The Order<\/p>\n
The Bronx April 1938<\/p>\n
\u00a0A faded green housedress and\u00a0flannel slippers was her dress uniform for the day.<\/p>\n
For pennies cheaper she bought yesterday\u2019s vegetables. To save fifteen cents, she flikt<\/em> (plucked ) the chicken she bought at Jennings Street Market.<\/p>\n \u201cDo you want hamburger meat, Mrs. Wolfe?\u201d asked Brodsky the butcher.<\/p>\n \u201dWho knows what you put in it. I\u2019ll grind it myself.\u201d<\/p>\n From a handicapped man she bought\u00a0at a reduced price eggs, whose shells were slightly cracked. She called them k<\/em>rex.<\/i>\u00a0She walked three miles to get t Dugan cupcake returns; two packages for five cents. For dinner, she never left a portion for herself; she ate the leftovers.<\/p>\n Passover was on the threshold. The year round dishes, cutlery and glassware were stored away. All breadcrumbs were in the garbage pail, and Ma made sure that all the food remaining in the refrigerator was eaten. The time had arrived when Pa\u2019s Concord grape wine in a crock reached maturity.<\/p>\n Now, from the pool of our poverty during the Great Depression, hardly any expense was spared\u00a0for The Order<\/em> .<\/p>\n I went to the cellar of our tenement and located an abandoned baby carriage. It had four wobbly rotating wheels. Its crib was battered. It appeared as if it collided with a bus. So what? It was able to hold The Order.<\/em><\/p>\n Since Pa was trying to solve the Jewish crisis in Europe with his unemployed garment workers around Crotona Park Lake, Ma asked me to accompany her to get The Order.<\/em><\/p>\n Weaving the carriage through holiday shoppers at Jennings Street Market, Ma led me to Mr. Feuer who had the \u201cbest prices\u201d.<\/p>\n She began with The Order<\/em>:<\/p>\n \u201cTen pounds of Manischewitz\u2019s matzohs and they shouldn\u2019t be cracked.<\/p>\n A box of Manischewitz\u2019s matzoh farfel for my matzoh kugel. Forget it. I\u2019ll make it from the matzohs.<\/p>\n Three boxes of Manischewitz\u2019s cake meal for my special sponge cakes. I’m surprised they stand. They’re light as a feather.<\/p>\n Two boxes of Manischewitz\u2019s matzoh meal for the matzoh balls with schmaltz<\/i>\u00a0in my chicken soup. You never had matzoh balls like mine.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr, Feuer chimed in,<\/p>\n \u201cHorowitz-Margareten is a little cheaper than Manischewitz\u2019s. Do you want to try Horowitz\u2019s?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo. I heard their matzoh tastes like bread.<\/p>\n A pound of mixed nuts. Not too many mandlen <\/em>(almonds with shells). My husband nearly broke his tooth on their shells last year.<\/p>\n A can of Planter\u2019s High Hat peanut oil.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDo you want Chrain<\/em> (horseradish)?”<\/p>\n “No thanks, I make it myself. Since you just said chrain,<\/em> you reminded me that I need honey. A jar; not too big.\u201d<\/p>\n With The Order<\/em> complete, I wended my way back to 1540 Seabury Place in the Bronx.<\/p>\n My father, a victim of the horrible working conditions and salaries in the Garment District, turned from Orthodoxy to Socialism, therefore; we did not have a traditional Seder for Passover, but we observed the kashruth <\/em>(kosher laws) as he and Ma interpreted them.<\/em><\/p>\n On the eve of Passover, I helped my brother set the leaves into our folding table, and then placed our special blue cotton tablecloth over it.<\/p>\n Next, four heavily chipped white enameled kitchen chairs and three living room chairs were placed around the dining room table. Occupying them would be my mother (temporarily), my father, his brother Izzy (who lived with us), their sisters Fanny and Rosie, my brother and me.<\/p>\n My mother entered and dropped the cutlery at the center of the table.<\/p>\n \u201cPick what you need.\u201d was the mantra throughout the year so why should it be different for Passover?<\/p>\n Pa spoke briefly about the significance of Passover followed by the delicious matzoh balls wading in the chicken soup.<\/p>\n \u201cWait!\u201d said Pa. He rushed to the bathroom where his Concord grape crock was waiting.<\/p>\n Yohrtzeit <\/em>glasses (emptied and cleaned memorial candle glasses) were partially filled with Pa\u2019s vintage. Pa nearly filled his glass with his handiwork. He said the prayer over the wine then we filled our mouths with what I thought to be a classic vintage. How was I to know that wine from Concord grapes could only be made palatable by adding a mound of sugar. It was tasty, it was sweet, it made my head, and I suspect everyone else\u2019s head spin.<\/p>\n My father, who had nearly swallowed an entire glassful began his story which we heard for the past two Passovers, but due to the alcohol content in his yohrtzeit<\/em> glass he failed to complete it. He went on.<\/p>\n \u201cIn a small shtetl, <\/em>a bride was dressing for the wedding ceremony. In the room with her was the family’s lamb. As she stepped up on a stool facing the mirror to see how the fit, she farted.<\/p>\n She pleaded with the lamb not to tell the groom\u2019s side of the family\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Everyone around the table including my father was alcoholically hysterical as we were in the previous years. But at this point, as in Passover\u2019s past, he became so intoxicated he could not continue. I tried to create an ending with a hilarious potential, but to this day, I have failed.<\/p>\n The Order<\/em> continued until most of the residents of the neighborhood had either died or moved out. The streets were occupied by felons. Jennings Street Market was abandoned. Jake the Pickleman was murdered. How could we celebrate?<\/p>\n Pa passed away, The Order<\/em> passed away, but, in a peaceful, sober and loving atmosphere.\u00a0my daughter celebrates Passover with her family in Toronto, and my son, with his family celebrates Passover in New Jersey.<\/p>\n The incomplete story of the bride in the shtetl\u00a0<\/em>has been passed on to a new generation.\u00a0Maybe someone in the family will have the creativity to complete the story.\u00a0<\/em>With their\u00a0Order\u00a0<\/em>complete, and the bride’s story complete, Passover will be complete.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Order The Bronx April 1938 \u00a0A faded green housedress and\u00a0flannel slippers was her dress uniform for the day. For pennies cheaper she bought yesterday\u2019s vegetables. To save fifteen cents, she flikt (plucked ) the chicken she bought at Jennings Street Market. \u201cDo you want hamburger meat, Mrs. Wolfe?\u201d asked Brodsky the butcher. \u201dWho knows… Continue reading The Order<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielwolfebooks.com\/danielsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielwolfebooks.com\/danielsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielwolfebooks.com\/danielsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielwolfebooks.com\/danielsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielwolfebooks.com\/danielsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3157"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielwolfebooks.com\/danielsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4014,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielwolfebooks.com\/danielsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3157\/revisions\/4014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielwolfebooks.com\/danielsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielwolfebooks.com\/danielsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielwolfebooks.com\/danielsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}