Twenty-Two Years: Time I Lived With My Mother and Since She Passed Away

Deducting the year I spent in Syracuse earning a master’s degree in newspaper journalism, I lived 22 years in my parents’ home in Brooklyn before starting my professional career in Connecticut at The New Haven Register. 

Twenty-two years. My mother passed away on this date 22 years ago. As it is this year, February 16, 1996, was a Friday. 

Two years ago I chronicled some memories of Sylvia Forseter on the twentieth anniversary of her death (http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2016/02/twenty-years-ago-today.html). Naturally, there were more that never made it into that blog post. Here are some from my first 22 years with her, mostly from the years before my bar-mitzvah.

Mom was the antithesis of the “early to bed, early to rise” practitioner. She stayed up late and did not enjoy waking up early. Mom and Dad worked together in their lingerie factory. Dad would leave the house between 6:30 and 7 am for the near one hour drive up Ocean Avenue, then Flatbush Avenue, across the Manhattan Bridge and through the streets to the parking garage near their factory of the moment on Broadway, anywhere between Houston and East 8th Street. 

Mom would not walk to the subway, the elevated BMT line at Neck Road and East 16th Street a few blocks from our house, until after 9 am. It’s not that she stayed home to shuffle her three children off to school. I have no memory of her making breakfast for us. Nor did she make lunch for us as our school served a hot lunch every day. She just wasn’t ready for the morning. She enjoyed a leisurely cup of coffee and a cigarette before the hourlong ride on the train, less crowded at her preferred time than during rush hour. 

When you run your own business there’s no clock to punch in, or punch out. My parents rarely left the factory before 6 pm. My father navigated the stop and go traffic down Broadway, onto Canal Street, then back over the Manhattan Bridge and the return trek down Flatbush Avenue (idling only to secure a New York Post—back then a liberal tabloid—at the end of the Flatbush Avenue Extension near Prospect Park) before chugging down Ocean Avenue to our home on Avenue W.

She was different than most of our friends’ mothers. She went to work every day in “the city,” an uncommon practice in the 1950s. She liked to say my poor eating habits—she claimed I used to throw green peas at her from my high chair—prompted her escape from housework. In truth, her father had trained his four daughters to be vital participants in commerce, either on their own or with their respective spouses. She’d proudly tell people she was a full-charge bookkeeper, the equal of any CPA, without the high-falutin degree. 

Every Wednesday night she’d do payroll at our dinette table, tallying up the piece-work tickets each sewing machine operator completed the prior week and the time cards filled out by the hourly workers. The next day she’d walk from the factory to the nearby Chemical Bank branch to secure the necessary bills to stuff their pay envelopes. I wasn’t trusted to get the money until after I had graduated college.

The dinette table in our row house attained unparalleled status in our home. It was on that table that Sylvia emerged as an impresario of Jewish culinary arts and social entertaining. Before Rosh Hashanah she would roll dough into small triangles filled with shredded brisket for kreplach (Jewish wontons, or ravioli, your choice of international comparisons). Or she’d sit at a chair while stuffing and then sewing up helzeleh, chicken neck skin filled with matzo meal, schmaltz (chicken fat), and spices. Sounds gross, but it was yummy. (Heck, if the Scots can eat haggis, Jews can swallow helzeleh. On the subject of eating the unimaginable, she also boiled chicken feet in her soup, a, ahem, “delicacy” I never sampled, but was relished by my father and his brother, Uncle Willy—must have truly reminded them of meals back in the Ottynia shtetl of their youth.) 

For special occasions, particularly if they pertained to my brother Bernie, she’d make a crown roast, lamb chops stacked vertically in the shape of a crown. 

Among her other savory treats: sweet and sour lamb tongues, sauteed sweetbreads, gefilte fish, kneidlach (matzo balls), breaded veal cutlets, and the best chicken soup you’d ever slurp off a spoon. She never met a vegetable anybody would like eating. She was not a baker. That last task was assigned to our housekeeper/cook who made dinners for us after our mother returned to work. I’ve never, for example, tasted a more delicious pound cake than the one Bertha baked. My sister Lee agrees. Bernie was partial to her apple cake. 

Even on weekends she abstained from rising early enough to prepare breakfast for her family. If we did eat a cooked meal it was our father who played the short order chef. His specialities were French toast made with leftover challah and what he called “army eggs,” scrambled eggs with fried salami circles.

During my pre-adolescent years my parents socialized quite often. Mom enjoyed dressing up but rarely disposed of any ensemble, explaining that sooner or later the outfit or dress would come back into style and she’d be Johnny-on-the-spot-fashion-ready if she simply stored it in a closet long enough. 

