I think that everybody has a joke or a funny word that makes them laugh, even over a period of years. I have two.
To understand this first one, you have to look at family dynamics. My grandmother and her sister Lil lived on the second floor of the store in Woods Run. For some odd reason, although my grandmother was the youngest sibling, everybody turned to her for advice. You just couldn’t do something or buy something if “Aunt Nettie” said no, that’s not the right way to do things. She was a very strict mother.
Money was tight then. Easy to understand when my grandmother and her brother Harry never held a job. But my grandmother even had live-in help and didn’t do housework. When my mother told me this story I always asked: What did she do all day? With no house to clean, dishes to wash, laundry to wash? My mother always said the same thing: she went food shopping and made dinner. Other than that she lounged around, smoking–everyone smoked then–talked to her sister and played poker with Harry and the next door neighbor.
When money was very tight there were family meetings. Something had to be done. Lil had a job at Mercy Hospital at night, sitting at the switchboard and answering calls. All that was left was the store downstairs. Then my grandmother said–“Oh well, I guess I just have to go out and FIND A JOB.” Then the young ones, Bryna, Audrey (Maxine’s mom) and others would literally stand up and cry out “NO! NO! Aunt Nettie ! Not that! Something will work out! Please…” Oh how we laughed at this.
I can’t tell you how many times I heard this. When I was young she told it to me because I was so curious about family. But when Alzheimers crept in I got to hear it many times over. The two of us always laughed; my mother always cried a little too. I think she cried because of the force of emotions of the past but she laughed at the absurdity of the situation. My grandmother was a healthy woman who didn’t have to worry about day care. She could have taken the bus to downtown Pittsburgh and worked in a department store. But she was queen of the clan and working was something she didn’t do.
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As everyone knows my father died suddenly at the age of 44. I have so many memories of sitting shiva with my family and friends. Emotionally, all of us were “hot.” By this I mean that being closed up together for a week, with people coming and going, it was exciting in a way. If my knowledge of Judaism is correct, that’s the exact way the sages, rooted deeply in the past, wanted for the family who was hurting so badly. For a week it was party time and the food was WAY beyond decadent. The kitchen was flooded with fruit baskets, platters of kosher coldcuts, loaves of wonderful bread, and boxes of cookies and cakes from Rosenbloom’s.
Every night, when people went home, the nucleus, the closest family members, would linger on. This was story-telling time and it is quite impossible to convey how hard we laughed. It was hysteria.
The Reidbords either didn’t show up at all, or maybe came once. There was a break that occurred between Louis–my grandfather–and his brothers. They had government contracts to make uniforms for soldiers in WWII and got rich quick. One of the brothers, named Zeleck, was the worst according to my mother. He grabbed all the money and pushed my mild-mannered grandfather Louis out to the sidelines. So other Reidbords had a lot of money but not my mother’s family.
One night during sitting shiva my mother said: Uncle Zeleck took me on an airplane to New York City after I graduated from high school. He took me to Macy’s and said I could choose a gift. I was timid and shy then so I took a bracelet. That was all.”
There was a silence in our group for half a second and then my aunt Maxine said: I would’ve bought a gun and shot him.”
Words cannot convey how that remark brought down the house. I was laughing so hard that my sides ached; we were all hysterical. And even now, after decades, I still laugh.
lgmwriting 