Sunday May 25

Visited Rifke Mauale
Schechter & Kessler Club
& Rosenstock in E. N.Y.
& Eva at Hospital. --

Thus I am spending my
sad days.

I am off next week how
will I kill the time?

----------------

Matt's Notes

We haven't seen any of the people mentioned above before, though Papa did discus the Kessler Zion club back in January when he went to the installation ceremony for its new officers (it was probably a Zionist fraternal society like B'nai Zion, the organization to which Papa belonged). I don't know much else about the club, but I expect it was located out in Brooklyn since Papa's Kessler Zion visits usually coincided with trips to said borough of Kings.

Papa's upcoming week off couldn't have been more unwelcome. To lose a week's pay when he needed to send more money home in the wake of his father's death was bad enough, but even worse was the prospect of idleness. Papa was already inclined to get depressed when he was by himself on weekends or after work, and after his father died he found his bachelor pad so intolerable that he invited his neighbor's son to stay with him at night. Sadness waited to burst upon him at every free moment; the "vacation" stretching out before him must have looked as desolate and dangerous as a minefield on the Western Front.