To my mind she had two things that distinguished her when she dressed up. Depending on the weather, she would wear a mink stole (several tails could be attached as optional accessories), a black Persian lamb coat or a silver fox three-quarter length fur coat (she wore that coat to my bar mitzvah reception).  

And, as the daughter and sister of jewelers, she had some impressive pieces of jewelry. I would always wonder from where her jewelry would emerge as it never could be found in her bedroom. It wasn’t until my late teenage years that I was let in on the family secret. My parents has secreted a safe in a closet under the staircase leading to the basement. Dad had built a wooden frame around the safe. He placed a piece of wood in a slot in the front of the frame and draped a blanket before it to conceal its presence. Only after it became difficult for him to crouch inside the cramped closet did they share the safe’s combination with me so I could retrieve the family jewels my mother required that evening.

The dinette table also served as the location of the Friday night poker, hearts or Fan Tan card games my mother organized. The five of us played deuces-wild poker for penny-two-three stakes with two or three of my brother’s friends who would arrive shortly after we finished dinner. We kept a kosher house, but too often in my recollection I was forced to bring a pig to the table as I shook out coins from my glass piggy bank to fund my losses. 

I don’t have that piggy bank anymore, though sometimes I still have to dip into cash reserves during poker games with my friends. Not too often, but enough to remind me of fun times back in Brooklyn those first 22 years of my life.

Long Time No Write. Time to Catch Up

Long time no write. Two weeks is an eternity for a blogger. But I have an excuse. Having Gilda at home because of her broken wrist disrupted my normal routine. However, too much of a good thing, like too much candy or cake, can be detrimental to one’s senses, though I have learned some new skills, such as how to affix earrings to her ears, how to hook up a bra (so counterintuitive to most men’s experiences). 

Gilda went back to work Monday. We resumed our chauffeur-client status, meaning I get up at 6 am to drive her to work, return home and then go back to pick her up at the end of her shift at Mount Sinai Hospital. Today we’re hoping it’s “coming off day,” as in, the cast finally will be removed from her left, dominant hand, wrist. I will still have to drive her around until she regains full use of her extremity, but we hope to see light at the end of the tunnel later this afternoon. 

Meanwhile, some updates on previous blogs and some new tidbits to chew over:

Inspired Celebration: Though she admitted she prefers harder than her mother’s matzo balls, Ellie’s Rosh Hashana batch mostly melted in one’s mouth. Even more savory were the two types of ruggelach she baked. The hit of the evening, even topping my brisket (prepared under Gilda’s watchful eye).  Ellie also reminded me she made kreplach, one of my favorite foods, for my birthday.

Rosh Hashana is the earth’s birthday, number 5775, according to the Jewish religion. For only the second time in 19 years Ellie did not sing with our cantor during our congregation’s New Year’s services. For many worshippers it seemed the holiday was a little less whole. She had good reason to demur. She didn’t want to feel queasy in front of them. For those who didn’t get my drift, Ellie and husband Donny are expecting their first child, our third grandchild, in late March-early April.

While the congregation didn’t get to enjoy Ellie’s singing, our family did during a back-to-nature communion on the second day of Rosh Hashana. Instead of going to temple, we celebrated Rosh Hashana at Croton Gorge Park and Croton Point Park. We recited prayers, read children’s books to Finley, Dagny and their cousin Elliot, took a hike to the top of the dam, Ellie sang and we blew the shofar. Gilda had bought toy rams’ horns for the kids. I trumpeted our elongated shofar. It was one of the more inspirational Rosh Hashana commemorations I have experienced.

Giant Turnaround? Perhaps I was too hasty in my criticism of the NY Giants. They’ve played much better in winning their last two games. I even picked them in one of my football pools. A good test will come Sunday against the Atlanta Falcons.

Farewell to the Captain: I’ve previously expressed my admiration for Derek Jeter, the now retired captain of the New York Yankees. His grace under pressure and ability to conquer the moment separated him from other players, many who were more talented and skilled than he. But as I wrote back on September 12, 2009,  

“Watching Jeter year-in, year-out brings joy to any true baseball fan. Sure he’s had a full reel of highlights. But it’s the everyday work ethic and performance that impresses me.

