Uncle Murray gets the last laugh

Oh how happy I would have been to trade a few minutes of weather from that day we buried the guy for what we had today at the unveiling of the monument.

Just watched a couple of talking heads at CNN announce that the first power outages of the "Frankenstorm" occurred just north of Atlanta, 700 miles south of the storm's eye.

Earlier in the day, 700 miles west of that eye, we had that cold front moving through, the one that's heading up to meet with Hurricane Sandy to create that Frankenstorm.

We'd had an uneventful drive down, but just as we're pulling into the Pardes Chaim cemetery all frankenhell breaks loose.

When we get out of the car there's howling wind and rain and sleet and I swear I even saw snowflakes.

Umbrellas were being blown inside out. Toupees and kippas were blowing in the wind...

The attending Rabbi pulled off the shortest unveiling service in the history of death; about seven minutes.

And somewhere Murray Zidenberg was having the last laugh.

Pardes Chaim Cemetery

By Jeezus, I swear this field was planted with soybeans the last time I was this far up Bathurst a couple years ago.

Now it's the Pardes Chaim Cemetery, Uncle Murray's final resting place.

Don't know why he picked this place. Coulda been a couple miles over at the Pardes Shalom with Uncles Frank and Henry and a bunch of the others. At least over there the shade trees make shade. Here the "shade trees" are an inch in diameter and about six feet high.

And he's buried amongst a bunch of Russians. Not that there's anything wrong with that. A Jew is a Jew I suppose, and far be it for me, a token goy around here, to pass judgement.

Still, it all seems a bit incongruous. First I thought, well, Murray knew the value of a dollar, and he's saved a bit on shade trees to leave a bit more for the heirs.

Then I checked the Pardes Chaim website. Seems they're owned by the same outfit that runs Pardes Shalom, and as far as I could tell the prices were the same.

That's got to be a good gig, cemetery management. I would think it's the quiet side of property management. Not a lot of loud parties to deal with.

But I digress.

Nobody saw me step out of the car and touch my forehead to the ground. God only knows what scandal that would have unleashed. Bad enough to be the token Goy.

That "kiss the earth" deal might have marked me as a secret toweller.

This family has suffered enough, and even though they put up with me, I'm not certain they could put up with that.

Let me explain.

I had the honor of bringing the wife of the deceased down to Toronto from Owen Sound. That is an honor. Little did she realize she'd be riding down in my Subaru Impreza.

For those readers who don't know, that's what's commonly known as a "compact" car.

Very compact.

And it wasn't just Aunt Flo I was taking to Toronto. Junior and the Farm Manager and the Bubbinator had to get there too.

Great! Four Jews in a Subaru with me driving.

Now this may seem simple enough on the face of it, but let me explain. This Subaru is a recent acquisition. Not only that, but it's a really small car. Not that small when I'm driving it alone, but by God, when you pile four passengers in, it gets small fast.

Let me further explain the logistics of the trip.

I'm not saying Aunt Flo is large, but she's a bit larger than the svelte self I've seen in her wedding pictures. In short, if Auntie Flo is making this trip, she ain't riding in the back.

That of course leaves Junior, the Farm Manager, and the Bubbinator to share the back seat.

Now, none of them are "large" large, but none of them are midgets either.

So we were packed in there pretty tight.

Another thing about Aunt Flo, she's an old-school girl. She's an old-school Jewish broad who is loud and proud and if you don't like it... well, just get out of her way.

She also has old-school habits when it comes to putting on perfume.

In Flo's world, if a little dab'll do ya, a good splash will do ya way longer.

So Flo was perfumed up pretty good by the time we got to her apartment.

We head down the highway for Pardes Chaim. Thank God the air-conditioning is working like a charm.

First thing Flo does is relocate my coffee into a different cup-holder, better to make room I suppose. As we pull away from her building the coffee topples onto my lap.

She's sorry. I'm sorry too. Let's not worry about it...

Ten miles out of town the air conditioning starts blowing warm. This is not good. We've got 150 miles to go.

Ten miles after that I notice the temperature gage on the Subaru is heading for the sky.

Oh-oh.

I've mentioned that the Subaru was a recent addition to the family fleet. I'd noticed before that it has a habit of randomly overheating.

But please, God, not now!

I'm in the hills between Markdale and Chatsworth, the temp gage peaking and then settling down and then peaking again...

