June 3, 2015-- X-Ray

On our last day in New York, before heading to Maine, Rona needed a routine medical test. A scan.

The AC at the imaging center was not working and the waiting area was sweltering. While filling out the forms, Rona wondered if without air conditioning they would be able to run the equipment. "I think they generate a lot of heat so to use them they have to be in a cool environment. Since there's no emergency we can always get the scans done up in Maine."

"Let me ask," I said. "We're here and if possible let's get it over with. Let me find out what's going on."

I checked with a staff member and she indicated they were working on the problem and at most Rona would have to wait no more than 45 minutes.

"Drink lots of water," I said. "You need to keep hydrated."

"What's that ruckus," Rona said. "It sounds as if someone's having a fight."

From the reception area I heard a woman, clearly agitated, say loud enough for all to hear, "I don't know where he is. The traffic was abysmal. Three hours it took to get here from Atlantic City. An hour through the tunnel alone. I don't know why his doctor made us make the trip. We could have gotten his X-rays done in New Jersey. At the worst, in New Brunswick. Maybe an hour's drive. At Robert Wood Johnson. What's so unusual that they have to do? X-ray his thyroid, that's all. No big deal. And now I don't know where he is." She sounded desperate.

"OK, so he probably has cancer. It's still early they say. He's not dying. At least not yet. Though when I get my hands on him . . . " She trailed off.

"Should I see if I can help?" I asked.

"I'd stay out of it," Rona said, "Try to stay cool and see if anything more happens. They just sound stressed. That drive alone . . ."

"But didn't she say she doesn't know what happened to him? That she doesn't know where he is? I could maybe go look for him. My guess is he doesn't want to get the tests done and ran off. I know from not wanting to deal with medical issues. I almost died 15 years ago when I ignored all sorts of symptoms."

"Tell me about it," Rona said under her breath.

"I mean maybe I could talk with him about what I did and didn't do and how when I finally dealt with the problems I eventually got better."

"My advice. Sit here and drink your water. We have  a lot to do today and the next two days to get ready to head north."

"I'm losing my mind," the woman up front resumed, "I'm at the end of my rope. For all I know he's heading back to Jersey. He's that crazy. And," she added, "scared."

"I need to talk with her," I said, "I know it's not my business but it's reminding me of what I did and how I made you crazy. Maybe I can help."

"Whatever," Rona said.

The Jersey woman was soaking wet from the heat and anxiety. As I moved toward her she backed away, as if knowing my intentions and not wanting to have to handle another crazy person.

Softly I said, "Is there anything I can do to help?" She backed further away, almost to the entrance door. "I mean, I couldn't help but hear what you were saying. About your husband."

"Him," she spat.

"I don't know . . . but I . . . 15 years ago did . . . so I thought I might . . ."

"What are you talking about?" she exploded as if to transfer her frustration and anger to me.

"I just thought . . ."

"Thanks for your thoughts but, frankly, it's none of your business."

I backed up a step and was about to turn around when a man, it couldn't have been anyone but her husband, burst through the door. He was wearing shorts, flip flops, and a sleeveless tank top and was so soaking wet that sweat dripped on the carpet from all parts of his body. Almost immediately a puddle formed at his feet.

"So there you are, big shot," his wife said. "Did you have a nice walk? Did you get a cup of coffee? Maybe a hot dog? You haven't eaten in half an hour and I know you must be starving."

"Let's get out of here," he growled. "I've had it up to here." He lifted a hand six inches above his head. I could see his swollen thyroid. "Let's get the car out of the garage. I mean let's pay them the ransom they charge to park here in Manhattan. I don't know how anyone can afford to live in this place much less park their car. Sheet."

"You're either getting that X-ray or you're going home to Jersey yourself. I'm the one who's had it up to here." She too gestured to indicate how high up-to-here was for her.

"Do we need to talk about this in public?" He shot me a glance. "What I do, what you do, it's between us. Right? Private."

"Private," she sputtered. "The way you walk around, on the Upper Eastside looking like a clown. You call that private? You make such a spectacle of yourself that half the city's looking at you."

"Let's get the car, Marcy. By now they'll charge me 50 bucks to get it out of hock."

"I told you if you don't get the test you're on your own."

