POB (partner of blogger) thinks that my extended family is more properly called a “clan”. She means that in the best of ways, I am sure. [Pause.] My family is an odd bunch. POB didn’t meet many of the older generation, but she feels as if she did because of the way we imitate them. Memory is very important in Jewish tradition. And, well, how best to evoke memories than by imitating the idiosyncrasies that made each of them — as shall we say — “special.”
My father was one of five boys and they all had children and most of them had children (and so on). But we are still not the close-knit, ever-fighting group as existed when all the brothers were alive. That is probably because in their early years, their survivals were all interdependent. They were the generation of firsts: first to go to college, graduate school, move to the suburbs, Florida, buy a Cadillac. They survived poverty, the Depression, the War and immigrant parents who knew even less than they about their adopted homeland.
There was a family barbeque today that we, the Blogger family pod, had to miss because we are at the beach. SOB (sister of blogger) sent pictures that captured some of the clan members perfectly. One picture captures a cousin, the member of our generation who most holds to the standards of conspicuous consumption aspired to by his parents, eating a doughnut while holding forth on an issue. His father — my uncle — looms large in my memory and in my imitations. “Uncle of Blogger” is not descriptive enough. Hmmm. Uncle Loud. Yes that is it. Uncle Loud had a pinky ring that shimmered when he waved his hand. He had a pencil mustache hidden under a huge nose. I have a image of Uncle Loud eating a plum, with the juice dripping down to his chin, making politically incorrect pronouncements about everything and anything, mostly about things for which he had no basis or fact. He also described everything about his life as if we were visiting from a remote island and had never experienced modern conveniences. In order to evoke the memories of Uncle Loud, I wave my hand with the imaginary pinky ring talking about something (it could be mundane or indeed a previously unknown wonderment), adding, “the likes of which you HAVE NEVEH seen.” Yes, “neveh”. The use of Rs in spoken English was an evolutionary advance seen only in my generation — the second generation of Americans (and not all of us received this species-enhancing genetic mutation).
We remain a clan for so long as we, in my generation, retain the vivid memories of the Five Brothers in their primes. After us, the clan ends because the ensuing generations are scattered and never saw the small apartment on Pelham Parkway where Grandma and Grandpa raised five boys in a two bedroom apartment with one bathroom. Or heard the raised voices that were inevitable when everyone got together for family occasions or religious holidays. Sometimes it was so loud that more distantly related people would run for cover.
On Sunday nights, at dinner, we try to share these memories with our younger cousins so the bonds stay tight. But it is a haphazard and ultimately fruitless effort because, like all formerly immigrant families, my children and my cousin’s children and grandchildren are Americans, not children or grandchildren of immigrants. And, over time, the tie that binds gets frayed and loosens too much.
All the cousins of my generation, save a few, are gathering together for my dad’s 90th birthday in October. In New York City. Alert the police and the media. The Clan of the (Mostly) Civilized Cave Bear will celebrate the Five Brothers and the one who remains and the tie that still binds us (if not our children).
