Larry Ravitz

 1969 – 2009 

Welcome, gentle reader...

to a brief account of the life and times of Larry Charles Ravitz, our hero, who left OPHS, joined a rock band, and left town. The story unfolds in the clubs of LA, in the jungles of Guatemala, in the Central Plaza of Santa Fe. Our hero is a seeker, whose path departs from a 19th century traditional portrait studio and leads to a beautiful temple in the foothills of the Himalayas. 

There’s romance a-plenty in this tale. Adventure and free expression rule. There’s tragedy and hope, poverty and wealth. There are some daring actions and enough mediocrity to allow complete contemplation of human nature. 

Embarrassing details? Yes, Mr. Ravitz shares them, along with fantasies and fears galore, and a FREE recipe for success! You will learn, gentle reader, that Larry Charles Ravitz has an association with the CIA, the FBI, and the Smithsonian Institute. He has shaken hands with Barack Obama, and he thinks he partied with Timothy Leary. 

Read on...

July 4, 2009

Here we all are at the Oak Park High School 40th reunion and someone asks, “What have you been up to, Larry?” It’s hard to imagine telling the story of my life in this kind of setting; there’s barely enough time for the bare-bones version. So for those of you who are interested in knowing more details and philosophy than you will get at a crowded party, here is my story...

BASICS

I live in Takoma Park, Maryland, with my wife of 21 years, Marika Partridge, who works in radio and other art forms. We have three children. Our son, Cheney Benjamin Ravitz, is 18 years old, friendly, engaging, good at telling jokes, and is high functioning autistic. Marika and I have dedicated a large part of our lives to helping him. Sally Xorissa Ravitz, our 15-year-old daughter is a precocious student, a visual artist, and a skilled musician. Irene Isadora Ravitz, our 13-year-old daughter is also musical and artistic. She recently had the lead role in her school play, “Grease.” This spring, all three kids were in their school musicals. We’ve been going to music and dance camps for most of our kids’ lives. Singing, playing music and dancing are central to our lives. Our living room is full of instruments.

RETIRED ALREADY?

By 2001, a partnership in a real-estate business with my uncle, Ed Ravitz, was successful enough to enable me to semi-retire at age 50. This has allowed me to focus on my long-term interest in music, dance and art. We have weekly jam sessions at our house where I play saxophone with a small gathering of friends. Most of the oil paintings in our house are my work. However, I am in the early stages of Parkinson’s disease and have lost much of the fine hand coordination necessary to paint realistically, which has forced me to adopt a freer style. My saxophone playing has changed too, with simpler phrases replacing technical virtuosity. 

Fighting the symptoms of Parkinson’s entails daily workouts, regular massages, and ongoing meditation. It is ironic that my physical fitness is actually improving because of Parkinson’s disease. My current focus is on enriching my life in as many ways as possible, avoiding busy work if I can.

SUMMER OF LOVE 

In the summer of 1969, after I graduated from Oak Park High, some friends and I went to Los Angeles as a band, “Saint Hammer.” Members included Marty Lewis on bass, brothers Larry Buch, drums, and David Buch, guitar, and a keyboard player named Grease, who was older and owned the van we traveled in. Steve Blum was involved as well. My parents were none too happy about me traveling west with a band, but music was my passion and adventure beckoned.

Saint Hammer had played a few concerts in Detroit, but mostly we just played music together, improvising and staying up late. Individually we were pretty good musicians but no one in the group had experience arranging a band. I wasn’t after fame and fortune. It was the pleasure and thrill of playing and the adventure that was important. We made it out to LA and rented a one-bedroom house in a marginal neighborhood in East LA, which gave the five of us a cramped place to practice, sleep, and eat. We played at the Experience and Whiskey a Go Go, and made a demo tape, but within a few months, we broke up. 

