

Yes, only words can really say
How much you mean to me,
On this most fateful, magic day,
Our Anniversary.

Graduation

You’ve worked so long and hard, we know,
To reach this point in life,
And now it’s time for you to go
And face a world of strife.

Well, there are many roads to take,
To make your dreams come true,
Whichever you may choose, we pray
Good fortune follows you.

Fathers/Mothers Day

Each year there comes one happy day,
When Father reigns supreme,
And everyone will gladly say
That Daddy’s “on the beam.”

There’s just one thing, you will agree,
And this we have to say,
The bills for gifts we buy, you see,
Poor Daddy has to pay!

                    * * *

How many mothers have there been,
Since the beginning of time?
And how many children send their love,
With a letter, note or rhyme?

How many times do they toast her name,
With a kiss and cup of wine?
No matter how many, there never has been,
A wonderful mother like mine.

Separations

Each night before I go to sleep,
I write a line or two,
And then instead of counting sheep,
I think and dream of you.

And even though our parting is,
Just temporary, dear,
I miss you and I want you and,
Can’t wait till you are here.

                    * * *

I spend my days in wishing,
My dreams would all come true,
And then I spend each lonely night,
In dreaming, dear, of you.

Now ask me what I wish for,
And what my dreams all see,
The answer, dear, is simple,
To make you wish for me.

                    * * *

There is an ancient proverb,
That absence isn’t bad,
It makes the heart grow fonder,
And it makes reunions glad.

But just the same I’d rather,
Not find out if it’s true,
I’d much prefer, instead, my love,
To stay at home with you.

New Baby

So you had a small addition,
To your little family,
And now instead of two of you,
You both add up to three.

Well, our heartiest best wishes,
For the present – and what’s more,
For the future, just one question –
Would you like to try for four?


Valentines

Now I ask you, is it true?
Can I really count on you?
Will you promise faithfully
That my Valentine you’ll be?

                    * * *

The world is such a crazy place,
For members of the human race,
Won’t you make my world all right,
And be my Valentine tonight?

                    * * *

Once a year there comes a time,
When we convey our thoughts in rhyme,
And even a guy as shy as I,
Can “Love you till the day I die.”

Though I can’t speak the words, you see,
This card will do the job for me,
So darling, sweetheart, baby mine,
Won’t you be my Valentine?

                    * * *

I dreamed a dream the other night,
Subconsciously, you see,
That you were in my arms so tight,
And never looked at me.

Now you don’t have to look at me,
In order to be mine,
So look the other way – Just be,
My own sweet Valentine.

Birthday

Here’s a birthday wish, you see,
Designed for just one guy,
He’s the father of my children,
And the apple of my eye!

                    * * *

Birthdays come and birthdays go,
At least once every year,
And every time one passes by,
We celebrate and cheer.

But years are not important,
Besides, who’s counting, dear?
Let birthdays come and go like mad,
So long as you are near.

                    * * *

It seems so short a time ago,
When you were on my knee,
And when we stood together,
You were looking up to me.

Those days are gone forever, and
I can’t help feeling blue,
For you have quite outgrown me,
And I now look up to you!

                    * * *

There was a fairy princess once,
Who made good dreams come true,
She answered all my wishes when,
She blessed my life with you.

But now she’s gone, and in her place,
She left a princess, too,
I look into your smiling face –
The princess, dear, is you!

                    * * *

Some folks grin when they forget,
And never seem to get upset,
Instead they act so very clever,
Better late, they say, than never.

But me, I felt so mortified,
I simply cried and cried and cried,
So I confess, my card is late,
Because I just forgot the date.

                    * * *

Fashions change, and so do styles,
Mistakes are now shrugged off with smiles,
Apologies are now outdated,
So here’s your birthday wish – belated!
Happy Birthday!

                   * * * 

(I found this last one undated in a different file.)

 To My Wife, My Love

I didn’t find a Card this year,
To wish you Happy Birthday, dear.
But don’t you worry, don’t you fear,
I’m still in love with you, my dear.

The Cards I see do not appear,
To say the words that you should hear.
So let me make my feelings clear,
I love you more each passing year.

YELH

Copyright 2017, Elaine Blackman

Harry’s taste for writing mystery

Did he pull out an old manuscript in the ’90s?