“During the early Joe Torre years it seemed whenever we needed a late score, if Jeter led off an inning he ignited a rally. Because he was not a home run hitter, or exceptionally fast, or had the best arm or range at shortstop, Jeter made you feel comfortable, made you feel that you too could do his job if only you had dedicated your life to his career choice, to baseball. But then he’d corral a pop up into short left field with an over the shoulder, back to the infield catch and you’d say, ‘I couldn’t do that.’ or he’d glide into the hole and do one of his now patented jump throws to first, and you’d say, ‘I couldn’t do that.’ or he’d hit a home run when you least expected it, as he did to become Mr. November in the Series against Arizona in 2001, and you’d say, ‘I couldn’t do that, not under the pressure, the constant pressure, he’s under.’”

I won’t recount his exploits during his last game at Yankee Stadium or the last game of his career at Fenway Park in Boston. Suffice to say, I doubt there will be another player who will make as many favorable memories as Derek Jeter did during his 19-year career.

Shoah. Showa: Reading an Op-Ed piece in Tuesday’s New York Times (“Hirohito: String Puller, Not Puppet”), I was struck by the similar sounding names Shoah and Showa. Showa, the author wrote, is how Emperor Hirohito is known in Japan. During his reign from 1926 to 1989, Japan modernized and militarized. During the Showa period, wrote Herbert P. Bix, Japanese aggression “took the lives of at least 20 million Asians (including more than three million Japanese) and more than 100,000 citizens of Western Allied nations, primarily the United States and Britain.”

Shoah is the Hebrew word for the Holocaust when six million European Jews were killed by the Nazis and their collaborators. 

Ready When You Are, C.B., (as in DeMille): My acting career has hit a scheduling bump. Show Me a Hero, an HBO mini-series filming in Yonkers, alerted me my services as an extra were wanted. But the date they offered conflicted with another appointment, so I must now wait for them to find a mutually convenient time slot. At least I’m not waiting tables until my big break comes, unless, of course, you consider all the cooking and cleaning I’m doing during Gilda’s convalescence from her broken wrist. 

Matzo Ball Wars and a Thrill Ride from Summer Camp

Time will tell, but I suspect we might have a Benedict Arnold in our family. The proof will be in the pudding, er, matzo balls, we eat on the eve of Rosh Hashana.

Let me explain. Gilda makes soft, fluffy matzo balls. Dear friends who celebrate with us on the first night of the holiday, with whom we visit on the second night, like hard matzo balls, the type you need to knife through because if you use your spoon to carve out a chunk you’re just as likely to douse your seat-mate with chicken soup as you are to catapult the “cannon” ball across the table. Over the years it has been a source of amusement between our respective families as to which type of matzo ball is tastier. 

With Gilda’s broken wrist this year (she had corrective surgery early Wednesday morning and is recuperating at home), Ellie jumped into the breach last weekend to make matzo balls under Gilda’s tutelage. Gilda advised the secret to fluffy matzo balls was to not squish too many into the soup pot as they cook, thus giving them room to expand. Despite Gilda’s protestations, Ellie kept adding one, two or three more matzo balls to the soup. She even hinted she prefers hard matzo balls. 

Proof of her potentially sacrilegious treason, or filial devotion, will have to await our communal dinner for 38 in two weeks. The suspense is gnawing at me.

By the way, as much as I enjoy Gilda’s matzo balls, which are the equal of my mother’s, I really miss my mother’s kreplach (Jewish wontons). Gilda has made kreplach in the past as a treat for me but it is truly intensive work. 

Red Sports Car: Last week I wrote about my disagreement on Arab-Israeli matters with Rabbi Barry Konovitch. Today’s blog will harken back to a special day I shared with two of my bunkmates at Camp Columbia courtesy of Barry who, at the time, was head of the waterfront (and, who I mentioned, lifted me out of the deep water when I went under a year earlier).

Larry Jacobs, Stu Garay and I were waiters enjoying a day off from serving our fellow campers. As 15-year-olds, however, we were not permitted to leave camp grounds. Our day off coincided with one of Barry’s who chose to hang around camp that day. In the late afternoon we implored him to take us off campus in his car. 

Though at first reluctant, Barry agreed if we could secure the permission of the head counselor, Hal Gastwirt. Hal wasn’t available, so we asked his second in command, Tully Dershowitz. He consented.

We were all set. But what I haven’t told you yet is that Barry’s car was a TR4, a red convertible Triumph sports car with a back seat not intended to support two near-six foot tall teenagers (Larry and me; Stu had not yet hit his growth spurt, which he never really did as I discovered some 30 years later when I became a short-term patient of his medical practice). The back seat was no more than 12 inches deep. Leg room? There wasn’t any.

