Childhood: A Fish Out of Water
When we lived in Massachusetts, my father and I would often take a long walk late in the evening on Christmas Eve. It was invariably cold enough to make your front teeth hurt and your fingertips go numb. If there was snow on the ground, it was especially quiet and made me feel slightly melancholy. We would trudge along in our many layers, puffed up like birds trying to keep warm. We appraised the homes, picking our favorites, singling out the features we liked best: a turret with curved glass windows perfect for a window seat, a sharply pointed witch-like gabled roof, wraparound porches that reminded us of the hot and humid summer ahead, stately grounds that displayed the home as if showing off a wedding cake. My father pointed out practical things, like snow remaining on the roof indicating good household insulation. I would peer longingly at the lit windows and imagine some idyllic family Christmas scene within. My seasonal desire to decorate, sing Christmas carols, and bake dove, star, and pine-tree shaped sugar cookies was relentless. My parents, wearily repeating that we were Jewish and did not celebrate Christmas, allowed me to festoon a houseplant with popcorn and cranberry strings, red ribbon bows, and tinsel.
In many respects I think we were always on the outside looking in. There were so many ways we did not belong. We returned to the United States on board a ship that transported us not only to a new place, but what seemed to my brother David and me, an entirely foreign culture. There were wonders to behold in America, like television. We didn’t have one until 1968, the year following our return, when I turned eight. It was a small prized cube. Our parents strictly limited viewing hours and content. The greatest indulgence was Sunday morning cartoons. Before our parents arose, David and I would lie on our stomachs on the living room floor in front of the TV, chins propped in the palms of our hands, watching an unending parade of improbable, provocative, sassy, and conniving animals and humans attempt to do each other in. I never tired of, and was always astonished at, the survival and resurrection of the cartoon characters: flattened against a wall, they would peel away from the surface, topple to the ground and then re-inflate, ready to resume chasing after their quarry; or, falling from a precipitous cliff, their legs would begin cycling madly in thin air and carry them up and across the gaping canyon to the other side. Anything was possible.
When everyone we knew had upgraded to color television, we stuck with our black and white. Families not only had color televisions, many had televisions all over the house: in the kitchen, the rumpus room, the living room; some even had televisions in their bedrooms. We always had just the one television, eventually upgraded to color, and it remained in the living room, with viewing still strictly regulated and monitored.
Then there were the cars. In Switzerland, we had purchased an old model Mercedes, an elegant and, to me, immense vehicle that seemed like a giant black swan. It had voluptuously round fenders, wide running boards I would step up onto before entering, and an interior with high hard seats. I felt like royalty riding in that car, except for becoming acutely carsick on every one of the many trips we took on the winding roads. At frequent intervals, my father would pull the car over so I could get out and vomit in some preposterously beautiful setting of meadows filled with lakes and wildflowers or alongside mountain passes with bluish glaciers. Occasionally, I could not wait for my father to find a suitable pullout. Once I vomited over my favorite white rabbit fur cat, and though my mother washed it carefully and hung it up on our clothesline to dry, it was never the same.
Everyone we knew had a large American car, usually two. They had back seats longer than my bed, extravagantly broad windshields, and soft suspension that undulated rather than bounced. Many of my friends’ families owned boat-like station wagons with intriguing faux wood paneling. We owned a VW hatchback that registered every bump in the road. The VW, a successor to the Mercedes, had been shipped from Switzerland to the United States. David and I would sit cross-legged in the hatch, facing motorists behind the car, trying to get them to respond to our waving or the faces we pulled. We both grew tall rapidly and had to hunch over to fit.
