Grandfather's Page

T W I C E  J A C K  by Morton Sinclair Wright

My little four year old granddaughter, Kayla, loves us to read stories. 
One (fine) day, I got the idea of acting out Jack and the Beanstalk. I said, 
"Okay, you will be Jack. I'll be the beanstalk going all the way up to the 
sky." Her storybook shows a picture of a slender, easy-to- climb, beanstalk, 
but full-figured Poppie will have to do. Kayla must learn she can't have 
everything. Knowing her penchant for accuracy, I hid her storybook. 

"C'mon Jack, climb up." Oh how she loves to climb! And she wasted no 
time trying to climb up her Poppie Beanstalk. I pretended to help but 
actually slowed her up a bit to add a little realism and to get a few hugs on 
her way up. It's not a bad part: you just stand there hugging your 
grandchild while she steps all over you. Her little feet were now on my 
shoulders. "Wow, look how high up you are!" We were in the den, under the 
skylight. "Oooh, you're way up in the sky", I suggested. "Do you see the 
castle?" She looked back down; grinned "Yes." There was a sense that this 
telling of the story was going to be very different. It was.

"Okay, let's go knock on the door", I advised. When the giant's wife 
answers, tell her your name and that you're here with 'your friend' - 
Poppie." It was no longer necessary for me to be a beanstalk; I would change 
back into that later. Kayla, I mean, "Jack" was much better off having a 
friend with her for the dangerous task ahead. Ah, but you say Jack did not 
go with a friend in the actual story. True, but who is in charge here? And 
if Kayla let this go by, why shouldn't you? 

The giant's wife offered us some food after letting us in. I put my 
hand into the air accepting it and offered some to Jack. I pretended to eat 
it and Jack went along with me, munching on whatever it was. She was really 
"eating up" what we were doing. Then I loudly bellowed the giant's famous 
"FE FO FI FUM, I SMELL THE BLOOD OF AN ENGLISHMAN!" and stamped my feet 
indicating the approaching giant. Now, for a moment, I played two parts. I 
became the giant's wife who sounded the alarm and showed us where to hide. 
We crouched on the sofa putting some pillows over our heads, pretending to be 
scared. Pretending? Hah! Now, before you get on my case for scaring my 
grandchild, isn't this a lot better than Tom and Jerry slugging it out with 
baseball bats?

Now I took on several parts sequentially. One minute I was the 
suspicious giant wondering if there are intruders in the castle; the next 
minute, his wife, (common-law, I think) convincing him he is mistaken; then, 
Poppie, whispering a warning to Jack to remain quiet. From our hiding place 
we watched the giant's wife preparing a monstrous dinner; I described a dozen 
entrees. This guy eats even more than me. We eavesdropped: We heard him ask 
for the goose that lays golden eggs. Paydirt!

We quietly tiptoe into my living room where the giant lay asleep on the 
sofa, the goose next to him. I whisper "shhh" and note aloud his huge size. 
She stares at the empty sofa, but I know she sees him; her imagination is 
afire. I whisper I will hand her the golden eggs and then I will grab the 
goose. She whispers agreement. I show concern the goose will make noise. I 
cautiously stretch my hand out to grab the goose. Quack, Quack, Quack! I 
have absolutely no idea how to make a goose sound, especially when it's 
grabbed around the neck by a hefty Poppie. My duck sound will have to do. 
Jack accepts this. There's lots of excitement. I yell, "Quack, I mean, 
Quick; we've got to get out of here - the giant woke up!" Pandemonium! I 
pick Jack up and start running back into the den, the sound of my stomping 
feet in time with several booming "FE FO FI FUM's in my best baritone voice!" 
More excitement! "C'mon Jack! We're outta here!"

In the den I become the beanstalk again. In a Hollywood production I 
would never have to worry about being typecast: I should only be that thin. 
I put Jack up on my shoulders. "Hurry Jack! I have the goose. Climb down 
the beanstalk! The giant's trying to climb down after you! " I can't see 
her expression: Is she scared out of her wits? But, hell, I didn't write the 
story! Anyway, a bad dream, or two, will enable a child to more fully 
appreciate all the good dreams. And remember, Tom and Jerry are not exactly 
wholesome material. Jack races down the six foot Poppie-beanstalk. Big time 
speed! "Quick Jack, hand me the ax. We've got to chop down the beanstalk." 
Chopping motions. I chop. She chops. We watch it fall. I explain that we 
no longer have to worry about the giant; he's a goner. How nice. And the 
payoff: "Good work, Jack. You're rich now. Your mommy will now be able to buy 
food." No more food stamps.

