Well, no, not really. But then again, maybe, yes.

Last week much was made of the 50th anniversary of the birth of Joni Mitchell’s epic album, “Blue”. When it came out, I was a young snot, a Bronx primitive, and I didn’t “get” it. I made fun of her octave jumps and her phrasing fetishes, and her chord voicings that I thought were artificially intricate.

I was given the eight ayem slot on my college radio station, only because no one else wanted to get up to the booth that early in the morning. “Just play records.” That is what the station manager told me on my first day, by way of direction.

So I did. Stones. Jimi. ‘Retha. Lots of Stax/Volt and Atlantic Records R&B. Lots of Motown. Sometimes people would come up to the booth and suggest songs.

One time, a woman begged me to play Laura Nyro, a Bronx heroine. Another time, a woman came up, eyes red with tears, with that blue-tinged LP. “Please! Play this,” she said.

My heart sank, as Sam and Dave sang “Hold on…I’m comin.'”

“Which one?” I answered, unable to conceal my disdain.

“River.” So, yeah, fine; I played it. Whatever.

The phone started ringing, and didn’t stop. Play more from “Blue”, the suddenly attentive early ayem students said to the boy-man that was me. Hmmmm. What am I missing here?

The decades passed; life — that predicament that precedes death (Henry James’ line, not mine) — happened.

I just completed a year studying “Music and the Brain” — a class taught by Dr. Concetta Tomaino, the research partner of the late, great, Oliver Saks. I read Dan Levitin’s work, and Robert Jourdain’s, and much more. I learned that there are specific parts of the brain that latch onto puzzling concepts in order to solve them. With a certain fury, we are hard-wired to create order from chaos.

I also learned from Dr. Tomaino about the magic of the music, and of how music has more power to heal physical and psychological wounds than any other art form. The phenomenon may be rooted in science, but the outcomes can only be appreciated in terms of mysticism.

Fifty years after the release of Joni Mitchell’s “Blue” album, I marvel at the bounty of that young songwriter’s facility with language and sonics. I understand and appreciate that complex electro-chemical processes fuel my mind’s analysis of her songs.

But life experience has taught me that it’s far more important to savor her sensibilities than to deconstruct her diminished chords. I’ve learned to be “frightened by the devil, and drawn to those ones that ain’t afraid.”

So, thanks to the girl with the red-rimmed eyes, wherever you are in life. Like a bottle of Bordeaux, I was awfully green at first; it took time for me to open up and appreciate Mitchell’s majesty, her supple and disturbing art.

Classic utterings from my father’s lips:

“You and your goddam deferments.”

“I don’t give advice.”

“Hi. Hold on. Let me put your mother on.”

Happy Father’s Day.

I want you to close your eyes and relax. Breathe. In. Out. In. Out. Slow. Slowwwww…

Now imagine: it’s a warm night in early summer. You and your friends are playing outside, maybe off-the-point, or “hit-the-penny”, under the streetlights. Maybe listening to one of the teenager’s transistor radio. What’s playing? Maybe “Wooly Bully”. Fireflies glow. Can you see it? Good.

Now imagine: your dad is talking with his friends. The grownups have the ballgame on their radio. They are smoking. One of your friends comes out of their apartment building with cracker balls, firecrackers in their crackly red wrappers with intricate Asian labels, and sparklers.

You take a sparkler from the box and walk over to your dad. “Can you light this for me?” you ask.

Now — and this is important — visualize your dad taking a silver Zippo lighter from his shirt pocket. He flips it open, flicks the ignition wheel with his thumb, and lights the tiny blob at the tip of your sparkler.

Lo and behold, it ignites. Imagine the scent of that chemical ignition. DO YOU SMELL IT? Now, imagine yourself holding the sparkler aloft as you march up and down the block, humming Stars and Stripes Forever. To the grownups, you must look like a little moron, but you are having a ball.

Your friend walks over to his dad and asks for a puff of his Lucky Strike. His dad keeps talking to his friend as he proffers the cigarette. Your friends puffs, which triggers a paroxysm of coughing.

You smile and inhale that burning chemical goodness of your sparkler. Your dad lit your sparkler with his silver Zippo in one cool motion, and you thought, for a brief moment, you were safe, and loved.

Now open your eyes. You are back in the now. And, if you’re anything like me, you know better.

