Growing up in a Jewish household during the 1950s, I learned a whole lot of superstitions, and expectations, none of which, I realized in my later life, made any sense other than pleasing my older relatives who had arrived to the United States mostly from Romania. Thinking, as many a young kid might, that there is no dysfunction in YOUR home, there was nothing weird when your Grandmother pooh-poohs the boggy man away, or tugs at her ears if someone should sneeze while you have just mentioned a dead relative, or throwing salt over your right shoulder if you heard terrible gossip, as to cleanse your own conscience. These were normal occurrences, ALL THE TIME! I had also learned a Yiddish phrase…”A Schicker ist a Goy…” Translated into English it means that a Schicker (an alcoholic) is not a Jew but someone of the Gentile persuasion. Simple to say and easy to understand if your intent is to NEVER face the truth, especially if the truth is tossing and turning its head around a relative. Apparently EVERYONE knew that Uncle Sammy drank, and that Uncle Sammy drank a lot, but being Jewish, and a good Jewish man who went to shul and raised 5 children, Uncle Sammy’s problem with alcohol was not really a problem, and eventually it would go away. In Uncle Sammy’s situation the problem did disappear when Uncle Sammy died of sclerosis of the liver.
My cousin Yetta, called herself a lady of America. She arrived here at the age of 13, insisted on learning English, resisted an arranged marriage, and did not work in a shmutah factory or her parents neighborhood deli, but found a job with the government. My cousin Yetta, also believed that Schicker’s could be Jewish and would have none of this denial nonsense. Jews are not perfect she often would recite, when invited to a family function (her invitations grew less and less). It was at a family poker game, lots of peach schnapps and Scotch. Uncle Sammy was usually on his fifth drink, while everyone on their second. I remember being scurried to the second floor of our house (pissed as hell because the scurrying happened right after the home made corned beef and right before my mothers home made pies and cakes) as cousin Yetta, shouted, “Enough Samuel, you are a drunkard, we all know it, and no one dares to speak it. Shame on you Samuel, you are a sick man and no dares to care for you. You are a drunkard!
A lot of what happened next was muffled as my little sister and I had to stretch our ears trying to hear the shouting going on, on the floor beneath us. It was my Aunt Celia, whose distinctive high pitched nasal sounding voice, was easy to identify. I remember exactly what she said. “So, he drinks, you think none of us know this. Sammy knows it, his wife Francis knows this. You think we are stupid. What you don’t know, Yetta, is now that you have said he is a drunkard out loud, you have forced us to deal with it or ignore it. And for the sake of the family, it is best we ignore it. It may have been a few minutes later, as my little sister and I ran back to the safety of our bedroom. But we heard shouting and the then a dramatic slamming of the front door. From that moment on, whenever there was gathering of the family Uncle Sammy still drank, and no one said a word.
So Senator Flake and Senator Corker, tWo not so brave men, risking very little, announced to their Republican family our father is an IDIOT, A FOOL, A MORON AND INCOMPETENT. The family of Republicans gathered around these two men, not a word was said in agreement, well because its FAMILY!
