It's Never Too Late To Be What You Might Have Been
George Elliot

For many years I taught a high school course titled, "Introduction to Occupations." On the first day of class, I hung two signs:

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LABOR STATISTICS SHOW THAT THE YOUNG PEOPLE ENTERING THE WORKFORCE TODAY WILL LIKELY CHANGE JOBS SEVEN TO 10 TIMES IN THEIR CAREERS.
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IF YOUR LIVELIHOOD ISN'T MAKING YOU LIVELY, THEN WHAT GOOD IS IT?
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Recently, Lawrence H. Summers, President of Harvard University, told us that "Catholics are substantially underrepresented in investment banking, which is an enormously high-paying profession in our society; that white men are very substantially underrepresented in the National Basketball Association; and that Jews are very substantially underrepresented in farming and in agriculture." "Azoy geyt es." (That's how it goes.)

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote that "there are no second acts in American lives." Rubbish! "Geb a kuk" (give a look) at Martha Stewart!

Rabbi Harold Kushner ("When All You've Ever Wanted Isn't Enough - The Search for a Life that Matters") wrote,

If we are lucky, we will find ourselves at a place in life where we can derive pleasure from our work. Some of us will have a vision early in our lives of what we wanted to spend our energies doing, and it will have worked out for us. Being a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher is as gratifying as we dreamed it would be.

The late Arthur Miller (1915 - 2005) dropped out from CCNY after just two weeks. He was best known for such plays as "Death of a Salesman," "The Crucible," and for marrying Marilyn Monroe [in 1956]. However, he also earned a living as a singer on a local radio station, a truck driver, a ship fitter's helper at the Brooklyn Naval Yard, and a "farkoyfer" (clerk) in an auto-parts warehouse. (He was the only Jew employed and he had his first real, personal experiences of American anti-Semitism.)

Aaron Lansky, founder and president of the National Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Mass., is also fortunate. Lansky knew at an early age what he wanted to do for a living. At 23 he wanted to collect Yiddish books! (In the years since, he's collected almost 1.5 million Yiddish books.)

In September of 1974, Lansky joined twenty other students in a class called "Elementary Yiddish 110." His demanding teacher, Jules Piccus, said, "Just because your grandmothers spoke Yiddish, don't think you're going to learn the goddamned language through osmosis!" (By the end of the semester, he was one of just two students who passed.) Lansky continued to study with Piccus, and after two years, he was able to make his way through almost any Yiddish text he could find. IF ONLY HE COULD FIND THEM.

Piccus said, "Don't think the [Yiddish] books are going to come to you. If you want Yiddish books, you've got to go to them. Drive down to New York, to the Lower East Side. That's where Yiddish-readers used to live, that's where you'll find Yiddish books!"

At the beginning he was looking for Yiddish books strictly for his own use. But one day, while sitting in a class at McGill, the idea came to him: he would take a leave of absence to save the world's Yiddish books before it was too late.

Oh, Lansky did have a summer [1976] job running a fruit juice cart in Copley Square, Boston. Business was so bad that he had time to read Ruth R. Wisse's book, "The Schlemiel as Modern Hero."

For more information about Aaron Lansky, read his new book titled, "Outwitting History - The Amazing Adventure of a Man Who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books." It's "vunderlekh!"

American film director, Steven Spielberg, also knew at an early age what he wanted to do. Spielberg made his first film at the age of 13, as a Boy Scout merit badge project. It was three minutes long. ("Schindler's List" ran 3 hours!)

Rabbi Bob Alper has also changed careers. His Web site states that he earned a BA, rabbinic ordination, as well as a doctoral degree, and served congregations that require a cover charge and a two-drink minimum. He began his comedy career in 1986 when he entered the "Jewish Comic of the Year" contest at the Going Bananas Club in Philadelphia.

Stephen Z. Cohen, PH.D., is in his early 70s and has been a popular entertainer and lecturer on the subject of Jewish humor. A lifelong Chicagoan, Dr. Cohen currently teaches courses in Group Dynamics and Social Work Practice in the School of Social Service Administration. He retired from the Jane Addams College of Social Work at the Univ. of Illinois, where he taught for 20 years. He is also the co-author of a 1978 book titled, "The Other Generation Gap: The Middle Aged and Their Aging Parents."

I recently heard Dr. Cohen's classical Jewish humor at a Florida Atlantic University (FAU) Lifelong Learning Program. His funniest joke is about the meshugeneh world of Jewish names. (Yes, the name "Max" is back!) He predicts the day will come when grandchildren will visit their Bubbie Tiffany and Zayde Scott in the nursing home. He said, "We've gone from the shtetl period where the mother-in-law served as the butt of so many jokes to the mother becoming the target of jest on account of her over-protectiveness obsession with feeding her family, inducing guilt, and the fact that her children never call or visit her enough."

Barry Manilow, also changed careers. The first time Manilow played Carnegie Hall was in 1972, as pianist for the burgeoning cabaret star, Bette Midler.

Ben Cohen (Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream) attended Skidmore College and there studied pottery and jewelry making, eventually enrolling in the University Without Walls. During this period he held various jobs, including "kasirer" (cashier) at McDonald's, Pinkerton guard at the Saratoga Raceway, night mopper at Jamesway and Friendly's, asst. supt. of Gaslight Square Apartments, and "taksi" driver. Today his company continues to offer us such [2005] flavors as "Chocolate Therapy," "Fossil Fuel," and "The Gobfather."

And, finally, there's Theodore Bikel. Perhaps only a cat with its nine lives can claim to have more than Theodore Bikel has. Folk singer, theater, film and television actor, radio host; President of Actors Equity, Jewish spokesman, and author are some of his many careers.

Bikel is modest when he says, "Professionally, I can count three or four separate existences." Harvey Fierstein is currently playing Tevye in "Fiddler on the Roof," but Bikel played the Tevye role more than 2,000 times since 1967. (Bikel fashioned his Tevye after his own "zeydeh," Reb Shimon Bikel.)

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Marjorie Gottlieb Wolfe agrees with Karen Altfest, "Everyone should have a plan A and plan B for their careers."