In the early years of his diary, beginning at age sixteen,
from 1933 to 1937, my father castigates himself for his paralyzing shyness. “At my present stage meeting people,
especially girls, it is a bit embarrassing due to my lack of conversation.
Can’t seem to conquer that shyness – yet I would very much like to.”
The loneliness speaks to his one reader, his older daughter,
who wishes to put her arms around this downhearted adolescent and tell him it
will get better. Forlorn in July 1936, he writes, “During these summer evenings
with the stars out – I often get more lonely than I would care to say.”
Days there is the family business. Evenings, he studies accounting at City
College. This teen-age son of Yiddish-speaking immigrants wants an answer to
the question: What is wrong with me?
Like a Talmud scholar, he searches for guidance in books. Volumes in
psychology are mentioned, Karl Menninger’s The
Human Mind, then Albert Adler’s The
Neurotic Constitution. He even goes so far as to outline the entire
five hundred pages of Menninger’s text. What does he find there? An analysis of
the human condition, that as children we feel inferior and vulnerable and that
some of us never outgrow it. Scarcely a comfort or a guide. “I read and read and I know practically all
about psychoses and phobias and yet I am powerless in my own case – where it is
most important.”
Then he tries a behavioral approach, though behavioral
theorists were not part of his private studies. He prescribes himself a
tonic. “I believe the first thing I
should do is join some clubs – mostly social. I don’t know how to start. But
I’ll inquire and look around and maybe I’ll pick up something.
The Young Men’s Hebrew Association on East 92nd
Street appears the obvious destination.
He kept his expectations low, “The
first few times I’ll probably be a deadly bore – But after they get used to
me…”
The 3rd Avenue Elevated
would have taken him there, more than 100 city streets from home. He must have
been apprehensive. The YMHA was and is an imposing art deco ziggurat that
dominates its corner. My father arrived
at the entry, two massive institutional doors and then, “It looked
like a hotel, so I departed.”
While his daughter reading the diary seventy-five years
later, wants to scream, “Daddy, go in!”
Another year passes. He is asked to
join a fraternity at the college. Someone asking seems to be the key. But, “it is a big expense.”
A semester later he has saved the money. First he attends a
smoker and reports that he had “a very nice time.” Then there is a varsity show
rehearsal and he discovers he is “getting imbued with college spirit.”
My father has cheered up. He is on his way. “Sports and books and school
are occupying most of my time.”
Another year and he is off to Florida with some fraternity
fellows on Spring break. The next year, a best friend appears, Georgie
Strassberg, another son of impoverished immigrant parents, on his way up. They play
handball in the evenings and on Sundays at that very same, formerly forbidding
92nd Street Y.
Fast forward to the late
nineteen-nineties when my seventy-eight year old father Max Abramowitz, long-time
supporter of the Jewish Center of Jackson Heights, father of three, grandfather
of seven, has been sidelined by a weak heart.
“Walk,” his doctor says. But he doesn’t. “Walking is the best thing. Max, choose life.” But he doesn’t
Long months pass as he sits on one end of the living room
couch in front of the television. When we, the three grown children, visit he
is usually watching re-runs of The Wonder
Years or Golden Girls. This passivity is driving our mother into a simmering
resentment, an unusual attitude for her.
She wants the return of her capable partner. We have rarely seen them at
odds.
Our nagging increases, “Daddy, do something. Take a walk. Go to the morning minyan.* They need people at the morning minyan,” we insist. But he won’t.
Then it transpires, the ordinary social miracle that happened once before: Somebody from the Jewish Center of Jackson Heights telephones to request he attend. There is a need. Will he come? And as our great ancestor Abraham replied to God, so my father answers, “Here I am.”
The morning
minyan is near enough to what the doctor ordered. To get there it’s a half mile walk every
Monday, Thursday and Sunday morning. He must be up and out early. Sometimes one of the minyan-aires as they call themselves, stops by the house and they stroll
over together. My father has rescued his
life once again.
****
*The morning minyan referred
to here is the ten men ritually required three times a week to correctly and
fully complete the week-day service.
