A Jewish Childhood
Mother
One afternoon I was sitting in the dining room of our 2 bedroom one bath apartment. Facing my typewriter (newly minted Royal portable) so I was about 13 years old writing some homework I assume at the heard of our oblong dining room table. In this position I was facing the front door of our apartment in our 2 story house shared below with Uncle Sherwin and Aunt Betty. Ultimately my mother came home carrying a bag or 2 of groceries and as she passed through the door through the small "foyer" and into the dining room she suddenly grabbed her right breast and stopped as if in pain or short of breath. Fearfully I rose and shouted Mom are you are right. I am fine, she replied I am fine and proceeded to walk in a stately and self possessed manner through the dining room with the stoicism (real or not) I came to expect from her. (This last scene, remarkably, was actually depicted in exact duplicate form without the groceries on a British comedy series of a Jewish family by the grandmother in front of her family in their living room).
Some of my recollections might be small exaggerations but they capture the flavor of my mother in her more vigorous years. In fact she would get up as early as 5-6 AM do the laundry, make breakfast for the family, see my father off to work (that ended when I graduated from medical school as he retired soon after - perhaps more about him later) then went to work herself and came home to make dinner , wash the dishes, and supervise the family affairs for the night. This pattern of the Jewish women running the corporate household 16-18 hours per day while her husband strode about with ample pride coming and going and perhaps the euphemistic bread-winner since early Judeo-Roman times as the father spent his days out of the house with little responsibility other than making a few shekels or in the case of religious Jews reading and discussing biblical text and the mother keeping the house and the responsibility for raising and educating the children.
I worked for my father's company Jolly Kids Togs on and off from age 13 to 17 or 18. In the summer after my freshman year my job as I remember it was to separate the printouts from the main frame computers, extracting carbon paper from between the sheets, and filing. My father also hired a pretty young shikse girl who was studying art somewhere in Chicago and I think was going into some kind of design. Her name was Judy and I was very attracted to her. My father introduced us ( I am not sure when or if my Mother forgave him) as I remember and soon we started dating as she lived at or near Norwood Park where my fathers parents had lived and he was kid enough to loan me his car. Judy was one of the first girls I ever dated. Judy was the first Shikse I ever dated. My mother, who suffered acutely from anxiety neurosis (more on that later) was severely frightened. Each night the 4 of us (sister included) would have dinner together in the kitchen. Mother would put the food in each plate while standing next to each when she came to me handed me my plate with trembling fingers , crying, and was able to say thorough her whimper "Don't tell your grandmother. This will kill her.
Another time she said "It's fine, you can love her , you can marry, you are welcome to live here, you can take your father and my bedroom. I ask only one thing. When you come in just cut your father and me down from the chandelier. (this may be a slight fabrication but it has stuck with me for most of my decades).
One afternoon I was sitting in the dining room of our 2 bedroom one bath apartment. Facing my typewriter (newly minted Royal portable) so I was about 13 years old writing some homework I assume at the heard of our oblong dining room table. In this position I was facing the front door of our apartment in our 2 story house shared below with Uncle Sherwin and Aunt Betty. Ultimately my mother came home carrying a bag or 2 of groceries and as she passed through the door through the small "foyer" and into the dining room she suddenly grabbed her right breast and stopped as if in pain or short of breath. Fearfully I rose and shouted Mom are you are right. I am fine, she replied I am fine and proceeded to walk in a stately and self possessed manner through the dining room with the stoicism (real or not) I came to expect from her. (This last scene, remarkably, was actually depicted in exact duplicate form without the groceries on a British comedy series of a Jewish family by the grandmother in front of her family in their living room).
Some of my recollections might be small exaggerations but they capture the flavor of my mother in her more vigorous years. In fact she would get up as early as 5-6 AM do the laundry, make breakfast for the family, see my father off to work (that ended when I graduated from medical school as he retired soon after - perhaps more about him later) then went to work herself and came home to make dinner , wash the dishes, and supervise the family affairs for the night. This pattern of the Jewish women running the corporate household 16-18 hours per day while her husband strode about with ample pride coming and going and perhaps the euphemistic bread-winner since early Judeo-Roman times as the father spent his days out of the house with little responsibility other than making a few shekels or in the case of religious Jews reading and discussing biblical text and the mother keeping the house and the responsibility for raising and educating the children.
I worked for my father's company Jolly Kids Togs on and off from age 13 to 17 or 18. In the summer after my freshman year my job as I remember it was to separate the printouts from the main frame computers, extracting carbon paper from between the sheets, and filing. My father also hired a pretty young shikse girl who was studying art somewhere in Chicago and I think was going into some kind of design. Her name was Judy and I was very attracted to her. My father introduced us ( I am not sure when or if my Mother forgave him) as I remember and soon we started dating as she lived at or near Norwood Park where my fathers parents had lived and he was kid enough to loan me his car. Judy was one of the first girls I ever dated. Judy was the first Shikse I ever dated. My mother, who suffered acutely from anxiety neurosis (more on that later) was severely frightened. Each night the 4 of us (sister included) would have dinner together in the kitchen. Mother would put the food in each plate while standing next to each when she came to me handed me my plate with trembling fingers , crying, and was able to say thorough her whimper "Don't tell your grandmother. This will kill her.
Another time she said "It's fine, you can love her , you can marry, you are welcome to live here, you can take your father and my bedroom. I ask only one thing. When you come in just cut your father and me down from the chandelier. (this may be a slight fabrication but it has stuck with me for most of my decades).
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