Lenore's Blog - - stories from Jerry

Today is Dec. 25. The reason this date is significant is that it is our mother's birthday ( wasn't someone else who is well known  supposedly born on this  day ? ). It would have been her 90th birthday. The reason this is significant is that Henrietta loved Lenore as a composite of daughter and sister, hence today is a most appropriate time to add to this blog honoring Lenore.

I don't think I can match the eloquence and insight of my sister, however I will add some personal reflections.

As a child if someone were to ask me to give an immediate response to the name Lenore the two words that would instantly come to mind are fun and beauty. As Lenore had a crush on my father growing up ( which I didn't know until I read Sara's blog ) I had  somewhat of a crush on Lenore. I remember thinking she was very beautiful but admitting such feelings were taboo, and would have made all parties involved very uncomfortable. Instead I treated Lenore as the fun cousin she was.

One of my earliest recollections was staying at my grandparents house ( I was about 4 years old ) when my mother was in the hospital giving birth to Sara. I was kind of freaked out since this was the first time I can remember being away from my parents. I remember Lenore ( who must have been about 13 ) coming to bed with me because I couldn't sleep. She invented all kinds of stories on the fly incorporating, situations I liked and was familiar with, and friends I knew. I found these stories both amusing and comforting and I must have soon fallen asleep.

I remember Rockaway beach when I was about 5. Lenore was wheeling a bicycle to the bike shop on our way to the beach. Oddly enough, for some reason I remember the bike foot brake being broken ( you were able to back peddle without stopping the bike ) and I remember it cost $2.50 to have it fixed. I thought this was a king's ransom when Lenore tried to put this cost in perspective ( an ice cream costs 10 cents ).  At Rockaway Lenore was about 14. There was a young man on our porch who was in his late teens or early 20's. Lenore was trying to steal his shoes and hide them and was recruiting me to get in on the act.

When I was about 9 and Sara 5 Lenore baby sat for us with some fellow keeping her company. Sara didn't want to go to bed since Lenore was here, and in the fashion Sara mentioned in her blog, she was talking a blue streak. Finally I started pushing Sara towards the bedroom and said can't you see they want to be alone. I remember Lenore’s hysterical laughter at that comment.  Her laugh was truly infectious, you couldn't help but laugh when she did. Although she was quick with a story or anecdote she also knew how to listen. She comforted when I needed comforting but additionally was a fantastic audience. When I told a funny story or put on some silly antics she would laugh from the heart ( it was no put on ).    

I do remember her baby in the belly bit as told by Sara. Since she was a fun cousin I wanted to rough house with her and she did her best ( Yonkie was actually the rough houser, but when you rough housed with Yonkie there was a price to be paid ). To get me to back off, she used the baby in the belly excuse. I knew there was no baby in the belly but I did have a little doubt. This doubt did cause me to back off, and when I did, her laughter was hysterical.  

I remember Lenore coming back from Israel and visiting us at our summer vacation bungalow. A bus let her off at the cross road to the bungalow colony. My mother and I were at the pool and the bus must have been audible from the pool. Now I never thought of my mother as athletic in any sense, but when she heard that bus, she took off like a rocket with me running behind her. She darted down the hill ( maybe 100 yards ) with her arms open ready to greet Lenore.     

I remember seeing Lenore's art work when I was about 10 and thought it was fantastic. Now I have the artistic talent and finesse of a water buffalo, but I believe that Sara did take inspiration from Lenore’s talent and eventually did some excellent work herself.

When I entered Junior High School honors program, I remember having a very bad and frustrating first week. Coincidently Lenore started her teaching career that same week. My later understanding, was that she was having her own problems and anxieties  dealing with some very unsavory kids in a very unsavory school. That weekend when our families got together at grandpa's house she took it upon herself to comfort me while dealing with her own issues.  

Fast forward about 20 years to my adulthood. I came to Lenore and Bernie's house with a date (Heidi) who had Lenore's signature curly hair and in fact had a very strong resemblance to Lenore. She was standing in the front yard when Pearl arrived. Pearl starts walking towards Heidi, greeting her as her daughter. Needless to say Heidi was very puzzled and I quickly told Pearl that this was my girlfriend and Lenore was in the house.