I am on a deck, holding a glass of French Chablis. I am relaxed. I stare into the trellis of trees. They sway in the Adirondack breeze. Their leaves catch the fresh Canadian air. I watch them slowly tilt, left….then right….then left…

I sip the wine and focus on the rustle of the wooded waves, until I close my eyes and go to Cape Cod.

I smell the saltwater. A day at the beach has ended. We are showered and cool. Again, we are on a deck. I prepare the grill for dinner.

I position the steaks and corn. A memory of hot dogs and burgers, a wobbly charcoal grill. A long-ago bungalow colony cookout. Dads are with us kids again. They drove up from the steamy city Friday night and we waited for their arrival, sitting on a grassy hill that overlooked the gravel parking lot.

A squeal of joy as, one by one, the dads pulled their Chevys, Fords and DeSotos onto the gravel driveway. We hugged their legs. They kissed our moms. Our dads were back! Tomorrow: fishing! Swimming! Salamander hunting in the forest!

The loamy forest, a powerful perfume. New cut grass. Fresh air.

Now I revisit a more recent idyll, across the Atlantic. Ireland is greener than the greenest upstate preserve, the place of magical vacations.

The mind continues to search its hard drive. The ancestral vibes of the Middle East. The beauty of Holland. Spain. France. Scotland. Sedona. Alaska. So many places I’ve experienced. So many more jaunts to plan.

So much need to unwind.

Is ‘Rona over? I doubt it. There will be a rebound, another variant. Delta? Something worse? Another zoonotic species jump? We’d be foolish to think otherwise.

And so, I dream of vacations past and — soon — future. As Jimi would sing: “‘scuse me, while I kiss the sky.”

It seemed so far away, Bridgeport. And not just in terms of mileage.

Every now and then, we’d visit my father’s family in the big house on North Avenue, despite the best efforts of my mother to sabotage the 50-mile journey. My aunt invited us for 2 p.m. on Sundays and, somehow, my mother la-di-dah’ed around in a housedress until she “remembered” it was time to get ready.

Dad would be furious. Mom would profess innocence. “Oh, so what?” she’d mock, in a tone I’d hear decades later in the voice of Olivia (“Livvy”), Tony Soprano’s mother (“Oh…poor you!!!”).

I loved it there, up in Bridgeport. My dad’s family moved from Gates Place, near Montefiore Hospital on Gun Hill Road, in the Bronx, to this 1920, 3800 square foot home on a half-acre, sometime in the 50s. My dad’s brother, a renowned pediatrician, had his office on the ground floor. The entrance to his office is shown in the photo above.

The residence was entered around the left side, on Wood Avenue. There was a slanted storm cellar to the side of the entry, of the type I’d only seen in “The Wizard of Oz” and “Psycho”. The backyard had a massive barn/garage/workshop (now gone, burned to the ground a few years ago) with a second floor hayloft. To the left side of the garage was a garden where Grandpa Louis grew tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers, which he pickled. To the right side was a large fenced lawn with apple and pear trees (you can see cars parked in that general area).

Climb the clubby, oak stairway and find a nice sized living room, sitting room, and my grandparent’s bedroom. The public rooms had cushioned mahogany built-in storage units around the windows. Off the stairway was a mysterious (to the little-kid me, anyway) interior staircase that I was convinced was inhabited by ghosts. Off a short hall was a galley kitchen which led to the dining room.

Upstairs were the living quarters of my cousins, and Aunt and Uncle. In time, they built a fabulous house in Fairfield, with flagstone fireplaces, my aunt’s art work (museum-worthy), and multiple decks. They “gave”, or “sold”, or “rented” (depending on who was asked, and when) the house to my dad’s sister and her family, and my grandparents stayed there with them, on North Avenue.

So what’s the big deal? Once we finally got there, after a the two-hour drive from University Heights in the Bronx, I peeled off from my parents and hung out with my cousins. We’d go down to my uncle’s medical office and inhale that old-time, doctor’s office chemical smell. Formaldehyde? Who knows? We’d pass our hands behind the fluoroscope, wiggle our fingers, and see our bones dance. We’d pluck hair from our heads and positioned it on a slide under my uncle’s microscope. We’d open heavy medical books and look at photos of naked people.

When you’re six, life doesn’t get much better.

I was r-e-l-a-x-e-d by the time us kids were called for dinner. Here was a professionally run household. The house was neat, every doily in place, every coaster right at-hand on the end tables. The silverware was polished, and the kitchen aromas made my stomach growl in anticipation.

