Sunday, December 22, 2013
P.S.
And so, I opened my mouth and said too much (in the previous post.) My cousin read it and wrote me that anything I write now will be suspect.
Imagination Running Away
It was just my imagination,
Running away with me
The Temptations
I continued to make up outlandish stories, and recount them to friends and strangers, more as jokes than ambitious literary exercises. Some of them got away from me (the stories, not the friends and strangers!) and ended up as widely spread rumours and urban legends, which wasn't my intention, most of the time anyway. Imagine when a rumour you yourself started gets back to you in a large metropolis. It's happened.
More recently, with the Internet, and amusing things happening in the world every day, I've been in my element like a fish in the water, inventing tales and passing them on to newer friends and strangers.
I've found that inventing and including one's cousins in such stories helps to increase and assure their credibility. The more detail about this cousin the better for the rest of the story however unbelievable the core of it sounds. During some presidential scandal, for example, I invented a cousin working in the Presidential Executive Office, the building which stands next to the White House, who I said was feeding me juicy information, saying that the President was considering resigning from office. The fish, my audience, swallowed the bait and the story caught on.
Since then, I have acquired cousins on Wall Street, among the Oscar Selection Committee and in other places of power. In reality, my immediate family (parents) has been particularly poor on cousins, effects of war and the global movement of peoples, and the only cousins I do have are distant, ordinary, boring even, except for one woman who's been a source of intrigue, poisonous rumours, all of it motivated by envy or greed, I'm not really sure, and much of it unfortunately quite effective. But that's a story for another evening. My own children anyway are much luckier with numerous cousins from their mother's side.
Did I give away (reveal) too much?
Saturday, December 21, 2013
Dang Me!
"Roger Muller," he would say introducing himself, "As in Roger Miller!" Actually, on his birth certificate he was 'Rodger', his German speaking parents trying perhaps to Americanize 'Rudger'. Still, he signed himself 'Roger'. At the time the singer Roger Miller was still alive, appearing on television, even if the prime time when his songs ruled the charts had passed. And Muller identified himself with Miller, even looked a bit like him and shared some of Roger Miller's talents for word play and rhyme. That's how we became friends, as fans of Roger Miller, and immediately after the introduction, he proceeded to tell me the legend of Roger Miller, which I am going to repeat now before getting to the core of my story about Rodger.
In the late 1950s Roger Miller was hired by a Nashville music publisher as a staff songwriter. That was a common practice in those days (remember the Brill Building?) songwriters in publishers' offices churning out tunes which the latter would pitch to performers. It was an orderly system, the songwriters could concentrate on songwriting, while the publishers took care of the sales, and the performers could count on quality, and sometimes received merchandise (songs) custom made for them. In today's chaotic environment (are there still staff songwriters?) songwriters are on their own to peddle their products, and performers are often bombarded by materials from too many unfiltered sources.
Anyway, young Roger (Miller) was composing songs that went nowhere, unoriginal moon-June-spoon stuff, while at the same time walking around the office and singing to himself silly kindergarten rhymes. Then one day, the publisher suggested to Roger to write songs out of these nonsensical ditties, and that is how Roger got started as one of the prime songwriters and performers in Nashville. And that's how we got this:
Roses are red and violets are purple
Sugar is sweet and so is maple syrple.
I'm the seventh out of seven sons
My pappy was a pistol
I'm a son of a gun.
CHORUS:
Dang me, dang me
They oughta take a rope and hang me
High from the highest tree
Woman would you weep for me.
And this:
My uncle used to love but she died
A chicken ain't chicken 'til it's licken good and fried
Keep on the sunny side
My uncle used to love me but she died
Roger Muller shared Roger Miller's talent for punning and inventive rhyming. And that's how he and I began to amuse ourselves and our mates with puns and rhymes, writing together limericks and short ditties on the subjects at hand, that is whatever crossed our path on a given day, from the radio, television news, or newspapers. We didn't discriminate, and we didn't avoid any topics, and our sometime hangman's humour got us in hot water on occasion when we mocked some politician's or celebrity's demise.
