Oh, to be sitting down now, maybe tonight, with my grandfather, maybe with a glass of Scotch, just the two of us, maybe after we got home from a 5:30 early bird special at Stouffer’s, before the popular family-oriented restaurant of the 50s with white tablecloths and a professional wait staff became known for frozen food specialties like lasagna, meatloaf and Salisbury steak, before some multinational conglomerate based in Switzerland gobbled up an unpretentious restaurant chain and slapped a brand on it, just the two of us, my grandmother in the other room “stripping,” as she like to call rolling out of her girdle, unfurling her stockings, getting comfortable so she could watch “I Love Lucy” on the 12-inch black and white TV in their cozy, modest den, nothing fancy, nothing new, just the two of us so I could ask him what he thought of Putin and Zelensky and the situation over there.
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I needn’t bother asking him what he would do if he lived in Ukraine. I already know the answer because I know what he did when he lived in Russia. He got the heck out of Dodge before the Russian Army conscripted him, this the country that did its best through pogroms and such to rid themselves of unsavory ethnic groups, particularly Jews.
Anyway, I always thought he was from Poland. After he died, my mother and I found his naturalization certificate in his safe, in his closet, naturalized in 1917. This sepia-toned document said Russia. But the borders were fluid back then (borders: so ridiculous when you think about it), so who knows what country claimed him. He was born in 1887. He left home by himself, or so the story goes.
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He was a teenager, the story continues. But that’s about it. That’s what I know. He “walked” to England, he said, on the rare occasions he’d revisit his past and let drop a detail, a morsel. When he got settled in this country he sent money and brought over some relatives. One woman – his aunt? his cousin? – told me she kisses the ground every year on the anniversary of her arrival.
After some hunting on the internet I learned he started his reclaimed iron and steel company in 1920, which would make him 33 at the time.
But the Channel, Papa? The English Channel? You walked across that? No answer.
Just a look from this gentle man that said, “No more questions. I don’t want to talk about that.” He ended up in London, he allowed, but the weather was bad for his allergies. (At least I found out where I got my allergies). Then he went to Montreal, he continued. More allergies. Then Detroit. I think. All that time I spent with my grandparents – every Friday night at our house a few blocks away, every Sunday brunch at their house with the rest of the family, with lox and bagels, all those early bird specials at Stouffer’s across from the Northland Mall when I would come home from college or Chicago or wherever – and that’s all I know? How can that be? Ridiculous.
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He was so warm, my Papa. Why didn’t he want to share anything more with me? Surely I asked questions. That’s my nature, to ask; it couldn’t have changed that much. Except in my early 20’s, I had my own concerns, like what to do with the rest of my life. We didn’t share our anxieties with our parents or grandparents back then. We didn’t want to worry them. We didn’t want them to interfere, either. We didn’t want to know what they thought we should be doing even if we didn’t know what that was. He asked what I was paying in rent. I remember that.
“And did that include utilities?” He wanted to know what car I was driving (we were from Detroit, the Motor capital, after all).
But what to do about Ukraine? How to help? Do we just stand by and watch? WWPD. What would Papa do? I feel powerless and paralyzed.
Jane Fishman is a contributing lifestyles columnist. Contact her at gofish5@earthlink.net or call 912-484-3045. See more columns by Jane at SavannahNow.com/lifestyle/
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: As Ukraine, Russia conflict continues, thinking of time lost