I've got a vision of me standing beside the road with Aunt Flo and the Bubbinator and the rest of them, thumbs out, hoping to get a ride the rest of the way to Murray's funeral...

That would pretty much ensure me a place in the Schmuck Hall of Shame.

Never mind the Hall of Shame; I'd be the schmuckiest schmuck who ever beschmucked the planet!

To say the rest of the trip was pins and needles is the least of it.

"Would you like some grapes and cheese?" Aunt Flo would ask.

I'm 150% focused on the temperature gage.

No thank you.

Aunt Flo must have asked me two dozen times if I'd like some grapes and cheese...

No.

Thank you!

Miracle beyond miracles, we made it to Pardes Chaim, whereupon the folks already present were amused to see just how many people could disembark a tiny Subaru.

Ya folks, have your chuckle, but you don't even know the quarter of it!

Which is why I kissed the ground.

But no matter. On this hottest day of the year in a cemetery with no shade, having just arrived in a car with no air conditioning, a hot wind suddenly blew up.

Just as I was attempting to secure a kippa on my head.

Now the Farm Manager's folks aren't over-the-top religious, but they do don the kippas on occasions such as this. How do you keep a kippa on in a 30k gust?

They were trying it all around me. Paper clips. Bobby pins.

I was struggling till bro-in-law Ben says, hey, you're not a Jew anyway, just take the damn thing off!

Easy for him to say. I notice he's not having any trouble keeping his kippa on in a torrential gust... probably because he's got a piece of carpet tape between that near-bald pate and his kippa.

Anyway, after chasing the kippa down in the wind-swept former soy-fields a couple times, I finally put it in my back pocket and made it to the grave side. Half the guys there had their kippas in their back pockets.

I've been to a few funerals in my time. I have to say Cantor Silverberg pulled off one of those deals where you walk away saying that was just right. Not something that happens at every funeral.

And the Farm Manager delivered a eulogy that was at once over the sky and very much down to earth.

Nice send-off, Uncle Murray!

God speed, Uncle Murray

We got the call just after five this morning.

You made it safely to the other side.

So much better than lingering in between. Good call you made there, directing your last act while you still could.

I will always admire your courage.

When we were up last week I meant to mention that when we were clearing out your place in town, I snagged a keep-sake from your draftsman days.

I've got your Bethlehem Steel Structural Shapes reference handbook. I had one similar when I was a welding inspector at Frankel Steel, but this is the deluxe version.

Thanks!

Clotheslines and finish lines

So it's all up in the air with Uncle Murray.

Took a pass on his regularly scheduled dialysis session a week ago. Everybody was expecting things to go down fast after that.

So I've got those size 11 Harts on, and I'm pretty much sporting them all over the place, although I must admit that when we went to look in on the old boy a few days ago I slipped on my Addidas runners.

Don't want to look like I'm gloating.

So we're kind of on hold around here, because we don't want to be off on a vacation or even a trip to the wrong city at the moment Uncle Murray buys the farm, if you know what I mean.

Therefore I've been keeping busy around here.

As regular readers will know, I installed a clothesline here at Falling Downs a year ago. You'll also know there were a few flaws in the design.

Actually, I think the design was OK; the execution was somewhat flawed.

But I've been using this "spare" time to remedy the situation.

You will recall that the project stalled out once I realized that I didn't have to build a stoop to reach the clothesline, because anyone, even the diminutive farm manager, could reach the clothesline while standing on the picnic table.

Well, wouldn't you know it, all of a sudden the farm manager gets to putting on airs about having to stand on the picnic table to hang the laundry.

"Fuck off, is this hillbilly central or what?" were her exact words.

Once a woman is in that state of mind there is no point in trying to be reasonable.

So even though the picnic table was a perfectly reasonable platform from which to hang the wash, I was forced to put up a proper laundry stoop.

Which I did last weekend. Took the better part of Saturday. Four sturdy cedar posts topped off with a pressure treated 4X4 foot deck.


What a delight it was to hang the laundry while standing on something other than a picnic table!


And then the entire clothesline collapsed.

Going out with Grace and Dignity

Grace and Dignity.

Weren't they two of the back-up singers on one of the early Aretha albums?

I'm sure Uncle Murray would enjoy the pun.

Uncle Murray is determined to go out with grace and dignity.

The doctors have laid it out plain for him.

You can have these body parts lopped off and you might last six months.

Stay the course and you're good for six weeks, max.

