ROSE BERENSON: WHAT I REMEMBER

Cast: Rose Berenson Story: A Jewish woman remembers

I remember mostly the little things…the smells, the street noises…the

way Yiddish sounded. And the people, of course…my family, my

friends. I see them so clearly. They could be in this room; I could

almost touch them.

But it was no picnic, those times. We were very poor.

The tenements!

So awful there!

Filth and garbage

Everywhere.

Mama scrubbed

With all her might

To turn our floors

A gleaming white.

On the corners of every street

Ruffians, hoodlums

You could meet.

My papa pushed

A wooden cart.

Yelled “I cash clothes”

‘til it got dark.

One day when climbing

Up the stairs

A giant rat

Was sitting there

With beady eyes

And gleaming teeth.

I screamed out loud

In disbelief.

The streets were full of all kinds of people. We kids used to crouch on

our stoop, afraid to come down. There was this drunken man who

smelled like whiskey. His fly was always open. Only when the ice

cream wagon came were we brave enough to run past him.

RHYME WE’D CHANT:

California

Pork and beans

Kissed a boy

In New Orleans

Fourth Street

Fifth Street

Your brother has fleas

Leche nut

Coconut

Limburger cheese.

Pot roast!

MY MAMA WAS THE GREATEST COOK

Succulent soups.

Herring creamed.

Custards floating

Like a dream.

I watch Mama

Cooking there

Stirring, stirring.

Mama dear.

Mama please

Let me help you cooking.

“Child,” she says,

“Just sit and watch.”

Some salt she takes

Between her fingers.

The grains they tumble

Drop by drop.

Potato pancakes,

Apple sauce.

Folded blintzes.

Cabbage tossed.

Some day Mama

(precious pearl)

I’ll be your special

Servant girl.

All the kids would play

But O not me.

I could feel the tears

Well up in me.

When Mama left

With her shopping bag

My stomach ached

My shoulders sagged.

Then at the window

I’d sit and wait,

I’d just keep staring

(and concentrate)

‘til I saw Mama

Coming up the street.

My Mama dear.

My Mama sweet.

To the others, “Mama.”

To my Papa, “wife.”

But she was to me

My very life.

My best friend was Sarah Klein. She was as tough as nails. If

someone bothered her she would push them right down. We went

everywhere together. If we had ten cents we would go to the movies.

But our favorite thing was to go to the roof...which we called “tar

beach”…and read movie magazines.

I wanted to be like Norma Shearer.

Drive around

In limousines

Kiss George Raft

And dance the tango.

Be seen in all

The magazines

Or even be in Ziegfield’s Follies.

Sing and clown like Fannie Brice.

I’m sure you know

That she was Jewish.

The papers said

She was very nice.

O Sarah!

Friend!

(birds of a feather)

We’d be movie stars

And be famous together.

In spelling class

I got all A’s.

And Gert (with numbers)

Was a whiz.

But kids (in those days)

Had to work at home.

Who knows how far

We could have gone.

In the movies everybody ate so nicely. They were always so polite. In

our house everyone pushed and shoved. But I wasn’t like that. I’d sit

very quietly and take only small bites of food. And I would chew every

mouthful fifteen times.

Uncle Abie

Auntie Sable

Lunged for bread

Across the table.

Mendel chewed

An onion raw.

(He’s Uncle Meyer’s

son-in-law.)

Then they’d start

To pick their teeth.

From stuck food

They’d need relief.

Some used knives

Or matchbox covers.

(O how I’d love

to eat with others.)

But not with Tante Sophie

(the monster from Mars)

Tante Sophie

(we try to hide).

Tante Sophie

(five feet wide).

Her own she loves

(but us she hit.)

We liked her not

A little bit.

Her “little Mel”

(she’d pet his head),

Put soft pillows

On his bed.

But us she’d scold

And make us sleep

Stacked up like wood

Without a peep.

Tante Tante

Tante Sophie.

