I was born in 1943. Something else of importance happened that year, as I found out from an article in the December 20, 2025, edition of The New York Times. Here's a link to the article I am talking about, "A Weekly Gathering for Those Who Fled The Nazis Ends After 82 Years."
A brief excerpt is below:
In 1943, two artist friends who fled the Nazis and landed in New York City decided to host a weekly meeting with other refugees. At this stammtisch, as they called it, they could talk freely, in German, about art and politics and the culture they missed from home.
Week after week, the stammtisch moved around the many German restaurants on the Upper East Side. And it kept going, even after the war ended and one of the founders died. And when their regular restaurants began to close, they met in a nearby apartment, and then another, and another.
For 82 years, they spoke German together virtually every week until last Saturday, when the Oskar Maria Graf Stammtisch finally decided to disband.
If the paywall policies of The Times don't prevent you from doing so, I am recommending that you read the article. It can be (and should be) an inspiration. You can, as I have mentioned before, get free access to The Times if you happen to be able to obtain a library card from the Santa Cruz County Library.
Your individual personal power, added to the personal power of other persons, can make it possible for you to change the world. And I hope you don't doubt that! Our actions do, in fact, change the world - both when we act individually and when we act with others. If we want to do the latter - which is really what people need to do, if they are serious - then we need to get together in a group, meet regularly (weekly is best), and meet in person. I keep insisting on this, since I have personally experienced the power of this kind of activity in my own life, and the difference that this kind of collective activity has made in the life of the community where I live. I know that this formula works.
The challenges ahead for our nation, state, and local community are really daunting. And since they are, we really do need to "Find Some Friends" and "Think Like A Lion." Reading about the Stammtisch profiled in The Times was truly inspirational to me.
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