Endings and Beginnings

Bob Baldinger (z"l)
1927-2024

There's a lot going on in my world these days. There's a lot going on in the world today. But  before I do anything else, I want to talk about a fineh mensch who left the building on Saturday. 

Some of you know that I'm a regular at morning minyan. We are an egalitarian minyan...which means we count men and women to make up the required 10 people to pray. When I started going after Ziggy died, I quickly learned that once you become a "regular" you have a job. One of those jobs was leading P'seukei D'zimrah...the opening salvo for morning services. It's long, complicated, but like the rest of our liturgy, it's familiar. And the guy who always led P'seukei was Bob Baldinger. He made it his and we were all fine with that.

Mr. B (I never called him anything  but Mr. B) was no ordinary guy. He was a baker. The grandparents opened their first bakery in 1888. His father ran it after that, but when his father died in 1949, Mr. B found himself running the bakery. You can read about it here. One day, this guy came to Mr. B. and explained he was gonna open an all-year-round drive through, sell burgers for 15¢, and asked if Baldinger's would make the buns. 

Who the heck opens a drive-in and is open year-round? Nobody ever did that. And we are going to sell 15-cent hamburgers? Uh, that's crazy,

Mr. B's water bottle. 

Well, good thing Mr. B said, yes, because the crazy guy was a fellow named Ray Kroc and the rest is history. 

Mr. B was like the stability guy. He made me determined to be at shul before dawn in the winter. If he could, I could. It was like having my  grandfather or father in the room. As the infirmities of advanced aging crept in, I became the water-bottle-bearer. One of my morning jobs was to make sure Mr. B's stool was in place and his water bottle was filled. Davening is hard work and a guy can get thirsty. As soon as I saw "the look," I filled the cup, slid it over, and got a silly grin back. Yeah,  it wasn't much, but it was our thing. 

His kindness to me when I lost FIL, then my own parents, was comforting at a time I felt weighted down by real life. His constant presence in the chapel was important to all of us...and to me.. It was continuity. It was generation to generation and we were all richer for having had Mr. B in the room. His memory will forever be a blessing for his family and all of us who were lucky enough to know him. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch....

The entire state of Minnesota is in an uproar about the assassination of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, Brian Thompson. Mind you, this is not a united uproar, but it is an interesting one. In the New York Times UPDATES section, Andy Newman reported:

The manifesto found on Luigi Mangione mentions UnitedHealthcare by name, noting the size of the company and how much money it makes, according to a senior law enforcement official who saw the document. The manifesto also broadly condemns health-care companies for placing profits over care, the official said.

This statement about profits and the condemnation of the healthcare industry should come as no surprise to anyone who breathes in the United States. Not having health insurance is a death sentence. If you don't die from lack of medical intervention but you manage to get treatment, you will die from exposure, starvation, or infection. No other first world country sentences its citizens to this kind of torture. 

Women die because doctors are afraid to provide care to women in crisis. Disabled children are denied the equipment they need to progress. You hear endless stories of people lying on gurneys being told to sign a release for treatment but it's really a loan with outrageous interest payments. How many people do you know who have not spent hours on the phone trying to straighten out benefits, coverage, or pharma issues? Or calls from an insurance company telling you they're gonna cover your dead husband's medical expenses for July and August but not May and June when he was dying because they made a clerical error? 

Just today, I had to get 27 tiny holes lasered into my eye because the lenses that replaced my cataracts have developed a filmy thing. This is not uncommon, but is routinely denied by insurance companies. I happen to know this YAGS Laser Capsulotomy costs $881.74 and if insurance denies it, I will pay for the procedure because right now, every freakin' light in the kitchen is on so I can see my keyboard. I am virtually night blind in the house at 4 a.m. when I get up to do what all old people do at 4 a.m. The other eye will be done next week. To answer your question before you ask, I did call Medicare and CIGNA. I had lovely conversations about YAGS laser caps with real humans and while it appears my situation qualifies for coverage, neither would guarantee it will be covered. That's how they get you, too. You jump through their hoops, get the work done, and then they deny it. Been there, done that, too. 

Okay. I can afford to pay for this, but way too many people would be hard pressed to cover the costs. I understand that. And if not seeing means you can't work, well, then....Too bad. Not exactly what one wants to hear when one has bills to pay.

I wrote about the Ziggy Death Debacle back in 2011. At the time, I wrote about how it was supposedly over. Only it wasn't. The bills started coming again the next year and it was not until 2021 when I finally got a notice from Aetna that everything had been resolved. I was lucky; I had a partner in fraud prevention that handled debacle part deux. Not everyone has that.

Luigi, on the other hand, supposedly had some chronic pain issues that were severe enough to interfere with real life. His insurance was a cat and mouse game of delay and deny...if you can believe what the shell casings said. 

Luigi in Altoona

Am I even faintly rationalizing Luigi Mangione's assassination of Brian Thompson? No. Not at all. Sure, I understand frustration and maybe even desperation. One assassination will not change anything significant. This, however, is only the beginning. In this new atmosphere of revenge and retaliation, this will happen again. In his manifesto, one news source reported he suffered from chronic back pain and that he was unhappy with UHC. I'm sure we'll find out the whole story at some point, but this guy is not alone in his anger. Millions of Americans are sweating out promises of cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. 

That said, he is no vigilante folk hero, although some people will try to make him one. He may be the first in recent real life history (as in not LAW  AND ORDER history) to assassinate a corporate guy. I just guaran-damn-ty you Luigi isn't the last. This is only the beginning of the new United States.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

If you happen to be in St. Paul, the newest Baldinger bakery,

Razava Bread Co.

865 Grand Avenue

will open anyway this week.

Stop by. 

The Jerusalem bagels are to die!

The bakery in 1901