David Stevens's Blog: The Little Yiddish I Know I Learned From My Grandmother, Part II

When Donald returned from Japan in January, 1953, he had exactly two weeks to move his family to an Air Force Base near Kansas City, where he would receive his next stateside assignment. He and Shirley withdrew me from kindergarten, packed up their meagre belongings (having lived with Etta and Norman they had no furniture or other home furnishings), bought an old car (I think it was a 1939 Ford), and hit the road. This was before the days of interstate highways, so we used a map we got at the gas station and used back roads. There was only one stop at a motel, one stop for an auto repair, and another for a flat tire (I said it was an old car). When we arrived at the base after two days of driving with one day to spare we checked into a motel that had cottages designed to look like teepees. My mother and I stayed there for two days while my father processed endless paperwork, and he ultimately told us he had to be at Randolph Field (it wasn't even big enough to be an Air Force Base) near San Antonio, Texas, in two days. So we packed up the car again and drove for two more days. We had to check in to another motel because Donald hadn't yet been assigned housing. On our third day in Texas, however, we moved into enlisted housing, a two bedroom apartment in a complex built by the lowest bidder and looking exactly like it.

Randolph Field had its own elementary school but no kindergarten, so I was not enrolled in school until September. I remember playing records on our portable record player, playing with Donald's guitar (which he did not play either, but he intended to learn), meeting and playing with other kids my age, and learning to ride the two-wheeled bicycle I received for my 6th birthday. Shirley's memories of that time are not so pleasant. She needed dental work, and the butcher disguised as the base dentist ended up pulling all of her teeth and ordering upper and lower dentures for her. I imagine he got some sort of commission or kickback for every set of dentures he ordered, but of course I could never prove it. She was 27 years old.

Meanwhile in Buffalo Etta and Norman were having problems with the Normetta School of the Dance. After more than twenty years they were forced to declare bankruptcy and they lost their second-mortgaged home in the process. With Dorothy and her family taking care of Julia in the house on French Street there was nothing holding them in Buffalo, so in the summer of 1953 they packed up their old car and moved to the Phoenix area, where one of Etta's sisters lived. They bought a little house (three bedrooms, one bath, about 1000 square feet, a carport instead of a garage) on what was then the outskirts of town. It was a builder's model, which was why they could afford it, located on 51st Street near Thomas Road. It was more or less in the middle of a field full of tumbleweeds. There was no air conditioning, and the temperatures routinely topped 100 degrees for several months. On the other hand, there was no snow in the winter, a major consideration after living so many years in Buffalo. All that remained was figuring out how they were going to make a living.

Norman had a number of get-rich quick schemes, most of which Etta vetoed. She started buying penny candy in bulk and selling it to the neighborhood children out of their kitchen at a huge markup. She added making and selling popsicles and frozen chocolate bars to her business, and actually did quite well. Norman set himself up as a tropical fish breeder, using the third bedroom for the purpose. He sold tiny exotic fish at what seemed to be a discount, mostly to children, and made his real money selling them tanks and other equipment needed to raise his fish. He eventually began breeding and selling parakeets, and later still he began breeding and selling special chickens that laid pink, blue, and green eggs. But those ventures were many years later; his immediate concern was bringing in enough money every month to pay the mortgage and buy his special steaks, chops, and roasts. So they opened a new branch of the Normetta School of the Dance and took to fleecing the naive once again. They were now in their fifties, though, and the simple physical activity was hard to maintain for even three hours a night. And they didn't have Shirley to help as they did in Buffalo. So Norman (for once) swallowed his pride and looked for a job.

Jobs were plentiful in the Valley of the Sun in the 1950s; business was booming and the place was expanding by leaps and bounds. Most of the jobs, though, required physical abilities Norman did not possess, and others required education he lacked. Those few that he was able to land (clerk in a drug store, secretary in a real estate company, for example) lasted a very short time because he was unable to stomach working for somebody else. Most he quit before he was fired. By the end of 1953 Etta began to despair of him ever finding a steady job, but in January of 1954 he was hired as an independent contractor for a termite inspection company. Termites posed a serious problem in Phoenix and almost everybody who owned or bought a house in the Valley needed termite inspections. He worked for himself, could set his own hours, was not overexerted, and didn't need to get along with anybody. His stature even gave him an advantage, since he could get into attics and crawl spaces a normal-sized person would have trouble fitting into. It was perfect for him. It didn't pay much, but with the other gigs he and Etta had going it was enough.

