Saturday, April 12, 2008
to clarify
In Part VIII yesterday, I stated quite emphatically that we were not jewish. It may have confused someone so I wanted to clarify. My grandfather was a southern Baptist and my Mom had no faith to call her own. We are Hebrew (is that the right word for it?) but can not claim to be Jewish in the religious sense. There are fairly strict rules to Judaism and who is in and who is not. By some standard I would be in because my mother is Jewish/Hebrew, but the problem is that her mother is not, so she is not, so I am not. Does that make any sense? I both am and am not Jewish in other words....so figure that out! My story is hard to tell with any clarity, even with the facts straight, so I am sorry for the confusion, I feel it too.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Part VIII
I need to back up a couple of months....
While Darin and I were in Arkansas, my grandmother had called my Mom to tell her some news. It had always seemed odd that Popo's mom was 53 years old when she gave birth to him in 1920. She died a few years after I was born at 102, but 53 years old was really old to have a baby in 1920. Heck, its pretty old to have one now. So the new story was passed along as such: in 1919, Popo's "aunt" was sent to an asylum where she spent the rest of her days. The story is that she was crazy, but one of Popo's sisters told the true story. She had been in a relationship with a travelling salesman and had become pregnant. The salesman was Jewish, so they sent her away so that no one would find out. Popo was raised as the child of Levi and Elisabeth Bowman of Delonegut, GA. However, they were his grandparents, not his parents as he thought.
So, what did my Mom do, you ask? She had Darin and I start Hebrew school. She told the rabbi that we were Jewish, it did not seem to matter to her that we were not and that our hebrew school was a direct violation of the rules for a number of reasons, not the least of which was we were not jewish! Anyway, we continued that for more than a year before someone figured out just how Goy (gentile) we were.
In January of 1976, Mom dumped Howard for a bouncer and bartender at Mom's work named Harvey Wolfe. I am convinced she did this because Harvey was Jewish and Mom wanted to be with "one of her own." Before she made the change, she, Darin and I went to the Rose Parade. On the first day of the bicentennial, it was good day to do this and was great fun. I wondered why Howard was not with us and found out shortly thereafter that Mom had dumped him. It should be noted that Howard was Jewish also, but was non-practising. This was as opposed to us, we were practising but not jewish. Harvey was a large man and he cared very much, too much, for my Mom. As a large man who cries occasionally, I am constantly trying not to turn into the blubbering fool that Harvey was. At numerous times (and I was not yet 9), I would think to myself, "Harvey needs to man up and cut out the blubbering!" Okay, I am sure I did not use those words, but the sentiment was there. Mom dated Harvey for quite a while, but clearly never respected him.
In the summer of 1976, Harvey dragged me to Reseda Park to do flag football. He wanted to coach and got me over my lack of interest in sports. I was usually much more happy to pretend than to play anything organized. I was a fairly big kid and Harvey put me in at Fullback and Noseguard. We were pretty good and to my shock, I was put on the all-star team at the end of the season. My season's highlight was that my Dad and his girlfriend, Carole, came to see the all-star game. He had lived for many months about 400 miles away in Santa Clara and I had not seen him since the previous Christmas. I became very interested in various forms of art that autumn and for a while, drew a monster-based cartoon which I sold to my friends for 5 cents each. We lived in a nice part of the valley and sometime in December, Mom found out she was pregnant.
While Darin and I were in Arkansas, my grandmother had called my Mom to tell her some news. It had always seemed odd that Popo's mom was 53 years old when she gave birth to him in 1920. She died a few years after I was born at 102, but 53 years old was really old to have a baby in 1920. Heck, its pretty old to have one now. So the new story was passed along as such: in 1919, Popo's "aunt" was sent to an asylum where she spent the rest of her days. The story is that she was crazy, but one of Popo's sisters told the true story. She had been in a relationship with a travelling salesman and had become pregnant. The salesman was Jewish, so they sent her away so that no one would find out. Popo was raised as the child of Levi and Elisabeth Bowman of Delonegut, GA. However, they were his grandparents, not his parents as he thought.
So, what did my Mom do, you ask? She had Darin and I start Hebrew school. She told the rabbi that we were Jewish, it did not seem to matter to her that we were not and that our hebrew school was a direct violation of the rules for a number of reasons, not the least of which was we were not jewish! Anyway, we continued that for more than a year before someone figured out just how Goy (gentile) we were.
