Also on this page (click on the link):
- Men’s Health Tip: Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm
- ARCHIVE page...read prior Profiles & Men’s Health articles
Member Profile
Dan Greenberg:
Youthful Wisdom Through Living
by Kevin Fagan
Editor’s Note: Anshei’s Member Profile series continues in this issue with our own Kevin Fagan, journalist at the SF Chronicle, contributing this piece on long-time Temple Isaiah member Dan Greenberg. (Photos courtesty of Michael Fox)
Being busy, and being in charge, is what has defined much of Dan Greenberg’s life. But it hasn’t defined everything in it.
There’s more to him than that. Dan is also a fully rounded man, an open-minded male of the 21st Century.
At age 76, he is still taking on challenges, throwing himself into a blizzard of activities from tennis to working with veterans at a local hospital—and being mindful of every man’s need to keep progressing as not just a parent and husband, but as an intellectually questing person able to adapt with his times.
“Your identity is so often bound up as somebody’s father or somebody’s husband - and sometimes how much that is so, regarding the job, depends on how much testosterone you’ve got,” Dan said with a chuckle. “But in this Anshei group, there’s very little talk of what kind of job you have. It’s just a good way for men to get together, younger and older.
“You can get in many groups where your job defines who you are, but people in Anshei take you for who you are. In a very good way. That’s important for men, and for people in general.”
That sort of interaction hasn’t always been possible, Dan said. In that way, the evolution of the way men are able to relate together is a good thing - the man of today is more emotionally open, more capable of a fully human exchange beyond the usual male interaction of merely swapping sports stories or one-upping each other on the latest promotion.
Dan has a deep background for knowing what he is talking about. Through his work as a manager of heavy construction projects and team coordination at Bechtel and before that, Dow Chemical, Dan was used to leading the way as an adult - a skill he managed to apply to his membership at Temple Isaiah.
Joining the temple in 1957, two years after it started, Dan recalls he has been on “just about every committee here over the years.” That includes having been on the board of directors for 25 years, serving as president in 1966 and 1996, and overseeing the construction of both the temple school building and the recent, complete overhaul of the sanctuary.
Through the decades he also helped start other men’s groups similar to Anshei. That triggers quite a chain of memories, given the acute difference between the ways men regarded themselves 50 years ago, or say, 30 years ago, and today. “People of my generation - you did your work, kept your mouth shut and toughed it out,” Dan said. “You didn’t have as much of what I call the overriding angst that we have today.
“On the other hand, men are more open and able to share their feelings than they used to be.” That’s progress, he said. “In the old days, men’s groups used to be pretty simple. You did volunteer work for the pancake breakfast, you had an annual meeting or maybe a speaker once in awhile. And that was all OK then; the times didn’t have the same context that we have now.”
Dan retired from Bechtel in 1995, and he and his wife, Faith, live in Walnut Creek. His son Alan is a lawyer in Denver, and daughter Gail runs a marketing consultant business in Atlanta, Ga. - so everyday visits aren’t on the boards. That’s OK, though. Dan keeps plenty busy.
He sculpts in ceramics, bronze and stone, and several huge, ceramic pieces sit in his back yard, including a full-size samurai warrior, a crane and butterfly. He also teaches the craft at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Martinez, to vets of World War II, the Vietnam War, and the one Dan himself fought in - the Korean War, which he mustered out of as an Army Second Lieutenant.
Dan also likes to bat the ball around, playing on the senior team at Heather Farms Tennis Club in Walnut Creek. And of course, he stays extremely active in temple affairs.
“Most of us don’t have time to interact with people that much,” he said. “Our interaction is with our children through the schools, with our wives in social settings - there just aren’t that many opportunities for men to get together to socialize.”
With Anshei, he said, “the guys who brought this forward have done a tremendous service to the congregation.”
Kevin Fagan is a staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle.
Men’s Health Tip
Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm
by Alan Jacobson, DC
Stroke and heart disease are the leading killers of men. But there’s another danger lurking in your cardiovascular system, one that’s less common but no less lethal: Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm ("AAA"). An AAA is the ballooning, and eventual rupture, of the largest blood vessel in your body, the aorta. Even worse, you won’t even know you have it, and in many cases, your doctor won’t catch it during your normal physical exam. How and why does it happen, and what symptoms might you experience?
An aneurysm occurs when the lining of the blood vessel gets weaker; it thins out and expands much like a balloon when it’s filled with air. The most common types of aneurysms are those that occur in 
the brain as well as in the abdominal aorta (between the heart and the pelvis). The patient may feel an abnormally prominent pulsation in their abdomen, although many who develop AAAs do not experience any symptoms—even to the point of rupture.
Further, the AAA’s most common warning signs are nonspecific: intense back or abdominal pain; rapid pulse; nausea and vomiting; excessive sweating, and shock. As with other cardiovascular disease conditions, risk factors include smoking, high blood pressure, atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), and family history (suggesting there is a genetic component in some cases). Men are more prone to abdominal aortic aneurysm than are women.
So how are AAAs discovered? Careful palpation of the abdomen often reveals an abnormally wide pulsation of the aorta. However, even large aneurysms may be very difficult to detect in heavyset patients. Fortunately, certain laboratory diagnostic tests are effective in seeing AAAs. The most common tests include X-ray (if there’s calcification in the lining of the blood vessel, the aneurysm is outlined and becomes visible); ultrasonography, and CT or MRI scanning, particularly when performed with injected dye. Of these, the ultrasound is highly effective, the least expensive, noninvasive, and has no side effects; CT scans and MRI contrast (dye) studies are somewhat more accurate, but cost more and are more invasive.
Once discovered, an aneurysm is measured in diameter and carefully monitored. When it reaches 5 cm in diameter, the aneurysm must be surgically corrected because the risk of it bursting is too great: when an aneurysm does rupture, the patient hemorrhages catastrophically with only a 20% chance of survival.
On November 14 (7pm), Dr. David Bressler will be discussing aneurysms, as well as stroke and heart disease, in an Anshei workshop designed to help you prevent such conditions. Then, on December 1, Life Line Screening will be performing three noninvasive vascular screenings (including the aforementioned ultrasound). Both programs will be at the Contra Cost JCC in Walnut Creek. Click here for more information.
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