First, you have to know this. I don’t think I knew anyone’s real name in my the family ’til they died. When the Rabbi would say their name during services I would have to tug at my Mom’s sleeve and whisper, “Who was Leonard Stone?”
“That was your Uncle Lebby the Goniff”, she would say.
Well, technically he was my Great Uncle… my Grandmother’s Brother who no one liked. Not knowing Yiddish as a little kid, I thought that Goniff was an important position in the community, like a Sheriff or something… not understanding that it really meant that Lebby was considered a no good thief.
So the story goes, my Uncle Lebby had been a bootlegger in New Haven during prohibition. Perhaps harder for a new generation to understand, making gin in your bath tub and then selling it or running booze across the Canadian Border, while in violation of the law, was not regarded as an evil activity. It was just a business, an almost honorable business.
Still it was an occupation that put you in contact with unsavory elements… and you had to know how to take care of yourself. And by all accounts Lebby knew how to take care of himself… which cops had to be paid, which Judges weren’t “clean”. And he wasn’t above putting a roll of quarters in his right fist and busting up a guy in the face.
If the word got out that some Irish toughs were playing it fast with someone in the neighborhood, Lebby would be there. You gave a Jew trouble in New Haven and you had to answer to Lebby.
With the Repeal of Prohibition and the coming of WWII, Uncle Lebby never made the transition into the more traditional ways of making a living. He did some wrong things, and he did some real wrong things in regards to Esther’s parents and family… that would be Aunt Queenie to me, Lebby’s wife. It was then that he would acquire the reputation of being a goniff.
Lebby being a goniff didn’t stop me from asking him to show me his badge… a badge that I knew all proper sheriff’s carried. I was into badges then. He would laugh, take his cigar out of his mouth, cough two or three times, clear the phlegm into his handkerchief and ask me if I liked girls.
Uncle Lebby always wore a clean white shirt and tie. Even on Sundays. His tie never made it to the top of his pants. Still there was something to be said for a man who always wore a shirt and tie… whether it was a warm day at the summer cottage in Woodmont, or when he would take me to Ebbets Field to catch a Dodger game, it mattered not. There was a strange sense of dignity about him.
I liked Lebby… even though his clothes stunk from cigars.
***
Next important fact from my youth. We never went to a Yale game unless Artie’s Dad took us. Although we lived just five blocks from the Yale Bowl and Artie’s family lived in East Haven, we would only go to those games when Mr. Mongillo would drive into New Haven with Artie and his Cousin Sal.
Mr. Mongillo could have parked in front of our house on Alston Avenue and we all could have walked to the Bowl; but he would tell my Mother that he wanted to treat us to a tailgate. So we would pile into his big Lincoln and drive a quarter mile closer to the front gate.
My Father was Mr. Mongillo’s Accountant. I never knew what Mr. Mongillo really did. I don’t think even Artie knew what his Father really did. If I asked my Mother about Mr. Mongillo she would tell me that he was a contractor and to mind my own business.
I thought my Mother had said he was a conductor.
I would ask Artie if his Dad made him play an instrument, and as it turned out, he did… Artie had to take piano lessons.
That scared the hell out me. As far as I was concerned, music lessons were as bad as going to the Doctor. My parents wanted me to play the violin, and all I could think of were those endless Sunday’s when our family was forced to listen to my Cousin Rhoda’s version of the Canon in D on the violin. It was pure torture that interrupted a good day… a day off from school.
And besides, Rhoda wore braces and was forever complaining about eating peanut butter sandwiches.
I would find out that Mr. Mongillo wasn’t that type of conductor. Well then maybe he got to work on New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad! That would be cool! Whenever my Father took me into the City on the train, I would ask if Mr. Mongillo was going to be our conductor. My Father would then correct me, “Mr. Mongillo is a contractor.”
That was the trouble with my Father and me… we always had to correct each other, “But Mommy told me he was a conductor.” My Father may have had the advantage of age and wisdom; but I had the advantage of innocence.
Well… even if he was a contractor… that was still OK in my book. My Uncle Ruby was a Lawyer. I didn’t know what that was at first; but Ruby told me that he worked with contracts… that’s what Lawyers did… It made sense to me: they were contractors.