Uncle Murray, we love you, and I hope when my time comes I have the courage to make the choice that you have made.

Grace and dignity.

God bless.

The bright side of death

Well here's a fucked-up story.

I'm driving the mother-in-law to Toronto.

You've read about how Jewish women like nothing better than having you drive them somewhere.

Now I've got not one but TWO Jewish women in the car.

So the farm manager is sitting in the front and the Bubby is in the back.

Bubby. The Bubbinator. The Bubbatohla.

This is a serious woman and you don't deal lightly with her.

I'm trying to make small talk, so I get to telling Bubby about my last speeding ticket.

"It was right along this stretch of highway. I was distracted because me and junior were deep into a talk about better ways to treat sewage... and I was so engrossed in the conversation I sailed over this hill, this one right here, and I totally forgot the speed limit drops to 50!"

As I'm telling this tale to the Bubbatohla a black SUV coming the other way puts it's cop lights on.

For fucks sakes!

I'm distracted telling Bubbs about the speeding ticket I got when I was distracted, and godamit, I get another speeding ticket!

110 in an 80. Thank God I wasn't in the 50 zone yet!

The dude was kind enough to cut it back to 95. No points lost.

We continue on our way and the conversation eventually turns to Uncle Murray.

We've been saddled with the burden of clearing out Murray's apartment now that he's in a home.

Murray's suffered diabetes forever. Just recently, before he went into the home, they took his big toes off.

In the meantime, we've been selling off his personal possessions.

The bed went first, then a bunch of small stuff.

The whole time I've got my eye on a pair of really nice dress shoes. Harts if I'm not mistaken.

Light brown. Just my size.

Made in Canada by old-school shoe-builders. New Brunswick, I believe.

Not one of your mainstream shoe brands built by eight year old kids in China.

So Bubby says, you know they're going to take Murray's feet off next week?

I didn't say a word.

But I knew right away those size 11 Harts were mine!

Uncle Murray's rum

The regular readers will remember that last weekend we did the clean-out of Uncle Murray's apartment.

The old Jew went to a home. The youngsters got to clean out the apartment.

Mind you, we didn't get any of the valuable stuff.

As for me, I'm just thrilled to be considered one of the youngsters.

There's a fifty-one inch Panasonic TV that'll probably go for two hundred bucks. Just needs a hundred dollar bulb of some sort.

I'm thinking what the fuck, who comes to a moving sale and pays anything for anything when you announce it just needs a new something for a hundred bucks?

But no, at these family deals nobody ever listens to the voice of reason.

Me.

But I digress.

I want to talk about Uncle Murray's rum.

This is killer shit.

All the writing on the labels is in French.

I can make out "Martinique" and 50%.

So I gather it's half from Martinique but man does it have a kick. I personally have a pretty high tolerance for high-octane liquor but this stuff is wicked nasty.

I don't even remember Uncle Murray ever going to Martinique.

Hell, if he was knocking back this stuff I can see why he doesn't remember either.

Passages

Today we cleaned out Murray Zidenberg's apartment.

No, Uncle Murray hasn't gone to his reward...

Actually, maybe he has.

He's nestled into a place in Oshawa where he's got a Red Seal chef doing the meal prep and 24 hour a day room service. He's never had it so good.

Word has it that he's morphed into something of a social butterfly at the new place. That ain't Uncle Murray.

But maybe it is now.

Maybe he's made peace with the fact that it's OK to coast to the finish line.

You don't have to keep the reserve tank topped up anymore.

He's come to that time and place in his life.

I'm not a big fan of moves. But every move is a passage to something. On the whole it's more fun helping the younger generation move.

Over the course of a five year university career I helped my daughter move four times. Every move was infused with optimism. When you're young a move means you're heading somewhere.

When you're old you're heading somewhere too, but it's just not the same.

Aunt Flo was there to supervise the moving of Murray's stuff. She's been divorced from the guy for twenty years but still runs his life. She's a powerhouse, Auntie Flo is.

Loud 'n proud. Look up "kvetch" in the dictionary and you'll find her picture. Walk into any store in town with her and watch the sales staff dive for cover.

Auntie Flo suffers no fools and takes no prisoners.

She supervised the loading of my truck. This is going to the Goodwill. These three boxes are for the Sally Ann. All that stuff is going to the recycle depot. Maybe this stuff you can use at the farm...

Once I was out of sight I made a beeline for the landfill.

Sorry Aunt Flo.

But I still love ya!