Stuff Lenore has taught me or modeled for me - (Sara)

I often preface advice and stories to my family with “Lenore always used to say that….” Amnon suggested that I start to document these anecdotes, so that they are available to all the little ones and the little ones to come. And so I have created “Lenore’s Blog.” I will add entries to it as stories come to mind, and I have made authorship open to the family so that all of you can add your own anecdotes of Lenore’s wisdom and humor. Maybe it will make her smile if we read some of this aloud.

For my parents (Uncle Sammy and Aunt Henrietta), Lenorie was held up as role model for as long as I can remember. Her visits to us were special, and frequent. Lenore and my mother would have long talks late into the night. My mother had no brothers and sisters, and therefore no nieces and nephews, and so Lenorie had a special and irreplaceable role in my mother’s life.

My mother met Lenore early when she was dating my father; Lenore had a special role for my father as well. With a working mom (Grandma Pearl), Lenore was raised in my grandparents’ apartment (Grandpa Joseph, and Grandma Sprintze). So she was really like the “little sister” for all the brothers and sisters in the house. (Morris, Annie, Hymie, Sammy, and Yonky.) When Lenore was born (or really little), my dad was off in the Pacific for WWII. (Not doing much battle himself; with 20-400 vision, like me, he was (as he described it) a “4F-nik” and so had largely background duties, as a longshoreman.) (The other brothers weren’t serving at all; Yonky was too young, and Hymie was exempt for a punctured eardrum.)

My dad said that Grandpa Joseph was deeply upset when Sammy went off to the army. He had visions of the army as it was in Poland, and once you went you were often never seen again.

When Sammy was scheduled to return, Lenore told me that there was a lot of excitement and festivity in the house. She was a little girl, and had no idea who Uncle Sammy was. Given the level of excitement, though, “Sammy is coming! Sammy is coming,” she was expecting to see G-d himself enter the room. And instead it was….just another uncle. At the time, she was disappointed.

But Lenore said later on that Sammy and Hymie were the uncles she had a crush on. Yonky was the big brother uncle.

Since Sammy was one of the uncles she had a crush on, Lenore sat squarely in between my father and mother on the first date where she was included. (She was probably 7 years old at the time.)

Lenore told my mother, when she met Bernie, that one of the things that attracted her was that there was some physical resemblance to the uncles she loved so much.

Yonky was the uncle that could get you out of scraps. I remember my mother telling me that Lenore was late for a bus to camp, and the bus pulled out before she got on. Yonky chased it down and made sure that she didn’t miss the camp experience.

Lenore used to talk to me about self esteem, and about how we don’t see ourselves as others do. (Like most adolescents, I was self conscious about every aspect of my appearance. ) She said that she had been self conscious too. Then, at camp one summer, the most popular boy took a liking to her. And told her “You have the most beautiful eyes. You have the most beautiful nose…” Lenore said that in her head she was saying “Me?? Are you talking about me??” It was a lesson that stuck for me, though, that others might see us in a far better light than we see ourselves. (She also mentioned that, while there was no physical contact with a boy that liked you and whom you liked at camp, there were innocent but strategic connections….She said she went on a hayride (I think?) with this boy, and he had his arm over the back of the chair. And occasionally, “by accident,” his arm would brush her shoulder.)

Lenore has always been close to my brother Jerry too. She told us repeatedly that she was the one who carried him home in the car on the way back from the hospital when he was born, no car seats required back then. (And she was about 13 at the time.)

At age 17, Lenore went to Israel for a year, and worked on kibbutz. I was 4 at the time. When Lenore came back, she taught me some Hebrew songs, like “ha shafan ha katan.” Sounded like Chinese to me. We have this on one of my dad’s reel-to-reel recordings, with Lenore laboriously and patiently teaching me the words. My own junior year abroad in Israel was probably influenced by Lenore's year away...it made the concept palatable to my parents, and possible for me.

Lenore took me to see my first Broadway show, Flower Drum Song. I already knew the music, since my dad played the record on our home stereo. I was 4 years old, I think. I sat with Lenore and sang along and aloud with all the Broadway actors. I was being shushed all around, but Lenore was proud of me and that was more important. Afterwards she took me to a little studio that used to exist back in the day before home recordings were prevalent, and we recorded a little 45 rpm record together, where I once again sang some classics from Flower Drum Song.