Her face so ugly

It could win a trophy.

Tante Tante

Tante dear.

We’d hold our ears

So not to hear.

When my brother Nathan went to work, we’d all get up to watch him

shave. He’d sharpen his razor. Then he’d lather up his face and

shave off every drop. He always put on a clean shirt. Then he’d let us

choose his necktie

Nathan, Nathan

Give a penny.

Don’t tell us

You haven’t any.

My brother Nathan

To work he’d start

Every morning

When it was dark.

He put envelopes

On weighing plates

That went all over

The United States.

But what we like best

Was Friday night.

He’d come back

(fist held tight.)

And then we’d line up

With great big smiles.

But to get our coins

We’d wait awhile.

Nathan, Nathan

Give a penny.

Don’t tell us

You haven’t any.

He had such crazy stories, Nathan did. Papa called him “the

dreamer”. He would tell us all about his adventures. He could have

been a wonderful writer.

“O Nathan,”

We’d cry,

“Tell us again

About the post office

(So much fun!)

And those letters addressed

To ‘Santa Claus’

‘The three Blind Mice’

‘The Queen of England’

‘Jesus Christ.’

And how you put them all

In great big rows.

And where they’d go then

Nobody knows.

Nathan once

Stayed in a hotel

Where from the faucets

Lemonade fell.

And after he washed

(and his back he scrubbed)

He used a straw

To drain the tub.

Once

In the deepest

And darkest of nights

Nathan he witnessed

The strangest of sights.

He saw a red door

In an alley quite dim.

So he pushed it wide open

And wandered right in.

And it was a theatre!

A magician was performing.

It was “Think-A-Drink Hoffman.”

Across the stage he was storming.

And he held up a pitcher,

And in glass after glass

He poured all the drinks

That the audience asked.

From the pitcher came coffee

And milkshakes and frappes.

And all kinds of beer

(Ballantine, Pabst).

And soft drinks also.

And tomato juice red.

Every drink was poured out

That the audience said.

And some liquids steamed.

And others just bubbled.

And some were so dark

He knew they spelled trouble.

Then there jumped to his feet

A mysterious man

Who was dressed all in black

(up the aisle he ran).

And he jumped on the stage

And cried out with a roar

That he had chosen a drink

That no pitcher could pour.

And that drink was the juice

From the matzah ball tree,

The deadliest poison

You ever could see.

And then Think-A-Drink Hoffman

(although he did frown)

Poured out matzah ball juice,

And the man gulped it down.

Then he grabbed at his stomach.

And he staggered about.

And a fat lady screamed.

And another passed out.

“So what happened next?”

We cried with great horror.

But Nathan said it was bedtime,

And he’d tell us tomorrow.

We never fought

(my sisters and brothers.)

We were always close.

We loved one another.

When my older sisters started dating, what characters they dragged

through the apartment! Nathan called them “the animals.” We

sometimes peeked at them from around the curtain. And when Golda

caught us she would cry out: “Mama, Mama, they’re spying on me,

they’re spying on me!”

I remember once

(O how we laughed)

Golda brought home a boyfriend

With a neck like a giraffe.

And she offered him fruit

(a nice apple…a pear).

But he said, “No fruit, thank you.

I only eat onions.”

And his breath (Golda said)

Smelled like Papa’s old bunions.

Annie, my sister,

Still in thrall

Met a man

At the Social Hall.

So polite, he was

(she felt at ease).

He wore a flower.

His pants were creased.

O she was so certain

He was the one.

How they danced!

(they has so much fun)

At first she wondered

Too short?...too thin?

But his aftershave

Made her senses spin.

Benny, Benny

His name was Benny!

Drove a truck

(and was making plenty).

He lived in Brooklyn

With his older brother.

He said he’d call her.

(took down her number)

Gert was seeing

A man named Sam

Who said “all rooty”

When he shook your hand.

But when he said “rooty”

Annie’d say “tooty.”

