“Bah, humbug!” exclaims Ebenezer Scrooge, in Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” Move over, Ebenezer, because I’m on your side! It’s not that I have anything against Christmas. After all, my parents drove us kids down Eastern Avenue in Baltimore to see the beautiful lights on display in the neighborhood windows. […]
Childhood
10 posts
My father’s menorah has been sitting on top of a high bookcase in our house for many years. When we took it down the other day, unused and hidden, it was covered in a thick layer of dust. This menorah is heavy and cumbersome. Made of solid brass and estimated […]
Memories of “turkey day,” aka Thanksgiving, from my childhood are sketchy. Perhaps that’s because they weren’t anything to “crow” about. Up until I was around age 12 or 13, we traveled up the Jersey Turnpike to spend the day with Dad’s maternal relatives in Northern New Jersey, the Zuckermans. Instead […]
Carefully, I folded the finished dress in tissue paper and placed it in a Macy’s box, which I covered with expensive foil, girlie birthday paper and a big red bow. I was filled with anticipation. It was my niece Karen’s birthday, and she was turning seven in 1972. She was […]
Warsaw, Poland 1943 I am three years old, living in Warsaw with my mother under false identity as a Catholic trying to survive the hunt for Jews by the German occupiers. We have a one-room apartment, which serves as bedroom, dining room and living room. When the weather is nice, […]
When we were kids back in the 1950’s, Ocean City, Maryland was not the hub it is today. Everyone went to Atlantic City, New Jersey, which is what our family did every year for a three-day weekend vacation. Later in the summer, my parents would return for a weekend by […]
Old Mrs. Berman We lived in a home with a mom who loved animals. When we were kids, my brother, Richard and I wrote a fun song for our mother for one of her birthdays. It went like this: “Old Mrs. Berman had a home / E.I. E.I. O! / […]
Formative Years: 1954-1965 We didn’t have furry pets when I was a child. When my sister Margo asked for a dog (she would have been happy with a pony, too), Mom said, “No.” The excuse was that mom worked and had no time to take care of a pet. Additionally, […]
The purpose of this vignette is to give a humorous example of what I believe is a not so uncommon phenomenon: old habits don’t die, pun intended. My mother died in the summer of 1990. I was born in 1947 and grew up in the Flatbush section of the borough […]