Shirley and Donald were having their own money problems in Texas. While the housing was cheap and Shirley shopped exclusively at the PX, there was never enough money to get from one end of the month to the other. Enlisted men were simply not paid enough to raise a family. So they fought constantly and loudly, and eventually Donald's frustration grew to the point that he started hitting her.

I entered the first grade in September, 1953, and excelled despite the fact that I had never finished kindergarten. Partly this was because I could already read and none of the other children could; and partly it was because I was a placid child who had learned that the best way to get along with adults was to give them exactly what they wanted. So the inexperienced and flustered young woman who was my teacher knew she never had to worry about me. At the end of the school year I was excited to have found something (namely, going to school) that I was so good at. I looked forward to the second grade with high expectations.

During the summer of 1954, though, things blew up. During one particularly virulent fight between my parents, Donald hit Shirley across the face so hard that her dentures flew out. That was the end of it for her. She ran into my room, where I had been listening in dread, locked the door, and cried herself to sleep. She stayed there until Donald left for work the next day, and then she packed suitcases for the two of us, called a taxi, and took me to the Greyhound Bus station. We went to the bus station in San Antonio and caught the late night bus (it was a local, stopping every half hour or so) for El Paso. There we caught another bus for Phoenix. Shirley was going home to her mother.

We me moved into Etta and Norman's little house in Phoenix, and though we didn't take up much space we completely filled it up. My mother slept in the spare bedroom and I got the back room with the fish. There was also a back door in this room, which came in handy from time to time. At the end of the excruciatingly hot summer of 1954 I enrolled in the second grade in a little public school in Scottsdale, a western suburb of Phoenix. This was one of the places that Etta and and Norman ran their dance school. Norman knew some people on the school board and was able to get me enrolled even though I lived outside the district. The main reason for this was that there was a huge push for integrating the public schools in Phoenix, and Etta and Norman did not want their grandson going to school with schvartzes (Yiddish for Black persons (from שוואַרץ‎, shvarts, 'black'; cf. German: schwarz; OED); offensive). This arrangement lasted for only one semester; in January of 1955 I transferred to Griffith School in Phoenix, a public school with no Black students but plenty of Latinos, mostly of Mexican descent. During the semester I was in Scottsdale, though, I began my theatrical career by playing the youngest of the Three Billy Goats Gruff in the class play. The seed was planted that would bloom eleven years later when I got to college.

By far the most important thing that happened during 1954-55, though, was the introduction of Bill Parks into my life. Etta and Norman once again despaired of their daughter Shirley ever finding another husband. They helped her to get a divorce, and Donald was ordered to pay child support of $25.00 a month to her until I turned 18. The military may be many things, but it is certainly efficient when it comes to the payment of child support. All Shirley had to do was send a copy of the court's order to the office of the Randolph Field commander and the child support was sent to her like clockwork on the first of every month. Donald was also given visitation privileges with me but he used them only once. Even before the divorce was final Etta and Norman were on the lookout for a suitable man for Shirley, and they settled on Bill Parks.

Bill was 28 years old and a drifter. He was in Phoenix working for the same termite company that Norman worked for, but Bill did the hard work: he did the actual termite treatments that Norman found necessary during his inspections. He needed a place to live, and sure enough Etta and Norman invited him to live with them. That meant, of course, that he was living with us. Bill moved in with me in the fish room, and we shared bunk beds. I found him fascinating. He had been a cowboy on the rodeo circuit and a professional wrestler. He had been in the Navy at the end of World War II and had been a crewman on a PT boat. He loved to hunt and fish. His life was about as different from Norman's as it could possibly be. I found out later that he was also a raging alcoholic who had nearly drunk himself to death and that he was a pathological liar. At the time, though, I didn't know those things and wouldn't have cared much if I did.