So we called him (Sam)

The “rooty-tooty man”.

When Papa told us he bought a farmhouse we didn’t know what to

think. Would we be farmers now? Golda said that in the country

people wore “dungarees,” and walked around in their bare feet. And

that they hated the Jews. But Uncle Meyer had a jalopy. And soon we

were traveling to “the mountains.”

In the back seat

(What a test!)

I got more carsick

Than the rest.

And every few miles

I threw up

(like a waterfall

I threw up).

But Mama always

Took out a bag

When my head went down

And I’d start to gag.

But we got to like the country. We felt so free. We’d pick flowers and

strawberries. And stand on big rocks and look at the views. Once

Minnie asked, “Where’s the subway?” And we almost died laughing.

But we never went

Into the woods.

Who knew

What lurked in there?

Spiders, bobcats,

Snakes, or bears.

We kids threw rocks

From off the road.

Yelled “ha, ha, ha,”

Then more unload.

But if something stirred

And moved the leaves

We’d run so fast

You can’t believe.

And once, trying to cross the pasture green

There was the biggest dog we’d ever seen.

So big it was…so fierce, so mean.

So shaggy like a wolf.

We ran until our legs were sore.

We ran ‘til we could run no more.

Sammy fell in cow manure.

And Minnie ruined her shoes.

He had a name

For everything

My brother Nathan did.

(What an imagination!)

The stream

He called

“The babbling brook”.

“The lonesome trail”

Was the path

We took

To pick blueberries

With a coffee can.

And the “river of lost souls”

Was the one that ran…where?

(we never learned)

But those who went down it

Never returned.

Soon our farmhouse became a boarding house, and then a real hotel.

We all had special jobs. Even the little ones.

My Mama

Cooked food

At our hotel.

Soups

Stews

Rich desserts

(even when her back was hurt).

She prepared every course

(worked like a horse)

My Mama.

When Papa had

To learn to drive

O what trouble

He got into.

The car would jerk

(and stop),

Go fast

(then slow).

What the clutch was for

He didn’t know.

Our hotel had its own private lake. We loved to dangle our feet off the

pier. Sometimes we collected mussel shells. We called these shells

the “golden clams.”

But none of us ever learned to swim.

Nathan once told us this story:

There was a man

Of life so full

Lifshitz his name,

(strong as a bull),

Who once wolfed down

A piece of cake

And ran right out

To swim the lake,

Even munching

While he ran

Some halavah

And marzipan.

But right before

(while still on track)

He tripped upon

A sidewalk crack.

And fell face down

Into a puddle

And got a cramp

That locked his muscles.

And there he drowned

In shallow water.

A wife he left,

(a baby daughter).

Poor Lifshitz

He should have waited

To digest the food

He masticated.

Before you swim (said Nathan)

Restrain your zeal.

Don’t be like Lifshitz

(that schlemiel).

Many young couples came to our hotel. In those days people made

their own fun…campfires and weenie roasts, and talent contests. But

our social staff put on real shows. And some of our employees

became very well known.

On Saturday night

(O what “shows”!)

With acts now famous

And some nobody knows.

And one of the staff

(who directed the “skits”)

Was none other

Than the great Marty Ritt,

Who Papa once fired

For eating too much.

(“Three glasses of milk

he needs with his lunch?”)

We loved the shows, but my favorite act was Mendel and Schmendel.

Papa called them “the two schlimazels”. Mendel was fat...like a horse.

And little Schmendel looked like a string bean…a skinny merink

O how we screamed!

(O how we screamed)

The fat one

Would say “onion roll”.

Then the skinny one

(with the funny hat)

Would turn around

(slow…not quick)

And hit the fat one

With a stick.

Then more they’d talk

(then right on beat)

“Onion roll…onion roll”

The fat one

Would repeat.

And again skinny’d turn

(And again the stick!)

And we’d laugh and laugh

‘til we were sick.