Food was prepared in a tasty and timely fashion. Nothing was dropped, or burned, or poorly-timed. Grandma Rae’s chicken soup was dee-voone, hearty and rich with just-picked carrots, bits of boiled chicken, and long-grain Carolina rice! Herring, and pickled veggies from the garden followed. Of course, there was always a dinosaur-sized hunk of potted meat, fork tender, accompanied by boiled potatoes with a dusting of fresh-chopped parsley, and (said as one-word) “peasincarrots”. For dessert, homemade pie with fruit from Grandpa’s tree. Sometimes a huge homemade chocolate cake. A bissele schnapps for the grownups. Grandpa loved his Haig & Haig Scotch in that distinctive, “pinch” clear glass bottle. They take a sip and, as one, exhale with a big lip-smack and then, “Aaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!”

Typically, in the middle of dinner, Grandpa would excuse himself and go to the bathroom. I’d hear him cough his lungs out. It sounded like pieces were coming up. I’d see blood on Grandpa’s hanky as he came out to rejoin us.

Dad reminded us that Grandpa was a mink-cutter in the Manhattan fur district in the west twenties, and his lungs were scarred from inhaling the dyes used to make the coats, hats, and stoles. “Your grandpa always had work…even during the Depression,” Dad intoned, with great reverence.

At the height of the Davey Crockett fad, he made me a silk-lined raccoon hat, with tail, which I wore everywhere I went, much to my parents’ dismay (for some reason unknown to me).

Gramps would take me to his workshop and show me his woodworking tools, a broad palette of curiously-shaped X-Acto knives. He showed me his latest projects, hand-carved knick-knack holders that fit flush within a wall joint, maple stools, rocking chairs. He showed me how he bent the wood and explained how long it took. And always, he’d call me over before we left for home, and slipped me a couple of bucks (“Shhh…don’t tell your pop!” he’d rasp.)

I’d usually conk out in the back of our ancient Pontiac on the way home. I’d wake up as my dad cruised for a spot good for Monday. My heart would sink. Our apartment was cramped. The atmosphere was always tense and there was no telling when either one of my parents would go off.

We had food, but it didn’t measure up to my Connecticut relatives’ groaning board of delights. For peace and quiet, I spent hours with my school friends in the tiny NYPL branch on University Avenue, above a dry cleaners. For years, I associated the sweet scent of perch (the now-outlawed chemical once used by cleaners) with the library’s calm, safety and civility.

It took the perspective of time to understand why my mother went into passive-aggressive mode when we would visit Connecticut. She and her family didn’t measure up, in any sort of meaningful way. Lots of stories there for another day. Suffice to say, they were friendly to her, but she typically “acted out” when we were there.

As an adult dog owner, I learned about the fear-aggression mode of small dogs when they encountered larger breeds, and finally understood why my mother would either withdraw, or bark, in the company of my dad’s family. She was physically imposing, and she packed a wallop. But inside, she was as puny as a pug.

There is a happy ending to this tale: after decades, I reconnected with my cousin, the son of my dad’s pediatrician brother. My cousin is also a noted physician. Sharp as a tack. He saves lives.

At our age, life doesn’t get much better.

Much love to George Bodarky, host of the award-winning “Cityscapes” show. George interviews me about NYC then-and-now, and about my new collection, “A Shoebox Full of Money”.

Here’s the link. Sit back. Relax. Enjoy the show!

https://wfuv.org/content/back-bronx-marty-kleinman

When you’re a kid, I mean a real little kid, it’s hard to tell when you’re being punk’d by the grownups.

The adults hold all the cards. They can lie about family, friends, money, sports, politics, everything. And you — the little kid — can only take it on face value. After all, you’re a kid. What the hell do you know? You can’t even tie your own shoes yet. Tell time. Cross the street.

And of all the adults in a kid’s world, parents are at the top of the pyramid. So when you’re told you’re “bad”, or “spoiled”, or “stupid”, or “rotten” — you sulk. Or cry. Your misery is a bottomless pit of darkness.

Alternatively, when you’re told you’re “bright”, or “funny”, or “good looking”, the clouds part, the sun comes out, and all is right with the world.

My sister and I were routinely physically and mentally abused by our so-called parents when we were little kids. It went beyond the typical tirades of the era, e.g. “oh, you’re bored; go bang your head against the wall”, or “take a long walk off a short pier”, or “keep it up; I’ll give you something to cry about!”

