July 4, 2019--A Tale of Two Cemeteries (Concluded)

Mt. Hebron

My father’s obsession with his family’s cemetery, however, was of quite a different sort.  

Among the Zwerlings, he was the only one preoccupied with the family plot.  To the others it was just that place in Queens where they might eventually have to be taken after marrying off the children and retiring to Florida.  But to him it represented a different order of reality.  Again, in the tradition of the Zwerlings, it was more about real estate than visiting the departed and reporting to them life’s quotidian events. To him it was a matter of being sure there was a physical place for everyone entitled to be there. And that the arrangement of those places, the individual gravesites, were appropriately hierarchical.  

Proximity to the family patriarch, Louis, his father, my grandfather, and mother-grandmother, Anne, was, as it should be, where the hierarchy began, with the sons and their wives and then the sisters and their husbands arranged in descending tiers by birth-order and gender.  As the oldest, the first-born male of a first-born father, this meant my father would reside right below his father and mother, and so on down the Zwerling family tree.

An awareness of the shape of the Zwerling family plot would immediately see that the task my father set for himself was not easily accomplished.  If they had been able to purchase a plot with hierarchy and primogeniture in mind, they would have bought something more in the shape of a pyramid.  But in the gridded-out reality of Mt Hebron, obtaining a family plot in this configuration was impossible.  So my father, the arranger, had to work with the rectangle that was bequeathed to him by his father, Grandfather Louis.

He spent endless hours with an outline of the full plot inscribed on a large sheet of oak tag, and within it, using an architect’s T-sqaure and triangle, drew a series of perfectly scaled grave-shaped rectangles, in various combinations and permutations until he had it laid out as appropriately as he could, considering the restraints imposed on his grand design by the unyielding boundaries of the family plot.  And when he had his plan worked out as much as possible in primogeniture order, he made a final rendering, using draftsman’s indelible ink; and at a series of family meetings with his brothers and sisters and their spouses, he got each to initial the rectangle assigned to them until all were duly filled in and signed off on.

And thus the responsibility his father bequeathed to him was done. . . .  

That is until his sister, my Aunt Madeline began to upset the scheme by marrying a series of husbands who in turn died shortly after each wedding, and, most critically, were buried, one by one by one, side-by-side in the Zwerling plot. 

By the time Husband Number Three was interred, my father began to worry.  As you by now would expect, he worried not so much about his carefully crafted plan, but, in frankness, more about his own eventual disposition. If Madeline mainatined her current pace, by the actuarial time my father would need the final services of Mt. Hebron, there would no longer be room remaining for him.

Thus, he convened an urgent Zwerling family gathering and laid out the issue squarely and frankly. Madeline was understandably distraught, having lost her third husband, Morty, just the previous month. He had jumped off the roof of their apartment building—it was well known that she was not easy to live with.  

But in spite of Madeline’s grief, with at least the appearance of sympathy, my father was able to forge ahead and succeeded in mobilizing a majority of sibling and spouse votes to let Madeline know there were no more places at Mt. Hebron for subsequent husbands. That is unless she was willing to relinquish her own plot.  Or, perhaps she would prefer to have my father arrange to move one or two of her husbands to a different part of the cemetery.  

Considering her options, Madeline agreed that though there would likely be more husbands (that was not open to family discussion) there would be no more places for additional deceased husbands. 

That should have been the end of the story.  But again there is more.

As it turned out, there would be room for two more husbands because my father, when his time arrived, did not after all require his place in Mt. Hebron. Nor would my mother.

Read on.

When a Jewish person dies, it is considered desirable that the person be buried as quickly as possible.  The dust-to-dust imperative is very strong indeed and thus the sooner the better. As might be expected, to expedite the process, my father had arranged for a prepaid funeral. For him it was also an opportunity to shop for his own casket and arrange for the limousines and memorial service, including that there be nothing that involved a rabbi or any prayers in any language—he was an outspoken lifelong atheist. 

His place next to his father’s side at Mt. Hebron awaited, but my mother had a different plan in mind—something more indelible than the ink he had used to make the oak tag diagram.

During their 60-year marriage, she had participated in dozens of discussions about Mt. Hebron. Or, to put it more appropriately, my father’s plans for them at the Zwerling plot.  She had only hinted to my father how much she did not look forward to spending eternity with The Zwerlings.  It was an era when wives hinted at things that concerned them. She, in truth, dreaded the thought that she would not be with her parents and her real family.  She also hated the idea that she would have to spend her afterlife listening to the Zwerling arguing, talking simultaneously at the top of their voices, literally forever.  