The kitchen help were always a problem. They were mostly

drunkards and tramps. When Papa fired them, they would go down

the road carrying their bundles of clothes.

I won’t touch people

I don’t know.

Dripping fingers?

Sticky skin?

Who knows where

Their hands have been?

Why won’t people wash their hands

After going to the toilet?

A little soap? A little water?

Then life is pleasant.

(the germs can’t spoil it).

Papa he once fired a man

After his “elimination”.

He didn’t wash. He didn’t bother.

Back he came.

(no hesitation).

Our guests really loved the sun. The men wore little plastic things on

their noses, and rubbed suntan lotion on their chests. They were real

Tarzans.

And the women

(by the pool)

How they’d strut

(back and forth

and back and forth)

With swinging hips

And revealing halters.

God forbid

They should go in the water.

And one day a man walked into the lobby, and I thought to myself,

“Who is that?” He was short. Shorter than I am. But he looked to me

like a movie star.

LARRY BERENSON

He was wild.

(my brother’s friend)

All the girls

Said let him be.

He had a moustache

Trimmed just right.

I knew at once

He was for me.

He and Sam

Once worked together

At the Three Star

Creamery.

I saw him working

With no shirt.

(a muscle man)

He was for me.

We went out

I was so shy.

The other girls

Were much more free.

I never even

Kissed a man.

He showed respect.

He was for me.

What fun we had!

What fun we had!

At night we’d go

To the big hotels

(Danny Kaye

worked up the road)

We’d follow him

While he sang

And told stories.

What fun we had!

What fun we had!

And we all liked music

Especially jazz.

(or as we called it

“razza-ma-taz”).

And all the songs

We'd try to croon

Just like

Bing Crosby did.

(bub-bub-bub-boo)

What fun we had!

What fun we had!

Larry liked

To eat fresh pork

And pig’s feet cold

With his hands

(no fork).

And even go

To the farmers’ houses

Where food uncovered

Sat for hours.

And he even took me

Once to eat

With his farmer friends.

(those smelly feet!)

But I only had a glass of water.

I told them I had

A stomach disorder.

And finally, we were married

(in a civil way).

And Larry really

Wanted sex.

But I explained:

“First, let a rabbi

Marry us

Then we’ll consider

What comes next”.

But two weeks later

(in the synagogue)

We exchanged our vows.

(broke the glass)

Paid the rabbi.

And Larry drove me

Home so fast

That two state troopers’

Cars he passed.

When Gary was born

I almost died.

We had to leave him

(for a time)

With Golda and Sam.

But Mrs. Van Horn

(who came in to cook)

Mixed up my dishes

(the meat with the dairy)

And so I stopped being kosher.

(and to this day I’m sorry.)

Gary,

Gary,

When he was just two

Knew the Blue Danube Waltz

(all the way through).

“La la la la la”

We’d sing in the car.

“Ta ta,” he would answer.

“Ta ta…ta ta.”

And then Golda died.

(and Harry Fine)

And Harry’s daughter

(from Boca Raton).

And Sarah’s Mel.

(and Louie’s Sal)

And Polly Katz…

…and Izzy Pearl.

(and Sy and Al)

And Mama, also

(may she rest in peace).

And Mama’s cousin

(Philly Stein)

Who played the horses

(fat Leo’s son).

And Jackie Reuben.

And Aaron Chase.

And Nat…

…the barber

(who loved…

…to sing).

Harry Kubelsky

(from heart disease)

And what’s-her-name?

Marsha?

Myra?

Brezky?

Brezinsky?

With all those crazy…

…dogs she had?

But life went on. And finally, we settled in the country. Larry built us a

house. And I became a real “hick.” I even had a dog…if you can

imagine!

And then Papa died. And then Nathan. And the kids grew up. And

Larry retired. And Gary got married and started a very good law

practice out West.

My daughter Roz (who is also married) always says, “Ma, you can’t

complain. You had a wonderful life.”

And I guess I did.