After Harry died in 2014, I inherited the boxes he’d long-ago packed with bulky, brown accordion folders containing his typewritten novels – or parts of them. I remember reading only one manuscript he was trying to publish in the 1970s. You can read the synopsis to one I’d never seen, last week on this blog.
 
In addition to the boxed versions, I found a folder on his computer titled “BOOK 4”. It contains 29 documents that apparently make up part of another novel. To give you a taste, here’s one document, last modified July 22, 1994, titled “One”. At some point, he had asked a friend to read his manuscripts, and she confirmed that Harry’s novels are (loosely) based on his experiences.


One

Bill Freelav was killed in my office, sitting at my desk. That made it kind of personal, even though I didn’t know him. He was the only person on the sixteen member staff of the Riverview News I hadn't met yet. That’s because he was out of town the previous week when I took over as Editor and met them all. I was looking forward to meeting him tonight, but not this way.

When I approached the newspaper office, which was in the basement of an apartment building, I had a feeling something was wrong. You cannot spend ten years fighting spies and terrorists as an officer of a top secret NATO security unit without developing an instinct for trouble. My problem was that I didn’t trust that instinct, not at that moment. I thought it was compounded largely of fear, and I hadn’t yet learned how to handle the fear that possessed me. That’s why I had retired as a Light Colonel after twenty years in the Army’s Special Forces, with a bright career ahead of me if I’d stayed in. That’s why I was here, the new editor of a small town weekly newspaper, trying to wind down from the stress and the fear that gripped me constantly. But that’s another story. So I ignored the instinct and the growing sense of unease as I walked up the sidewalk leading from the street to the big, thick, heavy glass double doors of the entrance.

It was almost nine-thirty on a balmy Monday evening in mid-August. No cloud cover obscured the emerging stars, and I was able to pick out the steady glitter of Polaris off the end of the Big Dipper, pointing eternally to the north. All things considered, I thought for the millionth time, I’d rather be flying. Looking through the glass doors that opened onto a fairly large landing, I could see the bottom few stairs on the left leading up to the first-floor apartments and the landing on the right for the steps leading down to the newspaper office in the basement – my office, as of one week ago.

I pulled open the door on the right and, as I descended the stairs, the feeling of apprehension that had gripped me outside became stronger. The small hallway in the basement should have been brightly lit. It was dark. The light switch on the wall was in the “on” position. I flicked it twice. It was still dark. I could see the bulb dimly in the ceiling. I had put in a new one myself last week. At an even six feet, I could just reach it standing on my toes, the only one in the office my first night there who could do it. I was about to reach up now to jiggle it, but I stopped myself. The door to the newspaper office was slightly open, which meant someone was in there. If someone was in there, there should have been some light, at least a glimmer of light, showing through the opening. But there wasn’t. It was dark. The danger instinct tingling the nerve endings in the back of my neck was now too strong to ignore.

I had been in situations like this before, where death or worse – there is worse, believe me – waited on the other side of an open door. At the far end of the basement hallway I could see the very pale square of glass set in the top of the back door leading outside. It seemed to be closed but, even as I strained to see it in the dark, I heard the automatic latch, always set on lock and only able to be opened from inside, click shut. Someone must have just gone out that door. I switched my attention to the office door. It was the kind that opened from the inside into the hallway. I got down on the floor and, lying to the side of it, stuck my hand out and eased it halfway open. I was not in the doorway, in case someone inside wanted to take a shot at me. I’d been in that situation before, too. And someone had taken a shot at me before; several, in fact, and on several occasions. The last time I had gotten careless. I’d thought that because I’d never been hit before I was invincible. I was wrong. And now my nerve was gone; I was gripped with fear and starting to sweat. The bullet wound in my upper left chest, just below the shoulder, pretty well healed now, gave me a small twinge as I got up on my left elbow and eased my head around the door jamb.

It was dark inside, but I could just make out the lighter squares of the big picture windows that came halfway down the wall at the far end of the room. Except for that half wall, the rest of the room was all below ground level. I listened for the slightest sound. Nothing. I sniffed the air, all my senses alert for a sign of life, a rustle of breath, a movement of air, a scent of something, anything. There are some scents you never, never forget. One is the scent of blood, the coppery acrid scent of blood freshly spilled. God help me, I knew that scent well enough. It wasn’t there.

