Elena Kaplan, Dieting At Seven Months?

She was big for a girl baby at birth, weighing in 7 pounds 6 ounces, but it appeared like it was all head. She had a big head and was skinny as a rail. She's still skinny as a rail and has a fairly large head. Actually, she and I both have big heads and we're both skinny, and we're similar in other ways as well.

Stephanie, her mom, used to like to take this little table out in the yard for a "picnic" and Elena loved it. She liked to look around, see the squirrels and watch the birds, but in truth she'd rather suck on her pacifier than actually eat real food. Why waste time eating when there are so many other things to see and do?

I shot this in November, 1971 with a Pentacon-Six and an 80mm f/2.8 Biometer lens.

August 1973 ~ The "New" 4X5 View Camera

I never really thought of myself as a large format photographer but I ran into a great deal on a Graphic View II with a 203mm f/7.7 Ektar and a 100mm Wide Field Ektar. I bought it. Al Olme was using my darkroom and his 4X5 Omega D-2V enlarger was in it. I was sure that I could use the camera on enough jobs to justify the investment, and I did.

First I had to get up to speed on using the thing, though. Browne's Photo was stocking some off brand 4X5 film at a very reasonable price. I bought a 100 sheet box.

Elena had just turned two, the woman on the lower right was my wife Stephanie. The other woman was Carlene Wagner. I'd met her through Jane Ross and Shirley Rigby. The three of them were copy editors at the Miami News, close friends, and lived near one another in Coconut Grove. When the Miami News folded Shirley got a job with Time Magazine in New York. I met up with Shirley a few times when I was in New York, but within a couple of years I'd lost touch with the three of them. I heard that Shirley had moved back to England where she was from.

About a year later I concluded that I really wasn't a large format kind of photographer and sold the Graphic View camera outfit at a modest profit.

We're Reading The Sunday Herald And Ignoring My Daughter Elena Kaplan's 38th Birthday

The Miami Herald came out with this great deal on Sunday only home delivery so of course Janis comes over every Sunday morning knowing that I have a newspaper, fresh coffee, and usually some Danish or bagels, She hates being photographed and the moment I pick up a camera she either turns away or hides behind something. Here it's the newspaper.

It's also my daughter Elena's 38th birthday. I thought about sending her a card but decided against it. I briefly considered calling her but decided against that also. She said that she didn't want to see me or hear from me again. I've since discovered that I'm not the only father of a daughter like that. It's fairly common actualy.

Elena Kaplan Got Politics In Her Blood At This Refreshment Table

I was telling Monkette about Charlie Zarzour and how my daughter, her older sister Elena Kaplan, used to love to go to city council meetings. At the age of three, four, or five it wasn't politics that fascinated her. I'm not sure if it was the cake and cookies on this table or if it was Charlie Zarzour that was the bigger atraction.

Charlie's main city job was a code enforcement officer but he earned a few extra bucks setting up the table and the coffee pot, just one, no decaf back then, and laying out the tray of cookies, cutting the cake, and HANDING you a plate of cake and pouring the coffee for you. And he managed to get around, drive a car, set up the refreshments, and so on with one leg and crutches.

Elena was only too glad to help him put out the napkins and paper plates. Then she'd get to sit on Charlie's lap. He insisted that she call him Charlie. Then he'd want to know all about what was happening in her life, how nursery school was going, and so on.

Now Charlie has gone off to that place in the sky. Elena has completed law school and is an associate for a big national law firm's Atlanta office

Robin reminded me the other night about that it's been seven years since I was getting ready to drive up to visit Elena again. I'd just broken up with my long time girlfriend Vivette, a dozen year relationship down the tubes, and was very depressed. I was very much in love with Vivette. The last thing I expected was for her to tell me that it was over. Finished!

