Link With My Past

I found a link earlier tonight to Ancestry.com. I don’t know anything about the site, except it’s a commercial outfit, but it did offer a three day trial to look at the 1930 US Census.

First I went and looked for my mom’s family. Nothing. I’ll try again later. Next, my dad’s family.

Goose bumps ran down my spine as I looked and saw their handwritten names: Jacob, Sarah, Anna, Harold and Murray.

There’s nothing earth shattering here. A tiny insight into their lives in Depression era Brooklyn.

My grandfather was 35 and from Austria. He was listed as being a chauffeur. I seem to remember stories that he was once a trolley car driver. Maybe that’s what was meant?

Grandma Sarah was 30 and from Russia. Both she and grandpa could read. Aunt Anna was 10, my dad 4&#189 and Uncle Murray 2 years, 10 months.

They rented their apartment for $25 a month at 80 Middleton Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. There were two other families in the building – one of whom was headed by someone also named Fox. He owned the building, worth $4100. If he’s a relative, this is the first I’m hearing it.

The other Fox family spanned a few generations with a grandfather, grown daughter and her husband living there.

The third family was headed by a divorced woman. She had a four year old daughter and a boarder, named Minnie Shonda.

Where listed, each of the adults in the building came from a home where Yiddish was spoken as the first language.&#185

It’s amazing. All of this carefully hidden away for 76 years, waiting for the Internet to set it free.

When I speak with my dad, I’ll see what, if any of this, he remembers.

&#185 – Many people confuse Yiddish with Hebrew. Yiddish is an amalgam of Eastern European languages, spoken primarily by Jews (and so the story goes, Colin Powell). It is a dead language, no longer spoken anywhere in the world as a primary language. My parent’s generation is the last to have Yiddish regularly spoken at home.

Jessie Gets Married

Jessie is the daughter of my sister Trudi and her husband, Jeff. She was my parent’s first grandchild. She was Jeff’s parents first grandchild. Today, she was the first of her generation to get married.

We came to Milwaukee early, because the festivities began early. Last night we headed to the Volleydome!

Evan’s parents (he being the boy Jessie’s marrying) threw a little bash with food and volleyball. It started at 6:00 PM.

If you’ve never been to a Volleydome, it’s a large prefab building with a floor covered in sand. It is the best way for Wisconsoners (is it Wisconsinites – who knows?) to play beach volleyball without moving to Laguna Beach.

Neither Helaine nor Stef wanted to play. I entertained the idea, but just thinking about it was enough for me to pull something. I passed.

Everyone had a good time. Beyond that, I got to meet Uncle Murray’s girlfriend, Lilly.

The idea of my nearly 80 year old uncle having a girlfriend was a little foreign at first. We just don’t grow up think of seniors dating. But why not? And, she’s very nice and, obviously, very good for Murray.

Since I wasn’t playing volleyball, I brought along my camera, and clicked away. If it moved… and quite possibly if it didn’t, I clicked the shutter to capture what I saw.

A few months ago I bid and bought a monopod on EBay. This was my first opportunity to try it out. Unlike a tripod, a monopod easily goes from place-to-place. Of course, just one leg doesn’t provide the same stability, but it definitely allows you to shoot usable photos with slower shutter speeds. In a poorly lit Volleydome, that meant getting shots which would have been otherwise unobtainable.

The wedding was early Sunday afternoon. My sister had asked if I’d be an usher (well established as the pivotal wedding position), so I was in my tuxedo and at the Synagogue by 10:30 AM.

All brides are beautiful and Jessie was no exception. Her gown had a very long train. Jessie cried through much of the ceremony, as did Helaine, sitting to my right.

Helaine and I are easy touches when it comes to crying. Both of us have cried at particularly poignant commercials.

You’ll notice I’m not mentioning Evan much. Groom’s are necessary, though on the wedding day, they’re more ceremonial than important. This is the bride’s day, plain and simple.

Later, Evan will learn a ‘gift for the two of you’ is actually for her. Marriage has lots of guy benefits, so we let this small stuff slide.

We retreated to the Mequon Country Club for the reception. Very nice, again, and I was shooting up a storm. By the end of the day, I’d taken nearly 300 additional photos – a full 2 Gigabyte Flash Card! What’s gotten into me?

During the reception, my dad told me he didn’t remember his wedding reception at all. I remember Helaine and mine. It was a great party.

We had French service, which drove us both a little crazy. Every time you stood up, someone would come and refold your napkin. If your drink was down a smidge, a waiter would get you a new one. I don’t want anyone concentrating on me quite that much.

We hardly saw each that night. That made this wedding reception a whole lot better in the ‘company you keep’ department.

Uncle Murray is Moving

New York is different that the rest of the United States. I can’t imagine there is a part of country where a higher percentage of the population lives in apartments. And, because of New York City’s rent control and stabilization laws, many people stay in those apartments forever.

My parents lived at 6543 Parsons Boulevard, Apartment 5E, from the early 50s to the late 80s. Our next door neighbors are still in the building, having moved in in 1953.

I’m not sure how long Uncle Murray has lived in his apartment, but it has to go back to the early 50s as well.

