This Weeks Very Short Story: Chapter 5

This Week's Very Short Story: Chapter 5

Marriage is something you have to work at.  She tells you what needs to be done and then you get to work on it.    

When I am a meeting/seminar and see my professional classmates from 1979, they stop and take a pose.  Did I forget to tell you that I have my camera and have been photographing their age progression for years.   

My Aunt May made me and my brother eat peas and cauliflower.  It wasn’t until years later when I started making my mushroom barley cauliflower soup that I started to eat them voluntarily.    

Having never seen it made, it wasn’t until years later that I learned that what we called Uncle Lou’s Soup was actually made by Uncle Lou.   

There was a drawer at my Uncle Lou’s and Aunt Faye’s house that we called the magic drawer.  It never failed to deliver us sweets whenever we showed up.    

There was a business where my picture hung for many years.  No, it was not the Post Office.  It was Oak Park Lanes.  It was a picture of me bowling from the pins view.   I have no idea why it stayed up there for  years.  My mother went and got it before they closed it.     

I would not sign the papers to allow my younger son to play football in high school.  My wife signed them for 2 years and then she said no.  I did enjoy when he did play and went to as many games as I could.    

I can still take my hand and stroke my face and head and feel the full beard that I had for around 20 years and the full head of hair that I had for slightly longer.  Then there are mirrors.   

I was married in 1977. Many years ago when people asked when are you are going to have children, I would answer February 1983.  My son was born in January 1983.  He owes me a month.    

When we were asked by the Rabbi how many children we are going to have, I did not have an answer.  I always thought that the answer would be 4 boys, and then I met someone with 4 boys.   

We did not want to have children until we were not moving every year because of school, training, etc.  Then we ended up staying in Northridge California for more than one year and you know what happened.    

When I was younger my mother bought some of my clothes at Brody’s in Oak Park from the ‘husky’ section.  When I got taller and thinner, I could shop anywhere.  The lesson I learned from that is that I am the perfect weight for my next growth spurt.   

At my Bar Mitzvah, I was so very short that some of the girls towered over me in height. Years later I come to find that some of them are the same height now, just five feet tall.