No, we got teased with “I’m not your mother.” Now that’s something every four-year old wants to hear from their actual mom, right? A Niagara of tears did not make the taunting stop. We got slapped silly for minor infractions (spilled milk? talking too loudly?) and kept getting belted well after the snot-crying started.

For the beatings we took, we must have been very very bad four year olds. We must have been devil-spawn. It’s possible, right? As I said, when you’re a little kid, what do you know? Maybe we missed something. Maybe we truly were terrible children, deserving of routine mental and physical debasement.

There was a song my mother and her mother would sing. It was a silly song from Yiddish vaudeville. It was called “Herring Mit Potatoes”.

We supposed it was a major hit, because they sang it all the time, this nonsensical tune that was a Yiddish equivalent of some crap such as “Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor on the Bedpost Overnight?” Silly stuff for the masses. And, of course, I “get” it: the song targeted poor, homesick immigrants who made the trek from Europe in steerage, and made do with whatever food they could afford. Herring with potatoes. I actually LOVE herring, truth be told.

But back to the song: it was a favorite of theirs and became an earworm drilled into our brains. I sang it as a joke over the decades. Maybe it was my way of providing myself with an assimilation-inoculation. “Hey, I’m not like THOSE greenhorns, no-sir-ee.”

In time, I wondered if, in fact, the song actually existed. No one I knew had ever actually heard of it.

And that got me to thinking. Did the beatings and teasing really happen? Maybe it was all a figment of my imagination?

Fast forward to last weekend. I decided to investigate. Within minutes of starting my online search, lo and behold, I found that lady in the video above, the one in the funky fedora, singing that song of my youth: “Herring Mit Potatoes”.

That made me very sad indeed because, I reasoned, if that song existed, then chances are all the mental and physical abuse happened as well.

Why last weekend, you ask? Oh, did I not mention that my search for the song took place just hours after I learned that my mother died? It is true. She’s gone, riddled with ‘Rona and cancer, at 94.

I guess I buried the lede, huh? Maybe she was right all along (SLAP!). Maybe I am a “bad boy” (CRACK!).

(Chorus, in English: “Herring with potatoes, herring with potatoes/Don’t bother with meat or steak/duck, sponge cake or cheese cake/Chicken is a dog compared to this, it’s understood/The best dish for the belly is Herring Mit Potatoes”.)

Dream I: I am at my work desk. A juicy cockroach ambles from behind the table lamp and makes its way to my stapler, a brown metal Swingline from the 60s. I wonder: where did the roach come from? We have no roaches here; did someone come and leave a crumb? Are we now infested?

Dream II: I am told that the husband of a neighbor wrote a book. I am told the book is great. It is suggested that I buy this book. I go on Amazon. There is the book. It has a red jacket, with white lettering. It looks like the cover of a child’s coloring book. Centered in the red is the doughy, smiling face of the husband of a neighbor. He looks like a putz, something like Uncle Floyd, and I am glad.

The End.

“How very unlike seders past.”

That is all I could think about during last night’s Zoom seder, our family’s second. We came together dutifully, but “gallery view” revealed the truth: we were broken.

We will soon mark the first yahrzeit of my mother-in-law’s death, from Covid-19. She was the matriarch of the family. Seders were “produced, directed, and starring” Mimi. Her gatherings were a tour de force. The food was delectable and the timing impeccable. The family would tease her, and moan about her rigid ways, but she was the family mortar (forget haroset).

As fate would have it, my son and his girlfriend are also marking a first yahrzeit: their beloved friend Nicole. Dead from Covid-19 at 33. She was a rock star from the midwest who lit up a room, and who participated in family seders at my sister-in-law’s house. My SIL was passed the seder torch from Mimi when it became too daunting for her to handle. My son and his gf are grieving and I could see the pain etched in their gallant faces, as the couple sat on their Brooklyn couch for the Zoom session. My heart breaks for them.

My brother-in-law’s mother died of a horrible degenerative disease in late 2019, just months before Zoom seder #1 last year. Last night, the typically untethered guy, known for his Tourette-like outbursts of ribaldry, was strangely subdued. Diminished. Was it a passive-aggressive ploy? One could make the case, but I think not. I think he’s shot.

In fact, I think we all presented as “shot”, to varying degrees. We’ve soldiered on, but it’s been tough. Do I have to spell it out? Human loss. Job loss. Social loss. Health instability. In music theory terms, the last year+ has been a minor second. Sharp, unsettling, horror-movie stuff.

