Tuesday, April 22, 2003
A surgical strike, in and
A surgical strike, in and out. I’m back from Ohio and Nana’s funeral. It was surgical in terms of time - leave SF at 1 pm sunday, back at 10 pm monday. It was surgically clinical too, or felt that way - everything happened according to a preprinted schedule, as Nana would certainly have wanted it, and though nothing was done in a perfunctory way, it was all brisk, efficient, and tidy, as Nana certainly would have insisted it be.
The travel portion of my trip was not noteworthy, except for the drive at night from Dayton into Lima in my rented Taurus (what ignominy to share an astrological sign with the automotive version of the Pax channel), listening to Quah really loud, singing with the windows open and letting the moist cool air fill my mouth; it’s an hour on the interstate due north without anything more interesting to look at than the garrishly lit but featureless saltbox of the ADULT bookstore off the highway in Findley, and the gentle breastlike dome of the Armstrong Space Museum in Waupak, emerging from a low hill and surmounted with a small blue light - Kel called it the “land boob” but she couldn’t come on this trip, her sister and cousin and husband-in-law were visiting for easter… I thought as I cruised past, that this would be my last trip to Ohio and I would not visit that museum again. It’s really a cool one, too. A cool thing, evaporated from my life with the loss of my grandmother. I was going to start noticing them.
Then, in Lima, I drove around downtown for a few minutes before pulling into the hotel. I took a long look at the brusque brick buildings, damp with a fresh sprinkle of rain and reflecting the sparse streetlights. The town was dead at that time, about midnight-thirty, but it wouldn’t get much busier during the day; I approached the hotel on Main Street, with the grandest and sturdiest buildings in the downtown area, and three-quarters were completely vacant; the rest mainly just had groundfloor tenants. The town was on life-support, barely responsive, trapped in fantasies of byegone significance, if not importance (Lima was once a major manufacturing center) - or so it seemed to me in my bleary and somber state. City as analogue for nursing home. Morbid thoughts.
I checked in at the big downtown hotel - five years old and entirely satisfactory - and was assigned room 306. I found it, opened the door, and stood outside for a moment - the room was completely filled with old furniture, much of it obviously broken - cast-offs from other rooms. After my initial surprise, I began to feel badly for these items that had sacrificed themselves for the patrons of the hotel and were now ghettoized together in a dark chamber out of the public eye as if they were diseased, a source of shame. A warehouse for that which we have used, used up, and don’t wish to have anything further to do with. Of course I thought of Nana in her nursing home again, which was by far the nicest nursing home I’ve ever heard of and should be a national model, but regardless it is full of old people, many of them remarkable and precious, and I don’t even want to continue to describe the thoughts that hammered in my head as I rode the slow elevator down to the lobby to get a new room....
The next day I arose and dressed in my suit. I had gone without shaving since leaving work, on the recollection that “not shaving” was a traditional jewish response to the death of a close relative, but I thought better of it that morning. Nana was far too proper and bourgeoise to smile upon a slovenly appearance, so I showed up for our family breakfast shaved and tidy. It was my mom, my sister, me, and my mom’s brother with his wife and two children, my sister’s and my ages. We went to the Huddle, the traditional breakfast joint, home of truly exceptional fried cornmeal mush. I didn’t get any - it’s passover and for some reason I was being observant of it that day. It was good to shmooze with the family; Dick had just returned from Israel and had some interesting stories, and we all get along well.
From breakfast we went to the synagogue, where about 15 of us met up for the procession of seven or so cars to the cemetary. I drove slowly with my sister in the car, a flag magnetically stuck to our roof. We didn’t get lost. We noticed that, at the cemetary, many gravesites were marked by a family name and then, instead of individual names and dates, just family roles: “Mother,” “Father,” “Child.” These seemed to date back to the early 20th century, they were not unfinished. Seems a deindividuizing way to spend eternity, but maybe that’s what it’s all about. More people met us at the gravesite, including the korean couple my grandparents had befriended back in the 50s when he first came to the US, and who had been their local proxy “kids” for many years. They always look great. The gravesite was under a green canopy with two rows of folding chairs; the coffin was a lovely and elegant model in a mellow wood stain with brass fittings that looked like they’d make good cufflinks; a gorgeous boquet of pink roses and star lilies lay on top. Nana was a Sulka, after all, and style was important to her.
Rabbi Oster said a few words that were extremely moving. I was going to try to recount them but that would be very pale and inadequate and unsatisfying. He stood there in a floppy bucket hat (against the possibility of more rain), an elder statesman, imperious in gaze and supplicant in gesture, speaking with that most haunting and tragic dialect of the old german jew. He was eloquent and passionate; he’d known my Nana when she was doing big things all the time with utter charm and grace and smoothness. She had been one of his first and best friends and her loss touched him very deeply too.