There were other wonders, like supermarkets. In Switzerland, David and I would set out with our mother to shop for groceries, she with a woven wicker basket over her arm and a hand-tied net bag, sporting a skirt and sweater, often a scarf tied over her head, and sensible walking shoes. We made the rounds of the local merchants who knew us well: the bakery was always warm, bright, and inviting; the butcher shop had a sprinkling of sawdust on the floor and a clean cold smell (the butcher always offered us a thin slice of blood sausage, salami, or headcheese); at the green grocer’s the produce was selected for you; at the cheese shop we would again be plied with samples. Sometimes David and I preferred to stay outside the store while my mother shopped. Often, an Italian guest worker, thrilled to see two young dark-eyed raven-haired children reminiscent of those he left in his home country, would grin broadly and excitedly begin conversing with us in Italian. David and I, uncertain what to do and not understanding the language, would shift uncomfortably, smile nervously, and wait for our mother to return. On special occasions, we went to the chocolate shop. I remember Easter in particular because the chocolate sculptures were the stuff of dreams: giant chocolate rabbits almost as big as I was carrying baskets of chocolate eggs; small and medium-sized rabbits in white, milk, and dark chocolate with red bows around their necks; immense chocolate eggs with colorful floral decorations concealing chocolate treasures inside. Although we were Jewish, we splurged for Easter, bringing home a large collection to consume over the coming days.
In Massachusetts there was an A&P (I never knew what it stood for) built across the Turnpike. That, in and of itself, was miraculous. From the windows, we could see the traffic rushing by beneath us. Besides the architectural feat that distinguished the A&P, its vast grid-like aisles had an astonishing variety of food, especially compared with our grocery destinations in Switzerland. There were so many things we had never tasted or seen before beckoning to us in brightly colored packaging. And… you could take anything you wanted off the shelf! David and I were smitten by the breakfast cereals and snack food, and would grab a box or bag and beseech our mother to purchase the item. Often, there were trinkets or toys inside that were the object of our desires and the subject of heated arguments at home regarding ownership. Once, peering into a refrigerated case filled with plastic wrapped packaged meat, so unlike the hanging carcasses and unwrapped cuts of meat displayed in the Swiss butcher shop, I loudly blurted out “Ewwwww!” The stranger standing next to me, wearing a familiar-looking long winter coat just like my mom’s, gazed down in puzzlement. Mortified and feeling my face flush, I ran off to find my mother.
The ultimate wonder to behold at the A&P was the conveyor belt that spirited the bagged groceries away to the parking lot beneath the store. We had a large collection of baskets and net bags that we had used for our purchases in Switzerland. Here, our groceries were placed into a brand new starched brown paper bag every time we shopped, by someone whose only job it was to bag the groceries and place them on the conveyor belt. I marveled at the bags as they disappeared from sight, like an amusement park ride entering a tunnel, and marveled again as they appeared in the underground parking garage.
School lunch was a trial. For several years in elementary school it was a non-issue since everyone went home for lunch and returned later in the afternoon. My mother, appalled that this tied women to the home and railing against the inequities it posed for women who had to work, established a school lunch program after considerable effort and nagging persistence. Because we lacked a cafeteria, we ate lunch at our desks where you had a pretty good view of what everyone had brought. My friends’ lunches looked nearly identical and anodyne: Wonderbread sandwiches of processed pink bologna or peanut butter and jelly (or peanut butter and fluff, the other-worldly marshmallow spread that could be purchased pre-swirled with the peanut butter), an apple, a snack (potato chips, Bugles, Fritos, or Cheetos), and cookies (Oreos were popular) or a more elaborate treat (like Hoho’s, Twinkies, or Dingdongs). These items rarely if ever appeared in my lunch.