We went through the motions, a cursory blast through the Haggadah. Then, instead of a tipsy meal of arguing (what that family considers “normal conversation”), we quickly hit our red “leave meeting” buttons and went about our individual activities. My son and his gf would digitally meet with friends to mourn.

No groaning board covered with haroset, gefilte fish and nostril-searing horseradish, brisket, asparagus, kugel, flourless chocolate cake, etc. etc.

My SIL made salmon.

My wife and I made a half brisket using Mimi’s recipe, earlier in the day. Hers is a garlicky, tomato sauce-based affair. The thing is this: Mimi would always braise it to collagen-laden succulence, then refrigerate it. The next day, she would remove the congealed fat, slice it, and gently reheat it with the sauce, all timed to the reading of the Haggadah with the grand dame’s precision.

So we didn’t eat the brisket last night. It’s on the docket for today’s early dinner. Along with asparagus. Today — a rainy, chilly day. A minor-second of a day.

Why was last night different from any other night? Now, you know.

Sometimes I have nothing. Sometimes, the memories flood my mind, a tsunami of tsouris. Like today, when my Facebook feed had a three-year old post about Parksville.

Parksville is in upstate New York, in the rounded hills called the Catskills maybe 90 miles north of New York City. Maybe a bit more. It’s down in the dumps now. But it wasn’t always that way.

My great-uncle Sam lived in Parksville. To me, a Bronx street urchin, that side of the family — my paternal grandmother’s side — was rich. That is, they did not live in the Bronx. They lived in Queens, which was hoo-hah compared to our down-at-the-heels NYC quadrant. “Francis Lewis Boulevard” conjured images of tony private houses, garden apartments, kids who got braces, foo-foo dropkick dogs.

Sam had a house in Parksville. Not just any house. An old house on a secluded gravel road with a 360-degree porch, gables, turrets, interior staircases, and land, Katie Scarlett, LAND!

Out back was a barn, with an old hayloft, that he converted to a garage. One of his cars — he had several — was a metallic grey Sedan de Ville Cadillac. A/C. Power windows. Red leather seats. Uncle Sam let me sit in that car, with the a/c on, when us po’ relations came a-visiting.

There, I played in the fresh air, with my cousins Dory and Betty. Dory was older than me. Betty and I were about the same age. Where are they now? I have no clue, another family mystery. Why didn’t my parents keep the relationship going? Hell, why did they do anything that they did?

Sam was a WWI aviator. One of the guys in the Snoopy outfits in those single-engined planes with the machine gun synched with the propeller to rain fire at the enemy. He seemed to be a kindly old gent without the accent of his generation, with a cool house, “rich” kids and grandkids, and an awesome Caddy. That’s how the eight-year old me saw him.

But that house! One day, me, Dory and Betty went exploring in the woods beyond the yard. We found a little trail, and carefully side-stepped the poison ivy. There was deer poop, salamanders, thorny ferns. We weren’t in Kansas anymore. Heck, I wasn’t on University Avenue anymore!

In the distance, the sound of gently running water. What could it be? Dory was brave. “Shhh, follow me!” she said. And we did.

Like Indian scouts, we advanced, careful not to snap a single twig. The water got louder. Finally, there it was. A rushing stream, with darting fish, frogs, lichen lined rocks.

Beside the stream, on a rusted metal bridge chair sat an old man in stained white dress shirt, worn black pants, black leather shoes, wearing tsitsis and a yarmulke. He turned his gray stubbly face to us kids, and smiled.

Then he offered us a water glass. “Taste,” he said. “Taste the vasser.” Betty and I checked with Dory. She shrugged.

“OK,” I said. And the old man dipped the glass into the stream and filled it with Parksville water. Dory took a sip and passed the glass to me. I drank, and passed it to Betty.

We all smiled at the old man. It was the coldest, sweetest, most delicious water I’d ever tasted. It was fresh. It was pure. It was our secret elixir.

We kept that secret from the grownups. We never told anyone about the old man of the stream, and his holy water.

I never saw him again. By the time I was ten, I never saw Dory, Betty, Sam — that entire side of the family — again. I started to hatch my escape scheme even then, for I yearned for more episodes of life beyond my Bronx, beyond Sam’s Parksville yard, deep into the woods, with mysterious people who held life secrets.

Thanks to Maxene Spindell, who runs the Catskills Facebook group that ran this Parksville post. It was a writing prompt that unlocked a precious memory and, for that, I am grateful.