ZEIDE

I spent my entire career, which translates to a good portion of my life, surrounded by some very quirky people. Rock and roll radio of the 70's and beyond was wall to wall quirk. From the time Wavy Gravy popped up at Woodstock in 1969 reminding us how “We're all bozo's on the bus, so (we) might as well sit back and enjoy the ride,” my generation has personified the idiosyncratic and unconventional. I would venture to say that there isn't a soul over 60 who can't look back and find someone who has crossed their path and made them smile with their peculiarities. The choice of subjects is abundant which is why I surprised myself when the first person who came to mind was my great grandfather, Aaron......a man known and loved by my family as Zeide (Zay-da)........the family patriarch. The guy from whom we all took our cue when it came to life's negotiation. Aaron came to this land from Russia in 1905, bringing with him his wife, his 14 year old son (my grandfather) and enough friends (and their families) to run a farm and start a Jewish community in Ellington, Connecticut, a land where the belief still held that Jews came complete with horns. A belief he was able to successfully counter by wearing a hat. A hat that, for the entire time I knew him, he never took off. Zeide was born in the Ukraine, in the rather large town of Ekaterinaslav, now known as Dnipropetrovsk. He was a woodsman about whom very little was known before he just sort of appeared, one day, at the lumber yard owned by the Levine family. Word had it that he wielded a pretty big ax, which was, apparently, enough to impress the young Eda, the woman who would become my great grandmother, Bubba. They wed, had a son and then, with as many of their brethren and sistren as they could round up, proceeded to escape the Tzar's pogroms, organized massacres of Jews in Russia or eastern Europe, and headed to the good ole' U.S. of A. to find some of that opportunity that had eluded them while they were busy fending off Cossacks swords, an activity they heard they could find some relief from in the new world. Oh......and he needed enough guys for a minyan - a quorum of ten men over the age of 13 required for traditional Jewish public worship. So, off they went to a new world. Sometimes, when necessity is the mother of invention, quirkiness is the means to the end, the second cousin, as it were. In order to maintain a sense of community and pride in their heritage, Zeide and his minyan minions realized that they needed a shul, a synagogue in which to practice their faith in their new home without fear of reprisal but they had never built anything like that before and didn't have a design. “LEON,” Zeide yelled to his son, my grandfather, “kumen do aun brengen a blayer.” Yiddish for “Come here and bring a pencil.” “We need a shul. Draw us a shul.” The 14 year old who would become the man I knew as the strong head of the family, drew a square and put a couple of angled lines on top for a roof. “Here ya' go,” he said, handing his father a picture that looked as if a 5 year old had just drawn a box, “Here's your synagogue.” The men used the “blueprint” and built a big box and put chairs in it. The box still sits in Ellington and has been designated a historical monument. My grandfather is listed, in the records, as the “architect” by virtue of the fact that he had a pencil. Aaron began to show more of his quirkiness around the end of the 30's when the German ship, the MS St. Louis, with 908 Jews aboard, tried to land in Canada and then the United States. They were turned back and those who were not given refuge in European countries went back to Germany, some, to their deaths. Franklin D. Roosevelt was President and Zeide NEVER forgave him. He was so upset that he refused to change the clocks during Daylight Savings Time because he felt that it was something Roosevelt wanted him to do. “I'm a farmer,” he would reason, “I know what time to get up. The sun tells me not Roosevelt” The clocks remained where they were. He was rarely on time for anything but he made his point. As he got older his quirkiness seemed to magnify. At least in the eyes of this, then 8 year old. It seemed bizarre to me that he always wore a cardigan sweater with hard candy in the pockets that he would hand out to the neighborhood kids on his daily walks. The candy sometimes had no wrapper and would be covered with lint but his heart was in the right place. I, also, never saw him without his hat. He wore it inside, outside and, presumably, to bed. For a short time when I was very young, I just assumed he was born with a fedora on his head. The irony is that I have now become what I considered quirky and, at times, embarrassing. I have two cardigan sweaters (that reminds me, it's time to stock up on and unwrap a bunch of hard candy) and I wear hats – all the time. I have become Zeide and I'm sure my grandkids have some of the same reservations about my sanity and my ability to live a life without quirk. Aaron, the man I knew and loved as Zeide, passed away when I was about 13. He was 93. We should all live so long.......and maintain the sense of goodness, family and community that this man possessed......amid his quirky ways. One of his quirkiest quirks, however, was that his fly always seemed to be open. I have one picture of him and it's just the way I remember him. An old man in a cardigan sweater with his hat on his head and his fly wide open. Now, if you'll excuse me (“zip” sfx).