I was really looking forward to spending a week with Elena. She always managed to cheer me up. We spoke every week on the phone. She'd come down to Miami to visit. I'd go up and visit her. A really ideal father daughter relationship. Then about two weeks before I was planning on making the trip I got The Letter! Essentially it said "I never want to see or hear from you again!" She blamed me for being the cause of everthing wrong with her life. I tried calling her. She didn't want to talk about it. I called her mother. "Oh, give her a few months. She'll get over it."

I went into a major funk. My doctor put me on an anti-depressant. I had a major reaction to it. It became a matter of just gritting my teeth and getting past it. I suppose I have, although every morning I get up and think of her and wonder "why?".

A few years ago she ran for office, Georgia state legislature. Her campaign literature told about her getting interested in politics when she was a little girl and her daddy used to take her to city council meetings. She lost. She needs to realize that bad karma begets bad karma. And that's what I think about every time I see this table with the coffee pot and the plate cookies

Elena Kaplan, Atlanta Attorney

Yeah, that's me, maybe a year or two before my daughter Elena was born. Her mom, Stephanie, and I were still married. She made that shirt for me. I think they called that a Nehru collar, and love beads were in fashion. The only grey hair that I had was a dime size circle in my left sideburn, probably where the dimple was when I was little. Wow,I had a big head, and when I was being born the doc had to pull me out with forceps, leaving a dimple on each side. I guess it caused some damage, at least on one side, because when my sideburns started to grow in at 18 or 19 there was that little patch of grey.

Stephanie took this picture of me in our back yard. Judging by the angle she probably used the Minolta Autocord, a camera best used at waist level.

There's an old Jewish custom. When a child is a complete dissapointment, marries out of the faith, whatever, you go through a period of mourning as if they were dead, a seven day period called sitting shivah. It helps to bring finality to your feelings for this person. Time to move on with life for the living.

About six or seven years ago I was planning on driving up to Gainesville for a few days to visit Elena. She had gone back to school to pick up a masters degree in tax law. She was already an attorney in Atlanta. I'd visited her there a year earlier We talked on the phone all the time. Then I got The Letter. She wrote that she never wanted to see or speak to me again for the rest of her life. I tried calling her but she wouldn't talk. I tied calling her mother. She said to give her two or three months. She'd get over it. She didn't. Now it's been six or seven years.

I decided to just enjoy the memories of the good times we'd shared and accept the fact that she was gone from my life. I'm amazed at how many men that I know that have the same situation with their daughters, but not with their sons.

ELENA KAPLAN ~ The Candidate

This is a recent picture of my daughter, Elena Kaplan, from her law firm's web site. I didn't take the photo. She used to use one of my photos of her.

A couple of years ago I got a call from my old friend John Patteson, all excited. "Did you know that Elena is running for state representitive in Atlanta?" he asked. Well no, I didn't. It seems that he'd been googling names of people that he knew, just to see what might turn up. He found the web site of the law firm that she was with and he found her campaign web site. I wish that I'd done a copy & paste of it, because shortly after she lost the election the campaign web site was gone. It started out with her writing about how she first got interested in politics by going with her father (that's me) to North Miami City Council meetings as a little girl. I should have felt flattered, glowing with pride, and I was I suppose, despite the fact that it had been close to five years since she'd decided to stop talking to me. She'd sent me a letter saying that she never wanted to see or hear from me again.

Last night I discovered a comment had been added to a blog posting about her on this Georgia blog:
http://liberallucidity.blogspot.com/2006/07/ajc-spotlights-georgias-record-4.html Here's the comment:

"Anonymous said...
Now it's 2008, not 2006. Elena Kaplan should try a run for some other office! http://thepriceofsilver.blogspot.com/2006/06/elena-kaplan-politics-in-her-blood.html She could have one of the best campaign advisors and political writers in the business working for her."

Again, very flattering. Thanks, Liberal Lucidity!

But Elena still isn't talking to me. I've tried sending emails to her at her law firm's email address but got no response. I'd really been expecting her to make another run for office in the current election cycle, but she doesn't seem to be doing it.