Good Ole Days Opus Two: Varenitchkas

We’ve talked before about my Brooklyn roots, and that I grew up in the house on East 10th Street. It wasn’t a very big house. There were three steps up to a wooden porch with three small pillars holding up its roof. A solid wooden door opened to a small vestibule with small white and black marble tiles on the floor. Another door with glass panes opened into the living room, which had three windows to the porch, a fireplace, and to the left of the fireplace, French doors to the dining room. Lots of doors to small spaces. From the living room a narrow hallway led back to the kitchen, and a few steps in front of you when you walked into the house was a stairway to the bedroom level. The kitchen of my childhood was old fashioned and had a back porch that was screened in. The basement had a coal stove, and Dad shoveled coal into it twice a day. On winter mornings we dressed in front of the lighted kitchen oven, because it took quite a while for the house to heat up. There was a side door that led either down to the cellar or up to the kitchen, and that’s where the milkman left the bottles. His arrival and the clanking of those bottles was our daily alarm clock. We had a small back yard that was a victory garden all through World War II. Beyond the back yard, were the lots. Brooklyn was famous for its “lots.” Big open spaces that eventually became used car lots or other atrocities. When we were kids, it was like a big park with lots of trees and harmless little creatures scurrying around and berry bushes and Blue Birds.

We’d sit out on the front porch in the evenings. Mom and Grandma would eat pistachio nuts. Grandpa Pal would smoke his cigar. Dad would walk to the “avenue” for Breyer’s ice cream and the Herald Tribune Seventh Sports Final. My brothers and I would catch fireflies. Or try to. The next morning, it was my job to sweep up the pistachio nut shells. Until after World War II, the street lights on our block were powered by gas; they were enchanting. Every evening this man carrying a ladder would come down the street and light the lamps. Now that’s charming! The milkman drove a cart pulled by a horse; so did the “I cash clothes” man. A very musical little truck/van came periodically to sharpen knives. In the summer, a truck would show up now and then with a “ride” on it; a small merry-go-round with horses similar to the ones we see in front of stores in today’s world. And always the Good Humor man came with Spring. Our Good Humor man was Frankie. He was our Good Humor man from the time
I was very little until I went off to college and the ice cream trucks stopped arriving. People visited each other on Sundays. Relatives, friends; mom would put a roast or other slow cooking-feed-the-masses meal in the oven every Sunday morning. And the company would come – never invited; always expected. I can hear you saying, "Jeez, she must be 103!" Only once in a while.
I don’t say that those were better days. Given the war and the Holocaust and the scary times that followed, those days were far from great. We had blackouts, and air raid drills, and ration books. Jennie was an air raid warden.
But there was something reassuring then that doesn’t exist now which seems odd to say since we were at war . Maybe because there were relatively fewer people so there were less crowds. Kids played in the street: Red light – Green light; Giant Steps; Johnny May I Cross Your River. We jumped rope, and played rhyming games with high bouncing balls called Spaldenes. The boys played stick ball; or games with marbles; and a game called territory that required a pen knife. (Only in a very small, not respectable part of Brooklyn would that game be dangerous.) I traveled alone on the subway from Brooklyn to Manhattan for my dance classes every Saturday from the time I was 10 years old. We’ve lost something. And it’s missed as well as missing. I know this because so many of the souvenirs sold in New York City today, are reproductions of New York in the 1950’s and before. I’m not the only one recalling yesterday.

I have these scenarios in my head. My kids probably call them “the same old stories;” I always wanted to make them into movies. A friend suggested once that I tape them. Tell the stories since I couldn’t film them. I started to – I called them “The Talkies.” (cute?) Didn’t get very far. Not really sure who'd want to read about it. Life on East 10th Street wasn’t as colorful as Neil Simon’s trilogy of Brooklyn plays. Although some of the images are actually quite colorful. Some of the movies in my head are quite dangerous. (We’re talking World War II after all). And some are just endearing. Like the varenitchkas story.

The kitchen of the house was Grandma Jennie’s domain. The kitchen and the sewing room. One warm day – summer perhaps – Jennie made varenitchkas; sort of kreplach or ravioli or pierogi filled with pitted cherries, boiled, and then sprinkled with powdered sugar. Sometimes she’d brown them in the oven or fry them to make them crispy. I liked them boiled and soft and sweet. We lived on a dead end street as I’ve said, with train tracks at the bottom. During the war the usual freight trains gave way to transport trains, and mostly it was soldiers who were being transported. This very warm day, there was a traffic jam on the tracks and, during the delay, the soldiers came out of the cars and strolled up the hill to the fence. I remember running into the house to tell my mother and grandmother about this stunning event: all these boys lining the fence on the other side and smoking cigarettes and asking the gawking kids for water. Grandma tied an apron around my waist, filled a bowl with varenitchkas, gave me a wad of napkins and sent me back to offer the treat to the soldiers. Then she followed with a pitcher of ice water and a tray of glasses.

I see myself there – four or five years old, blonde curly hair, big eyed; awed by these gorgeous guys in uniform. (All guys in uniform were gorgeous during the war.) They reached through the wire fence to scoop the sweet dough from the bowl. I remember them all as blonde and tall and handsome. And Grandma – who was a sucker for a guy in uniform – flirting with them. They visited with us for more than an hour. I was sent back to the house to refill the pitcher, and returned to see the train pulling away. I broke into tears. I hadn’t had a chance to say goodbye. I still see their perfect faces in my imperfect memory and wonder sometimes how many of them came back and if they ever recalled the brief delay on East 10th street in Brooklyn where they ate varenitchkas and drank cool water. Of course I want them to remember the little blonde girl who wept when they left without goodbye.

Benjie Zadok rode by on his bike one day yelling, "The President is dead! The President is dead!" I ran into the house to tell Mom and Grandma. They turned on the radio, and then they wept. Everyone wept. For days and days it seemed. Only the death of President Kennedy equalled that great sense of loss from Americans and from the world when FDR passed away. The war ended with two celebrations -- VE day and VJ day. And two of Grandma's nephews came home through New York City. She had big welcome home signs made and strung them up across the front of the house. Our close friend, Lt. Murray Blum, didn't come home. He was a merchant marine who died saving sailors whose ship had blown up. It wasn't until I was in college at 17 that I put all of this lived-through history into perspective. But, absurd as it seems, I grew up believing that my part in the war, my personal contribution was serving varenitchkas to beautiful boys on their way to war. Innocence is such a gift.