I was born to my immigrant parents after they had been married for 25 years. Apparently I was some sort of silver anniversary special although I am not quite sure that is what they had in mind.
At that time I already had two grown brothers and two sisters. You learn a great deal growing up under such circumstances especially after you begin to appreciate the other members of your family.
To begin with, I had what were possibly the best parents in the entire planet. I could not have asked for more of anything from them because they practically worshiped the ground I walked on even to the point of calling me on occasion “Little Jesus.”
My oldest brother Irving, “Soc,” short for his last name, was 25 years old when I was born and quickly became the patriarch of our family.
He started his life with his own jazz band, which connected him to the movie industry where he very soon became a top executive.
He moved away soon after he was married and we got to see him on the rare occasions that he would come to Boston to visit us. His visits were like special holidays at home. My mother would open the living room, which was hardly ever used, the best furniture was brought out and all of our relatives would come over to meet my big brother.
I can remember visiting his offices in New York when he was a high executive with the Rizzoli film company. As I walked through the corridors of their office building I saw my brother’s name on almost every door. He had an office with a built-in bar, and all the amenities of a top executive. Try not to be impressed by that. He even received a “Golden Globe Award” in 1962 for introducing the song More to the movie Mondo Cane.
My second brother, who went by the name Memy, because his younger sister could not say his real name, which was Sammy. Memy, like his older brother, was a musician who played the bass violin for most of his life.
There were exciting times during World War II after Memy was drafted and he became a drum major for the local military band at Fort Banks. You cannot imagine my excitement as a 6-year-old going to downtown Boston to watch a parade at which my brother was at the head. He asked me to run out and greet him as he came by and I did that. It is a moment I shall never forget.
His military service soon switched to being an assistant chaplain working aboard the liberty ships that were used to bring supplies to our soldiers in Europe. It was one of the more dangerous jobs at the time because those ships were being sunk faster than we could build them. but they had to be built.
Talk about exciting. My brother, one time when he was at home, took me to visit one of the ships and run all over the place by myself, playing with the deck guns and talking to all of the soldiers on board. I was quite proud of my brother serving in the military and was especially thrilled when he came home one day wearing the famous “Ruptured Duck.” Veterans will recognize this as the symbol for being discharged from the military.
My two sisters, Lillian and Elly, also were the most wonderful sisters that I could’ve had. Whenever I had girlfriend trouble I would go to them for advice and they would keep me on the straight and narrow.
Although they are all gone now they did leave me a bunch of nieces and nephews scattered all over the country who I have made a sincere effort to envelop into my overall family. Things like this cannot be purchased, and if they could I could never afford it.
Why am I writing this? Because those wonderful days of growing up with this incredible family will never repeat other than in my memory and writings.
We were very fortunate in spending most of our life living within a short distance of one another. Even my brother Soc, who lived all over the place, eventually moved to — you guessed it — Delray.
I had a feeling that that was not the ideal place for him. Each time I would go up to visit he would complain that there was very little intellectual stimulation from his friends and neighbors there and the main and only topics of conversation dealt with “what did you do when you are working, or where is the best ‘early bird’ dinner tonight?” That bored him so much that he eventually took his own life.
I never thought anyone in my family was capable of doing such a thing but he was and I advise anyone out there thinking of such a solution to their problems forget it. Instead of the wonderful love and admiration that he might have received, it all turned to anger because his children felt he had taken himself away from them.
I miss all of them so much and I am thankful that I do have their offspring, my nieces and nephews, to spend time with and reminisce about the old days. I only wish the same for all of my readers and friends.