I stayed on in Venice Beach, CA playing flute on the streets, and swimming in the ocean. I rented a room in a group house on the beach and explored the area on a used Honda 50 motorcycle bought with Bar Mitzvah money. I landed a job as an optician, a trade my optometrist father had taught me. My hair grew long and I joined in the hippie lifestyle, playing music under star-filled skies and solo backpacking in the coastal mountain range.

In Santa Monica, in 1969, I bought my first journal and began writing, drawing and recording my thoughts and struggles with the big questions. “I have run into problems, and the solution to these problems is the purpose of this journal,” I wrote in journal Number Four. Over the years, I’ve filled more than sixteen of these journals. 

ANN ARBOR – U of M

Hitchhiking back to Michigan from California, I arrived in time to move into a dorm and attend winter semester at the University of Michigan. I worked hard at my college courses and took extra credits. I was a General Studies major, played in the U of M Lab Band, and played saxophone and flute with a rock band called “Full Faith and Credit,” which consisted mostly of law students. We played a lot of rock standards, rather than the ambitious originals of “Saint Hammer.” Being law students, the other members of the group were competent at getting paid gigs. In the summer of 1971, we played five nights a week at a local bar, typically staying up until 3 or 4 am. We had enough of a following to fill the bar with people dancing to our music, but playing crowd-pleasing covers was less satisfying to me.

The following year I shared a house with some Huntington Woods friends from my first-year dorm: Tony Burton, Bob Katz, David Seyburn and Art 

Gold. Other university friends from Oak Park were Danny Cutler, Minda Werner, Jimmy Goodman, and Alison Weiss. I also stayed in touch with Jeff Marx, Steve “Stash” Schaefer, Beth Singer and Todd Weinstein. I continued to keep journals, and I read most of the works of Colin Wilson, Henry Miller and James Branch Cabell, my favorite authors at the time. 

Classes that I loved at U of M were Human Anatomy, Woody Plants and Shakespeare. I pushed myself to excel, believing if I learned enough, my purpose in life would become clear.

I got good grades, but I had to work hard, especially at subjects that required rote memorization, indicating a subtle learning disability that I’ve struggled with my whole life. I was more focused, inspired, and passionate when following my own agenda rather than attending classes. One of my goals was to become a commercial artist to “further perfect my technique and content so as to leave this world truly a bit more pleasing.” 

I listed my goals in my journal: 

1) Understand nature 

2) Understand human nature 

3) Create pleasing, intriguing and amazing things to decorate our existence 4) Make my life ecologically sound 

5) Do what I can to help improve the human condition

DROPPING OUT OF COLLEGE

My thirst for independent learning, along with my youthful self-confidence, led me to drop out of U of M after two years. In the summer of 1972, I moved back to Palmer Park in Detroit and began house painting with Neil Faigenbaum, a talented musician and friend. We did remarkably well with the house painting and had begun doing some remodeling when I came up with the idea of building a house from scratch.

ALL ABOUT BUILDING

My grandfather, Isadore Ravitz, was a carpenter from Russia and a home builder in Detroit. His son, my uncle Ed Ravitz, was an accomplished custom home and apartment builder. Ed had helped me get high school summer jobs 

as a carpenter’s helper: a “gofer” as in, “go fer that”. When I suggested to Ed that I wanted to build a house by myself, he told me that I didn’t know enough, and that I should work for him to learn about the building business. So in 1973, I committed to a three-month internship and moved to Kalamazoo to begin my training. 

Fortune smiled on me. An experienced superintendent had just been let go, and they needed a replacement. I was offered the position and was put in charge of the construction of a multifamily apartment complex with three 47 unit buildings in different stages of construction, along with 40 townhouse units on a separate site. With support and training from the main office, I threw myself into this project, spending every waking hour at work. I learned much about structures, building process, staff, subcontractors, and the politics of business. Uncle Ed would say, “The most successful business people are the ones trusted by the most people, whether you’re talking about builders, Mafioso or drug-dealers.” 