The game took a while. I wondered about the meaning of FE FI FO FUM.
I mopped my brow. Kayla's darling face was lit up, lantern-like. She said, 
"Again!" I was a little winded. Okay then, a lot winded. "What? Again?" 
Why was I surprised? Her smile, her twinkling eyes, told me all. "Yes", she 
insisted, "let's play it again!" I felt like Mt. NeverRest. 

We played it twice.
Copyright © 1993 Morton Sinclair Wright. Morton Sinclair Wright is a writer in Los Angeles. All rights reserved.

Zadie by Mike Hecht

Grandfather Mike Hecht tells us about his beloved Jewish grandfather, "Zadie."

 In 1840, Abe Lincoln was a Congressman for the State of Illinois. Chicago was 3 years old. Texas was a part of Mexico. American Indians roamed the western plains, chasing the plentiful buffalo and the wagon trains of the white trespassers who had come to steal their lands and put the buffalo on the nickel. The California Gold Rush and the national revolutions of 1848 in Europe were 8 years away. And my father's father, Aaron Echt, was born to Valvel Garber of Marinke and his wife, Chaya Rachel, in that portion of Eastern Europe which periodically wandered back and forth between Russia and Poland even though the land itself never moved.

Now you may ask how does a man whose father's last name is Garber wind up an Echt or a Hecht? In those days of Czarist Russia, there was universal military conscription...except, that is, for only sons, or for sons with no trigger finger. Mindful of the admonition: "If you're gonna fight, fight for something worthwhile;" cognizant of the fact the Czar of all Russia had no use for Jews except to kill them when it became expedient to divert the attention of the Russian populace from their hunger and rotten living conditions; and aware of the fact being Jewish was not permitted in the Czar’s army, a soldier had to eat unkosher food, he couldn’t say his prayers.

They wouldn't let him study the Hebrew religious texts --a Jewish boy could exit the army, if alive, losing his identity. Jewish families with multiple sons practiced 1 of /or 2 exemptions. Sons were farmed out, in name, that is, to families that had no sons; or if no family without a son could be found in their shtetl (village) or neighboring shtetls, sometime before call-up, a son put his right forefinger on a butcher block--and wham!, just below the knuckle, he had no more trigger finger. (Southpaws had not been invented yet. It took American baseball to create them. Well, alright, maybe they were invented, but they weren't recognized). My father's cousin, Abe Kagan, had a gone forefinger like that. It chilled--and thrilled--me when I noticed it at age 10 and my father explained it to me. (Can you abide the irony of a left hander having his right forefinger whacked off?) Well, my grandfather was one of 9 children, 4 of them boys. He was borrowed or "adopted" by a childless family named Echt or Hecht.

Sometime after the turn of the century as part of the Great Exodus from Russia that began after the Kishinev massacre of the Jews in the early 1880s, my grandfather migrated to America, and settled in Chicago. South Chicago, to be exact. Ran a kosher butcher shop on Commercial Avenue. Plucked chickens. Cut meat. Gave honest measure. Kept his thumb off the scale. All this, mind you, when he wasn't in the South Chicago Synagogue on Houston Street, davenning (praying) or studying.

My first memory of him was at our family club party--Rivke Family Verband--on a Sunday evening in 1923 at the old JPI--Jewish People's Institute--on Taylor Street, around the corner from Jane Addams Hull House on Halsted, to celebrate his and my grandmother, Sarah Malkah's, 60th wedding anniversary. You understand, in those days, people who got married tended to stay that way. He was 83. My grandmother, who was also his niece, was 84. I was 4.

I see him still: not tall, 5 feet six, maybe seven, but proud and erect. Dignified. Full beard streaked with gray, black yarmulke (skullcap) on his head. Twinkling eyes. A cheerful expression, and lief as not, a smile on his face. A thoroughly pleasant man. Outgoing. A man who embraced humankind.