Shirley found him as fascinating as I did, and just as Etta and Norman had planned they fell in love. They both turned 30 in March of 1956, and in early April they drove to Las Vegas and eloped. The funny thing was, they took me with them. I was nine years old, so I wasn't allowed on the floors of the casinos, but I could watch from the outside windows or from the coffee shop while my elders blew all the money they had on slop machines, poker games, crap games, and the roulette wheel. They even got people to gamble in the coffee shops and higher-end restaurants with a lottery-type game called Keno. Another thing Bill had been was a professional gambler, so he thought he could come out ahead if he just kept gambling long enough. On other occasions he did, but not this time, Bill and Shirley called Norman to send them money to get home. He did so gladly, since he now had a hold on his son-in-law.

During our time staying with Etta and Norman she resumed her occasional Yiddish lessons. I learned words about foods and people but nothing about the structure of the language, syntax, or grammar. It was impossible for me to apply the scant vocabulary I absorbed without broader context.

During 1955-56 I was in the third grade at Griffith School. I have written elsewhere in this blog about the summer of 1956 ("My Entire Family Ran Away and Joined a Carnival", https://davidstevensblog.blogspot.com/2017/12/my-entire-family-ran-away-and-joined.html). During the Fall of 1956, though there was an incident that changed my life. I had started Hebrew School during the third grade, and once a week my grandfather would drive me two cities west to Glendale for lessons. The first thing I learned was the short version of Kiddush: "Baruch ata Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha-olam, borei peri ha-gafen. ("Blessed are you God, our Lord, King of the Universe, who creates the fruit of the vine.") It's the prayer over the wine before Sabbath dinner, and at our Temple it was also give during Friday evening services. All the pre-Bar Mitzvah boys in the congregation took turns on Friday nights, and when my turn came I proudly chanted as I had been taught, something no other boy had been able to do. I could see the older men in the congregation nodding their heads and smiling; it felt wonderful to be recognized like that.

It was about this time in 1956 that I distinctly recall attending Uncle Abe Holzman's funeral. He had married Etta's sister Fannie, who had passed away earlier. They had moved to Arizona some time before Etta and Norman did. The whole family made the trip to Mesa, where the funeral was. There was an open casket, which I had never experienced before, and it made me quite uncomfortable. To this day I would rather not attend a funeral with an open casket, but I do if necessary.

The next week was Yom Kippur, and we had a special dinner at home, with the fine china and crystal and a tablecloth. Norman asked me to say Kiddush, and I proudly rose and recited. I was not used to the crystal wine glass I had been given, however, and I dropped it on the china, breaking it, the china bowl the matzoh ball soup was in, and the china plate beneath. Needless to say, the wine spilled all over the tablecloth. I was terrified, afraid I would be hit as my mother had been hit. That was the only time I knew when someone got very angry, and I thought that was what always happened when people got angry. And sure enough, my grandfather completely lost his temper and began verbally berating me. My mother did nothing, but Bill literally stood up for me. He got Norman to quiet down, and we packed and left the house. That night we stayed at a motel, and the next day we moved into an apartment about half way into downtown Phoenix.

I transferred from Griffith School to Creighton School, and continued the fourth grade. 1956 was the year that the Salk Vaccine for polio came out, and I got my first shot right in school. In some subjects Creighton School was ahead of Griffith School, and in others it was behind. I was confused much of the time. My confusion only grew when we moved again, this time to a house near Seventh Street and McDowell Road. I transferred yet again, to Emerson School. We were to stay in this house, and then the one next door, for more than ten years. The houses were owned by Bill's new Boss, Clyde Pierce, Chairman and CEO of Pierce Farms, Inc., a local diversified business rivaling that of Del Webb, if not as well known. Bill was to be in charge of maintenance for all the Pierce properties, a substantial if not terribly well-paying position. Free rent, free telephone, and a free company truck came with the job, so even if the pay was not substantial it was enough. I went back to Creighton School for my second Salk Vaccine shot, and also for the sugar cubes that contained the new Sabin Vaccine. I was as immunized against polio as it was possible to get.