In January of 1976, Mom dumped Howard for a bouncer and bartender at Mom's work named Harvey Wolfe. I am convinced she did this because Harvey was Jewish and Mom wanted to be with "one of her own." Before she made the change, she, Darin and I went to the Rose Parade. On the first day of the bicentennial, it was good day to do this and was great fun. I wondered why Howard was not with us and found out shortly thereafter that Mom had dumped him. It should be noted that Howard was Jewish also, but was non-practising. This was as opposed to us, we were practising but not jewish. Harvey was a large man and he cared very much, too much, for my Mom. As a large man who cries occasionally, I am constantly trying not to turn into the blubbering fool that Harvey was. At numerous times (and I was not yet 9), I would think to myself, "Harvey needs to man up and cut out the blubbering!" Okay, I am sure I did not use those words, but the sentiment was there. Mom dated Harvey for quite a while, but clearly never respected him.
In the summer of 1976, Harvey dragged me to Reseda Park to do flag football. He wanted to coach and got me over my lack of interest in sports. I was usually much more happy to pretend than to play anything organized. I was a fairly big kid and Harvey put me in at Fullback and Noseguard. We were pretty good and to my shock, I was put on the all-star team at the end of the season. My season's highlight was that my Dad and his girlfriend, Carole, came to see the all-star game. He had lived for many months about 400 miles away in Santa Clara and I had not seen him since the previous Christmas. I became very interested in various forms of art that autumn and for a while, drew a monster-based cartoon which I sold to my friends for 5 cents each. We lived in a nice part of the valley and sometime in December, Mom found out she was pregnant.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
headache
So, I went to bed with a pretty bad headache, but it was nothing compared to the one I woke up with at 4:21 this morning. I was definitely looking for a sharp stick to jab into my eye. I ate, drank milk, drank water, took naproxen, prayed and finally played a video game until it miraculously disappeared at about 6:30. It was weird. In my hypochondriac fashion, I immediately started thinking I had some brain deformity and was dying. Either I am not, or it gets better before you die. Stay tuned and we'll see which it is!
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Is the news causing you anxiety?
I am having a heck of a time keeping positive with the doomsday predictions in business news. People with $400 haircuts and $2000 suits are telling me everyday, with smiles on their tanned faces, that the world is coming to an end financially. Now, I am struggling enough with my own issues, doing my taxes, paying my mortgage (not a sub-prime), trying to help build up my wife's business and feed my kids. So, I don't need to be told everyday that things are hard. But, doing it with a big grin and a "have a great day" might just force me to kick some newscaster butt. Like the old song says, "I may not know what the future holds, but I know who holds the future." If you have a chance, pray for me and millions of others that we will remember that sentiment. And if you have time, drop me a note to let me know what you do to get through the drudgery when the stresses of life hit hard. Thanks!
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Part VII
...so, I was just reading part 6 to figure out where I was in the story and saw that I had written that I didn't have time to write about Howard. But, I had not said ANYTHING about Howard. It's funny how the mind works...
So Part VII, or "Howard and the three Christmas Trees"
Sometime that fall, Mom started to date a man named Howard. To my recollection, he owned an Italian restaurant in West L.A., though Mom says he was just a manager. I also thought his parents owned the West side Country Club in West L.A., but it turns out they were just members. He owned a condominium, which to my poor young mind was a very exotic thing to do and made him seem to me a prince. He also used to pay us for things. First he started by paying us to run around laps and do sit ups and push ups, 5 cents for every push up or sit up and 50 cents for every lap. Darin never left Howard's house without five bucks in his pocket and that was a lot to us. Howard also taught us to play chess and when he realized that I was not into the athletic thing, he began to present me with "difficult" math pages, which he would pay me if I answered right. These pages were all about algebra and geometry, when one of my teachers saw me doing them in class, she had me accelerated into a class where I did that type of math. I began doing High School Math in the second grade, mostly because Mom's boyfriend wanted to reward me for doing well at something. Mom only dated Howard for a few months and he was one of many boyfriends, but he was special to Darin and I. I hope he got married and had kids, he would have been a great father. I have never heard Darin make the connection, but I just put it together. Darin was the whole state of California's chess champion for his age when he was in 6th grade and ran track in JH and High School. I went on to see the great value and dignity in running restaurants, most of which were Italian even though I am allergic to tomatoes. This is anecdotal, but I assume these good experiences with Howard contributed more than we even know.
Sometime that fall or winter, Mom stopped using the wooden spoon on me, because she broke it across my butt one day and I laughed and laughed, which I assume she thought did not achieve her punishment goals. My mom was never able to punish me after that, and she would say from that point on I was incorrigible. I don't know, but I do know she never was an authority to me again after about 1978, I guess she just seemed small to me, its hard to say.