Contractors/conductors, no matter… but this much can be said, my Father didn’t particularly care for sports, so Mr. Mongillo’s offer to take us to the Yale’s football games was seen as a welcome relief from his Fatherly duties.
If I feel shortchanged now, I certainly didn’t feel shortchanged then. You see… Artie’s Dad was totally cool. When he found the right spot just off of Chapel St., he would park the Lincoln, throw open the trunk and there would be a treasure trove of food and drink.
He would sneak us beers cut with lemonade saying that he learned about this drink when he served in the Pacific during WWII.
Then he would hand me a cannoli, “here Jimmy, have a nosh!”
The best part? Mr. Mongillo always scored great seats (even for Harvard)! 40 yard line, Portal level. We would sit on the visiting team side because it faced into the sun, and Mr. Mongillo worshipped the sun. Before we entered Portal 29, he would pick up a bag of roasted peanuts, a program and then declare, “alright kids, let’s get our seats I want to start working on my tan!” He would say that even on a chilly & damp October Saturday covered in overcast.
***
Here is another detail from my childhood that should not go overlooked. The best dresser in our family by far was my Uncle Ruby. Nobody could touch him. He had tremendous sense of taste… colour, pattern, texture… he put it all together. I remember hearing Lebby say during one of Rhoda’s painful violin recitals, “Ruby? He should have gone into the shmatah business! Not wholesale… retail… to the fancy shmancy millionaires in Greenwich!”
It wasn’t like Ruby was bred to the “carriage trade.” He went New Haven High School (as Hillhouse High School was called then), as did my father and all my extended family. It was where he met and squired Sophie Cohen (she was Aunt Shaina to me).
The caption under his Senior photo in the Yearbook said, “going places…”
And Ruby did go places. He moved to New York after graduating from New Haven to live with a Cousin in Brooklyn. He then went to City College, having claimed New York residency. And upon graduating City College he attended Fordham Law School on a scholarship where he earned his Degree in Law.
He returned to New Haven, married Shaina and joined the firm of Winnick, Skolnick & Bush.
Look at any pictures of Ruby from those days… New Haven High, City College, the beach cottage in Woodmont, Fordham… he had the same impeccable smile… a type of smile that photographers love, a type of smile that is natural and has no evidence of staging. And always dressed tastefully. In my favorite photo, Ruby is wearing white slacks, a deeper coloured sport shirt, a linen weave sport coat unbuttoned, a silk pocket square, a good tan, leaning against a white fence, one foot up on the lower rail, one hand thrust in his pants’ pocket & Shaina under his other arm.
When families started to move from the old neighborhood near Legion Avenue… Mr. Mongillo to East Haven, my Father first to Orange St. and then Alston Avenue, Ruby and Shaina moved to the “country”… to Tumblebrook Rd in Woodbridge. Theirs was one of the first homes on the street.
Since my Father was the older Brother, it would be Ruby and Shaina that would make the drive down Fountain St. on Sunday’s for a visit. But once Rhoda started playing the violin, the family would gather at Ruby’s on those Sunday’s when it was deemed that Rhoda had mastered her next piece.
In truth, Rhoda never mastered anything. But that was not for us to say. As in fashion, Ruby became the arbiter of musical taste for the family. Clothes he knew. Music he didn’t. And I think he knew that Rhoda wasn’t good. It’s just that he had such pride in her.
He had pride in Shaina. He had pride in Rhoda. He had pride in the red 1952 MG he used to drive. And he had pride in his two dumb Bedlington Terriers: Penny and Herman. Two dogs who probably never had a housebroken day in their lives.
Ruby loved those dogs. He loved walking them up and down Tumblebrook Rd. Dressed to a “T”, two professionally groomed snow white Bedlingtons on their leashes. I am sure they cut a fine picture. My Mother would say, “Yeah, Mr. Fancy Shmancy and his hundts.”
Aunt Shaina would say that the dogs could barely wait to get back in the house after their exercise so that they could take a shit behind the wing chair in the living room.
And my Mother would say again, “Sure, Mr. Fancy Shmancy.”
***
There came a Labor Day weekend.
