Watermelons and Other Memories

I'm taking a Storytelling course this semester. The following was my first performance piece for the class.

"Water-Melon...A penny a slice for Water-Melon!" That was the watermelon song, or at least, that was how I thought of it when I was 3 years old.

Back then, during the dog-days of summer, when the sun sizzled and it felt like it was hotter than the surface of the sun, my brother and I would head out to the backyard. We would bury the bottom half of our faces in cool and refreshing hunks of watermelon. Our chins, necks and hands would drip with sweet and sticky watermelon juice and "Thhhhhhhwat" we would spit out the seeds.

While Grandma would chop the watermelon, Grandpa would sing "The Watermelon Song". It wasn't until I was in high school that I gave the lyrics of the "song" any thought. That's when it finally occurred to me that he was simply reminiscing about the street vendor who peddled fresh produce in the New York neighborhood where he grew up.

I had a small case of hero worship for Grandpa. Many girls have that kind of relationship with their fathers. I didn't, so Grandpa filled that role in my life. Grandpa was the one I went to when I skinned my knee and needed soothing. Grandpa was the one I went to when I needed to talk to someone...about anything. Grandpa was the one who made everything seem alright in the world. Grandpa was the one who made me feel safe and secure.

I thought Grandpa was invincible. I thought he was almost immortal. I thought he was a large hulking and strong man! I find that funny in retrospect because the reality is, I come from short people. Grandpa was only around 5' 5" and he probably weighed around 150 or 160 pounds. But when you are three years old your perspective of your heroes tends to be a bit larger than life.

Grandpa was a gentle man. He was kind, thoughtful, compassionate and the eternal optimist. He always tried to look for the best in people. He was so easygoing; he never lost his temper or raised his voice. I didn't learn until after he died that he never finished high school, and yet he was a self made intellect. He watched and read the news on a daily basis. Politics and world issues were things he discussed regularly with his friends. I strongly suspect that if he were a college student in today's world he would be highly interested in Political Science, Peace Studies and World History.

During the last 3 years of his life, as his body wore down, his mind paralleled that journey. Dementia started to set in. He had his good days where he remembered his name and continued on his daily routines. He would walk out to the recreation center in the community where he lived and he would sit and chat up his pals, discussing politics and foreign policy, among other things. He had his OK days where he remembered his name, but you probably couldn't have any kind of in depth conversation with him. And then he had his bad days where it seemed like he had a bad case of temporary amnesia.

I inadvertently visited him on one of those days about a year before he died. Grandma wasn't there; I guess she was visiting with her friends. I sat down with Grandpa and started up a conversation. For 10 minutes we spoke, but he sat there with an extremely confused look on his face. Finally he said to me, "Who are you?" He didn't recognize me. It broke my heart. After I left I pulled my car over the side of the road and cried my eyes out. I said to myself aloud, "Is this how it is? Is this how it ends?!" That was not how I wanted to remember my Grandpa. It was even more upsetting because that was not how he wanted to be remembered.

My grandparents weren't really religious people, but it was important to them to at least recognize the more significant Jewish holidays. Passover was one of them. My standard joke has always been I'm a lousy Jew. I'm not religious. There are a million things I would rather spend my time doing, than celebrating Passover. It's a labor intensive holiday in terms of food preparation because there is so much symbolism regarding food. Passover is a bit of a chore for me; it's a drag. But we went through the motions because it was important to Grandma and Grandpa. We didn't necessarily have a full seder, but we at least ate the foods related to the holiday.

For the Passover of 1997 my stepfather Jerry was the designated driver. He drove around town and rounded up all the grandparents. When we all sat down to dinner that evening Grandpa started talking about current events. He had watched the news that afternoon and he wanted to talk about it. He was having one of his good days. He talked about all sorts of things that night. He repeated some of his favorite old stories. Like the time Grandma and Grandpa had the interior of their Bronx apartment painted. (The moral of that story was, if you ever want something faux painted, hire a pro, rather than trust it to unskilled workers who don't know the language.) Or the story about the miserly and crotchety, rent-controlled tenant who lived in the building where Grandpa housed his business. (He tried to swindle Grandpa out of some money over the old fashioned, claw foot bathtub he had abandoned in the basement of the building and his plan backfired magnificently.) He spoke in detail about the day he installed the ceiling fan in the vaulted ceiling of our living room. (He had to climb up a 12 foot ladder to do it and he had been well into his 80's at the time.)

He even got a little verschnickered on Manischewitz kosher wine. (If you've never tried the stuff, imagine the overly sweet grape juice you drank as a kid, only slightly fermented. That's what Manischewitz tastes like.) Grandma said, "Irv, you shouldn't drink so much!" and Grandpa replied with a big grin, "What? It's not like I'm gonna drive home!" We all got a good laugh out of that one. He had voluntarily given up his drivers license a few years earlier.

That night Grandpa was ON! It was as if his mental clock had, for that one magical evening, turned back 10 years. It was, as they say on TV, priceless!

Towards the end of the evening Jerry rounded up all the grandparents to drive them all home. We said our goodbyes and then the door closed. The evening was over.

That was the last time I saw him. Later that evening, the first night of Passover, my Grandpa peacefully passed away.