Papa

Papa was a dandy. He loved playing cards and he loved sports like baseball and horse racing.  He had horses that were high steppers. Papa had a surrey with a fringe top, with a bottle that held flowers. He never drove his two horse surrey without flowers being in the vase. And because I was the baby in the family, I was Papa’s pet. I drove around the countryside with him and bought cattle. We would even go up to Ossining and that was a big drive. I was with Papa much of the time that I wasn’t in school.

When it was time to go to school, Papa insisted on driving me there in the horse and buggy. “We feed the horse,” he would argue. “The horse has a nice clean stable. He doesn’t overwork because we wouldn’t want him to be stressed. Why are you angry at being left at the front door? If it’s raining, it’s my pleasure to take you to the front door at school. If it’s not raining, I leave you off a block away. Sometimes your friends are walking in that block.”

I was embarrassed about going to school in a horse and buggy when people were driving cars. There was no other horse and buggy in the area and the cars would be whizzing by. I would die!

My parents I think were loving but completely undemonstrative. Mama made few if any demands on me- unless she was pressed for time. She was the drone, Papa the administrator. Papa was more overt in his affection but he had very high expectations. He demanded extra effort in everything. If I got 100, he would ask “why not 105?” I remember clearly my father’s version of the Ten Commandments:

1. Thou shall use money in 3 ways: save some, spend some, give away some.
2. Be nice to everyone. You may need their help someday.
3. Always be kind to animals.
4. Be clean and neat: Cleanliness is next to Godliness… and essential to health.
5. Tell the truth- you won’t have to remember, like you do with lies.
6. Thou shalt always do your best and work to learn everything.
7. Thou shalt always respect your elders and have good manners.
8. Be good to your sisters and brother.
9. There are starving Armenians- finish your plate of food
10. Stand up straight.

Children tried all the naughty things then that they do today. Like a fool, I fell into a trap, that implicated me. My brother and I were closest in age and relationship in our family. If he asked a favor of me, I would blindly agree.

On a cold early spring day just before dusk and before the cows came in from pasture for milking, my brother said: “Ask Mama to give you matches for Sam. He wants to smoke his pipe. “ Sam was the manager of the farm and our surrogate father as well. I had no problem getting the matches because Mama always trusted me.

With the matches in my hot fist I happily ran out of the house down the hill to the hideaway where my brother and his friends were waiting. At 9 or 10 years old they wanted to perfect their smoking habit. They weren’t able to inhale at all. I watched with trepidation praying they’d survive without expiring from smoke inhalation. To be honest, they actually coughed more than they smoked. They really loved every minute of feeling like grown-ups.

Unfortunately, my father on returning home, saw us. He went directly to Mama to learn where we got our supplies. Mama must have put the finger on me. I saw the fire in Papa’s eyes as he reached us and I took off into the house, up three flights into the attic.

I never thought he’d come after me. Unluckily he did, and I got it! He put me over his knee and his big hand came down on my rear like a club. All the time he beat me, he shouted “You lied, don’t lie because next you’ll never forget the punishment.”

I was dumbfounded. I thought I was my father’s pet. Now I surely lost that position. At age four I had a bad time dealing with it.

My brother tried in every way to console me. I continued yelping like a hound dog stalking his prey. As the “apple of my father’s eye” I had a strong place in our house. There was no way I knew how to adjust to the disfavor into which I fell. My father probably suffered as much as I did. I was plenty relieved when he came upstairs to kiss me goodnight at bedtime. In my stolid German family, this was a most unusual gesture.