JANUARY 30 • 2020 | 5

Views

for openers
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