Thursday Nov 6

Visited Badiners on
business

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Papa had recently started selling womens' gowns on the side to earn a little extra cash, so I assume his "business" visit to Badiner had something to do with that. Perhaps he made a sales pitch to several women of Badiner's acquaintance, as he did the other day when he gathered his cousin Clara's friends in Brooklyn, or maybe he just wanted some guidance.

Badiner was, I think, some kind of adviser or mentor to Papa; we first met him back in May when he helped Papa get up from shiva in order to attend his nephew's bris. (For those of you just joining us, I should explain that Papa learned of his father's death just as his sister, Nettie, gave birth to a son. In one of the stranger episodes of the year, Papa and his other sister, Clara, kept the news of their father's death from Nettie so as not to disturb her convalescence.)

Unfortunately, this entry is hard to read (many of Papa's entries have been spidery and blotchy lately, as if Papa has written them in a hurry or switched to a defective pen) so the Badiner who appeared in May might not even be the same person Papa mentions above. Here's how the name looked back then, when Papa was writing in a stronger hand:



And here's how it looks today, with a possessive "s" at the end:



I'm pretty sure it's the same name, even if it doesn't necessarily say "Badiner," but perhaps I'm wrong. If you read it any differently, please drop a comment or send a note.