My three-month commitment expanded to two and a half years. During that time, I supervised the construction of over 400 apartment units, from digging foundations to final occupancy. Since I was single and flexible, they used me to cover for superintendents who were on vacation and for troubleshooting difficult situations. I spent time in Muskegon, MI, Kenosha, WI, and Glendale Heights, IL. Typically, I was the only person from the mother company and was in charge of scheduling, quality control and approving payments for the work of dozens of subcontractors. On some level, I recognized I was being groomed for a leadership role with the company.

My uncle, a partner with Edward Rose and Sons, was a brilliant organizer. At one point, he had over a dozen projects going in different cities throughout the mid-west. Ed single-handedly built over 20,000 apartments in the region and is credited for building more apartment units in Michigan than anyone else in the history of the state. 

While Ed Ravitz was very disciplined and focused, he had a relaxed, easy-going manner. When we went out to dinner, we enjoyed long conversations about how the business operated and traded colorful stories about the zany situations that would come up. Whenever we were both in Kalamazoo, we’d spend time together, often traveling in his twin-prop airplane that he piloted himself. 

Ed set high work expectations and used himself as the model of someone who loved his work and worked all the time. Consequently, everyone worked long hours, typically six days a week. There was a relentlessness to the work and part of me knew that staying with this job could get in the way of me living my life. I realized that my desire for personal time would never be fulfilled if I stayed with the company, so I gave my notice. I think I felt worse than Ed did. He told me later that he would have done the same thing, given the choice. At the time, I wrote in my journal, “It’s not so much that I’m lazy that I’m quitting this job as it is that I’m daring.” 

ON MY OWN

I left the job with some savings, and moved back to Kalamazoo. I bought a four-unit apartment building, which I lived in and improved at my leisure. There was time for friendships with other young singles in this college town. People I hung out with included Kurt Mitenbuler, Bob Lakey, Jean Stevens, Sherry Ross, Jean Ogalvie, Nick Graetz, Eric Grandstaff, Noah Roselander, Christopher Schmidt, Kim Tomlinson, Lisa Irwin, Nancy Miller and Lynn Schullo. I was ambivalent about whether to make money or be a free spirit. I did some remodeling work and learned how to inspect houses and write up reports. I worked as a carpenter, got a license as a realtor, and continued to explore entrepreneurial opportunities. 

In 1978, I bought the Hartford House, a historic hotel in Hartford, Michigan. I bought it at a tax sale for $4,200. The hotel was built in 1871, and my intention was to fix it up and convert it into an apartment building. I convinced the local bank to lend me $84,000 in renovation funds. Using some of the contractors I’d met working with my uncle’s company, along with myself as lead carpenter and designer, I created 12 apartments, completing the project on time and on budget. Once the building was fully occupied, the rents covered the mortgage payment, leaving me with a small monthly profit. It was the first major renovation in Hartford in many decades, and the event was covered by newspaper stories in both the local and regional newspapers. I even did a television interview.

What I had failed to take in was that Hartford had no economic base, nor expectations of future growth. For all my time and effort, I ended up making close to minimum wage. My uncle later told me that he knew I wouldn’t make money with this project because of the location, but he rea

lized I was going to do it no matter what he said, so he didn’t bother to tell me. I was proud that I’d achieved my goals and saved an historic building from being torn down, but, I paid a price for failing to analyze the financial viability of the project. It was a valuable learning experience that taught me never to buy a building based on looks ever again. As Uncle Ed said, “If you want to make money, think about money.” 

THE ‘80s BRING CHANGE

The renovation of the Hartford House led me to start up a modestly successful remodeling company in Kalamazoo. I discovered that I was a very good businessman, salesman and promoter. A less pressured work life allowed time for friendships, complicated romantic relationships, and many long philosophical talks late into the night, about all aspects of life. I matured socially and tracked those experiences in my journals, sometimes in embarrassing detail. There was time for cross-country skiing in the winter and time to ride my bike to a local pond where I’d go swimming with friends in the summers. I loved Kalamazoo, but I ended up leaving. 