Then there was an unsuccessful attempt on the life of the President of the United States. I came up with the seed, the first line, and Roger filled in the rest of the limerick which ended with a vague suggestion that the next attempt might meet with success.
Someone who heard our creation apparently did not appreciate its sophisticate irony, and soon thereafter Roger, or since this was an official occasion, Rodger, was made to entertain a visit from two dour faced, suited gentlemen of the Secret Service. He managed to weasel out of the situation, and later reported to me that he hadn't realized that the Secret Service worked so far from Washington, and that he saved my butt, as he put it. And it's a good thing too, since I already had a file with the FBI.
Unless Roger, wherever he is now, wrote down and stored our work somewhere, it is all lost to the history of fine literature.
In the late 1950s Roger Miller was hired by a Nashville music publisher as a staff songwriter. That was a common practice in those days (remember the Brill Building?) songwriters in publishers' offices churning out tunes which the latter would pitch to performers. It was an orderly system, the songwriters could concentrate on songwriting, while the publishers took care of the sales, and the performers could count on quality, and sometimes received merchandise (songs) custom made for them. In today's chaotic environment (are there still staff songwriters?) songwriters are on their own to peddle their products, and performers are often bombarded by materials from too many unfiltered sources.
Anyway, young Roger (Miller) was composing songs that went nowhere, unoriginal moon-June-spoon stuff, while at the same time walking around the office and singing to himself silly kindergarten rhymes. Then one day, the publisher suggested to Roger to write songs out of these nonsensical ditties, and that is how Roger got started as one of the prime songwriters and performers in Nashville. And that's how we got this:
Roses are red and violets are purple
Sugar is sweet and so is maple syrple.
I'm the seventh out of seven sons
My pappy was a pistol
I'm a son of a gun.
CHORUS:
Dang me, dang me
They oughta take a rope and hang me
High from the highest tree
Woman would you weep for me.
And this:
My uncle used to love but she died
A chicken ain't chicken 'til it's licken good and fried
Keep on the sunny side
My uncle used to love me but she died
Roger Muller shared Roger Miller's talent for punning and inventive rhyming. And that's how he and I began to amuse ourselves and our mates with puns and rhymes, writing together limericks and short ditties on the subjects at hand, that is whatever crossed our path on a given day, from the radio, television news, or newspapers. We didn't discriminate, and we didn't avoid any topics, and our sometime hangman's humour got us in hot water on occasion when we mocked some politician's or celebrity's demise.
Then there was an unsuccessful attempt on the life of the President of the United States. I came up with the seed, the first line, and Roger filled in the rest of the limerick which ended with a vague suggestion that the next attempt might meet with success.
Someone who heard our creation apparently did not appreciate its sophisticate irony, and soon thereafter Roger, or since this was an official occasion, Rodger, was made to entertain a visit from two dour faced, suited gentlemen of the Secret Service. He managed to weasel out of the situation, and later reported to me that he hadn't realized that the Secret Service worked so far from Washington, and that he saved my butt, as he put it. And it's a good thing too, since I already had a file with the FBI.
Unless Roger, wherever he is now, wrote down and stored our work somewhere, it is all lost to the history of fine literature.
Friday, December 20, 2013
Hands and Shoes
It wouldn't be correct to say that the reason John and I became friends was our shoe problem. It was something we shared, yes, like we shared our love for the records of Captain Beefheart and for Anchor Steam beer before it became known across the country. At the time we both worked for a company which had its headquarters at the heart of the city's financial district, even though it wasn't a financial concern but an agricultural. We worked in the department called Data Processing, a name sounding archaic today, and since changed in most American corporations at least twice, first to MIS - Management Information Systems , and then to IT - Information Technology.
The company had a strict dress code - white or light colored shirts, neckties, pressed slacks, no jeans or khaki trousers, jackets (which could be taken off while in the office) or suits, and shiny leather shoes. This was before Wall Street invented so-called Casual Dress Fridays. Our, John and mine, shoe problem was with the leather shoes. Due to perhaps the shape of our feet, I still don't know the reason, we could never break in a pair of those hard leather shoes that businessmen and lawyers wear. They scraped, hurt our feet, and we suffered having to wear them long before we met and started working for the company.
