Snapshot for Indian Friend in UK/draft..
Jeanne Khan
(caught with an old Kodak Brownie Camera)
Boston, comparmentalized, had separate havens
for ethnic enclaves--Italians lived in the North End
Polish: West End and Irish: North End to South End
to South Boston to South Shore, their Irish Riveria
in time. No East End as that's the Atlantic where radio's
renown Edgar Rowe Snowe reigned on islands giving tours
of haunted houses and telling fish stories when haddock
was the dish of choice from George's shoals and coves.
Jews lived west on Blue Hill Avenue in Upper Roxbury and Milton
near a few Irish headed to Roslindale, Hyde Park and Jamaica Plain.
African-Americans and those from French Guiana and the British
West Indies lived in its outskirts and around the South End.
Immigrants arrived in waves from Europe, Asia and South America.
Each group displaced the other over time until they could afford to
buy or build their homes west, north and south of the city where
family farms made way for suburbia to absorb those who learned
English and rose through ranks of police, fire and civil works
departments to be captains of industry, clergymen, politicians,
naval officers and law clerks. Those left behind warred with the new
arrivals; many withered, some died without learning English or a trade.
Eventually urban renewal destroyed the West End--replaced crowded
Polish and Slavic tenements with Charles River Manor condominiums
and luxury apartments with uncluttered-by-poor views of Massachusetts
General Hospitial and Beacon Street to the Boston Public Garden--none
of which the former occupants could afford. They dispersed everywhere.
Until the sixties and after changes wrought by a radical pope's Vatican II,
wherein folk guitars replaced Latin liturgies in Catholic churches, life
seemed pre-ordained, predictable and premised on an American dream.
Friday was fish, Wednesday: spaghetti, Saturday: beans
and Sunday: pot roast with stew for some on Monday
after clothes washing and chops for others on Tuesday
and Thursday after folding, ironing and sewing occurred.
It was a simple and savage time when potato was a staple
and local markets specialized--Kennedy's for butter and eggs,
Perry's for seafood and Victory--named the meat and produce
place where folks could charge groceries and settle accounts
on pay days. Wise shoppers travelled to the fish piers and
the North End to buy from pushcarts. One dollar filled a paper
shopping bag with zucchini, onions and apples; two filled three
and added squash, parsnips, corn, peas, string beans, turnips,
cabbage, biscotti and a few cookies from all kinds to die for.
Bread was usually made at home from a dozen family
recipes, but sausage was sought in several locations
because each group made their own. Polish out-polled
Italian for the taste and sturdiness of its case--it seldom
split to spill the meat in curls and fat drippings. Smoked,
it made a snack a full-course meal. Then again, the Irish
preferred Polish anything to Italian anything when asked
their druthers out of hearing of either group.
Marriages of one's bread with another's sausage confirmed
ideals about the melting pot as did the sauces from each
community which travelled to stretch the pastas, pitas and rice
of strangers who understood how to be daring by going
into other neighborhoods. The exception being Back Bay
and North Shore where they went to labor for Black-Protestants,
the Cabots, Peabodys and Lodges who sailed and sent their
boys to Choate, Groton and Harvard--another world--far removed
from inner cities where hunger and hard work made prayer dessert.
Libraries took children away to other lands and introduced new points
of view. Fronted by huge stone lions and graced by columns with glass
orbs catching the sun and sending rainbows across granite facades,
they resembled cathedrals and courthouses, but their basements had
public showers for those living in boarding houses or in small rooms let
by the week to single gentlemen whose mothers died leaving them lost.
Libraries were warmer than most homes could afford to be.
Children who gathered coal bits from railroad tracks or wood and
cardboard boxes from the markets to help out at home loved the
libraries which had central heating systems, massive wood tables
oil paintings and carved chairs (donated by the rich, they heard)
near book stacks waiting to take them to Rome, Peking or Babylonia
without leaving their hard uncushioned seats except to pee when it hurt.
Sex was discovered in art works and humor among
the joke sections. Freedom rang in the giggles of
those taunting each other and feeling the stern eyes
of librarians so unlike their mothers and teachers
who married and drank beer and wine on holidays.
Ladies guarding the card catalogues seemed to be
from another planet--they commanded respect with a
raised eyebrow, caused silence to descend like
a black shade pulled down past the sunshine on
children tittering at fig leaves covering private parts.
Their frown could mean expulsion from the hallowed
halls of learning. Liberty after school would change to
chores at home, not the children's preferred way to play.
Liaisons occurred when children met those from other
neighborhoods while Saturday shopping occurred.
Therese Popkowicz of the West End met Sal Bracco
of the North End. Sarah Levine met Livingston Devine.
Both found they lived within a few blocks of each other
in South Boston--to their surprise--meaning they could
meet other days at their local libraries to touch or tussle.
Everybody went to Chinatown for lunch near Boston's
downtown--all oohed and aahed at the towering Chinese
Mercantile building. No child had a clue as to what they
knew to be stories told by Chinese grandmothers chatting
near shops selling herbs and spices their mothers did
not put into their soups, but they knew where to look it up.
