a macho Horatio Alger with a little Budda about him

My Dad didn’t have a clue about females.
When I was growing up, I found his rules and myths
impossible to even take seriously.
Hence, they had less impact than Mom’s, whose global
views were largely influenced by fear of disappointing
her parents, particularly her father Max.
As far as I can tell, my mom’s rules and myths went
something like this:
"I own my children’s bodies…. Like anyone who is
controlling…. Don’t trust anyone who isn’t family….
Trust PEOPLE…. Say what you think…. Don’t express
negative feelings or it might kill your parents or
children…. Intellect and debate are good…. Don’t think
too much or you’ll go crazy…. It is selfish to trust
yourself…. Don’t grow up or be sexual…. Always tell
the truth…. Protect your siblings and parents from the
truth…. Don’t be selfish…. Be Yourself….Don’t be
angry…. Watch your mouth." But above All Else was,
"Don’t disappoint Max".
It was my grandfather Max who boasted, "My children
are my assets and grandchildren are my dividends."
To disappoint Max was to fail God.
Here then, is the story of my grandfather and some of
my impressions about his impact on my life and the
lives that helped grow (and impede) me:

While Mom always claimed I had inherited that
adventuresome spirit from Max, she also confused me:
my wildness was never exactly celebrated.
First of all, I am struck when Mom tells me how her
father, Max left home when he was even younger than I
was (I was 15 and Woodstock was beckoning) and how he
left his uncle’s house near Kiev "because he didn’t
like the way his aunt had looked at him."

At 16, I was sent to live at my aunt, uncle and MAX AT
Max’s house. I too left my aunt’s house because of
what I had attributed (and in the exact same words as
Max) to the fact that "I didn’t like the way my aunt
looked at me."



Mom taught me to interview and record parental history
— an excellent way to insure that one’s parents can
continue to trouble and confuse them and future
generations after they wear out their welcome in this
world. She interviewed Max when he was 96, who boasted
of how from age six his mother regularly made him walk
seven miles each way through the woods, in order to
have a chicken slaughtered.


Max’s father, a produce store and inn owner, had died
when Max was five. He had to run through the woods of
the Ukrainian village of Radmissl, returning sometimes
at night, past shadows looming huge upon the trees,
holding on so tightly to a squawking chicken he could
have saved himself the trip altogether, were it not
un-Kosher to strangle it.

Mom taught me to go for the jugular, while sounding
innocent. "What did it feel like being so young and
running alone through those dark woods at night?
Weren’t you afraid they were haunted? Weren’t you
terri…" Just then Max broke in on her inquisition into
his vulnerabilities, roaring (like Mel Brooks’
two-thousand-year-old-man), "Feelings, shmeelings! You
did what you had to do!"

Unlike her father, my mom was complexly cerebral and
disconnected from nature. Max was a farmer turned
businessman and never forgave his wife Sonia, for
"making him" give up gardening to go into business.
{That was how my mom told it…but such a "take" makes
me wonder how my grandma had that much power: Did she
tie his hands… refuse to have sex, or what?}

Max was a simple man who praised his cabbages and said
not to pick all the weeds because you never knew which
ones would turn into something beautiful. Max espoused
many proud ideals, including, "Work hard and be
responsible for what you do. Women must be modest,
helpful and cheerful. Men must be strong and not take
any shit. Never complain. Be loyal to family above all
others. Be loyal to your country above all else. Never
talk about anything personal. Persevere. Moderation in
all things. Pretend there is no sex. Eat good food."
Max said, "Take what you want but eat what you take,"
(which is how to get fat). "A man without a family is
like an island: water all around but not a drop to
drink" (which is how to stay in a miserable marriage).
My favorite was "the truth is the best lie" (which I
adopted to the demise of many a job and relationship.)

Of course, my brand of honesty (along with later
obsessions like, Sex) never washed well with Mom, who,
as an adolescent fantasized getting pregnant before
she was married, and committing suicide.


"Be Proud of Who You Are" was inscribed on Max’s
fiercely proud face, chest puffed forward, shoulders
back. I recall that from a photo taken in the
mid-eighties, only a few years before he died at age
96. He is taking a long stride; as if walking at a
good clip on the yearly 10-mile marathon he took to
raise money for Israel.


Max ran away from his home at age 11, to avoid
apprenticing with a tin roofer. He left behind a
brother and a sister.
At age 14, he tried working for his uncle who lived
near Kiev (not in it, since Jews were forbidden to
reside within the city). He’d said to the peasants,
who were regularly robbing his uncle’s wagon of the
grain, "When you steal from us, please steal from the
bin marked, ‘received.’" That way, at least his uncle
Could get reimbursed.



Later he joined the army. A day came when Max was
denied permission to attend the classes in reading and
writing because he was a Jew. That night he threw on
an overcoat to hide his layered his civilian clothes,
and walked to Germany from wherever they were
stationed, knowing fully that if he were caught he
would be shot by a firing squad or sent to Siberia.



Max never could bring himself to blame the Czar, to
whom he always held and irrational Patriotic
allegiance. He must have said, "hear no evil, see no
evil, speak no evil," when he set his sights on
America. He traveled third class with the steerage
cattle. In steerage, it was common policy to throw
overboard passengers who became seasick. He arrived in
New York in 1910. With a few dollars from his brother,
who was to join him later, and with the help of the
Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, an organization with an
office in Ellis Island that helped Jews with
immigration, Max relocated to Hartford.