I eased up to my feet, still keeping to the left of the open doorway, cautiously reached my arm around, groped for the light switches, found them and clicked them on. The lights blazed up. My eyes swept the very large basement room in one quick glance. The office was empty, except for the furniture and the dead man sitting at my desk. My desk faced the window. The previous editor liked to work with his back to the rest of the office. Not me. I was going to turn the desk around to face the office tonight.

He was slumped face down so that all I could see of him was the back of his head, thick, luxuriant, dark brown hair, a lot like my own, his face invisible to me, his arms hanging straight down at his sides. The handle of a knife stuck out of his back. No telling how long the blade was, but it was obviously long enough to penetrate the heart and kill him instantly, because there was no blood visible. I did not have to feel for a pulse to know he was dead, but I did anyway; fingers at the throat where the blood pulses through the carotid artery. Nothing. He was still warm, dead not more than ten or fifteen minutes. I went to another desk, picked up the phone and hit the 911 buttons. A woman’s voice answered.

“Police station,” she said. “Can I help you?”

“I want to report a murder,” I said. She was silent a minute, as though unwilling to believe her ears. “Are you still there?” I asked.

“Excuse me,” she said, “I don’t think I heard you right. Would you repeat that, please?”

“I want to report a murder,” I repeated.

“Is this some kind of a joke?” she asked. Then, with sudden suspicion, “Who is this? Is that you, Phil?”

“No ma’am,” I said. “This is Laurence Stranger. I’m the new editor of the Riverview News. This is not a joke. There’s a dead man here, and he’s been murdered.”

“Where are you?” she asked. Her senses were starting to catch up.

“I’m at the newspaper office on Canal Road.”

“I know where it is,” she said. “Stay there, and don’t touch anything.” In control again, no uncertainty in her voice.

So I went outside and looked at the sky to see if Polaris was still there. It was. I watched it to make sure it didn’t get away until the cops showed up. It took them six minutes. The squad car pulled up to the curb quietly, no sirens, no blinking strobe lights, no screaming rubber or squealing brakes. Two uniformed cops got out of the front seat and a big, broad-shouldered man got out of the rear. He was wearing a well-cut suit that fit him perfectly and he handled himself with the ease and confidence of a man in top physical condition. He stopped in front of me and looked me up and down.

“You’d be Stranger,” he said softly, but there was an undercurrent of hostility in his voice. “Now what the hell is this all about?”

I had to look up at him, which made him around six foot four and, judging by the width of his shoulders, at least 240 pounds, which gave him about fifty pounds on me. He looked hard, too. Not a man to tangle with. “There’s a dead man down there,” I jerked my thumb at the office. “Somebody stuck a knife in him.”

“You two,” he waved a hand at the two uniforms, “go take a look.” They went, quickly, and within thirty seconds one of them came back.

“She got it right, Chief,” he said. “There’s a stiff down there.”

“Who is it?” asked the Chief.

“Can’t see his face,” the officer said, “but I’d guess it’s Freelav. Looks like him from behind, anyway.”

The Chief heaved a deep sigh. “Well, let’s go take a look,” he gestured for me to lead the way. ...

Copyright 2016, Elaine Blackman

‘Invasion’ – a '60s newsroom story

Author Harry M. Zubkoff

Immigration is a hot topic today, as always, and the theme of Harry’s fiction below. If it looks familiar, you may remember his brief “opinion” piece on this blog last November. The version below, I later discovered, tells the full story. 

Harry’s setting is one he found familiar – the newsroom. He wrote the story, like many of his others, when he lived in Greenbelt, MD (1949 to 1963), where he spent a lot of time volunteering at the city newspaper office. His involvement there and in other Greenbelt activities probably gave him excellent fodder for his imagination. (See one example in the news clipping at the bottom of this page.)   

This is the last of Harry’s fictional stories I’ll post for now because others are too long for a blog; some run 50 pages or so. He also left behind several unpublished novels.  




The Managing Editor was still reasonably young, although his sandy hair was balding on top and he could no longer read copy without his black-rimmed glasses. But he didn’t need his glasses to note with appreciation every movement of his secretary’s ripe figure as she approached his desk.

“Here it is, Chief,” she announced triumphantly as she slapped an envelope down on his desk. “It’s marked Personal for you,” she added, “and there’s no return address, but there’s no doubt who it’s from.”