I traveled to Toronto with Christopher Schmidt to attend the World Symposium on Humanity, where I heard Robert Bly speak and sang with the Chasidic mystic, Rabbi Schlomo Carlebach. I was beginning to realize that to be good at something, it’s important to be under the influence of someone who is better at it than you are. This is true in business and art, and part of growing up is to find powerful mentors. Ed was my business mentor. Other teachers would follow.

During the slow winter months, to satisfy my wanderlust, I went on meandering adventures in Mexico and Guatemala. Unlike the disciplined time spent on my business, I had nothing to do except explore. To fill my free time productively, I took up juggling and I began doing portraits of my friends and anyone who would sit for me. 

As I approached the age of 30 in 1981, I was ready to leave Kalamazoo, sell the business and immerse myself in my dream of drawing and painting. At the time I wrote, “Reality is just an escape for those who are too afraid to face their fantasies.” I gave my remodeling business to the employees, slowly sold off my real estate and began studying drawing and painting first in Kalamazoo, then in New York City at the Art Students League. Around 

this time, my girlfriend Nancy Miller and I attended a weeklong spirituality workshop at the Omega Institute in New York. And, I attended a weeklong human potential workshop with Jean Houston.

SANTA FE – FOCUSING ON ART 

Traveling across the country with Nancy, I discovered Santa Fe, and impulsively decided to stay there. It was a mecca for artists, with figure drawing sessions going on every day and scads of competent artists doing their work. Nancy also decided to stay in Santa Fe. We broke up as a couple, but stayed close friends. 

I was befriended by some experienced, professional artists. Paul Milosovich, Albert Handell and Elias Rivera all shared their knowledge of realist art. In exchange for help with repairs to his house, Paul Milosovich let me paint beside him in his studio, suggesting exercises, encouraging me, and critiquing my work. He kept a small trampoline in his studio to periodically loosen up while painting. He used translucent red mylar to see if the values were correct. Albert Handell was nationally known as a pastel artist and workshop leader. In order to get free models to draw, I spent many hours in nursing homes drawing seniors. Even though my portraits weren’t yet very good, the seniors loved the attention. In the summers of 1982 and 1983, I entered and won a lottery to operate one of the three portrait stands in the Santa Fe central plaza. My skill increased and so did my capacity to critique my own work, an invaluable life skill.

Because of my savings, I was able to apply myself full-time to the practices and training required to become a realistic artist. The challenge of portraiture and the discipline required to work from life became my focus. Realist art requires good planning, the ability to commit to a composition, block in the structure before going to finer detail, and to see and correct mistakes. It appealed to me because it could be judged as right or wrong and gave me something objective to measure my progress. In other words, it was a bit like construction work. 

Elias Rivera, in particular, encouraged me to check out the Schuler School, a small art school in Baltimore, Maryland, in the studio of the late Hans Schuler. His daugher-in-law, Anne Schuler, examined my work and accepted me as a student in 1983. It was just what I needed and provided me with 

excellent intensive training in traditional realist painting. For two years I studied at the Schuler School, returning to Santa Fe in the summer of 1983 to paint portraits. My skills increased and so did my understanding of how difficult it was to make money as an artist. 

UH OH... THE PAST COMES BACK TO HAUNT ME

In late 1984, I had to go back to Hartford, Michigan because the buyer of the Hartford House had defaulted on payments. Two years before, I had sold the building to the resident manager on what is called a “land contract” with nothing down. He was supposed to pay me a little bit more than my mortgage, but he had problems doing that. He made the mistake of renting out the ground floor apartment to the town drunk who would hang out in front of the building and make lewd remarks to passers by. In the end, I had to move back into the building. My agenda was to evict the drunk, repair the damage, straighten out the financial mess, and resell the building. Being near Kalamazoo, I met my Uncle Ed for dinner and I explained my situation. Eviction could take months. Ed suggested that I offer the drunk help moving his things and give him $100 cash if he moved. (As usual, Ed’s idea worked.) I also told Ed that while I was having a wonderful time painting, I had made very little money for the last five years, and although I still had good credit, I had run out of savings and now had a negative net worth. I confided that this situation concerned me, and I was thinking about taking on a job that would have the potential to make money. He looked at me and said that if I was interested, there was room at the top of his company, where they were always looking for real talent. Or, if I liked where I was living, he offered to partner with me in Maryland. I chose the latter.

