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in pencil in top margin Hecht, Mike [1982] newspaper column LA Times Nov. 1982

Judging a pastrami sandwich can be a deli(cate) subject Jack Smith IN YOUR column of Sept. 27," writes Robert Specht, my man at Rand, "there was a sentence that shows conclusively that its author is a person of taste, refinement, culture, and other good things...."

  It is not my practice to quote laudatory comments about myself, modesty being foremost among my virtues, but it is so gratifying to be eulogized by a man of Specht's intelligence, encyclopedic knowledge and unerring discernment, that perhaps I will be forgiven this rare transgression.
  It is Specht, you may recall, who creates the annual calendar, "An Expectation of Days," which is to the inspirational Rand Calendar what the Doo-Dah parade is to the Tournament of Roses Parade, being irreverent, provocative and fey, and stocked with bits of wisdom and important trivia.   His 1982 calendar, for example, quotes Dog Bokum's observation the "You can't be happy with a woman who pronounces both d's in Wednesday."
  The line that moved Specht to describe me as a person of taste, refinement and culture, was this one:  "I'd go a long way for a good deli."
  "Therefore," Specht says, "I send you a scholarly paper--'The Deli Is the Sannawitch' -- by  two friends of mine who...are the two best experts on the subject, the world's No. 1 and No. 2 deli mavens."
   The experts, Albert Madansky and Martin Shubik, published their findings under that title some time ago when after many years of hard and apparently dull work the Curies stand back in their (dingy and utterly middle-class) laboratory, knowing that they have isolated radium; or Michelson and Morley, with their interferometer mounted at midday on a heavy block of stone, destroy ether; or sir William Harvey demonstrates the flow of blood, thus destroying a large body of medical mythology.
  "Thus it was in an undistinguished office on the 10th floor of No. 3 East   54th t., New York City, on Tuesday Jan. 2, at 12 noon, that two scholars gathered together and under carefully controlled conditions performed a simple experiment at the end of which, mute except for the occasional burp, they stood back in wonder at the majesty of scientific method when applied with humility Madansky and Shubik then set upon these materials and devoured them according to a design of "simplicity and elegance."  Not only were they able to identify the deli from which each sandwich came, but they agreed on the order of their quality - 1. Deli-East; 2. Gaiety-East;  3. Carnegie; 4. Stage.
    The ratings may be of nostalgic interest to New Yorkers who languish in Los Angeles.  I can't argue with them, never having eaten in those delis; but I am dissatisfied with the setting of the experiment - a 10th-floor office.  Surely a deli can't be judged on its sandwiches alone.  What about its atmosphere?
    So I was gratified to find this same objection made by Irving Roshwalb in a formal Discussion appended to the study.
   "When I finished reading your papers," he wrote, "I had a heartburn extinguishable only by two tablets in a glass of water....The authors' search for the sandwich is much too clinical and too prone to the cold consideration of the sandwich independent of its surroundings.   The sandwich, to be wholly successful, must carry with it the gestalt of the delicatessen.  It must embody the anticipation which directs one to the delicatessen for a meal or a nosh.  It must carry in its Epicurean strata the mouth watering suggestiveness that the mere sight of the delicatessen window brings.  It must evoke the enveloping warm aroma that gathers you up in its moistness as you enter the emporium...."
  Yes, yes!  You have to salivate italicized:  when you see the sign!  
   I was in Glendale the other morning and decided to have breakfast at Billy's on Orange.  They are doing some work on the street and I had to go around a couple of blocks, and when I finally saw Billy's sign I salivated.
  Inside the door I was enveloped by that heavenly aroma of dill pickle, spiced beef, mustard, chopped liver, onion, hops and bagels, and when I sat at a small table and unfolded my newspaper to Jim Murray I knew there was only one other test.  The waitress should not be any spring chicken.  She had to have some mileage.  Life had to have knocked her slightly out of shape; she had to speak the vernacular; she had to be cheerful; and she had to call me "Honey."
  She was 50 if she was a day; she'd won a few, lost a few.  She came at me with a coffee pot:
  "Ya wanna start with some coffee, Dearie?"
  "Dearie" is close enough.
   Bliss

hand-written note in red ink PS to Jack-- Madansky was in my tennis 4-some on Sunday mornings until 2 years ago when he migrated to Israel. In search of a better pastrami sannawitch. Mike

newspaper clipping Barstool religion... in ink: 12-12-82

   Regulars at O'Leary's Pub in Parachute, Colo., can no longer belly up to the bar for Holy Communion.  O'Leary's was pressed into double duty as a saloon and church in January when Rev.James Fox started traveling over from nearby Rifle to celebrate Sunday mass for the boomtown's 75 Catholics.   But the population has dwindled and there are no longer enough to warrant a special service, so O'Leary's is back to being just another shot-and-beer joint.   hand-written note in red ink:  Things are tough all over.