To cope with the problem and still keep our jobs we first began storing in our desks a second pair of shoes, comfortable sneakers, which we would put on before going out of the office during lunch hour. Then, Reebok and other sports shoes companies introduced black walking shoes, soft leather tops, rubber soles, and we started wearing them at all times, and getting away with it. Walking the street in the financial district, the stockbrokers and other suited stiffs passing us gave us contemptuous looks. We didn't care.
As I said, we got away with it at the office, but John did not fare as well at home. His fiancee and roommate was a tall Ukrainian beauty named Eva, who once won a Miss title of her state which was Iowa, Kansas or some other agribusiness state, I no longer remember which, where she grew up on her parents farm. Eva did not approve of John's sneakers. Her father, she told us, always dressed up to the nines, on Sundays when the family went to church, or whenever he traveled to town to meet with lawyers, government officials or business people. He taught her that you can tell everything you need to know about a man by looking at his shoes.
She forced John to wear his wingtips whenever they went out to restaurants, theater or the symphony hall. I often accompanied them, alone or with a date, and I remember one time when we had to stop at a drugstore on the way to town to buy a package of wide Band Aids for John's bleeding feet. He walked wearing those shoes like a man who had been crippled by some childhood disease. I would on such occasions wear a jacket, colorful patterned shirt, fresh unfaded blue jeans, and white tennis sneakers. During the intermission at the symphony hall Eva pretended that "we don't know this guy". John tried explaining to her that I was "bohemian", but I don't think she understood the word.
She worked as a model, mostly hands model as a matter of fact, owing to the beautiful and photogenic pair of hands with long fingers and no skin blemishes. This was the time when mountain biking was becoming popular, and John bought two bicycles and spent sunny weekends biking the trails in the hills with Eva. One time she wiped out and badly hurt her left hand. Stitches, healing time, scars, her modeling career on hold, Eva blamed John for the mishap, and John blamed himself. She eventually broke off the engagement, and moved back to Iowa, Kansas, or whatever state she was from. John was brokenhearted, and I could do little to cheer him up.
Eventually he recovered, and two or so years later he showed me an ad in a running magazine showing a pair female hands handling expensive running shoes. He said, "Look, those are Eva's hands, she's back in business!"
Eva's shoe rules and the drama surrounding them seemed amusing to me for a long time, until I experienced something similar many years later when a lady friend told me that "real men" wear socks that reach their knees, and I just didn't measure up with my half calf assortment of socks. And to this day, seeing advertisements picturing female hands I wonder every time if they are Eva's.
The company had a strict dress code - white or light colored shirts, neckties, pressed slacks, no jeans or khaki trousers, jackets (which could be taken off while in the office) or suits, and shiny leather shoes. This was before Wall Street invented so-called Casual Dress Fridays. Our, John and mine, shoe problem was with the leather shoes. Due to perhaps the shape of our feet, I still don't know the reason, we could never break in a pair of those hard leather shoes that businessmen and lawyers wear. They scraped, hurt our feet, and we suffered having to wear them long before we met and started working for the company.
To cope with the problem and still keep our jobs we first began storing in our desks a second pair of shoes, comfortable sneakers, which we would put on before going out of the office during lunch hour. Then, Reebok and other sports shoes companies introduced black walking shoes, soft leather tops, rubber soles, and we started wearing them at all times, and getting away with it. Walking the street in the financial district, the stockbrokers and other suited stiffs passing us gave us contemptuous looks. We didn't care.
As I said, we got away with it at the office, but John did not fare as well at home. His fiancee and roommate was a tall Ukrainian beauty named Eva, who once won a Miss title of her state which was Iowa, Kansas or some other agribusiness state, I no longer remember which, where she grew up on her parents farm. Eva did not approve of John's sneakers. Her father, she told us, always dressed up to the nines, on Sundays when the family went to church, or whenever he traveled to town to meet with lawyers, government officials or business people. He taught her that you can tell everything you need to know about a man by looking at his shoes.