Israel was a "developing country," back then….I remember watching the movie Exodus with Lenore, a few years later. When the heroine “Karen” goes to some central area to take a phone call, Lenore commented “A working phone? That isn’t really Israel…” Stuck in my head at the time that Israel was a really primitive place.

Lenore was usually at my grandfather and grandmother’s house in Jackson Heights for Shabbat. My family would walk over, and sometimes I would spend the day with Lenore. I remember she wanted to nap, but I wanted to play. She would lie down, and I would sit on her stomach and try to keep her awake. Sometimes I would rock while sitting on her stomach, and she would say in jest that I was going to “hurt the baby.” (Clearly years and years before babies came.) We would launch into musings…”what’s the baby’s name?” Lenore said it was Billy. Sometimes she said they were twins….Billy and Billet. She would plead for me to let her sleep for 30 minutes. I remember sitting on her stomach and counting 1800 “seconds” aloud (but really, really fast) so that I could then officially have her get up and play with me. Lenore never lost her patience or got angry. Gee, makes me want to slap MYSELF in the face to recall it!

Sometimes on Shabbat Lenore and I would take long walks to Rego Park from Jackson Heights, and visit Uncle Hymie, Aunt Ellie, and cousins Maddy, Linda, and Jackie. On one of those visits, Maddy and I opted to be naughty, and I aligned with Maddy in naughtiness and disobedience to Lenore. (I don’t remember what we actually did.) On our long walk back to Jackson Heights, Lenore told me how disappointed she was; how she hadn’t expected that from me. No yelling, but I was mortified. And vowed to myself that I would not succumb to “herd mentality” and be naughty even if others were. (I don’t know if I actually adhered to that, through the years, but I do remember being profoundly affected by Lenore’s disappointment in me and at least making that promise to myself…)

When Lenore started to teach, she taught in some really unsavory neighborhoods in Manhattan. This might have been something you had to do as a new teacher, but Lenore also wanted to teach where it made a difference. My mother told me with awe that Lenore wanted (at least originally) to work with special needs children. All of this just added to the luster and mystique of Lenore. Years later, when Shiffy was working in a summer camp with mentally retarded children, Lenore said she couldn’t do it, at least not at that stage of life. We conjectured together that by then, you had simply “seen too much” and wouldn’t be able to manage it. So Shiffy was the hero of this story, still able to push through the day and find joy in it, calling the kids cute. Lenore said that these camps were expensive, but the parents would forgo eating to have the opportunity to send their kids off in these wonderful settings, and to have some respite themselves.

When Lenore and Bernie got married, this was the biggest and best news for our family. For me, it was the first wedding I had ever gone to. (I was 11 years old, but our family wasn’t that large, there weren’t that many marriageable people….and if my parents DID go to other weddings during that time, we weren’t invited as a whole family…American weddings were not and are still not Israeli-style large and open affairs.) I spent the day before the wedding with Lenore (I think her cousin Naomi spent the day with us as well.) Lenore was fasting, and so I spent the day eating potato chips and other “chazerai” as my dad would call it.  By the time of the wedding on Sunday,  I was so sick to my stomach that I told my mother I couldn’t go. My mom was sympathetic, but then at some point said “you will go to this wedding if you have to crawl there.”  Fortunately I improved by the time that I got to the wedding, and it was the most amazing experience for me. Lenore had made her own K’tuba, which my family kept commenting on as an incredible feat. I vowed to myself that I would make my own K’tuba as well when I got married. With guidance from Lenore and from some books to model from (The Jewish Catalog), I did. Lenore advised me to use real parchment. She said that she had used some ersatz version for her own K’tuba, which came apart a bit when she tried to re-frame it. The framer included an apology, saying “this can occur when you frame ancient documents.” This amused her, and I think she kept that note on the back of the K’tuba.

I remember the first time I had dinner at the home of the new couple Bernie and Lenore, and Lenore cooked. It wasn’t a role for Lenore that I was familiar with; I don’t think I had ever eaten a meal that she cooked; Lenore was more typically at our house or we were together eating somewhere else. I asked, in awe, how and when she had learned to cook? She answered “if you can read, you can cook.” This is another line that “stuck” with me and gave me confidence when my own time came to prepare meals.

Before Bernie and Lenore had kids, I remember Lenore talking about visiting Felicia (called “FiFi” back then.) Lenore would play with Felicia, and Felicia would then cry hysterically when Lenore would leave. Lenore didn’t like that Felicia was sad, of course….but she secretly did enjoy the fact that Fifi was so attached to her.

