Published Prose
Jeopardy Magazine: Flowers, Fruit, and a Flamingo,
Shortcuts
When I was in fifth grade, I lived on a block of row houses with postage-stamp yards in Philadelphia. Walking home from school one day, I decided to take a shortcut through the yard of a neighbor’s house. I was halfway across when a woman came out and yelled at me for trespassing. I didn’t know what to say, so I blurted out, “This is an amazing shrub! I love the colors!”
I’m not sure where those words came from. Most yards in the neighborhood were trampled grass. My mother grew tomato plants in our backyard — a risky endeavor because the rats liked them — and my sister had planted purple morning glories. But I had nothing to do with any of this. Plants were a foreign language to me. No one even asked me to mow the lawn.
I thought there was no chance this woman would buy my lame excuse, but she beamed with pride and said, “It is a rare and beautiful shrub!” We had a brief conversation before I moved on.
I am now an avid gardener, and my garden has been featured in at least fifteen garden tours, where people walk through my yard and admire my plants.
Never Again
I grew up one of just a handful of Jewish kids in a Catholic neighborhood outside of Philadelphia. Other children would laugh at my name and tell me that I’d “killed Christ.” Once, some friends suddenly began ignoring me and then later confided that a priest had told them to do it. I hated being different and wished I were like everyone else. Ballgames in the street were the only equalizer. There, at least, my status was determined by how many home runs I could hit, not by my religion.
My parents were friendly toward our neighbors, but also reserved and distant. They made it clear to me that we should stick to our own. I asked them why they needed to be so aloof. Couldn’t they just blend in? The answer always came back to the Holocaust. End of discussion.
Throughout my childhood I got my hair cut by John the barber. Trips to his shop to have my pompadour fine-tuned were as certain as the Phillies coming in last. Once, when I was in fifth grade, I was waiting for John to finish with the customer ahead of me, a regular who worked at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. The man started ranting about how the Jews were the cause of all his problems, and everyone else’s, too. John said nothing. I wished I could disappear.
My parents were surprised when I told them I wanted to switch barbers. I was too embarrassed to admit why. Also I didn’t want to prove them right.
Years later, when a car dealer told me he wouldn’t “Jew” me on the price, I considered not saying anything. But after the initial shock wore off, I said, “We need to talk.” And we did.