We concluded the committal - tears were shed, and copiously, most touchingly to me by Mrs. Kim - and then retreated back to the synagogue. A beautiful memorial service was held, with notes of both sorrow and joy from my mother and her brother. We retired to the reception hall, where we talked about all kinds of petty things. When Grandpa died, as I recall, we all talked about him. We hadn’t mentioned Nana at breakfast and barely mentioned her at her reception, except to draw each other’s attention to the many artifacts around the room that bore Nana’s imprint - photos of her with various clubs incorporated in montages of old press clippings; a memorial plaque with her name; an engraved plate for the “Woman of Valor” award with her name carved in it for October 1967 (a time at which I am sure valor was desparately needed). In a place with so many pictures of her from 30, 40, 50 years ago, those were the images of her we wanted to remember. The her we buried, the one in the wheelchair talking about cruise ships and long-deceased friends - that her we were willing to forget. We let the “real” Nana beam out at us and ate.
The food was excellent in spite of being kosher l’pesach, with no grain products but mazoh and its derivatives on the table. There were kugels and desserts which appeared to have been homemade and were, generally, very tasty; the Lima lox connection is something that truly flummoxes me - how can such a tired little midwest berg have the best lox I’ve ever tasted? I ate substantially, chatting with my family and several of the very kind people who came to pay respects.
It was at this phase that my Mom learned that Jimmy H. had died just that morning. He had worked for Grandpa and his brothers when they’d owned a department store 50 years ago, and had remained a good friend to the family. When my mom was unable to climb stairs to her classes in high school because of foot surgeries, Jimmy picked her up from home and carried her up 20 steps in front of the school and then up to the second floor of the building - and then carried her back down at the end of the day. He was dead too now. He’d been ill, everyone was older than dirt. There were very few people left in town who knew what once had been Lima and my family.
My flight was at 4; I changed into my casual clothes and non-metal-containing shoes and drove with my sister to Dayton. During my flights (both ways) I read A Prayer for Owen Meany, which I enjoyed. It, too, concerns death. It seems to be everywhere these days. It’s getting so I have to remind myself that Lima was full of flowering fruit trees and elms and maples and oaks coming into leaf, that the grass was lush and green and the tank plant was back in operation; the world is renewed and redeemed and all that good stuff is going on. Tunnel vision, I suppose. I’ll go out and walk the dog and have a bit of a distraction and I bet that’ll cheer me up.
Ohio Highlights:
Ohio claims on its license plates to be the “birthplace of aviation,” because O & W Wright lived in Dayton. However, they road-tripped to North Carolina to test out their invention, and NC therefore puts “first in flight” on its license plates. Sounds like time for a showdown to me, maybe an old-fashioned drag race or dance-off. But, driving around Dayton, I understood why Orville and Wilbur had been driven to such heights of creative genius from their bicycle shop there - TO GET THE HELL OUT. “Dude, I’m so bored - let’s give this heavier-than-air flight thing a shot. At the very least we might meet some chicks from the Outer Banks. Beach girls love to party!” (I’m just conjecturing, based on “Orville” and “Wilbur” being such lame names, that they didn’t get a lot of dates.)
The family always eats out at the same restaurants when we go to Lima, because, mainly, there’s not much else to choose from. The section of the phone book that lists restaurant menus was limited to six pizza joint menus and two chinese menus. My sister suggested TIGFridays. I reminded her that we were buried so deep in the shallow stagnancy of north-central west ohio that the phrase “TGIF” here stood for “Thank God It’s Findley.” In Ohio, this passes for humor. Anyway, my uncle laughed, and he was at his mother’s funeral.
On the way back to the Dayton airport my sister pointed out that the truck next to us was marked, “Technical Animal Fat - Not Intended for Human Consumption.” This phrase raised many questions in my mind. What made it “technical?” Was this some form of adipose science with which I was unfamiliar? Or did this distinguish it from “putative” animal fat, which is effectively animal fat but hasn’t fulfilled all the legal requirements? Then my mind turned to whether huge two-tank trailer trucks are cruising around filled with animal fat that IS intended for human consumption, and if so, in what form? And then, who did they think would benefit from this sign? The people who drive, fill and empty the trucks must have some clue what’s going on - Ohio’s not a place where people hail down random animal fat trucks to get a quick top-up of comestibles for humans, is it? I guess this warning is for the people who might by chance witness a terrible accident in which a giant truck laden with non-comestible lard tips and tears open and its precious cargo of lipids and cholesterol begins to spill onto the roadbed - for somebody just stupid enough to say, “Dang, that smells like animal fat! And I brought me a spoon!” Such people are unlikely to be dissuaded by signage, but I guess it’s a matter of risk management.