TAKOMA PARK 

Ed gave me a small stipend to cover my basic needs, to be paid back with interest when and if our plan succeeded. The goal was to make such a good choice, that all I had to do to succeed was to, “show up and do my job.” I was always good at math, and loved story problems. From my experience with the Hartford House, I knew that choosing the right building, in the right location, at the right price was critical to my success. My search began by contacting local realtors, asking who specialized in multifamily rentals, reading books on real estate, and exploring the local neighborhoods. My 

roommate and friend, Peter Dean, and I devised a spreadsheet using his 1984 Kaypro computer, which we used to analyze the financial data. I found that I could be quite accurate in my predictions by gathering information on comparable properties. I learned how to read financial reports, estimate the rents of renovated units, and I developed an understanding of the “cash flows” that were possible. My experience inspecting, remodeling, estimating, and supervising were all critical components for my success. I enjoyed doing the analysis, refining my estimates over and over to make them more accurate. I was conservative, and it appeared that almost all of the apartment buildings listed for sale were over priced and would have negative cash flows. 

I toured and analyzed close to 100 properties. It took me over a year to find the Wedgewood Apartments, a 46-unit apartment building in Takoma Park, Maryland. At a building renovation workshop put on by a landlord association, I passed out a flyer, offering a 1% finders fee to anyone who introduced me to the owner of an apartment building that I eventually bought. A retired schoolteacher made the connection, introducing me to Herman and Gertrude Iskow. They were elderly and had built the Wedgewood apartments with several other investors 40 years earlier. They told me it was “bishert” – meant to be. It was a genuine good deal, even though it was in a rent-controlled neighborhood. In April 1986, I purchased the handsome 46-unit elevator building, and I remained friends with Herman and Gertrude for the remainder of their lives.

DANCE WITH ME

My involvement in the world of social dancing began when I first moved from Santa Fe to Baltimore. My Santa Fe girlfriend, Joni Wagoner, suggested that I stay with her close Baltimore friends, Charlie and Debbie Stagmer. They were avid folk dancers and introduced me to contra and square dancing. The dance world was a wonderful community, multigenerational, musically and rhythmically sophisticated and openly flirtatious, but with clear and healthy boundaries. It wasn’t unusual for a dance to have as many as 400 people, but typically less. The dance scene opened me up to a new and vibrant world of friendships. Takoma Park was the epicenter of the Washington DC folk dance community. By the time I bought the Wedgewood, I was dancing five nights a week, hanging out with an ever-expanding, wholesome crowd. Through dancing I met many of my closest friends, like Peter Dean 

and David McSpadden, who were central to the growth of my company. I was working long hours renovating the building, managing the staff, and learning about the wacky local housing regulations. Folk dancing provided a perfect release.

SETTLING DOWN... FINALLY

In spring 1986 at a friend’s wedding, where there was live music, contra dancing and a potluck dinner, I met my wife-to-be Marika Partridge. She was a great dancer, fascinating to talk with, full of energy, and she had an interesting job directing “All Things Considered,” an NPR program that I listened to regularly. In that politically correct environment, at first I didn’t want to tell her what my profession was. I thought it was unimportant what my job was. I slyly suggested I had a classified government job, which I couldn’t talk about. We clicked. After the dancing, we went off to a friend’s house where she played virtuoso-level Irish whistle with a band, and I was smitten. I was excited to know her better and we began spending a lot of time together. She loved that I was a “great landlord looking for great tenants.” Within a year, on March 5, 1987, we were married, eloping to St. John in the Virgin Islands. We’ve returned many times since.

