r
s
views
for openers
Our Story
My Glory Days
Tiger Woods has nothing on me.
I
just finished enjoying two events
on television that involved partic-
ipants desperate for big victories
— and it didn’t involve
politics
I spent the after-
noon of Sept. 23
watching the dramatic
finish to Tiger Woods’
win in the PGA Tour
Alan Muskovitz Championship, his
first victory in more
Contributing Writer
than five years. And I
followed that by watching the Lions’
stunning nationally televised win over
the five-time Super Bowl champion
New England Patriots.
After seven hours of watching tele-
vised sports, I was more than your
run-of-the-mill couch potato; I actu-
ally starting growing sprouts.
I probably derive more satisfaction
from watching athletes perform at the
highest level, having been a four-star
athlete in my own right.
As a member of Southfield’s Mary
Thompson Junior High School varsity
basketball team in the late 1960s, I
scored 14 consecutive points in one
game on seven straight lay-ups against
Cranbrook. How did I pull off this
amazing athletic feat? Cranbrook for-
got to assign someone to defend me.
It’s the truth.
If memory serves me, I seem to
recall that we defeated Cranbrook
48-2. And one of my teammates
accounted for Cranbrook’s two points!
After making a steal on the ball, he
got spun around and drove the length
of the court and
scored on the
wrong basket.
On a side note,
I dreamed of
being the greatest
fullback in Mary
Thompson foot-
ball history. But during one practice, I
got hit in the groin and quit the team.
In 1978, while the New York
Yankees were on their way to winning
back-to-back World Series, a scrappy
23-year-old pitcher by the name of
Alan “Musky” Muskovitz was helping
his team with the Southfield Parks
& Recreation Men’s Residential B
Softball championship for Drakeshire
Lanes.
Legend has it that after we won that
championship, my teammates and
I walked into a cornfield and disap-
peared.
In June 2003, I stunned the golfing
world by breaking 100 at Oakland
Hills Country Club on my very first
attempt at playing the fabled golf
links. I carded a 98 that day that
included no mulligans or kicking balls
away from behind trees.
How did a duffer like me make his
way onto that course in the first place?
It just so happens that during a com-
edy bit on the Dick Purtan Show, a
character I portrayed pretended to be
a member of Oakland Hills but was in
trouble for not paying his dues. The
next thing I knew, the president of the
club, Bob Gigliotti, called me at the
radio station and invited me to play
Alan Muskovitz edges in
for an interview with Tiger
Woods in 2004.
for real. What a thrill.
Bob is a great guy who went on to
become chairman of the prestigious
Ryder Cup played at Oakland Hills in
September 2004. That friendship led
to my getting media credentials for
the event, where I had the chance to
interview Tiger Woods.
Actually, I didn’t end up asking
Tiger a question. Instead I shared
with him that I shot a 98 at the club
and warned him the rough was really
thick. He respectfully acknowledged
my accomplishment and that ended
our seven-second interview.
I’m writing this column almost 14
years to the day that Team USA lost to
the Europeans at Oakland Hills. Here’s
hoping we were victorious at last
weekend’s Ryder Cup in Paris.
I previously mentioned that I was a
four-star athlete. Unfortunately, space
doesn’t allow me to share what is
probably my proudest athletic endeav-
or — winning a pie-eating contest at
Camp Tanuga in 1965. ■
Alan Muskovitz is a writer, voice-over/acting tal-
ent, speaker, emcee and an occasional guest
host on the Mitch Albom Show on WJR AM
760. Visit his website at laughwithbigal.com
and “Like” Al on Facebook.
Click. Call. Give Now.
www.hfldetroit.org
248.723.8184
Blippar
A Promise to Yeni
R
abbi Josh Whinston of Temple
Beth Emeth in Ann Arbor
gave a special sermon on Yom
Kippur.. He and Michigan Support
Circle’s Rosalie Lochner had met a few
months ago, at the time that immi-
grant families separated at the border
were being hastily reunited with little
Father and son Arthur Liss and
Dr. Zachary Liss serve together
as leaders at Hebrew Free Loan.
Zachary felt it was a natural
progression, joining the organization
that was often a topic of family
discussions, and he even has a
youthful memory of coming along
with his father on a Sunday when
client interviews were scheduled.
“I was in middle school, I think,”
said Zachary. “We’d discussed
HFL at home quite often, but in the
abstract, because of the client
confidentiality. Being in the office
that day was a powerful experience
for me, because I didn’t fully realize
how many people would actually
need HFL, or for what purposes.
The idea of Jews taking care of
Jews was clear to me, but I was
still a kid, so it took a while for me
to feel like the helpful person in the
room should be me.”
The Liss family has been very
involved in the community through
the years. Arthur is an HFL Past
President, and wife/mom Beverly
has a list of leadership roles to her
credit. Surprisingly, though, Zachary
credits someone outside his family
for getting him involved.
“Dr. Jeffrey Forman, who is a
mentor, pulled me into the Forman
Maimonides Leadership Team, and
through that I saw the importance
of Federation and its associated
agencies,” Zachary said. “We heard
an HFL presentation, and everything
clicked.
“In my medical practice, I take
care of people – listening, helping –
and it’s exactly the same feeling at
HFL. People come in and open up
to you, and ask you to help change
the course of their lives. This is one
of the coolest things I’ve ever done.”
Scan this page
to read his letter —
and promise —
to Yeni.
resources to support them. Rosalie
was working on reunifying families in
Michigan. Josh had just driven a mom
na med Yeni, who had started out from
a small village in Guatemala to get
her family away from gang violence,
hundreds of miles to reunite with her
children.
Health. A fresh start.
A good education.
The next great business idea.
Hebrew Free Loan gives interest-
free loans to members of our
community for a variety of
personal and small business
needs. HFL loans are funded
entirely through community
donations which continually
recycle to others, generating
many times the original value
to help maintain the lives of
local Jews.
jn
October 4 • 2018
5