Christmas that year was especially rough financially. We had moved to an apartment in Canoga Park, on the west side of the valley. I had not seen my Dad in over a year and he was never one to keep up his child support. Later in life, I found out that Dad and Mom had made a deal so Dad could get out of it. I will get to it later in the story, but he does not know that I know. And he does not read my blog. Well, the week before Christmas, Mom was able to scrounge up just enough to get us each one present. We were not hard to buy for because unlike my kids, we didn't get much and did not expect much. So usually a pack of army men or a matchbox car was enough to fill me with joy. Those items can still be bought together for less than five bucks. But we were poor and Mom sat us down to tell us that this year, we could not get a tree. We told her it was okay and we went out and got some candy canes at Thrifty and one package of red shiny garland to "decorate" with and decided to have a good family Christmas, sans tree.
I woke up on Christmas Eve morning to a surprise. Mom said Howard was taking her out to get us a tree and had brought over a couple of presents. This was very exciting, Christmas was really looking up. She left Darin and I at home so they would have room for the tree and headed out. About 15 minutes after they left, there was a knock on my door, Darin opened it and it was my Dad. I guess my Mom had called him and told him our Christmas was going to be rough, and there he was...with a tree...and presents. So, we brought it in and set it up in the living room and he had brought a few decorations, so we began to decorate before Mom got back. While we were working on the tree, I heard someone walking up the stairs to our apartment, and thinking it was Mom, flew to the door to tell her we had a tree. I pulled the door open wide to see my Uncle Gene...with a tree. I am not kidding. So, by the time Mom and Howard returned, we had three trees. We started December 24 with no tree and woke December 25 with three. We started with one present each and finished with seven or eight. I don't remember all the presents, just one. My Dad had gone home and was going to come by and open presents with us the next day. One of his presents to me seemed kind of big, so I picked it up to shake it and accidentally dropped it. It nicked the corner of the TV stand and the wrapping tore, then I tried to tape it to cover up that I had been shaking it. Mom caught it the first time she looked at it and the next day, I got a spanking (from Dad, the one who still scared me) for being sneaky and opening the present early. The gift was a box set of CS Lewis' "The Chronicles of Narnia" which neither my Dad nor I had any idea had any metaphoric relationship to Christianity. But, I loved those books and still do.
(Up next, Harvey and Hebrew School)
So Part VII, or "Howard and the three Christmas Trees"
Sometime that fall, Mom started to date a man named Howard. To my recollection, he owned an Italian restaurant in West L.A., though Mom says he was just a manager. I also thought his parents owned the West side Country Club in West L.A., but it turns out they were just members. He owned a condominium, which to my poor young mind was a very exotic thing to do and made him seem to me a prince. He also used to pay us for things. First he started by paying us to run around laps and do sit ups and push ups, 5 cents for every push up or sit up and 50 cents for every lap. Darin never left Howard's house without five bucks in his pocket and that was a lot to us. Howard also taught us to play chess and when he realized that I was not into the athletic thing, he began to present me with "difficult" math pages, which he would pay me if I answered right. These pages were all about algebra and geometry, when one of my teachers saw me doing them in class, she had me accelerated into a class where I did that type of math. I began doing High School Math in the second grade, mostly because Mom's boyfriend wanted to reward me for doing well at something. Mom only dated Howard for a few months and he was one of many boyfriends, but he was special to Darin and I. I hope he got married and had kids, he would have been a great father. I have never heard Darin make the connection, but I just put it together. Darin was the whole state of California's chess champion for his age when he was in 6th grade and ran track in JH and High School. I went on to see the great value and dignity in running restaurants, most of which were Italian even though I am allergic to tomatoes. This is anecdotal, but I assume these good experiences with Howard contributed more than we even know.
Sometime that fall or winter, Mom stopped using the wooden spoon on me, because she broke it across my butt one day and I laughed and laughed, which I assume she thought did not achieve her punishment goals. My mom was never able to punish me after that, and she would say from that point on I was incorrigible. I don't know, but I do know she never was an authority to me again after about 1978, I guess she just seemed small to me, its hard to say.