I have also written elsewhere in this blog about the summer of 1957 ("Baseball and Doing the Building", https://davidstevensblog.blogspot.com/2017/12/baseball-and-doing-building.html). I played Little League baseball for two more years on Bill's teams, making the All-Star team as an outfielder in 1959, the year I turned 12. My baseball career being effectively over (I couldn't compete with other teenagers) I turned my attention to more cerebral matters, becoming an Eagle Scout in 1959 at age 13, and graduating first in my eighth grade class that same year. I became a newspaper carrier at age 13 as well, moving from a small route near Emerson School until I started high school to a larger route near my high school to the best route in the entire state for my last three years of high school, the downtown Phoenix route. I made an average of $1,000 a month delivering around 100 newspapers a day, with a $40.00 a week bonus for the difficulty of the route. I was named Carrier of the Month, Station Leader of the Month, and First Runner-Up for Carrier of the Year. When the Phoenix Gazette began a college scholarship program in 1965, I was honored by receiving the first $2,000 scholarship they ever awarded. I graduated as valedictorian of my class in 1965, winning more scholarships and awards than I can name, accepting finally a National Merit Scholarship to Michigan State University. It turned out that my scholarships covered all of my college expenses, which was a good thing since my parents could contribute nothing.

I never saw my grandparents during my last years at home. They held a grudge better than most people I've met, and my parents were content to keep them out of my life. When I was 13 my mother had another child, my brother William Reb Parks. His name came from an old racehorse Bill used to own, and Shirley's paternal grandfather's name, even though she did not remember him very clearly. Reb didn't meet Etta and Norman until he was six years old, when they swallowed their pride and made up with Bill and Shirley. They wanted to get their hands on their young grandson, but Bill made sure they kept their distance. They did their best to raise him so he wouldn't want to go to college and leave home like I did, and in that they succeeded.

The summer after my first year of college I returned to Phoenix and worked for the U.S. Post Office as a substitute letter carrier. It was a civil service job based on a test, and by then I was a dab hand at taking tests. My high school friend Ernie Nedd (who is Black; apparently Etta and Norman's racist fears were justified; going to school with people of other races inevitably leads to interracial friendships!) also aced the civil service exam, and we worked at the same post office all summer. He ended up with a scholarship to Brown University, by the way, but dropped out, got drafted, lived through a tour in Viet Nam, and finished his degree and law school at Arizona State in Tempe. That summer, though, we earned $2.35 an hour, which isn't much but at the time was almost twice the minimum wage otherwise available to us. I saw Etta and Norman several times that summer, but never for an extended period. I never lived at home again, and it was three years before I saw them.

I received a nice surprise for my twenty-first birthday in 1968. It turned out that my mother had taken some of that miserly child support she received every month and put it into a life insurance policy for me. It matured when I turned 21. So I had an extra cushion of $500.00 for my senior year.

At my mother's insistence Carol and I invited Etta and Norman to our wedding in 1970, and I was relieved when they declined. By that time Norman was pushing 70 and Etta was almost 65. They were too old to take the bus and couldn't afford to fly. We saw them the following summer when we went to Phoenix to visit my parents. This was Carol's first time meeting them, and I hoped Norman would be civil for once. No such luck, though; just about the first thing he did was proposition Carol. I suspected it was another of his tasteless jokes, but Carol remains convinced he was deadly serious. In any case it all but ruined our vacation, and it wasn't just to escape the heat that we packed up my parents' Toyota Land Cruiser and travel trailer and toured the northern part of the state, including particularly the Grand Canyon, for our last week in Arizona.

The last time I saw Etta and Norman was over the Christmas-New Years vacation in December 1980 to January 1981. Carol and I had attended the Modern Language Association annual convention in Houston. Carol was looking for a more permanent college teaching job and had interviews with about 20 colleges and universities. We were pretty sure she woulds get a good job, and although she got an unheard-of job offer at Texas Tech following the convention (job offers only come after on-campus interviews) she ended up taking a less prestigious but far more satisfying job teaching at Eastern Illinois University, where she stayed until she retired. During that visit we had a very nice dinner with Etta and Norman on December 30, and then two nights later we got word that he had been taken to the hospital in the middle of the night.

