Patience…

I don’t recall Hans ever being angry with me, but I do remember that the poor guy was bored with some of the outings we took because of my work. Then, again, he did correct some of my expressions I’d picked up in my childhood.

I’M SURE, AT TIMES, I DID TAX HIS PATIENCE.

My mom immigrated to Canada from Russia and picked up English and French. I picked up some of her sentence structures. Although Hans had immigrated to the U.S. from Vienna himself and English wasn’t his first language, he spoke and wrote it perfectly. Let’s face it, the guy was smarter than me — and funny — and I’m sure, at times, I did tax his patience.

Poor Hans accompanied me to many events I had to cover. The other day when I found this poem and reread it, I laughed. I hope you get a kick out of it too.

HANS ACCOMPANIED ME TO MANY EVENTS I HAD TO COVER. THEY WEREN’T ALWAYS GREAT.

P A T I E N C E .

Who? Whom?

When she says ‘who’ instead of ‘whom’
I do not send her to her room,
I patiently correct her once,
or twice, or thrice. She’s not a dunce.
And tell her when it’s ‘may’ – not ‘can’.
I am, indeed, a patient man.

When she invites me to a bash
and all I get is turkey hash
and then, for breakfast, Decaf, brewed,
have I complained, lamented, sued?
Invoked the bible, the Koran?
No, I’m indeed a patient man.

When I was dragged to ‘Dead Man’s Gulch’,
that gross, dung-aggregated mulch
of cinematographic Kitsch.
Was I observed to gripe, to bitch?
No – come and go, ten blocks I ran
I am a very patient man.
By God, I am a patient man.

I AM, INDEED, A PATIENT MAN.

When she broke up my mountain weekend
when manage-editing had freakened
my well deserved week’s recreation
with job-caused crass abomination.
Did I kick her in the can?
No – I’m a very patient man.
I am, indeed, a patient man.

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Dybbuks of Russia…

ME, AGE 4.

If you think I was an easy kid, you are sadly mistaken. The words most often out of my big mouth were: ‘Why?’ ‘How come?’ That my mom continued to love me and survived my childhood is an absolute miracle. If I’d been my kid, I’d have thrown me off the 3rd floor balcony to shut me up.

A DYBBUK

I was the youngest of five and my poor mom was stuck with me after the rest of the kids attended school. She knew she could keep me quiet and hold me spellbound with her stories of Dybbuks in her native Russia. According to her, she not only knew about them, but had seen them in action herself! Imagine.

Dybbuks, mom said, could do anything. They were evil spirits or dislocated souls of the dead — truly malicious and troublesome creatures who would enter the body of another person or animal and create havoc during a temporary transmutation. The tales she could dream up to keep her pesky Muriel quiet were unlimited and each was different.

WELL-BEHAVED HORSES SUDDENLY OVERTURNED CARTS

I loved those stories about Russia, where well-behaved horses suddenly overturned carts or fled in terror when inhabited by the mischievous Dybbuks, or ordinarily placid cows suddenly kicked whoever tried to milk them, and loving dogs bit their masters or behaved strangely. How could I resist?

ONCE PLACID COWS KICKED THE ONE DOING THE MILKING

I’d sit like a good girl and listen avidly while she ironed. (People did a lot of ironing then.) When I’d get a little uncomfortable or carried away with a story, I’d declare — somewhat hopefully, that they couldn’t be real.

‘Oh, but they are,’ my mother always assured me.

THEY’RE ONLY IN RUSSIA

‘Well, HOW COME we don’t have Dybbuks here?’

‘They’re only in Russia.’

WHY?’

‘Because they’re afraid of the water and they’d have to swim to get here.’

Well, that explained it, right? How could anyone or anything swim across the ocean.

You have to admit it was a creative response. Could you have come up with that?

My mom had an answer for everything.