In 1989, Marika took a leave of absence from NPR in Washington to direct a NYC-based radio program called “Heat,” hosted by John Hockenberry. Ira Glass, of This American Life, was also involved. We sublet an apartment in New York from our friend Cary Raditz. I commuted by train, typically spending three days a week in New York, and doing my job for four days a week. Two of my closest childhood friends, Todd Weinstein and Jeff Marx, were living in NYC, and I became very close with one of Marika’s friends, Fred Davis. Fred was director of PC Labs, the testing facility for PC Magazine, had written 10 books on computers and had been editor-in-chief of MacUser magazine. He had recently moved from San Francisco to New York. We spent a lot of time together and he introduced me to computer graphics, and in particular to Photoshop which was still in version 1.0. I devoured the manual, and with Fred’s inspired mentoring, I gained surprising mastery over computer graphics software and hardware.

When I moved back to DC, I taught classes in Photoshop and demonstrated pressure-sensitive Wacom Tablets at trade shows. It turned out that my proficiency as a realist painter made me a very valuable commodity as a com

puter graphics teacher. I co-authored a manual on Photoshop, taught classes at the FBI, the CIA, Comsat and worked with a private company designing and printing US postage stamps. The Smithsonian Institute invited me to give a series of lectures on “Painting on the Computer,” in which I demonstrated how computers are able to imitate traditional painting tools. 

FATHERHOOD and MORE WORK

During our time in New York, Marika became pregnant. We moved back to Takoma Park, where on December 24, 1990, our son Cheney was born. There were minor complications. When Cheney was 8, he was diagnosed with high-functioning autism. Marika and I have combined our collective skills, and we’ve tried everything possible to encourage Cheney to reach his full potential. (He’s doing very well, age 18.) 

The Wedgewood was doing well and I was in a position to get a second building. Montgomery Gardens Apartments was an 80-unit complex with 25% of the units condemned and in bankruptcy. It had previously been an open-air crack cocaine drug market and was in terrible condition and required extensive renovations. Once again, I spent two years working hard straightening things out, before I could get back to my art. I took some art classes at the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria, Virginia, studying with Danni Dawson, Michael Francis and Diane Tessler. By 1993 I had enough new work to stage a show at a gallery in La Plata, MD. 

In 1992, Marika, Cheney and I traveled to Cameroon to visit our close friends Cary Raditz and Ann Claxton, who were working on assignment there. At the time Cameroon was listed as a dangerous place by the US State Department. Our hosts were experienced international travelers, kept us safe and took us on tours where we saw tribal celebrations and dances and met and befriended the now dethroned Fon of Big Babanki, along with his 17 wives and 80 children. While I had traveled to Mexico and Guatemala, Marika had traveled around the globe with her adventurous parents. At one point when she was in her teens they went on a year and a half trip around the world, home schooling Marika and her brother along the way. She is masterful at many things and uniquely organized at travel planning.

KIDS AND PARENTS

My relaxed work schedule was about to change again. Marika and I were living at the Wedgewood in a big apartment, but we had a second child on the way. We wanted a house with a contiguous backyard. We found a substandard four-unit apartment building in downtown Takoma Park and made a low-ball offer on it, with the condition that the place be delivered vacant and broom clean, and our offer was accepted. I organized a crew of seven workers, with me in charge, and we completed the work in 110 days, just in time for Sally’s arrival on February 28, 1994. Marika’s parents had moved from Florida to a bungalow across the street in time to be with us for the birth and to help us with our growing family. Then, the next year, on July 30, 1995, our second daughter, Irene arrived - on our living room couch with little warning - and we were indeed very busy middle-aged parents.

