I found this to be a very well written piece. The combination of a story that contains a poem and two letters makes it a more diverse piece, and makes it more interesting to the reader. That way, the reader does not just get bored reading through the same type of prose the entire time. The point of view by which this piece was written was very effective in giving it some character. Quite obviously, it is written by the point of view of an old man, and the quirks and traits of this old man get intertwined with the story and make it more interesting to read. For example, the snippets of Yiddish that are included allow us to get a better feel for his character, and make it more humorous to read. It is interesting to note that although Yiddish is used in this piece, it is not difficult to understand. Many of the expressions, such as oy, nosh, and shmuck have permeated into the English language. In other places, it is easy to determine the meaning of the word from the context in which it is used. When I was reading this story, I could picture an old, cranky man telling me this story because of the life that the words breathe into it, and that makes it more enjoyable to read.
One thing I found interesting about this story was that it seemed real enough to be a true story. Considering that the premise of the story is about an Old Man who wrote a journal for the teacher of a writing class who wanted to tell the stories of old Jewish people and in the end gave the teacher his journal, it is plausible that Leslea Newman published it. So, I wondered if Harvey Milk was a real person. According to Time magazines top 100 people of the 20th century, he is. He was an openly gay politician who got elected to the San Francisco board of supervisors. Once I found out about this, it certainly piqued my interest again in the possibility that this may be a true story. I suppose it doesn't really matter, the story gets its message across all the same.