"I told you while we were lined up for an hour trying to get in the tunnel that I am not going to do that. I know I have a problem, but I want to handle it my way."

"Which is to ignore it and get into real trouble. Like dying trouble."

"If that's to be, that's to be. I want to live and, yes, die if it comes to that, my way."

"You've been listening to too much Frank Sinatra you guinea, you."

"Leave my heritage out of this," he said, straightening himself. I sensed a change in tenor.

"It's my heritage too so I can call you whatever the eff I want. But what I really want is for you to stop acting like a baby and let them do the friggen test."

"I know about that test and how the next thing they'll be doin' to me is cuttin' me open and then there'll be chemo and radiation and other shit and then before you know it I'll be bald as that guy over there," he nodded in my direction, "And after that it will be time to take me on a one-way ride to the cemetery."

"You know . . ." I tried to interject myself, "Like you . . . 15 years ago I . . ."

"Who is this creep?" he asked his wife, again meaning me. "You invited him to talk? Look old man, stay out of my business. Get my drift?"

"I only . . ."

"Whatever you're here for," he cut me off before I could say another word, "be a good boy and take your medicine or have your MRI. Or whatever. But in the meantime, as they say where I come from, take a powder."

I shuffled back to where Rona was waiting. She continued to sip her water. I shrugged. She had heard the entire encounter. "What did I tell you? That's none of your business and if anything you made matters worse."

"Actually, I thought I was being helpful."

"Really? Helpful? You almost got yourself killed."

"I think I got them to deflect some of their frustration and anger for each other onto me."

"Another crazy person."

Thankfully, the AC by then was working sufficiently to allow testing to begin. Rona was first and kissed me, breaking the tension, and said, "Wish me luck." I smiled, knowing she didn't need it for this.

Later that day, at dinner, after a couple of glasses of wine, I ventured, "You know that guy from this morning?"

"The one who threatened to kill you?"

"He was just scared. Which I can relate to. But I have a question that he brought to mind."

"It is?"

"Maybe he is onto something with his my-way approach to the business of getting older and developing serious medical conditions. Maybe backing off is not such a bad idea."

"Backing off? I'm not following you."

"Maybe just let things happen? I mean, for the simple stuff do what you can to deal with it; but for more serious things that sweep you into the medical world, which take over your life--I mean for those things that do that, that take you over and turn you into a perpetual patient--we know people like that who do nothing but go to doctors and have tests and then procedures and operations--to squeeze out a few more months or even a year or two, but a year or two in medical purgatory. Again, for the most serious conditions. Does that make sense?"

"You've had too much wine," Rona said, "and like you Atlantic City friend have been listening to too much Frank Sinatra."

December 25, 2014--Christmas, Jews, Chinese Food

Now our little secret is exposed--Atlantic magazine just published a piece titled, "Why American Jews Eat Chinese Food on Christmas."

I could have told you that. From personal experience I have known about this for more than 60 years. Every Christmas everyone in my family and Brooklyn neighborhood went out for Chinese food (or, if you'll forgive me--chinks) stuffed themselves with chicken chow mein, shrimp with lobster sauce, and pork fried rice.

When I asked why we did this so ritualistically on Christmas day I was told that with Catholics (how Jews referred to all christians) eating at home with their families, it would be easy to get a table--the same point made in the Atlantic article.

Further, I learned, since the only other restaurants in the neighborhood were Italian and Italians were Catholics and thus at home their restaurants were closed. And so Chinese food was our only option.

"Only option"? Most of us ate at home 360 days a year.

And I added, "There's never a problem getting a table. Catholics don't like Chinese food. Only Jews. Since there are so few Catholics in our neighborhood what difference does it make anyway?" I was a bit of a smartass.

I never got a satisfactory answer, just a little slap on the back of my head and the admonition to finish my egg drop soup.

And the Atlantic piece also doesn't supply a satisfactory answer. They claim that eating Chinese was the easiest way for Jews to eat out and fool themselves into believing they were still being kosher--like with authentic kosher food, the Chinese do not mix dairy products with meat.

But that's where the self-deception ends--shrimp with lobster sauce is kosher? Shrimp? Lobster? And pork fried rice? Really?