And so she directed my brother and me, and then the funeral director--“Let’s put him in Mt. Lebanon.”  

Luckily there was still room.  Again, in the informal shtetl ways of the Tulowice Landsmanscahftn, without the existence of a notarized plan, she was able to get her remaining siblings to agree to find a space for him and one beside him for her.  

She did feel some guilty that this new arrangement placed him right next to his family rival, brother-in-law Harry.  They had been in a series of failed businesses together and had not only fought about money but about such things as how many spare light bulbs to have on hand—my father thought six were enough; Harry always believed in buying by the gross. She knew, as a result, that there would be an eternal fight right there at Mt. Lebanon. About light bulbs and also who was at fault for driving customers away from their last deli. (She personally blamed my father.) 

But she also knew she would be in the warm vicinity of Mamma and Papa. And, when her time came, being separated by my father from Harry, would bring her more peace than she was accustomed to in life. 

In any case, she assertively said--"Who cares. Let them fight."

September 22, 2016--Creaking (The First of Two Parts)

I sent Dr. Schwartzberg the following note--

We live in a creaky house and thanks to you I can now hear the creaks.

His response was a emoticon smile.

This comes at the end of a long story which I will tell in abbreviated form.

For seemingly half my life hearing or lack thereof has been a sore and contested issue in my family. The Zwerlings. I have not escaped from this side of family heritage.

My father could barely hear from the time he turned 70 but stubbornly, in denial, refused to do anything about it for at least a decade. It wasn't until Rona took him aside and in an affectionate and loving way, with just enough tears, shared with him that because of his poor hearing he was, in effect, in his growing isolation, prematurely leaving us.

That was some while ago and when he finally relented, in part putting aside vanity, he agreed to acquire the then smallest size available which, before miniaturization took full form, were not that cosmetically invisible and since they had insufficient power he always had his fingers in his ears twisting the volume dial to ramp up the output; but to such a level that even to me--by then I too was losing my hearing--rather then helping him hear, emanating from what seemed to be his head was an audio cloud of buzzing and whistling, both the result of over-amplified feedback.

This produced the very thing he wanted to disguise--the fact that he required hearing aids. In public places such as restaurants everyone in the room, also enveloped in his cloud of electronic sound, knew he was hard of hearing and was, the real issue, an "old man,"

Even additional private talks with Rona failed to get him to agree to the behind-the-ear type recommended by his audiologist as the only ones that would address his hearing lose.

It is now my turn.

More-than-I-would-like-to-admit, I am very much my father's son. Not only do I look enough like him to confuse relatives we haven't seen for decades, I also inherited his hearing issues. And, though I am loath to admit it, have more of his vanity than I see to be healthy.

It is as if vanity thy name is Zwerling. At least this Zwerling

During my own decade of denial and avoidance, even Rona's urging, treats (fewer than I deserved), and tears failed to get me to an audiologist.

Until two weeks ago, aware that another birthday was approaching and my numbers are adding up to more than a goodly lot, I made an appointment and off we went for me to be tested. Rona came along to provide moral support but, even more important, to hear what the hearing doctor would report and recommend after an hour and a half of testing.

"These babies are made to order for you," we both heard him say.

Seeing the contraption he was holding up as a visual aid, as if my father was inhabiting me, I popped up as if to bolt but in truth so I could retreat to the bathroom for a moment of private fretting and, hopefully, relenting.

"If that's what I need," I said resolutely when I returned, "so be it. I'm not that vain," I lied, clapping my hands to encourage myself (the sound of which I hardly heard). "I'm not my father," I said to Dr. Schwartzberg, who, in spite of having heard everything after 30 years of practice, had no idea what I was saying, but smiled empathetically, sensing that something intra-psychically significant was going on, effervescently, also clapping his hands for his own version of emphasis and encouragement, said, "After running all the tests and clearing a few years of wax from your ear canal, these," he held up a sample behind-the-ear device, "are perfect for you."

He smiled for the first time in an hour-and-a-half, "I want you to have high expectations. Over the course of a month and a half--after seeing you every week for adjustments--your hearing will progress from here"--knowing I could barely hear a thing, he slid down in his chair and held his hand halfway to the floor--"to here," he sat up straight and raised it to the middle of his chest.

Dr. S sat back with arms folded across his chest to let the good news sink in.