She forced John to wear his wingtips whenever they went out to restaurants, theater or the symphony hall. I often accompanied them, alone or with a date, and I remember one time when we had to stop at a drugstore on the way to town to buy a package of wide Band Aids for John's bleeding feet. He walked wearing those shoes like a man who had been crippled by some childhood disease. I would on such occasions wear a jacket, colorful patterned shirt, fresh unfaded blue jeans, and white tennis sneakers. During the intermission at the symphony hall Eva pretended that "we don't know this guy". John tried explaining to her that I was "bohemian", but I don't think she understood the word.
She worked as a model, mostly hands model as a matter of fact, owing to the beautiful and photogenic pair of hands with long fingers and no skin blemishes. This was the time when mountain biking was becoming popular, and John bought two bicycles and spent sunny weekends biking the trails in the hills with Eva. One time she wiped out and badly hurt her left hand. Stitches, healing time, scars, her modeling career on hold, Eva blamed John for the mishap, and John blamed himself. She eventually broke off the engagement, and moved back to Iowa, Kansas, or whatever state she was from. John was brokenhearted, and I could do little to cheer him up.
Eventually he recovered, and two or so years later he showed me an ad in a running magazine showing a pair female hands handling expensive running shoes. He said, "Look, those are Eva's hands, she's back in business!"
Eva's shoe rules and the drama surrounding them seemed amusing to me for a long time, until I experienced something similar many years later when a lady friend told me that "real men" wear socks that reach their knees, and I just didn't measure up with my half calf assortment of socks. And to this day, seeing advertisements picturing female hands I wonder every time if they are Eva's.
Thursday, December 19, 2013
On Main Street
You never know what you might encounter walking down Main Street. Some years ago during a noontime lunch break I was walking down Main Street toward a popular three story bookstore that was a local landmark at the time (it no longer exists), when I encountered a group of happy, singing and joking young Brazilians. You knew they were Brazilians by their yellow football jerseys, their national team was in town playing our national team in World Cup eliminations, a game which they won, though not as easily as expected.
They were friendly, talkative, were walking in the same direction, and I joined them conversing with those nearest me, soon passing the bookstore I was going to visit. They were football fans plus a couple of players from the team, I learned, though I didn't recognize any stars among them. Gilberto was one who spoke excellent English, and we got to talk about our lives.
The subject of our respective families came up when one of the other Brazilians approached Gilberto, saying something to him in Portuguese, pulling out a Leica camera and snapping a picture of the two of us. "He said we look like brothers," explained Gilberto, "he's a substitute goalie." While I was older, there was perhaps some resemblance to be found between us.
As we talked, to my everlasting surprise, Gilberto turned out to be a grandson of my father's long lost half-brother, an adventurer and multilingual rake, who produced children on three continents, before dying at the age of 32 in a duel in Japan. Gilberto never knew him, and neither did I, but in his version of the story, the grandfather did not die, but faked death to change identities and serve the Emperor of Japan as a spy. (It happened prior to World War II.)
I had to get back to my office, and Gilberto continued exploring the city with his colleagues. We were to meet later at the game, he gave me the name of his hotel, but somehow or another we never caught up with each other, and I was left with the story you've just read, while Gilberto returned to Brasil with the story of my father that I told him. I never saw the substitute goalie's Leica photo.
They were friendly, talkative, were walking in the same direction, and I joined them conversing with those nearest me, soon passing the bookstore I was going to visit. They were football fans plus a couple of players from the team, I learned, though I didn't recognize any stars among them. Gilberto was one who spoke excellent English, and we got to talk about our lives.
The subject of our respective families came up when one of the other Brazilians approached Gilberto, saying something to him in Portuguese, pulling out a Leica camera and snapping a picture of the two of us. "He said we look like brothers," explained Gilberto, "he's a substitute goalie." While I was older, there was perhaps some resemblance to be found between us.