Christmas that year was especially rough financially. We had moved to an apartment in Canoga Park, on the west side of the valley. I had not seen my Dad in over a year and he was never one to keep up his child support. Later in life, I found out that Dad and Mom had made a deal so Dad could get out of it. I will get to it later in the story, but he does not know that I know. And he does not read my blog. Well, the week before Christmas, Mom was able to scrounge up just enough to get us each one present. We were not hard to buy for because unlike my kids, we didn't get much and did not expect much. So usually a pack of army men or a matchbox car was enough to fill me with joy. Those items can still be bought together for less than five bucks. But we were poor and Mom sat us down to tell us that this year, we could not get a tree. We told her it was okay and we went out and got some candy canes at Thrifty and one package of red shiny garland to "decorate" with and decided to have a good family Christmas, sans tree.
I woke up on Christmas Eve morning to a surprise. Mom said Howard was taking her out to get us a tree and had brought over a couple of presents. This was very exciting, Christmas was really looking up. She left Darin and I at home so they would have room for the tree and headed out. About 15 minutes after they left, there was a knock on my door, Darin opened it and it was my Dad. I guess my Mom had called him and told him our Christmas was going to be rough, and there he was...with a tree...and presents. So, we brought it in and set it up in the living room and he had brought a few decorations, so we began to decorate before Mom got back. While we were working on the tree, I heard someone walking up the stairs to our apartment, and thinking it was Mom, flew to the door to tell her we had a tree. I pulled the door open wide to see my Uncle Gene...with a tree. I am not kidding. So, by the time Mom and Howard returned, we had three trees. We started December 24 with no tree and woke December 25 with three. We started with one present each and finished with seven or eight. I don't remember all the presents, just one. My Dad had gone home and was going to come by and open presents with us the next day. One of his presents to me seemed kind of big, so I picked it up to shake it and accidentally dropped it. It nicked the corner of the TV stand and the wrapping tore, then I tried to tape it to cover up that I had been shaking it. Mom caught it the first time she looked at it and the next day, I got a spanking (from Dad, the one who still scared me) for being sneaky and opening the present early. The gift was a box set of CS Lewis' "The Chronicles of Narnia" which neither my Dad nor I had any idea had any metaphoric relationship to Christianity. But, I loved those books and still do.
(Up next, Harvey and Hebrew School)
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Brilliant!
My beautiful and beautifully talented wife has begun considering making prints by painting, then scanning and enhancing her paintings. I am excited to see this develop. She is so creative and gifted. I strongly suggest you keep updated and see if you can buy one from her. She rocks!
Isn't it exciting to live in an age where you dont have to live in a major metro to see and buy great art, to read and buy great writing, to hear and buy great music? I am very grateful to be living in this time.
On a side note, there is a window washer right outside my window right now. He is about 18 inches from my face and it is making me uncomfortable. I am going for a stroll. Have a great day!
Isn't it exciting to live in an age where you dont have to live in a major metro to see and buy great art, to read and buy great writing, to hear and buy great music? I am very grateful to be living in this time.
On a side note, there is a window washer right outside my window right now. He is about 18 inches from my face and it is making me uncomfortable. I am going for a stroll. Have a great day!
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
updates
Sorry for the long pauses the last couple of weeks. The combination of illness and having much on my mind has caused me to neglect my blog a bit, but I will try to do better. Just some notes and thoughts:
-Thanks, Dawn, I don't know why I put 4th and 5th graders.
-I am missing seeing my friends as I was "out of pocket" for about two weeks prior to Sunday and I would like to get together for lunch or whatever with any of you.
-My son is figuring out how to work the system and taking direction on how much more he will get what he wants if he does not whine....YAY!!!!
-My wife is brilliant, and beautiful, and awesome...still.
-finances are still tough, but we are getting all kinds of messages from God that say "It'll be okay, wait for Me."
Lastly, I want to say that I am grateful that all of you take time out of your weeks to read my story, my angst, my confusion. It makes me feel interesting, and that is something I want to be. God made each of us special, different and intriguing. I thank you for making me feel the truth of that as it relates to me. You guys rock!
-Thanks, Dawn, I don't know why I put 4th and 5th graders.
-I am missing seeing my friends as I was "out of pocket" for about two weeks prior to Sunday and I would like to get together for lunch or whatever with any of you.
-My son is figuring out how to work the system and taking direction on how much more he will get what he wants if he does not whine....YAY!!!!
-My wife is brilliant, and beautiful, and awesome...still.
-finances are still tough, but we are getting all kinds of messages from God that say "It'll be okay, wait for Me."
Lastly, I want to say that I am grateful that all of you take time out of your weeks to read my story, my angst, my confusion. It makes me feel interesting, and that is something I want to be. God made each of us special, different and intriguing. I thank you for making me feel the truth of that as it relates to me. You guys rock!
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