The entire family was invited over for a cookout in our backyard. Everyone came, even Penny and Herman… folks from the old neighborhood, too… like the Mongillo’s. Artie came with Sal and we played whiffle ball in the street for the better part of the afternoon.
But we finished our game and went into the backyard where the adults were, and more importantly where my Father, nattily attired for the occasion in his new white slacks and Chemise Lacoste sport shirt, was ready to put the burgers and dogs on the grill. He and Uncle Ruby were engaged in a conversation… and by the looks of things it was a conversation that had been going on for some time. Even Herman looked bored. Ruby always kept the Bedlingtons on their leashes… even in our yard. Penny had curled up by Ruby’s feet; but Heman kept moving about, tongue out and panting from the heat of the afternoon and was perhaps bored by the conversation or just wanting to get away.
The Brothers carried on oblivious to everything… men and women laughing, the clink of glasses, kids running in and out playing invented games. Ruby and Dad just kept talking; but Artie, Sal and I were famished from our ball game and wanted my Father to get on with putting the food on the grill. My Mother had told me it was rude to interrupt an adult conversation. I looked to Artie and Sal… maybe they would get the hint… maybe one of them could make the suggestion that it was “food time”.
I motioned with my head in their direction. Artie shook his head no. Mrs. Mongillo had probably also told him that you couldn’t interrupt an adult conversation… and Sal wasn’t getting the idea either, and with each passing moment looking at the pile of hot dogs and the stack of uncooked burgers, our hunger level mounted higher and higher.
We were not three feet from the deeply engrossed Brothers and all of our fidgeting was for naught (and we were expert fidgeters).
But our rescue was at hand. Without much fanfare, Herman got up, did a quick circle and lifted his leg on my Father’s new white slacks. I don’t know if Herman really had to go, or whether it was merely his contribution to the conversation.
The conversation stopped. The laughter started. The food went on the grill.
***
My Father had told me we all end up at Bobby Shure’s at one time or another. At least if you were a Jew who lived in New Haven. I am told that there was another Funeral Home in New Haven where Jews handled their final arrangements. But for everyone who we knew it was Shure’s and only Shure’s. In much the same way you grow up in New Haven recognizing the supremacy of Pepe’s (even when Sally’s made pizza on Wooster St., too!).
Bobby Shure was in my parents circle of friends. A circle that would gather on a rotating basis at each other’s homes on Saturday Night for a dessert and a shmooze. The Grants, Lewis’, Deckers, Jacobs, Mongillos & more… They had all grown up in the “old neighborhood’, gone to the same schools… shared the same experiences, getting married, the War, raising kids… and now they were sharing experiences of a different sort.
Bobby had told my Father that the toughest part of his business was living long enough to bury your friends. Maybe that’s why he turned over his business to his son. Or maybe it was just time to stop.
I kissed Rhoda on the cheek, hugged her and took my seat, behind the front row. Sitting behind me to my right in the next row was Artie Mongillo, my friend for life. We nod to each other. This time, when the Rabbi said the name “Reuven Feineman”, I didn’t need someone to tell me who we were honoring. We were there for my Uncle Ruby. Besides, there was no sleeve to tug. My Mother had passed on years before. My Father, too.
I looked back at Artie, and smiled. Mr. Mongillo passed on just the previous year. Although Mrs. Mongillo was still going strong, still making the best manicotti on this earth.
We listen to the words, to the prayers that are meant to ease our sense of loss. Muffled sniffles and stifled sobs as tributes are offered… and then… The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. Slowly the pall bearers move the casket down the center aisle. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Quiet murmurs and a shuffling to their feet of those who came to pay respects. Even when I walk in the valley of darkness, I will fear no evil for You are with me…
Outside, in the freshness of the air and bright sun we greet one and other. Words of comfort and understanding.
Artie and I hug. Catch up on the kids. Then I break into a huge smile, and shake my head. Knowingly Artie nods his head in agreement, looks at me and bursts into his famous laugh, “I’ll never forget the day Ruby’s dog lifted his leg on your Father’s pants’ leg!”
I just laugh, “If I had known that’s what it took to make him stop talking I would have peed on his leg.”