To ease the transition from my continuing half-resistance to half-hearted surrender Rona, referring to the behind-the-ear devices, said, "These look cool. With everyone walking around the streets with all sorts of things hanging from their ears, you . . ."

"I know," I interrupted, "I'll look like Jay Z or Kanye West. Though I don't even have an iPod. Forget anything wireless."

"Well, welcome to the 21st century," Rona said. "Maybe you'll like these so much you'll finally give in and get an iPhone."

"Don't hold your breath," I mumbled too softly for either of us to hear.

To be concluded tomorrow . . .

July 13, 2105--Ockham's and Dad's Razors

We've been sorting though things at my mother's apartment, stopping frequently to savor a picture or letter from long ago and only vaguely remembered.

Thus far my favorite is a thick looseleaf notebook in which my mother kept the minutes of the Groucho Society. It was in effect a cousins club that included Zwerlings and Neubauers, the Neubauers being from my grandmother's side of the extended family.

The Newbauers were great characters and even included a gangster or two. As you might imagine, they were my favorite of all Zwerling and Neubauer relatives. Just think how my youthful imagination was fired by the fact that Uncle Herman knew Mayer Lansky and had a pistol, which he allegedly needed and even used in one of the bars and grills he owned in New Jersey.

The Grouchos met every month or two during the first ten years after my parents were married--the late 20s to late 30s. During their lifetimes, though pressed frequently by me wanting to know about secrets from their past, neither of my parents had a good explanation about the name of the group--was it derived from Groucho Marx or just because many of the members were, well, grouchy?  They never said, which incited me to want to know more. Perhaps now in the minutes . . .

I haven't had time yet to read through the minutes my mother meticulously kept, but even a glance at her literally perfect handwriting reveals not a blot or edit on any page through which I have thus far thumbed. But just to marvel at the perception, her perfection is full of meaning and challenge. The standard she set for herself and the rest of us. To be perfect in all regards is to hold us to the highest standard, which has it attraction, but is also one we can never reach. Maybe that too has value--it humbles us to experience the unobtainable.

My other favorite thing thus far is a Bic razor of my father's that my mother brought with her to Forest Trace when she relocated. Nearly 20 years ago. Quite a shelf-life for an otherwise disposable razor!

I remember using it on much earlier visits to my mother when I either forgot to bring one of my own or wanted, by using it, to have the feel of his hand on mine and on my face while shaving. It was very intimate.

I haven't used it in 15 years and was not surprised to find it still in the guest bathroom since my mother was very good at keeping things--of course in perfect arrangement and preservation.

I took it with me to our apartment in Delray and used it twice while here because I forgot to bring one of my own or, closer to the truth, wanted my father literally close at hand at this emotional time stroking my cheeks. It worked well in those regards.

It also made me think of another razor, a metaphorical one--Ockham's. I have that helpful or dysfunctional ability to switch from deep feelings to the abstract as one of my ways of dealing with sadness or memories that overwhelm. Thus, Ockham's Razor.

It, or the Law of Parsimony, is a problem solving principal devised by William of Ockham in the 14th century that says that the best solution to a complex problem is the simplest one that accounts for the largest number of facts, variables, and phenomena. For example, in contemporary particle physics, there is the Standard Model that connects in the simplest terms yet understood the electromagnetic, strong, and weak nuclear forces.

My father was very much an Ockham man.

He was a great problem solver and, I must say, problem maker. He was adept at putting things in contexts. Often simple ones that, as he would put it, held a "grain of truth." Like, his favorite--religion is at the root of most of the world's most intractable problems. That gets to a truth in a version of the simplest way.

I should add--his version of truth. Just like Ockham's, which could be, always was, ultimately superseded by other elegant solutions that explained even more, so were Dad's challenged by members of his striving family who were coming to insights and conclusions of their own devising.

His literal razor, however, which is still functioning, over time has lost some of its sharp edge and it now scrapes across one's flesh, plucking as well as cutting. Rough while also gentle--just like my father.

June 13, 2014--Guest-Blogger: Father's Day Treasure Hunt

On the Friday before Father's Day, guest-blogger Sharon reports about an interesting and emotional treasure hunt--

I don't particularly like Father's Day.

My dear grandfather died suddenly the day before in 1969.

We all watched from the living room window as someone we couldn't quite see lying on the sidewalk and was taken away. It never entered our mind it could be him. We thought he was at home downstairs in the apartment he shared with our grandmother. The next day, his present remained unopened and was returned.

