TheBanyanTree: Life Stories 93

[Tobie Shapiro]

December 18, 20006

Dear Friends,

	Feyna forgot to get a present for me.  I 
laughed.  She was horrified.  I told her to get 
me a present some time during Channukah.  She 
still has time.  The funny thing is, we have this 
running joke together.  She'll say, "I love you 
Mom, and only because you just gave me an iPod." 
And I'll say, "That's the only reason I gave it 
to you, so you'd love me."   She was going 
through her tortuous apologies for not having 
gotten me a present, and asked if I'd forgive 
her.  I told her that when she got me a present 
I'd love her again.  We both laughed.

	Meyshe wrote a note to me that he 
attached to the package he gave me.  It said, "I 
love you so dearly my heart cries like a Robin." 
What can you say to something like that?  I saved 
it.  My children will find it among my effects 
after I've passed from this world into the wormy 
earth.  They'll have to figure out what to do 
with it.


 
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In the Washing Machine

	The apartment in Hyattsville was tiny, 
though being only two years old, it didn't seem 
tiny to me.  My mother tells me it was barely 
adequate.  I remember how our "barely adequate" 
world looked tall, and towered over me from way 
down on the floor where everything was happening 
for me.  I looked at the undersides of tables, 
couldn't reach a doorknob.  I remember that my 
parents called in to speak to Milton Berle who 
was on the television asking people to call in 
and talk to him.  This is how I recall it, though 
the reality may be far from that.  I saw the 
telephone sitting on the table from below, and 
the cord seemed to be coming from the ceiling. 
There they were, my parents and my older sister, 
talking to "Uncle Miltie" on the telephone while 
I crawled for a living on the floor.  We had a 
doll we called Uncle Miltie.  It had long long 
legs with horizontal striped stockings on it, red 
and white.  I don't remember the head or the 
torso, just those gangly legs sticking out of the 
clown clothes.  Uncle Miltie was my favourite 
doll, and I loved his long stripedy legs that 
dangled from his body.  When we moved from 
Hyattsville to the house in Silver Spring, 
Maryland, Uncle Miltie got lost in the shuffle 
and I never saw him again.  So many things can 
happen during a move.  I know this well.  So the 
disappearance of a four foot tall doll would not 
seem overly noteworthy.  That sort of thing 
happens.

	Surprisingly enough, I have retained 
quite a lot in my  mind about our two year tenure 
in the Hyattsville apartments.  My mother has 
told me the story of how I got lost in the 
apartment building complex and scared her nearly 
half to death.  She had just turned around to do 
something and when she turned back, Tobie was 
gone.  This was a fairly frequent event.  Mom 
turns around for a split second and Tobie is out 
the door, down the stairs and out into the big 
bad world.  I think, looking back, that either I 
knew something about life in my nuclear family, 
or that I have lost some daring somewhere along 
the road.  When she found me missing, she was 
frightened for me.  I was only two years old. 
She looked everywhere on our side of the 
East/West Highway for me, in all the buildings, 
and exhausted the places where I might be hiding. 
No, she was certain that Tobie had somehow 
crossed the great East/West Highway to the 
apartment complex on the other side of the 
expressway.  She gulped hard.  This was a huge, 
six lane thoroughfare.  How could this little two 
year old navigate her way across that great road 
and wind up in one piece?  Last she saw me, I had 
on a t-shirt and my red rubber rain boots.  End 
of costume.  No pants.  She crossed the highway 
that I'd crossed before her.  She made an 
exhaustive search for me in all the buildings, 
and in all the little playgrounds.  She finally 
found me.  I was totally nude.  No nothing.

	"Where did you put your shirt and your boots, Tobie?"

	I told her I put them in the washing 
machine.  This made her reel.  The whole of the 
basements to the apartment buildings was given 
over to endless washing machines and dryers, rows 
and rows of them in each building.

	"Show me which washing machine," my 
mother prompted me.  And I brought her by the 
hand to one washing machine in one building, 
where we found a t-shirt, another washing machine 
in another building where we found one rubber 
boot, and a third washing machine in a third 
building where we found the other rain boot.  My 
mother dressed me such as it was and brought me 
back over the East/West Highway.  Now, I was 
clothed again, ready for the next tiny person's 
challenge.



 
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Tobie Helene Shapiro
Berkeley, California   USA

tobie at shpilchas.net