The author needs to revisit Deuteronomy where the foods that are forbidden are explicitly listed.

At the very top of that traif list are shellfish such as shrimp and lobster (though I suspect there was never any lobster in the lobster sauce--just a lot of shellfish stock flavored cornstarch) and of course the most forbidden of traif, finger-licking pork in all its forms.

Thus, one has to dig a bit deeper to figure out why I and my people will be found later today gorging on spareribs and shrimp wantons.

From me, then, here are a few actual reasons--

Perhaps foremost, Jews (as is true for most others) don't like to be exposed as hypocrites. In a small neighborhood, being observed eating traif in public qualifies as being thus exposed. So, we could indulge ourselves in as much forbidden food as we liked on Christmas day, knowing we would be doing so in private, among our "own kind," without being concerned that there would be any Catholics around to observe and expose us for what we were--well, food hypocrites.

Then, there is the reality that traif is scrumptious (does anyone not like shrimp or bacon?) and to have any excuse to get one's hands on it can quickly turn into an annual ritual. Like always going out for Chinese on Christmas day.

Plus, for those of us who were over-coddled by proverbial Jewish Mothers, participating in anything forbidden (even eating egg rolls) added additional spice to the experience. Being bad within safe limits was something pretty much everyone I knew who was leading an over-monitored life found to be alluring. Even something seemingly as benign as loving clams with black bean sauce.

So, you'll know where to look for me later today. At Noodletown in Chinatown or Phoenix Gardens up by the UN where they make the best salt-baked shrimp in New York. Or, back in the old neighborhood, at the Happy Garden on Pitkin Avenue for their classic pork egg foo young.

March 14, 2014--The Babe

It started innocently enough.

My friend Lee Frissell, knowing my interest in baseball, sent me a link to an article in the New York Times about Babe Ruth's 97-year-old daughter, Julia Ruth Stevens, who recently visited the other "house" that Ruth built, the Yankee's old spring training field in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Lee wrote--

Isn't this a great story? I always thought the Babe was just a hedonist with massive appetites of all sorts. I had no idea he was an anti-racist who was kept from managing a team because he would have brought in black players. And, even if his daughter is wrong about that, it's gratifying to know he was both anti-racisit and anti-fascist. I always figured he had no politics or social views. I know he drank a quart of vodka, a gallon of orange juice, a dozen eggs, and a pound of bacon for breakfast, and preferred his women six at a time . . . but this makes me like him even more.

I wrote back with a story of my own, a true story--

My Uncle Eli owned a meat processing plant where the UN is now located. Paramount Meats it was called. The Secretariat  is built on top of what used to be Manhattan's eastside slaughterhouses and meatpacking district. 

Babe Ruth parked his car in a garage across the street and, Eli told me, when he smelled my uncle smoking pigs' knuckles, a Ruthian favorite, he would stop by to pick up a few which he proceeded to eat on the spot. Even without a quart of vodka to wash them down. 

One Saturday, Uncle Eli took me to work with him and, with the air on 45th Street saturated with the smell of smoking meat, the Babe was lured in. 

I was about ten years old and he was visibly near death. But to me he was not just a legend by a looming presence. Mammoth in size and, though it was not cold, wrapped in a full-length, belted cashmere coat. In addition, he was wearing his signature Babe Ruth tweed cap. 

He tousled my hair (I had a full head of curls then!) and you can imagine what a thrill it was for me, a lonely Yankee fan from far away Brooklyn. 

The next week, Uncle Eli brought me a baseball autographed by Ruth on which he had written, "To my pal." 

Of course I should have saved it. But back then street kids didn't have much sporting equipment and a new baseball was a rarity. All the others were battered and wrapped with friction tape. 

So we used mine until someone belted it a mile into some bushes where we couldn't find it. 

Ah, well. I don't have the ball stashed away in a safety deposit box but the memory is sweet.

Within 15 minutes, breathlessly, Lee wrote back--

This email of yours is going to take some time to reply to! But let me begin with--smoking pigs' knuckles???!!!

What did Lee mean? That he needed "some time to reply"? I knew he was at work. I assumed he was busy and wouldn't be able to get back to me until after his meetings. Or whatever. But then what about the "pigs' knuckles???!!!" business. Very strange.