His heart beat a little faster as he fingered the envelope, absently watching her hips as she walked away. Then he swiveled his chair to face the window, carefully adjusted his glasses, and opened the envelope.

The letter was handwritten, unusual for a reporter like Larry. He must be hiding somewhere without his typewriter, the thought flashed through his mind as he started reading.

* * * * *

Chief,

When you first assigned me to do a story on the boom in apartment buildings, I was uncertain how to tackle it. We’ve had dozens of stories in the Real Estate Sections during the past year, so there seemed to be little I could add in terms of construction starts or building plans.

Every major city in the country is going through the same experience, with modern high-rise monstrosities coming to dominate the skyline from coast to coast. These apartments aren’t inexpensive, either, with rentals ranging from over $100 a month for efficiencies to several hundred a month for multiple bedroom units.

Frankly, I found it hard to believe that there were enough people around to fill these buildings. And I found it doubly hard to believe that there were enough people around who could afford these prices. The more I thought about it, the more it struck me that no one had ever written a story about the people who live in all those new apartments. Oh, sure, there have been planning studies, in statistical terms, of the impact of apartment dwellers in a given area – on the road facilities and traffic patterns, the shopping facilities, the employment markets, etc. But how many human interest stories have you seen? How many stories about people – who they are, where they come from, what they do?

Well, that was my gimmick. I decided to peg the story on the “population explosion”; but first I had to do a little research to find out just how fast the population is growing in order to tie it in with the number of apartments being built. That’s when I started running into trouble. I kept checking and rechecking my figures, but somehow they didn’t make sense to me.

Consider, for example, these statistics. China, which is and always has been the fastest growing nation in the world, had about 70 million people at the time of Christ. If the population had been increasing at the rate of only 1% per year since then, it would amount to something like 21 million billion today (which would come to 13 Chinese per square foot of the Earth). Obviously, this is not the case. The most reliable estimates put the Chinese population at about 700 million today, which means that their rate of growth has been a very small fraction of 1%.

Let’s bring this a little closer to home. Europe, throughout the period of its greatest growth in the 19th century, never exceeded a growth rate of 1%. In fact, between 1800 and 1950, the population of Western Europe went from 125 million to 310 million, an average increase of 0.6% annually. These figures represent the norm, against which all other statistics must be measured. With that in mind, does it make any sense at all to believe the United States Census figures? Look at these incredible statistics for some of our states. Between 1900 and 1960 the population of Arizona increased by 958.5%; California by 958.1%; Florida by 836.1%; Nevada by 578.6%; and so forth and so on for a total United States increase of 135.5%. Not only are those figures incredible, they are absolutely unbelievable.

I know I’m taking the long way around, Chief, but just bear with me a few more minutes. You must realize the state I was in when these figures finally registered with me. The statistics are based on a head count by official census takers, so they must be right. And obviously, the people are here. So the question I was stuck with was – where are all those people coming from?

Now seriously, have you ever stopped to consider that question? Has anyone? Well, I have – and what’s more, after racking my brains over it for a long time, I think I’ve come up with the answer. The fact is, I don’t think they’re people at all. Have you been reading all the reports about flying saucers lately? Well, judging by the frequency of these reports, it seems to me that somebody “up there” is running a shuttle service to Earth – that there’s a mass immigration taking place right under our noses.

Now wait a minute, Chief, don’t flip your lid just yet. I know it sounds wild, but I ask you again, stop and consider. Even a hard-nose editor like you can’t help but be impressed by these statistics.

The astronomers estimate that there are about 6,000 million galaxies, like our own Milky Way, within range of our 200-inch telescopes. (There are probably millions more that we haven’t seen yet.) They also estimate that our galaxy contains about 30,000 million stars, most of them bigger than our Sun and each of them with its own family of planets. If each of the galaxies contains approximately the same number of stars, and the truth is, most of the galaxies are considerably bigger than our own, then we can conservatively guess that there are something like 180 million million stars out there. Multiply that figure by ten and you get a rough idea of how many planets there are. Now with all those trillions and trillions of planets, literally more numerous than the grains of sand on all the beaches of all our oceans, there must be at least a few on which life similar to ours has evolved. A few – well, let’s put it this way … If only one planet in a million had life like ours, there would be billions; if only one in a billion had life like ours, there would still be millions. With odds like that, it seems quite reasonable to assume that life like ours has evolved elsewhere and that they have discovered our existence.