Lenore had a big family and extolled the joy of having many children. I am certain that has influenced me in having my relatively large family, too.

Lenore always put great value on being home with kids. I remember reading an article about stay-at-home moms and their ability to make decisions in a playground that a babysitter can’t make. If your kid has been mean to another kid, a parent might opt not to intervene if that other kid gets mean back. A babysitter might not be able to make the same “judgment call.” Lenore said for this and other reasons it was good to stay home and raise your own kids. Also, she said if you have the cleaning lady raise your kids, your kids will talk like the cleaning lady….(I like to think that my kids came out….mmmm….bicultural, as a result of their varied upbringings! J)

 

When Yoni was a few months old, Lenore was pregnant with Moshe. I remember watching Lenore lift Yoni up with her legs, and Yoni would squeal with laughter. My mother or Pearl asked if it was a good thing to be lifting Yoni while she was pregnant. Lenore replied that hearing those squeals of Yoni’s laughter were good for her, at ANY time.

When Moshe was little, Lenore used to say that even though he is the boy, and he’s “tough,” he was the most spontaneously affectionate child, and would just come up out of nowhere and give his mommy a kiss.

I remember watching Yoni play Candyland with Vivi, who was about 3 years old at the time. Yoni kept winning the “better” pieces, but told Vivi she was “lucky” even when she got the less desirable pieces. I commented to Lenore how difficult it must be for a younger sibling to play a game with an older sibling; it was so easy for the older sibling to manipulate the situation. Lenore said to me that we needn’t worry about THIS little sibling (Vivi) being manipulated….she was very very capable of making sure that she would not be, even at this tender age. 

When Jordan was born, I had a pretty unrealistic view of what baby raising was like. (Lenore made it look so manageable!). I had a dissertation to finish, and not enough childcare. (A friend told me that babies sleep for the first six month, and I would be able to finish a dissertation while Jordan slept. Yeah, right.) Lenore was the first person that I left Jordan with, so that I could spend a day doing research in NYC. Tali was 3 years old, and having her first play date. Lenore commented about how nicely Tali and her friend were playing. From my new mom vantage point, I thought Tali was already a “big kid” and so I thought this was to be expected. My expectations got revised as my own kids got bigger.  Having Lenore watch him for a day helped me get over the threshold of leaving my baby in someone else’s care…The Malinas watched him a couple more times; then I got a babysitter and ultimately did finish the dissertation.

Lenore always emphasized how Jews should have large families, to compensate for people lost in the holocaust. She would comment how Jews were the first to pick up on “zero population growth” when that became popular; but they were the LAST population that should have. We would often muse about how our own family got smaller with succeeding generations….our grandparents had many siblings (I don’t know the exact numbers), with many lost in the holocaust. Our grandfather and grandmother (Joseph and Sprintza)  had 6 kids, but not all the kids got married and not all had children, or their children didn’t have children. And so from 6 kids, there were only 8 grandchildren. And of those 8 grandchildren, only Lenore, Jerry, and I have had kids. When Vivi was little, and Jordan was under 2 years old, I came over for a visit. Vivi wanted to know where all the kids were in the rest of  the family….she said, “you know, like Shiffy,  Yoni,  Moshe…” Lenore pointed to Jordan, and said “zeh hu.” The concept was baffling to 6 year old Vivi.

Lenore told me that she had a bedtime routine, from youngest to oldest, and did rounds in each of the rooms giving each kid what was necessary according to age. Reading to a baby, doing homework with an older kid, etc. I was impressed with the organization. I remember having dinner with all the Malina kids, and I told Lenore it was like eating with the Brady brunch. Grandma Pearl was much amused.  

For my parent’s 45^th anniversary, Lenorey had the idea of creating a composite video of pictures to commemorate the event. We did an “at home” version, not a professional one. Lenore came to our house daily for a week and worked on this for hours and hours with Amnon, till it was complete. (I had just given birth to Adam; I was still a little out of it…) It is something that my parents cherished.

At any number of points as my kids were young, I could spin myself into a panic….how will I manage X,Y, Z…how will I be able to afford A,B,C. Lenore said to me “you put one foot in front of the other, and you don’t look up, or you’ll trip.” Adam still quotes that line back to me.