Car trouble in the family

I don't think dad actually found his car missing at the curb when he left the house, but he came close. Mother had a habit of lending his car to one of her brothers when either of them needed it. She didn't discuss this ahead of time with him, as he would only have made a fuss, which would have done him no good because she had determined that whichever of her brothers needed the car needed it more than dad, being as they were doctors. So she informed him around the time he was putting on his coat, preparatory to getting in said car. He was hopping mad, only partly because her brothers were such awful drivers. Uncle Moe was the less dangerous one, as he drove cautiously and timidly, knowing he was not a good driver. Uncle Doc, however, was a terror behind the wheel. He would change lanes by turning on his turn signal and then changing lanes without looking in his mirror to see if there was anyone already in the lane, among other little peculiarities pf his driving style. That was probably why whichever brother who had borrowed the car had taken it to the body shop, having had an accident. But he was a doctor and had patients to visit, not to mention his patients in the hospital he needed to see, and dad could just as well take the bus as he was only a lawyer, like her, and the bus came to a corner only two blocks away and the weather was not that bad. Dad was actually a good driver who enjoyed driving until he died at 99, despite some sourpusses in the family who wanted him to give up his car.

About my mother

 

Since Mother's Day is coming, I thought I would reminisce about my mother.

I've written about mother's law practice elsewhere. Now I want to mention another idiosyncracy of hers.

Mother hated bad news--no, she didn't believe in bad news, and felt that if she didn't share it, it didn't count. So if anything bad happened, she never told me. This was particularly annoying, as I lived out of town, and depended on her to keep me up to date on family news.

Once I was visiting her, and noticed that my cousin Bernie's wife was not present on a family occasion. Mother had to admit that Noreen and Bernie were getting divorced. Instead if mentioning it, mother disappearated Noreen. She became a non-person. No grudge, she just was never mentioned. It was like those group pictures of Soviet leaders, where the unfortunate one who had fallen from grace was simply edited out of the picture.

She handled her own divorce differently. She couldn't disappearate dad, because we two children were evidence he had existed. She simply ignored the divorce. His name was listed in the phone book as long as she lived. When she moved, the new phone was listed in his name, even though he had not lived with her in years, and she was still mad at him.

One reason for her anger was that he had left her for a woman who was not good-looking at all. She found this insulting. She might have handled the whole thing better if my stepmother had been a beauty. After all, who could hold a grudge if her husband left her for Ingrid Bergman? Mother felt she might have kept her own options open if Clark Gable had come calling.

When bubbe, her own mother, was sick, mother insisted on being upbeat. Every time I called, she told me bubbe was "a little bit better." These improvements continued until bubbe improved into another state of existence.

If I called mother and she bitched about her aches and pains, I knew she was okay and enjoying life. It was when she started feeling better every time I called that I really got worried. Toward the end, she was hospitalized frequently, but she never informed me when this happened. She didn't want to worry me. So I would call and listen to the sound of the phone ringing in the empty house.

Then I would call my brother to find out what had happened this time.

shopping with Mother and Bubbe

(recycled)
I really dreaded going shopping with my mother and her mother, my bubbe, especially in classy, high-toned stores. For one thing, mother and bubbe used to talk Yiddish very loudly to one another, deprecating the merchandise on offer and the manners, morals, and appearance of the other shoppers.

I hated to be seen in public with these back numbers who spoke a foreign language which I was sure sounded low-class to everyone else (why couldn't they speak French?). I also feared that someone would understand what they were saying about the fat lady in the tight pants who was in front of us in the escalator. It was a lose-lose situation. Either we appeared to the other, high-toned shoppers like a bunch of huddled masses waiting to be processed at Ellis Island, or someone would actually understand what they were saying and see what low minds we had.

Also, bubbe appeared to believe that she was in a souk, when in reality she was in one of Columbus Ohio's premier specialty shops. She showed no respect.

For instance: we are looking for a blouse. The saleslady brings out a few, I try them on and decide on one. Bubbe grabs it and scrutinizes every inch of it, looking for flaws. She finds a speck of dirt on the collar and attempts to bargain with the snooty saleslady while my face turns red down to my toes. I try to pretend I'm interested in the scarves in the next display case, but in any case, try to look like I'm not with them.

Then, horror of horrors, she pretends to walk away! I could die! (I'm around fifteen at the time.) The snooty saleslady calls her manager, and they do a deal, but by this time, my self-esteem in destroyed. What if someone I knew had seen us? I'll never live it down.

When I was smaller and couldn't protest, bubbe and mother bought my clothes much too big in the hopes I would grow into them. Then they took them home and altered them to fit me, sort of. The idea being that the clothes could be let out next year. They never were, though. I wore them out first. But I went through childhood looking like I had borrowed my wardrobe from a larger child.

Of course, with maturity I could see where she was coming from. This was a woman who split one can of sardines among her three children, while she and her husband made do with dry toast and tea for supper. Fancy salesladies held no terror for her.

My mother the lawyer

(recycled)

 

My mother hated to be photographed. She always wanted to put it off until she lost 10, or 20, or 30 pounds. Consequently we have very few pictures of her. This is one I like.

Thanksgiving always makes me think of my mother. Thanksgiving was a big deal to us. We used to celebrate her birthday, and my Uncle Moe's on Thanksgiving. It was a Russian custom, or a Jewish custom, or just our family custom to celebrate birthdays in conjunction with some holiday. Mine was Purim, my cousin was Rosh Hashonah. Perhaps the family were just bad at remembering dates.