And if they’re anything at all like us, they must think the grass is greener here, and maybe it is, at that. Anyway, I think they’re coming here, probably from many different places, landing secretly on dark nights, printing their own money (which accounts for inflation that’s taking place) and setting themselves up in residence. Maybe they look upon the Earth as a vacation capital of the universe. After all, viewed through their eyes, we’re probably good for a lot of laughs the way we behave towards each other. Or maybe they look upon us as a horrible example and are trying to figure out how to avoid making the same mistakes themselves.

By now you probably think I’ve gone off the deep end, and in a way I don’t blame you. But you’ve come this far with me so you might as well hear me out. Like any reporter, as soon as I’d make the assumption, I started to check it out. First, I spent some time just observing the people (creatures?) living in one recently completed luxury apartment house. The pattern of their lives struck me immediately. To begin with, they all seem to be fairly young people. The men are all handsome; the women all beautiful; everyone well-dressed at all times. The men play a lot of golf; the women a lot of bridge; and none of them seem to have to work for a living. Now I ask you, Chief, is that the way normal human beings live? Of course not.

I noticed, too, that there were a lot of single young men and women living there, with no visible means of support. How can young people afford to live like that? If they’re human, they can’t. There was also a complete absence of children. A lot of pets, but no children! How do you account for that? It’s just not human, that’s all.

In probing deeper, I learned that almost all of them were college graduates, so I decided to visit a few campuses to see what I could learn. Well, Chief, that’s where I struck pay dirt. Without exception, all the campuses (including some of our most famous universities) have been literally transformed into an alien environment. I could see at once that in their younger years these aliens bear only a superficial resemblance to human beings. Oh, now and then you see a human being, but for the most part, the students are obviously aliens. They go to school, apparently, to learn something of our language and our culture, but among themselves they speak incomprehensible jargon and have a culture which is decidedly un-human. Everything about them is different – their dress, their speech, the way they walk or their “gait,” if you will, the way they sit or slouch – everything which goes to make up our “human qualities” is missing. And get this, Chief, they’re also either sexless, or their sex is interchangeable – at least, in most cases, it’s impossible to distinguish between the sexes. I think what happens is that about the time they graduate, give or take a year or two, they undergo a metamorphosis and emerge into something which bears a much closer resemblance to human beings, even to the extent of assuming a gender, although exactly how the change takes place is still obscure.

In any event, Chief, I think I have established a prime facie case for my thesis, but I can understand that you may feel that I still need more concrete evidence. The trouble is, something’s wrong. There’s an old jungle that keeps running through my mind. It describes my situation, in a way, and it goes like this:

I took her to the movies,
I took her to a show,
I took her almost every place
A boy and girl could go.
I took her out to dinner,
I took her out to tea,
When suddenly I realized
That she’d been taking me!

You see, Chief, during the last couple of weeks I’ve had the most uncanny sensation that I was being watched. Just this morning I found out for sure. I spotted them, two of them, everywhere I went, and I suddenly realized that all this time, while I’ve been observing them, they’ve had me under observation, too. And suddenly I’m scared. That’s why I’m writing this letter, to bring you up to date on my findings, just in case. As soon as I mail it, I’m going to drop out of sight. I’ll be holed up in a friend’s place (she’s a very good friend) at 1121 Park Road. The phone number is 221-4573, if you want to reach me for anything. But please, Chief, you’re the only one I’ve told and I ask you to keep it strictly between us until the heat’s off.

As ever,
Larry

* * * * *

When he had finished reading he sighed and swiveled back to his desk. Almost reluctantly his finger reached out to punch the intercom button.

“Call the Security Squad,” he told his secretary. “He’s at 1121 Park Road.”

The fourth one this month, he thought sadly, and more of them learning about us all the time. And yet, he consoled himself, it’s still the easiest way to settle a new planet with the fewest possible casualties to the poor natives.

THE END

Copyright 2016

Elaine Blackman

According to this 1962 article, Harry was chairman of Greenbelt, MD’s, 25th Anniversary events. I was 10, but don’t remember. I do vaguely remember the NASA tour mentioned in the article; Greenbelt residents are NASA’s fortunate neighbors. (Special thanks to Paul Kasko, the photographer’s son, for sharing this and other clippings surprisingly absent from Harry’s files.)