As we talked, to my everlasting surprise, Gilberto turned out to be a grandson of my father's long lost half-brother, an adventurer and multilingual rake, who produced children on three continents, before dying at the age of 32 in a duel in Japan. Gilberto never knew him, and neither did I, but in his version of the story, the grandfather did not die, but faked death to change identities and serve the Emperor of Japan as a spy. (It happened prior to World War II.)
I had to get back to my office, and Gilberto continued exploring the city with his colleagues. We were to meet later at the game, he gave me the name of his hotel, but somehow or another we never caught up with each other, and I was left with the story you've just read, while Gilberto returned to Brasil with the story of my father that I told him. I never saw the substitute goalie's Leica photo.
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
Dead Character
I have known R. for a good while now. He is the author of fantasy novels aimed at older teenagers and young adults, although he has readers and fans of all ages. Whenever we meet, which hasn't been often lately, both of us aware that I don't read this genre and know next to nothing about it (not even Tolkien, and definitely not J.K. Rowling!), whenever conversation turns to writing, we discuss everything, publishing, grammar, etc, but never plots or contents. R. is a forgiving soul and tolerates my off-beat literary tastes.
He recently published the third volume of a series (niche literary genres are especially rich in series), and did a tour of local bookstores reading and signing his books. (As he must still maintain a day job to support his family, R. is unable to embark on promotional tours to faraway places, except occasionally on long weekends and holidays.) He described to me an incident which happened in November a during a reading at a bookstore in our town we both know.
"A character dies in this new volume. He is a man in his twenties, and I describe him as being tall, blue eyed, prematurely balding. Anyway, I finished the reading, and I noticed in the audience a woman that I dated 15 years ago, who broke up with me over my relationship with her son, then a teenager. He didn't care for me. I sit down at a table, and the readers line up with books for me to sign. She's one of the first in line. She hands me the book, and I see that it's been read already, she must have brought it in with her, it's easy to tell with soft cover books - I haven't yet graduated to the hardback edition copies - and she says "You killed my son here!" I say, "I did?" "That's my son who dies in this book!" she says. I don't know how to react, so I say, "Perhaps we can discuss this afterwards?!" She replies "Yes, I would very much like to!" in a decisive tone. I sign her book, she walks away.
I noticed that the woman standing behind her, and this crowd was mostly female, it's always like that at this bookstore, I'm not sure why, the women's college in the neighbourhood, or what, I noticed that this woman was very interested in that exchange. She now hands me her book, saying, "You killed this woman's son in the story?" I answer, "People who know writers, come to believe that they and others the writer knows appear as characters in his books, but that's seldom if ever true." She doesn't seem satisfied with the answer, but says nothing and walks away with her signed book.
Fortunately, none of the others in line picked up on this theme, but I notice with a side glance that the woman has approached my ex-girfriend standing in the back corner of the room and they are conversing. I turn to my daughter behind my chair and ask her to fetch Joe the owner of the bookstore. She does that, Joe walks up, lowers his ear and I whisper to him describing what happened, and ask him that perhaps he can gently separate these two ladies. This is because, I explain, I noticed Leslie C., the POST''s celebrity gossip and trivia columnist in the crowd, who's always on the lookout for spicy material, and the kind of publicity based on that bizarre exchange I'd rather avoid. Joe goes away, I apologize for the second time in 5 minutes to the waiting readers, saying that too many things always pop up at once during a book's premiere, which isn't quite true.
Afterwards, I spoke briefly to my ex-girlfriend, telling her that I haven't seen her son in many years, which isn't quite true either, as I've seen him around town without as much as a 'Hello', but what's true is that I didn't base this dying character's appearance on the appearance of her son. What else was I to say?!
Two days later, a note in Leslie C.'s daily column in the POST. "One reader, Joanne K. at a recent reading of local writer R's. new novel informs us that Mr R. uses the plots his novels to settle scores with relatives and former friends. At press time, Mr R. has not responded to our enquiries."
