October 26, 2006

THE BLOOD-SUGAR CONSPIRACY

Do you have diabetes? If not, are you sure that you’re Jewish? Remember a generation ago? The misery of sterilizing the equipment, watching Mama stab herself with a dull, thick needle, trying to calculate the right injection of insulin, and maintaining a stringent diet.

My mother was meticulous. Not like crabby Mr. Finkelstein who lived next door, the one who hated children and chased them off his property with an outstretched cane. He browbeat his mousy wife into buying him chazerai. He inhaled it with a grunt, as his helpless children watched his blood sugar rise and plummet.

Finally, his son Irving moved in with Papa and Mama to police him. He straightened out his diet, got his medications in order, watched him like a spy, and suffered great abuse.

But, Mr. Finkelstein’s blood sugar remained perilously high. The doctor hadn’t a clue. The children said that everything was under control, each meal measured, and insulin dispensed.

Mr. Finkelstein tolerated only one child. Me. It was probably because we walked to schule together on dark, frigid Chicago mornings, as he would rasp bitterly about his children, his idiot-son Irving, and of course, how “none of my rotten kids go to schule.”

The schule was a cabal of crabby old men griping about their children. Each one had an assignment. Every morning, Mr. Finkelstein’s mission was to put out breakfast for his conspirators. The aroma of brewing coffee was so enticing that we could barely finish Alenu. Always the same menu: sweet-sour herring, kichel rolled in coarse sugar, coffee, and always a l’chayim over a shot of schnapps, hidden under the bimah. Every once in a while, Mr. Finkelstein would surreptitiously pour me a schnapps, so I “wouldn’t be too cold waiting for the bus.”

Aha! A robust breakfast, just like in the Old Country, was the secret to the old man’s rocketing blood sugar: sugar in the herring, the kichel, the coffee, and of course, the daily l’chayim.

I kept our clandestine breakfasts to myself, now being one of the cronies. Off I would trudge to school. But, one day at 9:00 AM a teacher smelled alcohol on my breath. I was hauled off to the principal’s office and my mother summoned.
“What did you do? Is this the son we raised?” my mother barked. I knew that I would be black-and-blue by lunchtime and slashed by her well-honed tongue. An explanation wad demanded. Finally, they tortured the truth out of me about schule, the old men, their secret breakfast, and starting the day with a schnapps.

“And Mr. Finkelstein has this breakfast with you?” My mother smelled the rat.

I got my swift, exacting punishment. But, before we walked in our door, Mama appeared before Irving and ended his quest for the ultimate answer.

The Finkelstein’s held a family meeting. They decided that the old man should no longer go to schule. He was ferocious. Irving would stand guard at the door every morning, and from next door I would hear: “Anti-Semite! I’m going to schule! You are not going to schule! All right, so I won’t eat breakfast! Why should I trust you? Because I’m your father! You’re not my father when you act like a baby!”

Ah, so what became of Irving? Truth be told, his kidneys failed and he went on dialysis at the age of 48. Mr. Finkelstein, though, lived to a crabby 93, a refugee from too much schnapps and too little insulin.

I am certain that when Morris Finkelstein arrived at Heaven’s gate, God was right there waiting for him. Then He hoisted a shot-glass twinkling with schnapps, offered Morris a l’chayim, and welcoming him home.

October 15, 2006

WHO ATE THE MEATBALLS?

No one will ever be able to convince me otherwise. The manna that rained down from heaven was ground beef. It is the most versatile of all foods:

Hamburgers. Meatloaf. Sausage. Ragout. Meatballs. Spaghetti sauce. Meatballs and beans. Meatballs in cholent. Creamed ground beef on toast.

In our family, ground beef has attained legendary proportions. The story is told of how my Aunt Leah made a pot of meatballs to be served the next evening.

Aunt Leah was a huge woman who, as I remember, snored loudly, suffered from sleep apnea, and slept the sleep of the dead. Her husband, Uncle Izzy, was puny and hyperactive. Most nights he wandered the house, turning the radio on and off, ruffling the newspaper, starting but never finishing the crossword puzzle.

Knowing that Aunt Leah slept deeply, Izzy would occasionally raid the refrigerator. That night, he ate half the pot of meatballs. It wasn’t until Leah came to warm them that she discovered the great escape. She instantly lined up Izzy and the four kids, ready to prosecute with a leather sharpening strop, her favorite weapon of inquisition.