Before cable they had the worst TV reception I had ever seen. I remember trying to watch baseball games with my dad, Uncle Murray, Cousin Michael and some other family members. Every time a plane approached La Guardia Airport, the signal would go nuts. I seem to remember the TV sporting rabbit ears with tin foil for good measure – as if you could fool the signal into being watchable.

This from an apartment with a line-of-sight view to the Empire State Building where the TV transmitting antennas used to be… and are again, since 9/11.

The apartment is on the ground floor, facing out onto a busy street. It is in Queens, a short walk from the Flushing el, so not far from Manhattan by public transportation.

In that apartment you are never far from the noise of the neighborhood. If a car alarm goes off – if the bus goes by – if a horn is honked (and all of those seem to happen continuously) – you will witness it from inside the apartment, even with the windows closed.

But it is quiet in comparison to my grandparents’ 23rd floor apartment in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. From their windows they could see two elevated trains lines and the biggest yard in the New York City Subway system. The building was right at a curve which caused the heavy metal wheels on the train to squeal a little around the clock. It squealed as each set of wheels in the 8 or 10 car trains passed by.

I have been told Uncle Murray is leaving his apartment, moving closer to my Cousin Judy and her family in Maryland. It will be good for Murray to be closer to people who love him.

It will be the end of an era, as the last of the Fox family leaves New York City.

Uncle Murray will also end another, more universal, era. He is the last person I know whose telephone number is still remembered as a word and 5 digits. Uncle Murray is the last of the TWining-8’s for me.

Until he closed his store, it was the only other number I remembered non-digitally. That was STillwell-6 (I think).

When I was growing up, our home number was JAmacia-6-4308 and then AXtel-1-9790. At some point, the phone companies of America decided that wouldn’t do. I remember hearing some sort of propaganda about how all digit dialing would be easier to remember. I don’t think they were running out of numbers because you can make an exchange combination out of every number combo… though you’d need to use XYlophone for ’99.’

Later, AXtel-1-9790 became 291-9790 and then got changed to 591-0434 when we get our first area code – 212.

I never quite understood why there were exchanges like AXtel. What is an AXtel? Even Google asks, “Did you mean: axtell ?” ‘291’ could have been AWning-1 or AWful-1 or CYrus-1.

New York Telephone made some bad choices other than AXtel. On Staten Island there was an exchange, Saint George. Was that SA or ST?

Today, I know my number should be CEntral… though it’s a ’23.’

Back to Uncle Murray.

I can’t imagine how he’ll pick up and pack fifty years worth of memories? What will be found that had been lost? What will be found that should have been lost? Does he still have the Playboy Magazines I found under his bed forty some odd years ago?

I’ll have to call Uncle Murray this weekend. I want one last chance to dial that number.

Cousin Michael

Over the past few months, and more so recently, I have renewed my friendship with my cousin. That’s not a big deal in most families. My family is very small.

My dad is one of three children, my mother two. Much of my mother’s extended family never made it through World War II. I shudder to think of their fate.

I have one sister and she has three children. None of us live near each other.

My sister’s in Wisconsin – her children away at school most of the year. My folks are in Florida, living the ‘Club Med for Seniors’ lifestyle. Uncle Murray is still in Queens, New York – but his children are in Maryland, Florida and California. You get the point.

And then, there are the relatives I don’t speak with. I won’t go into it here, but it’s my guess every family has its dysfunctionality. Us too.

Cousin Michael was among my closest friends growing up. Through our late teens, in the late 60’s, we were together all the time traveling with friends to Manhattan on Friday’s and Saturday’s to see rock acts at the Village Theater (aka Fillmore East).

Michael was there when I saw Grateful Dead and Moby Grape on the bill with the Joshua Light Show. For a few bucks we saw dozens of shows in that ratty old theater with torn seats on the Lower East Side.

I remember summer evenings with Michael and our friend Larry, taking the subway to Greenwich Village and then walking down McDougall Street past the record stores and head shops. Sometimes stopping at Blimpies for a meal.

In those politically charged years we talked lots of politics. The Vietnam War was raging, and we were of the age to worry about being asked to go there, Michael, who was bolder than I, was much more active. We were all opinionated.

When I left for college, and then a few years later moved to Florida, we drifted apart. It’s only now that I am hearing about what he did during those years. His life would make a pretty compelling book. It would be interesting as fiction – but as a true life tale, it’s fascinating, spiced with familiar names in unfamiliar surroundings.

Michael’s life is very different now. He and his wife Melissa, and their son Max, live on the West Coast. Over the years, Michael mastered the art of education, and has all manner and form of degrees. A few weeks ago he added a PhD to his collection.

I think being married and having a child has been really good for Michael. I’m confident Michael is good for them too.

Recently, Michael and I have been spending more time together on the phone. It’s a shame he lives so far away. I get the better of the deal, calling when my minutes are free – and his probably not.

He is intellectual and analytical a good conversationalist and good sounding board. It’s a shame we lost so many years of friendship.

He, Melissa and Max will be joining us for vacation this summer. I’m looking forward to seeing them again. Las Vegas is not Greenwich Village. Though maybe, in 2004, we go to Las Vegas for the same reasons we went to Greenwich Village. I’m sure we’ll have this discussion later.