The Sunday Memory Drawer - Ungeschickt

As regular readers are aware, I have been lamenting my lack of information on my mother's side of my DNA.   Spitting into a vial didn't help.  So I thought it apropos this week to focus on the paternal end of the DNA register.   My father's parents.   You see me in the photo above with Grandma.  My hand is up a Popeye puppet.   Ah, sweet memories.

You might be wondering what that bizarre word is at the top of today's post.   It is the German word for "clumsy" and I know it well.   That's what my grandmother called me all the time.   To this day, the name fits.

Okay, my dad's parents.  My recent flurry of ancestral research tells me when they showed up at this Trumpwall-less country.   Grandpa arrived from Europe on the Kaiser Wilhelm ship on March 23, 1904.   This is noteworthy for two reasons.  His birthday was March 22.   And, years later, he would die on March 23.

For some reason, I always thought they arrived here together.  I guess not and now I am wondering if they actually met in America.  Grandma arrived on Ellis Island on May 22, 1907.  Later census reports listed their birthplaces ranging from Russia to Poland to Germany.  To Tinkers to Evers to Chance.  

Grandma used to tell me that she grew up on a farmland in Germany.  The dialect she spoke was called "plattdeutsch."  My research shows me this was a common variation of the language and primarily found in the northern regions of the country.  Where precisely?  No clue.

Now, all these folks landed smack in the middle of the Bronx.  A two mile radius around White Plains Road and 225th Street.  The centerpiece of their lives?  The Lutheran church they helped to build on 219th Street.  It's still there, but I am guessing the primary language spoken at St. Peter's is now Spanish.  But, the German inscription still rests on top of the front door.

Translated, I think it means "God is here."  So, essentially, my family had carried over their German farming village landscape to the Bronx.  In Europe, church is a central spot in any village.  So, too, would it be in the new world, even if said village was the Bronx.

I heard German spoken all the years I was growing up.  My father never did speak it, but I always got the impression that he understood it.  When he would listen to the Saturday night polka party on the radio while eating his Saturday night kielbasie, Dad seemed to understand what was being said.  I sure didn't.

Downstairs, Grandma and Grandpa talked to each other in German all the time.  I could pick up a word here or there, but basically waited to hear somebody's name intermingled throughout. This would be the key to me about who in the family they were gossiping about. 

When their friends would come over for weekend night Pinochile parties, the kitchen downstairs would sound like a Munich beer hall.  I'd listen at the foot of the hallway stairs, clamoring to hear anything that remotely sounded interesting.  I was captivated by their conversations, even though I didn't comprehend a single word.  I was that desperate for information that never ultimately came.

Along with the aforementioned "ungeschickt," there were two other words that I eventually came to understand, mainly because they were always directed at me by Grandma.

Slobberhans. 

I don't know what it means, but I sure sounds like me.  I got this description if I was particularly messy.

Lopchook. 

Yeah, that was occasionally me as well.   I think it translates to "schlump" or "schlmiel."  An oaf.  Were they real words or conjured up by my grandmother?  As always....

No clue.

I've written here before about my grandmother's sister-in-law.  When they were both widows, they tended to cling to each other as the number of folks around who spoke German dwindled.  These two could go on for hours with dialogue that was completely alien to me.

Now,  Tante Emma and Grandma had a pretty set routine. On Sunday afternoon, after Grandma's dinner dishes had been cleared, the front door bell would ring. Our dog would bark. We would look at the clock. It was exactly 1PM. This could only mean one thing.

Tante Emma had come to call.

Back in the day this is what people did. They went to visit each other on Sunday afternoons. And the opening dialogue between the two would always be the same. Like Abbott and Costello's "Who's On First?" routine, the lines were repeated.  Always in English, thank goodness.

"How are you feeling?"

"With my fingers."

Or...

"What's new with you?"

"New York and New Jersey."

Or...

"You still kicking?"

"Yeah, bend over. I'll show you."

There were weeks where Tante Emma got the punchline and other weeks where Grandma got to button the joke. But, the lines never varied.