Indeed, Leslie sent me an e-mail to which decided not to reply. I don't know who this Joanne K. is, perhaps the woman who listened in on the conversation with my ex-girlfriend."
"So, how is the book selling?" I asked R.
"Oh, it's selling quite well."
I couldn't resist the temptation, and I said, "Perhaps such killings will help you graduate to the hardback editions!"
He recently published the third volume of a series (niche literary genres are especially rich in series), and did a tour of local bookstores reading and signing his books. (As he must still maintain a day job to support his family, R. is unable to embark on promotional tours to faraway places, except occasionally on long weekends and holidays.) He described to me an incident which happened in November a during a reading at a bookstore in our town we both know.
"A character dies in this new volume. He is a man in his twenties, and I describe him as being tall, blue eyed, prematurely balding. Anyway, I finished the reading, and I noticed in the audience a woman that I dated 15 years ago, who broke up with me over my relationship with her son, then a teenager. He didn't care for me. I sit down at a table, and the readers line up with books for me to sign. She's one of the first in line. She hands me the book, and I see that it's been read already, she must have brought it in with her, it's easy to tell with soft cover books - I haven't yet graduated to the hardback edition copies - and she says "You killed my son here!" I say, "I did?" "That's my son who dies in this book!" she says. I don't know how to react, so I say, "Perhaps we can discuss this afterwards?!" She replies "Yes, I would very much like to!" in a decisive tone. I sign her book, she walks away.
I noticed that the woman standing behind her, and this crowd was mostly female, it's always like that at this bookstore, I'm not sure why, the women's college in the neighbourhood, or what, I noticed that this woman was very interested in that exchange. She now hands me her book, saying, "You killed this woman's son in the story?" I answer, "People who know writers, come to believe that they and others the writer knows appear as characters in his books, but that's seldom if ever true." She doesn't seem satisfied with the answer, but says nothing and walks away with her signed book.
Fortunately, none of the others in line picked up on this theme, but I notice with a side glance that the woman has approached my ex-girfriend standing in the back corner of the room and they are conversing. I turn to my daughter behind my chair and ask her to fetch Joe the owner of the bookstore. She does that, Joe walks up, lowers his ear and I whisper to him describing what happened, and ask him that perhaps he can gently separate these two ladies. This is because, I explain, I noticed Leslie C., the POST''s celebrity gossip and trivia columnist in the crowd, who's always on the lookout for spicy material, and the kind of publicity based on that bizarre exchange I'd rather avoid. Joe goes away, I apologize for the second time in 5 minutes to the waiting readers, saying that too many things always pop up at once during a book's premiere, which isn't quite true.
Afterwards, I spoke briefly to my ex-girlfriend, telling her that I haven't seen her son in many years, which isn't quite true either, as I've seen him around town without as much as a 'Hello', but what's true is that I didn't base this dying character's appearance on the appearance of her son. What else was I to say?!
Two days later, a note in Leslie C.'s daily column in the POST. "One reader, Joanne K. at a recent reading of local writer R's. new novel informs us that Mr R. uses the plots his novels to settle scores with relatives and former friends. At press time, Mr R. has not responded to our enquiries."
Indeed, Leslie sent me an e-mail to which decided not to reply. I don't know who this Joanne K. is, perhaps the woman who listened in on the conversation with my ex-girlfriend."
"So, how is the book selling?" I asked R.
"Oh, it's selling quite well."
I couldn't resist the temptation, and I said, "Perhaps such killings will help you graduate to the hardback editions!"
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Curse
There is a curse on my family. A curse, or, I don't know, something. A curse that's affected the last three generations (I know nothing about earlier family history.) If you believe in the existence of such things as curses, then a curse is one possible explanation for much of my family's history in the past 100 years. It struck again the other day. Unfairly, unjustly and absurdly. But let us start from the beginning.
I usually avoid writing about personal matters, or else I invent a tale and shape it to sound like a personal confession, or a description of a lived-through experience, as the first person narrative requires. This is different.
