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A Very Personal Holiday

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Mom and Me Circa 1950

Let’s see, the celebrations this last week have come fast and furious:

  • Halloween (October 31)
  • All Saints’ Day (November 1)
  • All Souls’ Day (November 2)

And now:

  • My Mother’s Birthday (November 3)

It was Sophie Paris’s goal to make it to her 80th birthday. She admired her grandmother, my great-grandmother Lidia Toth, who made it into her mid-eighties. Unfortunately, she died several months short of her 80th birthday in the summer of 1998.

I don’t write often enough about my mother, although I owe my life and much of my happiness to her. She was abandoned by her own parents, so her grandmother and grandfather raised her. Although she was born in the United States, Daniel and Lidia Toth took her and raised her on a farm near Felcsut, Hungary in the Province of Fehérmegye. She returned to the U.S. with them in 1937 as the Nazi menace began to loom throughout Central Europe.

She met my father in Cleveland around 1943 and married him shortly thereafter. I was born in 1945, and Daniel Toth died in that year. Lidia never really liked my father, Alex Paris, and told my mother that, being his son, I should be allowed to die in my crib. In time, my brother and I developed a strong relationship with Lidia, who helped bring us up. With my father, however, it was war from start to finish.

Sophie was about 5 feet (1.525 meters) tall in her stocking feet. To compensate for her short stature, she had an oversized heart and loved my brother and me. That love has been very instrumental in Dan’s happiness and certainly mine.

Today, as Martine and I ate lunch at the Siam Chan in West L.A., we overheard two tattooed and pierced young men talking about getting up enough energy to attend an Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) meeting. The streets in our neighborhood are full of bums who suffering from various stages of mental illness and dependency on drugs and alcohol. I realize how lucky we are because of the love of our parents, Alex and Sophie Paris.

So Happy Birthday, Mom. You are not forgotten and never will be.

Buckeye Road

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Cleveland’s Terminal Tower, Once the Tallest Building West of NYC

In my youth, there were two Clevelands. First there was Buckeye Road, which was my world between the ages of one and six. (There had been a brief interlude in Florida, which I will describe in a later post.) Then, when I was sent home from kindergarten with a note from my teacher pinned to my shirt asking what language I was speaking (it was, of course, Hungarian), my parents planned for a move to the suburbs. That happened in 1951, shortly after my brother Dan was born. I will describe the Harvard-Lee Area tomorrow.

Buckeye Road was after World War Two the most vital Hungarian neighborhood in the United States. I have never been able to figure out why, unless my people had an affinity for hot, humid summers and dark, icy winters.

An Exhibit About Buckeye Road at Cleveland’s Hungarian Heritage Museum

We lived at 2814 East 120th Street, a short block from the main drag and only a short walk from ritzy Shaker Square—not for us penny-pinching Hunkies. There were two movie theaters within walking distance: the Moreland and the Regent. On nearby East 116th Street were Harvey Rice School, where I was to be a problem to the non-Hungarian teachers; the local library, the College Inn, whose French Fries I adored; the Boulevard Lanes where my Dad bowled (he was pretty good); and a very tasty doughnut shop not far from St. Luke’s Hospital. The residential streets were filled with two-story duplexes, on the second floor of one of which we lived.

Just before we moved out to the ’burbs, the city built a nice playground on nearby Williams Avenue, which I had just begun to enjoy.

There was a Hungarian Reformed Church on Buckeye, where the Reverend Alex Csutoros preached. His services were broadcast—in Hungarian—each Sunday on a local radio station to which my Mom listened. Dad didn’t, because he was a Catholic, like his two sons. The deal was that any girls born into the family would be Protestant; the boys, Roman Catholic.

My earliest memory was listen to my parents argue about money, while I lay anxiously in my crib. Both Dad and Mom worked, and my great grandmother Lidia Toth took care of us during the day. She spoke not a word of English her whole life long.

Still, my memories of Buckeye Road are probably seen mostly through rose-tinted glasses. There were hard times, but they didn’t leave me with many bad memories.

 

Old Man …

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… Who Doesn’t Realize He’s Getting Old

Unless one has children of one’s own, and if one is in reasonable health, one doesn’t really know one is getting old. Yesterday, my friend Bill Korn told me his own interpretation of my posting from a couple days ago, I Don’t Feel at Home Here, Either. The young, when they acknowledge my existence at all, seem surprised to see such a spry oldster doing approved things. Several weeks ago, I was about to enter a Trader Joe’s market when a younger woman flashed a delighted look at me, as if here was a decrepit old man doing the right thing. What was my reaction? I gave her the stink-eye, at maximum volume. She looked infuriated, as if I had stomped on her Yorkie or slipped her smart phone into a sewer grating.

What my reaction was saying was: “Don’t patronize me, you stupid beeyotch! I do not require your approval.”

But then, that’s me all over. I don’t cotton to strangers. When I am traveling in a foreign country and am approached by American tourists, I answer back in Hungarian. I think I’m taking after my Great Grandmother Lidia Toth (born in 1876), who could make a longshoreman blush with her swearing. She was one of those, “Who’re you looking at, Punk?” type of people, except her language was ever so much more colorful.

As a result, I am not likely to initiate contacts with strangers—with several exceptions. When I travel, I try hard to communicate with the locals and generally get good responses. I do not … ever … make … friends …. with …. American … tourists. Does that mean that I am anti-American? Not really, I just find it’s a waste of time. I even go out of my way to help foreign tourists who are obviously stuck in Los Angeles, which is not the easiest place in the world to get around in.