We lived, my father Chayim, and my mother Rivke, and one of my father's nephews, a half block south of North Avenue, on Chicago's near northwest side.

Eight or nine years later, at age 92, now a widower and retired, my grandfather, I called him Zadie, moved from South Chicago crosstown to Albany Park, on Chicago's northwest side, to live with his son, my Uncle Max, and his wife, my Aunt Libby, who if she were Catholic would be enshrined as a saint, in a big brick apartment building on Lawndale and Leland. I was now 12, a second semester freshman at Roosevelt (Theodore, that is) High School. In May I was to be Bar Mitzvah. Hallelujah!

By this time, I had come to know my Zadie, and I respected him, and liked him--and loved him. He was cheerful, always had a smile, a quip, a hearty greeting, a hug, a kiss--he was alive and vibrant and aware of the world around him. The truth is, for however shameful it may be, I loved him even more than my parents. He was the first person in my life had he said "Walk on water!"--I would have attempted it without asking, how deep. how far, how cold, will I make it to the other side.

My parents decided I'd be prepared for my Bar Mitzveh . Anyhow, the Monday morning after my Bar Mitzvah that Shabbos in the Drake Synagogue, with Rabbi Siegel unable to locate the Bar Mitzvah pin and cussing up a Blue Streak under his breath--I'd never heard such purple prose in my life before and seldom after--and famed cantor Tevele Cohen singing up a storm, Oh! was he good!!, Zadie showed up at my home, 7 a.m., mind you, with a pair of tf illim (prayer accessories) and announced since I was now officially a man, in the Judaic sense, of course, I could start behaving like one. That is to say, before going off to school, I could put on my prayer shawl, tfillim, and pray.

This I needed like a hole in the head. But I so loved my Zadie--so deeply, and so without question or reserve--that despite the ignorant adolescent I was, somehow, albeit dimly, I perceived this man was not going to live forever; that perhaps his years were numbered; and I understood, however vaguely, I was my Zadie's last hope: dead though he would be, that I would carry on the Judaic tradition as it had come down to him from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and maybe, maybe even pass it on to my children, and who knows, if I lived long enough, to theirs. So it was no contest. Without an argument or a protest, or even a demurrer from me, we sat down at the dining room table, Zadie and me, and began to pray. And that afternoon, when I got home from school, eager to change clothes and get outside to play ball, imagine my surprise, what am I talking about, my total astonishment, my consternation, there was my Zadie at the dining room table, prayer book at the ready.

From May, 1932 thru June, 1935 when I graduated from Roosevelt High, 6 mornings at 7 and 6 afternoons a week at 1 or 2 or 3, whenever it was I got home from school---mind you, he learned my school schedule and timed his arrival to coincide with it--every day but Shabbos and Jewish Holidays, whatever the Chicago weather, 95 in the broiling sun of summer, or 20 below and blizzardy in winter, there was my Zadie, at age 93, 94, 95, with his cane, walking those 2 miles to and from my home twice a day. Undeterred by the weather, the social scene, the economic situation, the political climate, the sports standings. Mussolini, Hitler, Hirohito, Depression, Babe Ruth, Broko Nagurski, there was my Zadie.

In Spring, and during summer vacation, and early fall, when my 16 softball teammates were outside, and the fever of bat and ball and bases and diamond ran thru' my blood, eager to join them, couldn't delay another moment, not another moment, I'd begin to abandon the traditional chanting of the prayers, and start to race thru' them.

My abiding image of him--he always sat on my right--is his left hand full palm face down across the siddur page (as if I didn't know it all by heart, anyhow!) right hand on my right forearm, saying in Yiddish: (Friendly like) "Don't rush, Mike. The ball game won't run away from you. Chant itl Chant it!!"

And slow down I would and chant it I did. And there were times, occasions, when I was in good voice and making like a cantor, he'd be so taken with my chanting, so moved, so stirred, he would pick up my right hand, bring it to his lips, and kiss my fingers.

Are there any, have there been any lover's kisses sweeter,  more fervent, more passionate on my lips than my Zadie's on my fingers?

He died that summer of '35 a few months after my 16th birthday, at age 95, a few months after my mother..

Mike Hecht lives in Deerfield, Illinois.

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Copyright 1998 by The Foundation For Grandparenting
Last revised: 15 Jan 2006