Almost thirty years later, I was preparing to head up to New Jersey for Father’s Day 1998 when I got a call that my dad had a stroke and my family was at the the hospital. It didn't look good.

Another Father's Day funeral. Another unopened and returned gift.

After my grandfather died, I asked my mom for the few coins my grandfather carried in his pocket for a memento. I later found the pictures depicting my grandparents early life in Russia and later life in the U.S. disappeared somewhere along the way. So when my father died, I scooped up his papers stored in boxes from earlier Father's Day gifts and the recently cleaned Eisenhower style uniform jacket my dad had tried on for us the year before. It fit again.

A pack rat myself, I was curious what I'd find in the boxes. There were greeting cards, a few of our report cards, award certificates and programs from school events. Far more interesting were the papers from the years before he was a husband and father. Inside the aging boxes were various documents and correspondence and a few black and white pictures, which almost sixteen years later I would use to try to recreate a chronology for what my dad did during the war.

This year, the Monday before Father's Day I received a long list of questions from Steven about Joe's WWII service, inspired by the reporting around the 70th anniversary of D-Day. Like me, Steven had tried to ask my father these questions directly without much success. Over the years a few stories would leak out, often the same ones-but no real chronology.

Although I couldn't answer most of the questions off the top of my head, I offered a few things I remembered and then decided to get the box.

We all knew that during the war my dad had appendicitis after Thanksgiving. Initially thought to be indigestion, he ultimately remained in London while the rest of his unit moved on. When I found a program dated November 23, 1943, 106th Signal Corp I figured his illness was so significant that he kept the menu.

But it turned out that GI Joe got sick after Thanksgiving 1944 and found himself in a hospital in England. Meanwhile five days after they arrived on the continent, his fellow soldiers, who had trained together for over a year in South Carolina, Tennessee, and Indiana were to face a battle that would prove too much for inexperienced troops, the Battle of the Bulge.

Although ultimately credited with helping to slow down the Germans, over 500 soldiers from the 106th were killed, thousands were captured and became POWS. Many of these men ended up in Stalag IV-B. Kurt Vonnegut himself was with the 106th and was assigned to a work detail in Dresden. Housed in a former slaughterhouse, his experiences there inspired Slaughterhouse 5. Another site I found detailed the dead by unit. Five men from the 106th signal were listed as KIA.

I've sometimes joked with my siblings that we probably owe our existence to appendicitis. However, until this week, I never quite realized the extent of the horrors my dad narrowly escaped.

Noting that his separation papers in 1946 didn't note the 106th, but the 32nd armored regiment, it appears that the rest of his service was as a Sargent and Staff Sargent, including a platoon leader commanding a tank, which I do remember him saying caught fire on his first day. I found a map depicting the 32nd's route through the Ardennes, the Rhineland, and Central Europe. Two of the three campaigns were noted on my dads' separation papers along with note of a bronze star.

Also noted was a ten-week business course at Shrivenham American University. An article about Shrivenham noted that the business courses were most popular with GIs who, tired of taking orders, were looking forward to becoming independent businessmen after the war.

The other interesting discovery was the Cigarette Camps. On the back of an old black and white photo my dad inscribed, "Camp Pell Mell, Etretat France, October 1945.

Disgusting." A quick search uncovered not the old world classical building he posed before, but a camp of "ramshackle tents in a vast mudhole," where early on soldiers were staged on the way to the front and later the last stop for soldiers who had accumulated enough points to return home.

Why were the camps named after cigarette brands? In addition to obscuring their location from the enemy, it was thought to provide a psychological lift and the inference that cigarettes would be plentiful for soldiers who would soon be sent to the front.

So late Monday night, with still many holes in the chronology, some inconsistencies and with only a Thanksgiving menu for the 106th Signal Corp, I did another search and found images of uniform patches depicting a lion for the 106th and Spearhead for the 32nd Armored. I remembered my father’s Ike-style uniform in the upstairs closet. I removed the cleaning bag and there they were--on one sleeve the Lion patch and on the other the Spearhead patch. They were there when he tried on the uniform, but at the time didn't really mean anything to me. I didn't think to ask.

Now they were confirmation of a narrative I had to piece together from documents and scraps of memorabilia because, in life, like so many others, my dad didn’t want to talk about these life-altering experiences.

So as the world appears to be coming apart again, this Father's Day my gift is the gift of remembrance for my dad and for all the people who sacrificed so much over 70 years ago.