Miriam L. Wallach: That's Life

Dear That’s Life,

Shabbat mornings in my home as an adult mimic my Shabbat mornings growing up, including angling for a section of The Times before other family members have risen.

The coveted sections of the paper in my parents’ home were the National/International and Arts and Leisure sections, with the Magazine coming in a close second. My brother took the sports, which was left for him without fuss. I had no clue at all that some newspapers had only one section until one day my brother brought home something called “The Post.”

Growing up with parents who both worked at not-for-profit organizations, the Real Estate and Business sections were of no use nor interest to us. We were a liberal arts family and for our intents and purposes The Times could have been printed without those sections altogether. The only ‘market’ we were heavily interested in required coupons, not shares; those sections better served our needs as a receptacle for vegetable peels.

Marrying into a family with a definite business sense, I had no one from whom to wrangle my coveted magazine or anything regarding the arts. These were put aside for me, a veritable pile of ‘unwanted’ in a newspaper caste system. The Friday Arts and Leisure section, filled with the weekend’s movie and theater reviews which I loved to read, written by superheroes (Vincent Canby and Ben Brantley), were kept aside in perfect condition and awaited my arrival at the start of the weekend, seemingly untouched by human hands.