Stu won the rights to ride shotgun on our way out of camp. Barry did not hold back on the throttle. He whizzed down the two-lane country roads of Elizaville, NY. Wind whipped through our hair. Larry and I felt as if we were riding in an old-fashioned rumble seat. We felt every bump, fearful we would be tossed out. 

We drove to an ice cream stand on the outskirts of Red Hook, some 10 miles away. Barry parked the car, he and Stu got out and waited, and waited, and waited for Larry and me to unfurl our cramped legs. It seemed like a full five minutes before we could support ourselves on our legs. 

Larry and I were relegated to the back seat again on our return ride. When we untangled ourselves back in camp we asked Barry why the TR4 even had a back seat. He explained it was for insurance purposes. Without a back seat the TR4 would be classified as a sports car with high insurance rates. But with a back seat, even one clearly not intended for use by anyone older than six, lower family car rates prevailed.

I suspect Barry does not recall the thrilling ride he provided three impressionable teenagers that summer afternoon (heck, he doesn’t remember saving me in the pool). But he still drives a red sports car, albeit not the TR4. For the last 46 years he has been motoring around in a 1968 C3 Corvette! (http://www.corvetteblogger.com/2014/01/31/florida-rabbi-has-been-driving-the-same-1968-corvette-since-new/)

Father's Day Present, and Past

For Father’s Day, my daughter Ellie gave me a present that reminded me of my mother.

Ellie spent Saturday night preparing kreplach and chicken soup with lots of thick, sweet carrots and thin lokshen (noodles). Kreplach are Jewish wontons. Jewish meat ravioli. Jewish stuffed dumplings. Triangular in shape, at least the way my mother used to make them and Ellie did as well, kreplach are among my favorite foods. Alas, they are also among the foods I rarely get to enjoy, as they are labor intensive and messy to make.

One of the most enduring memories of childhood in Brooklyn is my mother cooking for the holidays. Each Jewish holiday brought different treats. For the night before Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the signature culinary delight were kreplach. Mom would painstakingly hand-shred well-cooked brisket. With flour dusting up the kitchen and adjacent dinette, she’d roll dough until wafer thin, cut it into squares, place a dollop of shredded meat in the center and fold the edges over into perfectly shaped right angle triangles. Like a general preparing troops for battle, mom would array the boiled kreplach in lines worthy of military precision on the dinette table. It was my job to deliver some of her handiwork to the neighbors. I hated that job, not because as a young boy I’d be embarrassed. Rather, it pained me to part with any of my favorite food.

Ellie’s kreplach easily were two, or even three, times the size of my mother’s, and just as tasty. When I ate them Sunday afternoon in her apartment in Brooklyn I was instantly transported back to the 1950s and 1960s. We couldn’t finish them all, so naturally I took home the leftovers for lunch today. And that’s when the kreplach shifted my memories back to my father.

In keeping with the nostalgia moment, during lunch I turned on I love Lucy. The episodes I watched (yes, episodes; watching I Love Lucy is like eating potato chips—you can’t watch just one) conveyed the continuing story of Little Ricky getting a dog despite Lucy and Ricky’s objections and the Ricardos’ decision to move to the suburbs, to Westport, Conn.

I’ve already chronicled our father’s antipathy to the two dogs we had, each for one year (http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2010/06/no-time-for-pets.html).

Around the time I joined our family in March 1949, we moved from an apartment on Tehama Street in Brooklyn to an attached two-floor row house on Avenue W in the Sheepshead Bay section. “Modest” would be a kind description of its architecture, layout and, most cuttingly, interior decoration, considering the resources available to our father and mother. Yet, I was content there. I think my brother was, as well. Our sister was not. She lobbied long and hard for a move to the suburbs, a move to Long Island. Her friend Pauline’s family moved to Woodmere, if memory serves, right after they both graduated from elementary school. It was the perfect time to transplant the family, right before she would be starting high school, Lee said. Pauline’s dad was no more successful than ours, so why couldn’t we move as well, Lee argued.

Dad had no desire to play the game of “keeping up with the Joneses” (in this case, the Lipsons). He continuously resisted our mother’s entreaties to shed his Buicks and buy a Cadillac (he did so once, then reverted back to form). He had no desire to ride the rails to his factory in downtown Manhattan, and since commuting by car from Long Island had less appeal than hearing Lee kvetch and moan, he chose to stay put, no doubt reasoning that Lee’s tenure at home was maybe four or eight years more, but a move to the suburbs was a life sentence.

So we stayed at 1810 Avenue W, building up memories that to this day can be evoked by the aroma and taste of simple foods made with love by a younger generation, and eaten, maybe, with a tear forming in the corner of an eye.