Around this time, my father, Ben Ravitz, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and given six months to live. I flew into Detroit practically every weekend. After surgery, he was weak, and I lay with him in his bed, talking with him when he was awake. We talked about the fact that during his World War II experience, he had spent two and a half years recovering from a jeep rollover accident in which his pelvis was broken in 17 places. He felt that everything after that was bonus time. My dad never seriously read any part of the paper except the sports and the bridge section. He seemed unconcerned about the fact that there were problems in the world, and he was in denial about the fact that he was going to die soon. As a result, he didn’t worry about it, and this served him well. He proceeded to not get worse and, instead, improved. He refused to sell his optometric business, and within six months he was back working part-time. Within a year he was working three days a week, for the sheer pleasure of it. My younger sister, Paula, now a psychiatrist, went on to write an award winning academic paper on the efficacy of hope as a predictor of medical outcomes, which she dedicated to my father. My older brother Alan is also a psychiatrist. (Both siblings, psychiatrists? Is it about me?)

In 1996 I bought my third local complex, Suburban Hill Apartments, adding 159 units to bring my total up to 285. For the next few years, I did not have the time to keep a journal, much less to paint or play music, nor to keep in touch with anyone but my immediate family. Marika and I loved the challenges of our three children and worked all the time to keep up with them.

BIG WORLD

A turning point came for the whole family that same year. Marika left her job of 15 years, directing All Things Considered. In the back of our minds, Marika and I had begun to consider home-schooling Cheney. And in that same year, I turned 50 and recall thinking, I could continue to work really hard and get richer, or I could delegate everything possible and have my life back, and still probably do pretty well. In 2001, on my 50th birthday, I made the conscious decision to semi-retire. By then, my friend and former roommate, Peter Dean was working with me full-time overseeing the operation. Interestingly, the business proceeded to do better without me than when I was there. I was probably spread too thin, doing too many jobs and not all of them well. Peter is now my partner. 

For my 50th birthday present, Marika signed me up for a two-week oil painting workshop in Italy led by Danni Dawson and Michael Francis, who are great artists and personal friends. The whole family came; I was doing well enough to bring along a nanny. For the previous decade, I had constantly carried a cell phone or pager; I was tethered to my business. I remember the liberating feeling of not being on call. Relaxing, I let go of my hyper-vigilance, and began to focus on the beautiful model and the luscious feel of the oil paints. Quickly regaining much of my facility, I did some nice work. When the workshop ended, our family toured Italy, pausing in Cinque Terra to hike, explore and enjoyed relaxing adult time in the coffee shops of Amsterdam on our way home.

NOW I’M A TEACHER

In 2002, we took Cheney out of his special ed school and began home-schooling. We set up a comprehensive program and were able to include a number of remarkable specialists. Our neuro-psychologist, William Stixrud suggested we hire a local tutor who he said had saved his child’s life. Betsy Combs worked with Cheney daily: they wrote a book together, and studied English and social studies. Because I was at home more, I took him to my gym three times a week. I believe there is a relationship between brain health and aerobic exercise, and Cheney was at risk, because of his low muscle tone. While he was on the treadmill, I invented stories about a kid who couldn’t keep up with his friends when they were running and playing. This kid’s father started bringing him to the gym, and over time, the kid built up 

his muscles and endurance. Eventually, the kid was able to not only keep up with friends, but to sprint ahead, leaving his friends in the dust, because he had developed into a strong runner. Within a year, Cheney, like his fictional inspiration, was able to run vigorously for 45 minutes, with sweat running down his body, and he wasn’t low-tone anymore.

I also taught “Mr. Fix-It”, where we did house repairs, getting door knobs to latch, fixing broken chairs, and taking apart other mechanical devices. Marika taught cooking classes. We read out loud together for hours each day. Cheney went from being difficult to understand to having clear articulation. 