As soon as the opening routine was concluded, they would be off to the races with the German language.  And I'd be lost all over again.

So, just how German did we eat?  Not much.  You would think our home would have been filled with the succulent aromas of wienerschnitzel and sauerbraten cooking on the stove.  Er, no.  I don't remember either dish showing up on our dinner tables.

There was one concoction, however, that did make regular appearances.  I think my grandmother called it "creasel."  Weasel with a "k" sound. If I recall correctly, it was really fried globs of some sort of dough, mixed up with bacon and onions.  Horrible for your arteries, but it tasted so good.  I have tried to find out more about this dish and I asked the German woman who runs a sausage store here in Los Angeles.

"Creasel?  Never heard of it."

I was not surprised.  She did say people in the farm country of Germany used to make up their own meals depending upon what they had on hand.  All a function of being poor.

Got it.

The only other German food connnection in our home was my father's weekly Saturday sojourn to Klemm's Pork Store in the Bronx.  We were loaded up with cold cuts and nitrates for the week.  But, most of the meats were really not German in heritage.  The one exception was a favorite of mine.  Cervelat salami.

Along with my beloved Taylor Ham, I would bring this on sandwiches to school.  Sitting in the cafeteria, I'd be gleefully munching on my lunch and somebody would ask me what I was eating.  I'd reply "cervelat."

"Huh?"

Excuse me, but not every cold cut is made in Chicago by Oscar Mayer.  The great thing is that the aforementioned Los Angeles sausage store sells it and I usually grab a half-pound of the salami once a month.

I've often wondered about the emotions of my grandparents during World War II.  We were at war with the country they came from.  How conflicted could they have been?  To make matters worse, they had all four sons in military uniform.  One didn't make it back from the war front.  That had to be complicated for the family.

Of course, they never really said.

There was one afternoon many years later where I did get a glimpse behind that psychological curtain.  During one of those rainy Sunday afternoons in front of the television.  Grandma and I were watching the classic "Mrs. Miniver" starring Greer Garson.

In the film, there's a scene where Mrs. Miniver shows compassion for a young German soldier lost in the wilds of London after his bomber plane crashes.    He was portrayed as a fanatic.  Ultimately, he is disarmed by Mrs. Miniver and brought to the police.

My grandmother begged to differ.

"Not all those boys were like that."

She was so incensed that she got up from her chair and turned off the television, mid-movie.

Okay, I see.  There is still a little pride in the homeland.  As it should be.

And I felt that in an even more pronounced way on one excursion with my grandparents to Woolworth's on Fourth Avenue in Mount Vernon, New York.  I've told the tale before, but it warrants repeating here.

I was young and in tow as my grandparents were picking up some odds and ends at the beloved "five and ten," where you really couldn't buy anything for a nickel and a dime.  Grandma and Grandpa were going up and down the aisles and, as was their routine, yakking to each other in German.

I decided to join in.

"Ich ich ich ich guten ich ich ich."

I started to mimic their conversation as if I were a part of it.  Speaking in my completely made-up-seven-year-old version of German.

"Garble, mutter, mutter, garble, ich, mumble, garble, ich, mumble."

I probably sounded like Adolf Hitler in his crib.

My grandmother asked me once to stop it. I was a kid and had to adhere to the strict rules governing my age group. I didn't listen.

"Garble, mutter, mutter, ich, garble, garble, ich, mutter, mutter." On and on and on and on.

Somewhere around Toiletries, she had enough. To this day, when somebody uses the expression "hauled off and slapped," I remember my grandmother.

CRACK!

I didn't cry. The shock of it all just numbed me. I didn't say another word the rest of the day. In any language whatsoever. Just thinking about it all again makes me rub my cheek. It still feels warm.

Yep, my grandparents took their heritage very seriously.

Oddly, when I recently did my DNA spit take, the German portion only popped to about 17 percent.   Given all of the above, that is super surprising.   But, of course, you do realize that I was always a little "ungeschickt."

Dinner last night:  Chinese beef and shrimp.