Jeanne Khan
26 November 1998
Jeannekhan
>Snapshot for Ruswa--Irisher's Perspective
>(caught with an old Kodak Brownie Camera)
>
>Boston, compartmentalized, had separate havens
Filupz
In article <9811261806591.T...@delphi.com>, jea...@delphi.com
(Jeanne Khan) writes:
>
>Marriages of one's bread with another's sausage confirmed
>ideals about the melting pot as did the sauces from each
>community which travelled to stretch the pastas, pitas and rice
>of strangers who understood how to be daring by going
>into other neighborhoods. The exception being Back Bay
>and North Shore where they went to labor for Black-Protestants,
>the Cabots, Peabodys and Lodges who sailed and sent their
>boys to Choate, Groton and Harvard--another world--far removed
>from inner cities where hunger and hard work made prayer dessert.
>
This is pretty good. Ever read "Goodbye Columbus," by Philip Roth?
filupz
Jeanne Khan
Tried years ago before I knew enough to enjoy more than a few pages of this
and "Portnoy's Complaint" marked by like-minded friends aka the girls in the
library. Did read "Our Gang" his witty bit about Nixon and the boys of his
summer all the way through. Affirmed my view of that gaggle of gronkers. May
now be able to seek literature vice sex in those bits I sampled years back,
thanks to your mention here..;>
Appreciate your reading and noticing some good.
Will repair parts and wring some water out, later.
As I venture with a first foray here, your words entice me to be bolder.
Jeanne
In article <19981127041650...@ngol06.aol.com>, fil...@aol.com
Filupz
In article <9811271040591.T...@delphi.com>, jea...@delphi.com
(Jeanne Khan) writes:
>
>Tried years ago before I knew enough to enjoy more than a few pages of this
>and "Portnoy's Complaint" marked by like-minded friends aka the girls in the
>library. Did read "Our Gang" his witty bit about Nixon and the boys of his
>summer all the way through. Affirmed my view of that gaggle of gronkers.
>May
>now be able to seek literature vice sex in those bits I sampled years back,
>thanks to your mention here..;>
>
>Appreciate your reading and noticing some good.
>Will repair parts and wring some water out, later.
>
>As I venture with a first foray here, your words entice me to be bolder.
>
I don't know Our Gang, but I'm a huge fan of Roth. I was reminded of
"Columbus" by your description of the layers of immigration history in the
"Snapshot" It has the feel of family history--is this a real snapshot taken by
a real person?
By the way, do you know if Philip Roth wrote a line somewhere to the effect of
"He is the *dung* in this *buildungsroman*?" I wrote it, thinking I had made
it up myself, but now I have a suspicion I read it somewhere, probably in
Portnoy.
filupz
Jeanne Khan
It is a real snapshot taken by a real person, me.
I job-transferred to southern California in 1982--seldom
return for visits, but remember observing the way
things were to a child making notes without paper, me.
Your words about Roth make me interested in reading
his books--I remember reading Saul Bellow and my wow!
at his descriptions of settings. He took me there. Anne
Dillard did likewise years later describing an apartment
building through a child's eyes.
Our Gang affirmed my then political stance about Nixon.
Roth created Billy Cupcake, Erect Severhead, Jaqueline
Collosus, for example and other characters familiar to
readers in each guise--made me guffaw, he did. Picture this:
Nixswine naked, suffocated in a baggy after seeking the vote
of the unborn, dies in a fetal postion. An investigations begins.
Flashbacks include: Nixon and his henchmen, named neatly
by Roth, meeting near daily in the white house basement locker room
wearing leather athletic supporters as they gather for huddle ra ra's
and to plan their offensive-defensive strategies after Watergate.
Lent my copy years ago; memory of it fades slowly. Funny bit.
Jeanne
ps your dung reference doesn't stick out in my limited recall of Roth--will
follow up, bet you originated it vice Roth...;>
In article <19981129142143...@ngol08.aol.com>, fil...@aol.com
Filupz
In article <9811301241591.T...@delphi.com>, jea...@delphi.com
(Jeanne Khan) writes:
>
>Our Gang affirmed my then political stance about Nixon.
>Roth created Billy Cupcake, Erect Severhead, Jaqueline
>Collosus, for example and other characters familiar to
>readers in each guise--made me guffaw, he did. Picture this:
>Nixswine naked, suffocated in a baggy after seeking the vote
>of the unborn, dies in a fetal postion. An investigations begins.
>Flashbacks include: Nixon and his henchmen, named neatly
>by Roth, meeting near daily in the white house basement locker room
>wearing leather athletic supporters as they gather for huddle ra ra's
>and to plan their offensive-defensive strategies after Watergate.
>Lent my copy years ago; memory of it fades slowly. Funny bit.
>
>Jeanne
>ps your dung reference doesn't stick out in my limited recall of Roth--will
>follow up, bet you originated it vice Roth...;
I wasn't old enough to be politically aware during the Nixon era, but I can
remember "Watergate" being on the t.v. and assuming it had something to do with
water (being seven or eight at the time). I lived in Southern California then;
been in England for nine years now.
The amazing thing about Roth is, he's still got it. He's never written
anything as funny as Portnoy, but his last few novels have been brilliant. He
sneaks in subtle surreal descriptions like (paraphrasing), "Her face, after the
facelift and nosejob, was strangely featureless, like the polished kernel of a
face." (American Pastoral) I first picture a woman with a facelift and
nose-job, but then, underneath the rational, sane image, is a grotesque cartoon
image of a germ of wheat ("kernel of a face"), polished and magnified, with
facial features drawn on. Subtle surrealism.
Are you writing with any serious intent, or is it a hobby?
filupz