“Who ate the meatballs?!” she demanded.

Silence. Then, one by one, she seethed at the children: “Did YOU eat the meatballs?!” For the first time in their lives, the kids told the truth, “Ma, honest, we didn’t eat the meatballs!”

“And Izzy, what about you?”

”Sweetie, how could I have eaten the meatballs? I’m always sleeping in bed right next to you”

Oh no, that was not the end of the story. Aunt Leah, you see, was a plodding woman. At an occasional Purim party or Pesach Seder, she would announce, “I still can’t figure out who ate the meatballs.”

Years went by. Uncle Izzy lay on his death bed. As the end neared, he beckoned Aunt Leah to draw near. Then he gasped and whispered, “I ate the meatballs.” That was his final breath.

The children cried and hugged, but Aunt Leah smugly announced, “Aha, I knew it all along! The red on the towel wasn’t because he cut himself! It was tomato sauce!”

October 03, 2006

HEAVEN – A NICE PLACE TO SPEND SOME TIME

A few days ago, I spent five minutes in hell. As I left the doctor’s office, I was accompanied by a pathetic woman struggling to negotiate the few steps outside the building.

Dressed from Salvation Army counters. A two-year-old on one hip. A baby-bag slung over her shoulder. Hugely pregnant. And wincing with such horrific pain each time she stepped forward on her tiptoe that her hair was matted with greasy sweat. I swear that I saw white-hot sparks crackle from the blacktop.

I offered her my arm and asked if I could carry the baby. I brought her to her battered car and asked how I could help. No, there was nothing more I could do.

Please don’t see this as a plea for adulation. I was simply doing what Momma taught me. And I knew that if I didn’t, she would instantly have reached down from heaven and administered an omnipotent frosk, “Let that be a lesson to you!”

Besides, I did not create heaven. I spent five minutes in hell.

Ironic thing about heaven. When we talk about heaven, the conversation is usually so contention and shrill. “Our side will get there. You won’t get there. It’s in this book. No, it’s in that book. Follow him. Follow me. Blah, blah, blah.” In my own times, I have added my own voice to the shrillness, and I dread to say that in moments of weakness, I might do it again.

But, an inner whisper that has lately brought me to unrelentingly bitter tears has given birth to a more calm and measured vision of heaven. It did not come to me as a theological epiphany, so I confess in advance to its doctrinal impurity.

Life batters me, and it batters you. Life can be so damned mean, and for every time we deserve it, ten times the meanness comes by way of people who are greedy, ruthless, and just plain heartless. Sometimes it is so unbearable that it can no longer be numbed by a martini or hope in a heaven that is a contentious and smug place where I get in and you keep out.

To the broken of heart and those who withstand the worst of unbearable meanness, this is the peace and healing that I believe heaven will bring:

Heaven is a place where everyone is nice.

No stiff, fancy doctrine or hoo-hah to obfuscate the basic promise.

“I see you need a job. I’ll take a chance on you. I’ll train you. When can you start?” Nice.

“I see that you’re crying. Would you like a tissue? Would you like to talk? Maybe I can help.” Nice.

“I see that your family has no place to eat. Come, eat and stay with us. Tomorrow we’ll go find someone who can help you get on the right track.” Nice.

“Let me carry that bag. Help you cross the street. Hold open the door. Give you my seat on the bus.” Nice.

“Let me prop you up and help with your baby, walk you to your car. Let me give you at least a moment of heaven before you must descend back to your hell.” Nice.

Heaven is a place where everyone is nice.

Ah, sounds like a heaven we could replicate on earth. Right. Right, were their no insurmountable walls barring a world full of niceness. Not merely the Saddam’s and Hitler’s, but a receptionist who doesn’t offer a wheelchair to someone wincing in pain or a boss who won’t give a kid a chance.

This is precisely why the broken of heart and the spat-upon need keep faith in a heaven boding peaceful, calming niceness. Meanwhile, we who are blessed with the ability would do well to share some of the appetizers of heaven to folks here on earth. Perhaps that will tide them over by the reassurance that there is a good measure of niceness yet to be found among us.