But it didn't take him long to get back to me. What should I make of this???!!!--

Well, I'm not going to get any work done today until I respond to your original email. 

To meet Babe Ruth was probably the most deeply held dream of every American boy born between 1925 and 1975, and to have your hair tousled by Babe Ruth, and then to have been given a ball autographed by him, "To my pal." 

And you fucking played ball with it and lost it! 

How poor could you have been? You had Uncle Eli's knuckle smokery; your Uncle Schlomo's chittlin' factory, and your Uncle Ralph's Cuban sandwich shop. There must have been enough family money to buy a friggen baseball. Or to have used one of those pigs' knuckles. 

I advise you not to tell that story to your wife, Rona. Despite a subsequent considerable body of evidence to the contrary, that is such an act of monumental stupidity that it's hard to believe you could ever make anything of your life. Maybe if playing with that precious ball had laid the foundation for your getting into the Major Leagues and breaking the Babe's records or approaching your 7th Cy Young Award, it would be excusable. Otherwise, there really is no exculpation for you.

Wow!

I know Lee has quite a sense of humor, but he was sounding serious. No exculpation? I'm not even sure what that means, but it sounds serious. Even biblical. Hey, to me, though I know if I had saved the autographed ball and kept it it would be worth a fortune, at the time, to me, it was just a baseball. And life on the streets was mean. Even though there was enough family money, if I took up a collection, to buy a new ball. No likelihood of that.

And, by the way, Lee made up Uncles Schlomo and Ralph. They don't exist. I did have an Uncle Harry who never had a job and an Uncle Bob who owned a gas station on Myrtle Avenue. And also there was Uncle Jack who was in the clock and watch business, decidedly not in the non-kosher, treif food business. And if he didn't live all the way out on Long Island, if he had known we were using rocks as baseballs, he might have come through with some real sporting equipment. He was that kind of generous guy.

But not knowing what to say back to Lee and worried that somehow thinking about Babe Ruth and my, I guess, stupidity, had made him crazy, I thought to try to calm things down by dashing off a bland note staying--

I suppose you're right. I guess you had to be there at the time, blah, blah, blah . . .

But this didn't work. There was more fired back from Lee--

Of course I had to tell this story to our orthodox friend Ed G, who agrees that meeting the Bambino was the fondest dream of an American boy. But he's not perturbed by your Uncle Eli's treifish occupation. "You can't eat it," he said. "But no one said you can't touch it. Nu. It's business." 

I know you're no fan of the hassidim [true], but a pig smokehouse is a little too reformed even for a quintessential goy like me.

Concerned about Lee's blood pressure, again I tried the calm approach--

Does this mean Ed G has exculpated me? That's it's OK that I had an uncle who was in the pork business? 

And while we're talking baseball, did I ever tell you my Jackie Robinson story?

I should have known better. Lee wrote--

I shudder to think what the Jackie Robinson story must be.

Caring a little less about upsetting Lee, though still not understanding what had gotten into him when I mentioned "knowing" Babe Ruth, I couldn't contain myself from writing--

When I was again about ten, that would be 1948 or so, a year after Jackie Robinson began to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers, he and his wife and baby son moved into an apartment four blocks from where I lived. At the corner of East 52nd Street and Snyder Avenue. 

It was a mainly Jewish neighborhood with a few Italian families sprinkled in. When the Dodgers played at home, at Ebbets Field, at the time they were all day games, each evening Jackie would come out and play baseball with us in the street. Can you believe it, teaching us about fielding and batting. His wife Rachel would sit on the stoop with their young son, Jackie Junior, and we would play until it got dark. 

Then one day, as usual when the Dodgers were at home, we raced over to the Robinson's and . . .

That's as much as I wrote. I haven't yet heard back from Lee, which is fine since the story doesn't end well.

That's an exaggeration--I did hear once more from Lee--

As soon as we're back in New York, he wants to go together to Hawthorne, New Jersey, to visit the Babe's grave. And quintessential goy that he really is, he still knows a lot about treif and Jewish cemetery customs--that when visiting a grave we leave a stone on it to note we were there. In Babe's case, he suggests we leave a baseball.