On the last day of World War I, my maternal grandfather stood in the garden of his house, dressed in a military uniform - he had just been discharged from the army - smoking a cigarette, when a sniper's bullet befell him. My mother was less than four years old. His wife, my grandmother, spent the next thirty some years as a widow, raising her two girls and later living with the older sister's family. As a small boy, I was terrified of her black clad dour presence. Fortunately, we didn't visit her often, they lived in a provincial town 100 miles away, which in those days was a considerable distance. These days whenever I see American women dressed head to toe black, sunshades, rain or shine, outside or in the subway tunnel, a fashion that refuses to pass, I am reminded of my grim widow grandmother.
My father's mother died giving him birth (I am not certain of that, she might have passed shortly thereafter.) His father remarried and my father was raised by a stepmother who, as far as I know, did not favor him much. He had no siblings. His father, my grandfather, was a doctor, a pioneer in the radiology field , who died a slow death of radioactive poisoning when my father was 15 years old.
Twelve years later, the orphan and the half-orphan meet, marry and start a family, which produces myself and my two younger sisters. Both of my sisters were childless. My youngest sister died of an incurable disease in her forties.
My mother's older sister, a domineering personality, was still alive a couple of years ago, she'd be over 100 today.
Beside her and her family of two girls and a boy, with whom, as I mentioned, my family had only sporadic contacts, at least until I left home and lost contact with every one, around the time when 100 miles was fast becoming a shorter distance, I had two aunts, one on each side of the family, who were distant relatives, their relationship to us is not clear to me today, but both were very close to my family. All other people whom we called "aunt" and "uncle" were merely parents' long time friends. All my father's other relatives, I assume, perished in the Nazi (German) Holocaust, while all my mother's relatives perished in the Soviet (Russian) gulag.
How this "curse" has affected me and my family, up to as I indicated very recent times, I am not ready to confess just yet, but thank you for holding your breath. We'll get to that bridge when we cross it. Or something like that.
I usually avoid writing about personal matters, or else I invent a tale and shape it to sound like a personal confession, or a description of a lived-through experience, as the first person narrative requires. This is different.
On the last day of World War I, my maternal grandfather stood in the garden of his house, dressed in a military uniform - he had just been discharged from the army - smoking a cigarette, when a sniper's bullet befell him. My mother was less than four years old. His wife, my grandmother, spent the next thirty some years as a widow, raising her two girls and later living with the older sister's family. As a small boy, I was terrified of her black clad dour presence. Fortunately, we didn't visit her often, they lived in a provincial town 100 miles away, which in those days was a considerable distance. These days whenever I see American women dressed head to toe black, sunshades, rain or shine, outside or in the subway tunnel, a fashion that refuses to pass, I am reminded of my grim widow grandmother.
My father's mother died giving him birth (I am not certain of that, she might have passed shortly thereafter.) His father remarried and my father was raised by a stepmother who, as far as I know, did not favor him much. He had no siblings. His father, my grandfather, was a doctor, a pioneer in the radiology field , who died a slow death of radioactive poisoning when my father was 15 years old.
Twelve years later, the orphan and the half-orphan meet, marry and start a family, which produces myself and my two younger sisters. Both of my sisters were childless. My youngest sister died of an incurable disease in her forties.
My mother's older sister, a domineering personality, was still alive a couple of years ago, she'd be over 100 today.
Beside her and her family of two girls and a boy, with whom, as I mentioned, my family had only sporadic contacts, at least until I left home and lost contact with every one, around the time when 100 miles was fast becoming a shorter distance, I had two aunts, one on each side of the family, who were distant relatives, their relationship to us is not clear to me today, but both were very close to my family. All other people whom we called "aunt" and "uncle" were merely parents' long time friends. All my father's other relatives, I assume, perished in the Nazi (German) Holocaust, while all my mother's relatives perished in the Soviet (Russian) gulag.
How this "curse" has affected me and my family, up to as I indicated very recent times, I am not ready to confess just yet, but thank you for holding your breath. We'll get to that bridge when we cross it. Or something like that.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)