Notmilkman Update

Dear Friends,

I have NOT been checking my email. Should you wish
to contact me, please do so with personal notes or
letters (please NO flowers!)

Robert Cohen
841 Kinderkamack Road
Oradell, NJ 07649

On Monday (June 26th), I shared a chilly fluoresovescent
room with about a dozen wonderful people who were dressed in
green gowns and white masks. My back surgery lasted just a
few minutes longer than the scheduled five hours. My surgeon
informed me that professional baseball players and other
such supermen might go home on Wednesday after spending
two evenings away from home. It was predicted that I would
go home on Thursday.

Instead, I went home on Tuesday. As my doctor now says, "I reset
the bar." The best part of the experience was holding a device which
delivered a instant surge of morphine to my own bloodstream on
Monday night. The worst part was being sent home without that
same magnificent tool of technology.

Some time before losing his life on the world's most elegant
mountain, a climber named Mallory was asked by a reporter why
he was obsessed with scaling Mount Everest. "Because it is there,"
was his response.

Today, I dressed myself with a brace after taking a long shower.
With the use of mirrors, I changed the bandages covering what will
soon be a 5 inch scar. Earlier, I had lain in my garden picking
5 varieties of lettuce, radishes, tiny yellow and green zucchini,
and garlic, mint, oregano, thyme, and dill which became the base
for a lovely dressing. For dessert I feasted upon freshly picked
cups of strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries.

After the shower, wearing a 30-pound cumbersome plastic body brace,
I trekked up the hill using my cane for aid, taking the scenic route
past Schirra drive which is a street named after one of my town's
residents who had become an astronaut (Mercury 7).

I have many more hills to climb, but will be coming back much
stronger
and wiser.

This past week, two of my daughters and I forged a pact. We would
declare our personal philosophy by placing a tattoo in a private
place upon our bodies. Each one word statement would reflect our
feeling about our own spirit and our world, with a commentary
about how we view ourselves and our relation to others. One child
chose "H'yha" (to live) while another now wears "Emunah" which
means "faith." My single black word upon flesh is "Moshiach,"
because for me, every day in my recent past and continuing future
has and will continue to be a rebirth. My continuing personal
redemption will become a destiny in which one voice becomes a
more powerful statement for the Notmilk, vegetarian, and animal
rights movements.

Robert Cohen
201-967-7001