JANUARY 30 • 2020 | 5
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Middle-Aged and Throwing Axes
A
few months ago, I stum-
bled across My Middle-
Aged Baby Book: A
Record of Milestones, Millstones
& Gallstones by Mary-Lou
Weisman. I flipped through the
book, which was wisely printed
on anti-glare paper and in a large
easy-to-read font.
It starts off like
any old baby book
with a place to list
vital statistics — “a
page to write down
all the things you’
ll
soon forget” — like
phone number and cholesterol
count. There’
s a section to mark
down all your middle-aged mile-
stones like when hair first started
growing in your ears, when you
first started wearing elastic waist-
ed pants and when you saw your
first liver spot.
I was chuckling away at the
Nursery Rhymes (“one, two, can’
t
reach my shoe, three, four, can’
t
get off the floor …
”) and thinking
how I was definitely going to buy
this for my parents, when I made
a horrifying discovery: Right
there on the front cover, the book
said, “For ages 40 and up.
”
And guess who just turned
40? OMG … I’
m officially mid-
dle-aged.
(To be honest, I had suspected
as much. I was slowly notic-
ing that I had more grown up
concerns. Instead of the words
“zit outbreak” or “bad hair day”
striking fear in my soul and caus-
ing tremor in my knees, now it’
s
significantly more adult sentences
like “we’
re getting water in the
basement again” or “your insur-
ance won’
t cover that.
”)
After that rather jolting expe-
rience, I had to make sure to
celebrate my birthday with style. I
wanted to try something hip and
exciting, something young and
fun, something I’
d never done
before … you know, so long as
I’
d be home and tucked into bed
with my warm socks and ear
plugs by 10 p.m.
Eventually I settled on the rath-
er exotic-sounding axe throwing,
a newish Canadian sport (hence
the superfluous e) that’
s not as
dangerous as it sounds, even if it
is commonly mixed with drink-
ing.
For anyone who doesn’
t live on
the edge like me and my exciting
friends (aka a few moms who
jumped at the opportunity to
get out of the house at bedtime),
allow me to tell you about axe
throwing:
Axe throwers are in a cage; no
one’
s standing directly behind
them. This precaution is for
people who throw axes like my
mother bowls — backwards.
Many years ago, my mother once
famously reared her hand back
and let go a few seconds too soon
… and ended up bowling all her
teammates right out of their seats
behind her.
Axe throwing is harder than it
sounds. It’
s supposed to be a cross
between darts, bowling and bat-
ting practice — but if your aim is
anything like mine, it’
s more like
being a tennis or golf caddy and
constantly picking balls up off the
ground.
Even though there’
s no place
in the Middle-Aged Baby Book to
mark down “first time I threw an
axe,
” there should be! Or at least
a section on “things I’
ve tried that
are outside my comfort zone.
”
I also couldn’
t help but won-
der: throwing an axe for kicks?
What’
s next? Maybe it’
ll be some-
thing even wonkier, like paying a
fortune for the privilege of being
locked in a room and having to
figure out how to escape. No,
wait, that already exists, too.
Rochel
Burstyn
FRANCI FELD
Rochel and
her friend
Feiga Bowickk
continued on page 8
essay
Here’s What Congress Can Do
to Combat Anti-Semitism
F
or the American Jewish
community, 2019 was a
year of enormous trauma.
The second fatal attack ever on
synagogue worshippers took
place in Poway, Calif., making the
prior one at Pittsburgh’
s Tree of
Life no longer an isolated event.
Assaults upon Jews walking the
streets of Brooklyn increased in
violence and frequency. People
inside a kosher grocery store in
Jersey City were murdered. And
the year ended with an attack by a
machete-wielding terrorist invad-
ing the home of a rabbi in Monsey
during a Chanukah celebration.
Federal, state and local govern-
ments have responded to these
events in varying degrees. But
we are now in the midst of what
can only be called a crisis, and
government leaders at all levels
must do much more to protect
Americans in their places of wor-
ship and their communities.
We need our elected officials
to move beyond statements of
support and sympathy and take
concrete action that will eliminate
Allen I.
Fagin
Nathan J.
Diament