In 2002, we had the opportunity to take the family to Sitka, Alaska to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the radio station Marika had founded. We decided to rent an RV, complete with kitchen, shower, and hot running water, and we drove across the northern states, visiting friends along the way. In Seattle, we returned the RV and took the Alaska state ferry, north through the inner passage to Juneau and Sitka. We chartered small planes to visit some old friends in remote places that Marika knew about from having lived in southeast Alaska for 10 years.

KIDS AT THE BAR

In addition to being Cheney’s tutor, Betsy Combs was a Kabalah scholar. She suggested a Bar Mitzvah and she offered to prepare him. We had no idea how important that decision would be. We invited Rabbi Jimmy Goodman to organize and lead the service. Cheney learned to read Hebrew more fluently than English. He did an amazing job, thrilling us all with his mastery of what was required. While we are an openly Interfaith family, Cheney’s Bar Mitzvah inspired his two sisters to have Bat Mitzvahs as well. 

In 2004, I went on another painting workshop, by myself for two-weeks in Iceland with Danni Dawson and Michael Francis. Marika had lived there as a kid, but she sent me alone. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Iceland was amazing: the ice flows, and active volcanoes, stunning waterfalls, and public baths filled with naturally hot water. The culture of Iceland was new to me, and I got to spend time with local artists.

In late 2005, we took the kids out of school for six weeks and traveled to Kenya and India, satisfying Marika’s desire to expose our family to some of 

the same exotic adventures she had as a child. The story of that trip is too big to tell here. The kids all kept detailed journals during the trip. 

Back in Washington DC, real estate prices continued to soar, especially multifamily complexes. My building, the Wedgewood, is six miles from the White House and convenient to the metro system. I sold the Wedgewood, which was rent-controlled, in 2006, at the top of the market to a condominium developer. I negotiated with the tenants, many of whom were my friends, offering a credit towards their purchase equal to 25% of all the rent they ever paid me. Some had been there for 20 years. The long-term tenants all strongly supported the sale, and it was approved by the tenants’ association. It was a win-win deal, giving me real financial security

OUCH! THAT DIAGNOSIS SUCKS

The same month that I sold the building, I received other news. The tremors and stiffness that I’d been noticing in my right hand and leg were identified as early signs of Parkinson’s disease, a degenerative central nervous system disorder. Over the past three years, it has progressed to the point where I have difficulty with simple things like writing or zipping up my jacket. I’m using voice dictation combined with typing with my left hand to create this memoir. I’ve tried most of the conventional and alternative remedies, short of brain surgery, which is still possible. I follow the latest research. What seems to help most is getting exercise and staying relaxed. I take yoga classes, do daily mat exercises, run two to three miles a day on a treadmill, get regular massages, and extra sleep. Aerobic exercise puts me in a good mood and the tremor is minimized when I am exercising. My symptoms get worse when I’m under stress. 

The shock of losing much of my fine coordination has led me to examine my life and come to terms with progressive loss. I’ve been working with a Jungian analyst for a couple of years, and I attended an intensive 8-day psychological workshop called the Hoffman Process. I took a Process Painting workshop, and enjoyed it enough to sign up again. It’s no longer possible for me to be a 19th century academic draftsman. 

PHILOSOPHY – HOMMAGE TO MUSES

There is something simple, true and optimistic that musicians and artists understand. It is that each time you play a tune, or attempt a likeness, it gets easier, and you get better at it. It’s a kind of muscle memory; the 

neuro-physical connection between the idea and the muscle movement required to achieve it. The ability to play a perfectly executed melody or accurately translate what you see in front of you onto a canvas might seem like magic or great genes. However, most of the people who have gained proficiency have done so through hours and hours of practice over years and years.

Music, art and dancing wake me up and provide me with an invigorating sensation of doing something consciously and gracefully. Once engaged, once in a “flow state” or “state of grace”, it is easier for me to confront life’s challenges. Art, music, and movement have made me smarter and more resourceful, giving me a better sense of sequence, timing, and perspective.

That’s all for now. Hope you enjoyed it. Please let me know your thoughts and reactions.

Warmly,

Larry Ravitz