Etta and Norman had moved from their little house on 51st Street to rural location where Norman had a retirement job taking temperature, humidity, and pressure readings at the top of a mountain. They moved because their chickens were making too much noise for the neighbors, and although the chickens were grandfathered in they either had to get rid of the chickens or move. So they moved. When Norman went to the hospital he went to a rural hospital, and it took all of us two hours to get there. By then, Norman was dead. He had developed meningitis after breaking his collarbone in an auto accident that was his own fault. He died as he had lived, a narcissist who always thinks he knows everything better than anybody else in the room.

Norman was cremated within a day of his death, and following the cremation the family held a brief memorial service for him. My mother and grandmother insisted that I recite the Hebrew prayer for the dead, the Kaddish, for him. I should have refused, having not considered myself Jewish for many years (from the date of the Yom Kippur incident, to be precise). But I gave in, and my mother found an English transliteration for me. The prayer begins in the familiar manner: "Yit-gadal v'yit-kadash sh'mey raba . . . ." (Magnified and sanctified be G-d's great name . . . .") and I got through it all. I felt nothing for Norman then and I feel nothing for him now, but I felt bad for Etta. They had been together for more than 50 years and she had no idea what she would do without him.

Shirley then stepped up and gave her mother what she needed, just as Etta had given Shirley what she needed all those years before when Shirley came running home after being beaten by Donald. She moved Etta into a vacant apartment in the complex where she and Bill then lived, sold their rural home, took care of all their debt, and set up Etta's financial affairs. All that was left Shirley put into a couple of CDs, which Etta insisted be placed in joint tenancy so Shirley would get them when Etta passed away. Or so Etta intended.

Four years later I was directing a production of Fiddler on the Roof, ironically, when I got word that Etta had died. I skipped the final performance and flew to Phoenix for a few days while we held a memorial for Etta and, as we thought, settled her estate. Carol couldn't come with me because we had a guest from out of town who had come to see the production, and she had to return to her university to teach two days later (we lived in separate cities for 14 years due to our inability to get decent jobs near each other). I returned in time to get ready to move to another job, only three hours from Carol instead of eight hours away.

Less than a month later my mother called me to tell me her sister Dorothy was suing her for half of Etta's estate. Etta had died without a will, and under those circumstances the surviving children normally split the assets remaining after all debts are paid. When accounts are held in joint tenancy with right of survivorship, however, as Etta's CDs were, the money is effectively taken out of the estate. That was the case here, and if she wanted to fight it Shirley could have prevailed. She would have had to hire an estates attorney, however, and the fight would have been expensive and would have taken over a year. The CDs had face values of only $50,000.00, and it just wouldn't have been worth it. I advised her to split the money with her sister, and for once she took my advice. Etta and Norman had had their last affect, for good or ill, on my life. Shalom, I thought to myself. Peace be with them. But I did not think, and do not think to this day, that their lives should be for a blessing. There was too much water under the bridge for that.

Shirley died of lung cancer, quite ironic because she had quit smoking thirty years earlier, in 2000 at age 75. Dorothy passed away in 2008 without another word, not even to say thank you, to her sister. Nor have her children, my cousins, ever been in touch. Donald, with whom I had reconciled after a long estrangement, survived until 2014 at age 86. He left me the bulk of his small estate, which I nonetheless split equally with the son and daughter he adopted with his second wife. He and Shirley had pledged on January 1, 1950, to meet in Times Square at midnight on January 1, 2000. Fortunately she was too sick even to consider it; I can't imagine it would have been a good experience for either of them if they had followed through. Bill, though, outlived them all. He survived the loss of Shirley, alcoholism, skin cancer, bladder cancer, atrial fibrillation, and heaven knows what else, to die on July 1, 2020, at age 94. His smallish estate is tied up by his trust for ten years after his death, and even if I'm still alive at age 83 I'll see to it that the bulk of his estate goes to his son Reb. Reb needs it for his retirement much more than I do and much more than his children, who can all make their own livings, do.