My mother gave us chopped olive sandwiches on a weekly or twice weekly basis. She opened up small can of sliced shiny black olives and assembled them between slices of bread with mayonnaise, then wrapped it in wax paper. By the time I opened my lunch, the wax paper was sodden and the olives had made the bread soggy and nearly inedible. I detested my chopped olive sandwiches, but consumed them out of sheer hunger and a sense of duty. Sometimes I had liverwurst or blood sausage sandwiches on pumpernickel or rye bread, foods I loved and had eaten frequently in Switzerland. But here it was the source of considerable embarrassment. Kids would ask me about my sandwiches, make some derogatory comment, and wrinkle their noses in disgust. Despite our lunch oddities, over time David and I successfully added several local foods: Bugles, the heavily ribbed cone-shaped corn snacks, could be found in our lunch with some regularity. Perhaps our greatest victory was on the dessert front. We never purchased Twinkies, but we were allowed Ding Dongs, a chocolate devil’s food cake sandwich with vanilla cream and a shellac-like chocolate coating. I would savor mine, breaking the outside carefully so I didn’t lose any of the waxy chocolate shards, nibbling the cake, and licking off the vanilla cream. It was heavenly, despite my years of fine European tortes and tarts and our continued Sunday tradition of “Kaffee und Kuchen” (coffee or tea, and cake). Our family happily consumed the closest approximation of European breads and patisserie we could find at the local bakeries. My mother, who became increasingly resentful of household and child-rearing duties as the women’s movement gained momentum, eventually relegated lunch preparation to David and me. We managed to produce lunches that more closely resembled those of our classmates, a welcome relief.
Our dinners, like our elementary school lunches, were significantly different from those of our friends. To be fair, my mother cooked London broil frequently, but we often ate fondue, falafel, tongue, and liver. For our birthdays, David and I were indulged by our special dinner and dessert requests. I selected such things as Boeuf Bourguinon, rabbit, or Swiss “Pastetlie” (a circular puff pastry column with meat and vegetables in béchamel sauce). For dessert I requested Engadiner Nusstorte (a crunchy sticky torte filled with chopped walnuts and honey), Zwetschgenkuchen (a thin sweet-sour tart with concentric circles of slightly burnt Italian plums), or Käsekuchen (the dense less sweet version of cheesecake made with Quark). If rabbit was on the birthday dinner menu, my mother would travel to Boston’s North End, the warren-like Italian enclave where one could purchase such an item from the butcher shop. My father invariably requested Linzertorte for his birthday cake and we would all pitch in to prepare the hazelnuts in our little electric grinder, spread the torte with raspberry jam, and weave the lattice on top.
I remember going to my friend Leslie’s house for dinner. Her mother would have set the dining room table with ironed and carefully folded napkins, candles, and nice china and cutlery. That was for when her husband came home. The kids, after watching “Lost in Space” in the late afternoon, were herded into the kitchen where they were served a dinner that was quick and often came from a package. This was novel for me, both the television viewing (we weren’t permitted to watch television on weekdays and I was intrigued and put off by the poor set design, robotic acting, and premise of Lost in Space) and the double standard. At home, we always sat down together for family dinners.
When our oldest, Eli, was to celebrate his birthday on the west shore of Lake Tahoe one summer, I requested his cake wish. After some thought, he declared that he would like a strawberry cake with strawberry frosting. We were regular summer visitors to the small house in Tahoma and I had long since become accustomed to the spotty WiFi connection, the electric range and oven, and the limited food shopping options. Despite the challenges, I was determined to fulfill Eli’s wish and finally located some online recipes, purchased the necessary ingredients, and searched for the required kitchen gadgets, mixing bowls, and baking tins in the cramped kitchen. Dutifully slicing up two pounds of strawberries the night before, I spent hours to produce what I thought was a reasonable facsimile of the desired cake, and one I hoped would be baked through given the high altitude. The frosting was lumpy because of the strawberry bits, and the layers were uneven, but I was pleased. The next morning after singing happy birthday, and lighting and blowing out candles, we served the cake. Eli was studied and polite; he made all the right sounds and comments as he ate his slice, but declined a second serving. I was crestfallen. Later that day, I asked him for an honest appraisal. Embarrassed, he asked whether we could just get a box of instant cake mix and tub of ready-made frosting. I went back to the supermarket and sighed, putting Betty Crocker into the shopping cart. It was insanely easy to bake that cake, and the result looked much like the picture on the package. Both boys exclaimed over the deliciousness of the cake and enthusiastically asked for seconds. The same sequence of events repeated itself over both of the boys’ birthdays for many years, despite their exposure and pleasure in a wide variety of local and foreign foods. I’m not certain why I was so devoted to producing a cake from scratch when the instant version was preferred. Perhaps, all these years later, I continue recreating my own childhood.
