TheBanyanTree: Life Stories 71

[Tobie Shapiro]

November 26, 2000000006



Dear Folk Units,

	It's Sunday morning.  The worst shopping 
day in the year is past us now (thank goodness). 
We do our Channukah celebration three weeks from 
today.  This year I haven't bought presents in 
advance, as I was sort of occupied with other 
matters.  Now, I wonder how I'm going to get it 
all done in time.  I don't like the forced 
feeling of having to buy presents.  That's why I 
usually buy presents all throughout the year, and 
by the time Channukah comes, I've gotten a lot 
done already.  Channukah didn't used to be a gift 
giving holiday.  It became so in answer to the 
allure of Christmas to Jewish kids who needed 
something to counteract the loud noise that 
Christmas makes.   Christmas is sparkly too.  So 
Channukah, which was a minor holiday actually, a 
holiday that was delightful but low key, became 
this huge gift giving marathon.  Eight presents 
for eight nights.  It used to be Channukah gelt. 
That is, there would be a little money every 
night for the kids.  That was it.

	I love Channukah.  When all the menorahs 
are lit and standing in the window, they are so 
beautiful.  And I enjoy getting the eight 
presents for my kids, surprising them every night 
with some little thing or other.  Then one day, 
the whole family gets together for the potlatch. 
We wade through a stack of presents thigh high 
under my mother's piano.  This year, we'll have 
to move our instruments from under the piano to 
make room for the gifts.  It's good.  It's good.

	But I'm sort of short on change, having 
spent TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS moving.  Honest.  They 
estimated five thousand, but by the time the 
Family Packers and Northstar Movers had delivered 
the boxes to my mother's house, and the rest of 
the largesse had been put in storage in Fremont, 
it turned out to be twice that.  I had to borrow 
to pay them off.  And now I'm paying monthly 
storage costs that are obscene.  Plus, I'm going 
to have to store the piano, that lovely old lady, 
built in 1876.  She needs a climate controlled 
place to be stored, and that will cost some 
money.  Money money money.

	Meyshe has a thing against money.  He 
says we Americans (north Americans) think too 
much about money, and that we should think about 
other qualities of life.  I tell him that money 
isn't evil basically, and that if you don't have 
money, you have to think about it a lot.  He sees 
it as a sickness.  And in some ways, he's right, 
of course.  Trying to fulfill your life with 
possessions and status symbols (SUVs come to 
mind) is a sickness.  This constant drumming in 
the culture that everything should always be 
getting bigger, more expensive, grander, more, 
just more.  That's unsustainable.  We need to 
pare back.  Find a delicious norm and develop our 
traditions around that.  And how is this going to 
happen?  Good question.

	A not so good question:



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The father daughter team

	Dweller and I had come over to my 
parents' house for dinner.  It was another 
evening at the homestead.  We came over 
frequently, maybe once a week.  This time, as 
soon as we walked in the door, my father said he 
needed to speak to me about an offer.  That was 
enough to raise the little tiny hairs on the back 
of my neck.  An offer.  What did he have up his 
sleeve now?  Dweller and I sat down in the living 
room and my father took the stage.  He described 
how he enjoyed going to the topless nightclubs on 
Broadway in San Francisco, and how much money was 
to be made in show business.  This did not bode 
well.  Then he rolled into how he plays the 
violin and I play the guitar and cello, and what 
a great act we would make playing together as a 
father daughter team.

	"You would play, preferably topless, but 
you wouldn't have to be, and we could do the 
clubs on Broadway."

	Dweller's jaw fell open and I closed it 
for him.  Then my father told me to think 
seriously about it, and puttered off into the 
kitchen to harass my mother.  Dweller laughed at 
this offer.  I didn't.  I suppose I have no sense 
of humour when it comes to my father.  I just 
couldn't see his offer for me to play the guitar 
topless with him as anything but more rude and 
sleazy ogling.  I was used to the leers and the 
nasty jokes at my expense, the comments about my 
curvaceousness and particular attributes of these 
curves.  I'd even gotten used to the magazines in 
my bed.  It all goes to show how humans can get 
used to almost anything.  Dweller proposed we 
say, "no", to my father, and treat it as a joke. 
I was still cringing so I didn't know how to 
treat it, but I knew the answer was, "No".  Did 
we absolutely have to treat the offer as anything 
at all?  Couldn't we just let it lie there and 
die from lack of response?  Couldn't we maybe tie 
it up in a noose and hang him with it?  The idea 
of telling my mother on him was pointless.  She'd 
just say how he probably meant it as a 
compliment.  Telling my mother would be 
disappointment on top of insult.  I was tired of 
insults and tired of disappointments, even though 
I was used to it.

	My father came back in the room rubbing 
his hands together dramatically.  "So?  Have you 
made your decision?"

	"No," Dweller said.

	"I can give you more time to think," he said starting to leave.

	"No, Justin.  What I meant was, 'No' is 
the answer  She can't.  No.  It's ridiculous."

	He stood there for a moment to take in 
the refusal.  Then he looked at me and added, 
"Would it help if I went topless, too?"

	And here I had to laugh.  You have to 
understand how my father looked.  He had a face 
very much like Yasser Arafat's, but without the 
burnoose, and a pear shaped body, with a paunch 
that stuck out in front of him because he 
slouched from the shoulders down.  Evidently his 
posture was this way because his mother, Lena, 
had told him repeatedly to stand up straight, 
which sheds some light on his character as it is. 
He cinched in his belt very tightly so that the 
fat on either side of the divide pooched out 
generously.  He was broad in the beam and wore 
clashing colours if he could get by my mother's 
inspection.  A fire engine red polyester short 
sleeved shirt over sky blue polyester pants was 
highly possible.  And then his shoes which were 
laced with rubber bands, an invention of his to 
avoid tying shoelaces every morning, dark green 
socks, maybe matched.  His bald spot was 
positioned on the top of his head and proceeded 
to spread out and take his whole scalp, with a 
comb-over laid flat over the crop circle.  He was 
very hirsute, with hair on his chest, his 
stomach, his back, his arms and hands.  This was 
what he was offering to go topless, you know, to 
sweeten the deal.

	May I laugh, or can I cry?

	Even though the offer was facetious, 
never something he would actually have done, it 
wormed its way into my head and made curly little 
tunnels in there.  It was another successful 
performance piece.


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-- 




Tobie Helene Shapiro
Berkeley, California   USA

tobie at shpilchas.net