There he re-connected with his older sister, Tanta
Malka, who was engaged and getting ready to move to
California.
Max immediately started working in a factory. After
one week he said, "Not for me!" And went down to a bar
on Front Street where despairing immigrants discussed
their options. A man suggested they rob a train
together and Max told him that he had to be crazy.
A man owed Max some money and had none, so he gave Max
his milk-delivery business instead. The had a problem
getting upright. Max had to hoist her before he could
get her to work; a family tradition began: in two
decades it would evolve into trying to get my own lazy
horses up for school. Max bought the horse and wagon
for ten dollars and began making milk deliveries.
Delivering a staple excused Max from having to serve
in World War I.
Max adored animals as much as his cabbages and
tomatoes. He probably observed, unknowingly, the
Jewish practice law requiring us to feed our animals
before ourselves.
After a couple of years, Max sold his business for
twice his investment and began peddling fruits and
vegetables. Within a year he had enough money to send
for his brother, Morris.


A few years later, as business progressed to fruit
stands and wagon deliveries, he sent for his cousin,
Sonia. They married shortly after and 2 generations
matured before anyone [yours truly] questioned the
effects of such a marriage. [Why are our eyes so close
together? Why are people in my extended family
bi-polar?]

My grandmother, Sonia, had neglected to mention most
of her family to my Mother, who only recalled stories
about a peasant girl who worked for them, who slept
above the stove in the kitchen. Sonia did once mention
a brother, who, during a fire in their house, had run
back in to save his books, nothing else. Mom deduced
that he was an intellectual, like herself and
regretted having never met her uncle. All she knew of
her grandfather was that Max had once remarked that
when there was trouble, he would take to his bed.



Max dreamed of farming. Sonia discouraged him from
farming but he married her and resented her for it for
the duration of her life. She died much younger than
he from a weak heart.

By the ’30s, Max developed a relatively booming
business, United Fruit and Produce.
"Money will come, money will go," he insisted, and
when he was convinced to sell his property on Front
Street for thousands, he sold it because it sounded
like a lot of money. When he learned it was worth
millions, he didn’t miss a beat. But when his son and
he disagreed, he was too anxious to sleep. Max, who
hated excuses and cons, used to say, "You don’t get
something for nothing."


When a man came to his warehouse, asking for a job,
Max said "okay", he would give him a job. But when the
man replied, "You know Mr. Karp, you’d have to hire me
anyway, because I’m a Jew, and Jews have to hire
Jews," he bellowed, "What! You’re a Jew! I don’t hire
Jews. You’re fired!"

Max was with immigrant Italians most of the time, and
often enjoyed speaking like a genuine Italian when in
their company. In the mid-’40s, he was negotiating
with a man to rent his cottage at a beach for the
summer, when just before the deal was to be signed,
the man said, "And you know, Mr. Karp, the best thing
about this place is there are no Jews!" Max exclaimed,
"Why you goddamn Guinea; what the Hell do you think I
am?"



"God has been good to me," he’d announce before we ate
from the head of his son’s long dining room table in
Manchester. Family gatherings were jovial with Max
boasting and telling stories, giving away or hiding
dollar bills to us grandchildren, offering us sips of
his frosty Budweiser, and a seat on his sturdy knee,
neutralizing and potential mystery and cravings
towards alcohol.



He believed in Moderation in All Things and imparted
feelings of trust and entitlement to his children and
to his children’s children, forever reminding us of
all the good things that blessed his family, and his
part in providing that we should be happy.



He only exacted from us one cost, and it was meant
especially for our parents. That was to "Remember who
helped you," which included to "Always kiss an adult
who hands you money."



There were no alcoholics or addicts in this lucky
family. It is a waste that he and I never hardly
spoke, that he was rather a temperamental, but benign
king and I one of many lovely children that graced his
castle, but to whom he didn’t relate directly.
At least that was the best I could make of what might
otherwise have been a cranky old man. For all his
charisma, Max was hard to get close to and did not
like uppity women. And for that reason I secretly
rejected him: How could such a great man find so
little of interest in me?
Of course, by the ’60s, I was anathema to my
grandfather, who balked at my generation’s
indulgences. My twin and I were fashionably out of
control and when we joined a commune in Massachusetts,
he was appalled. It was not the American Way. Mom
humored him, saying, "they will outgrow it soon." Max
somberly shook his head as if he knew the power of
masses under the influence of other charismatic
leaders, as if he’d been usurped by an evil and alien
enemy. He sighed heavily and if he could have cried he
would have, and replied, "I don’t know."
Max couldn’t articulate his outrage and disappointment
that this place was not a place from which we could
graduate or move on. It was another planet, and
leaving all ties to the past behind because they were
ties to materialism and emotion, was to him a denial
and betrayal of all he valued most: honor and loyalty
to parents and family members.
To us it was a heroic effort to save the world. It was
to be a blueprint for a New World, which would
eventually provide a better life for all. But to him
it didn't mirror a man who’d gone out and made it on
his own, with, as he would say, "God-given gifts," his
brains and his brawn. A man who had taught himself to
read and to write once he came to America; had made
sure to invest in college tuition for us.
Now I was betraying, not just his ideals but my own
vision, for I’d formerly been eagerly awaiting my
enrollment in Goddard College. Max had hated
fanaticism. I wish I had hated it also, but who knew.
If I was trying to match Max’s life of adventure, I
should have included his strong sense of
self-preservation.


The preservation however, didn't seem to stop. Mom,
finding Max overbearing, had looked elsewhere for help
teaching her daughters how to survive. She gave up and
absorbed herself in less confusing topics like
Einstein’s theories of relativity, Jewish History, and
Zen Buddhism. Sometimes she even tried asking Dad for
help!

"Max wasn’t angry, was he?" She’d typically ask Dad
when Max snapped at her. She seemed to believe that if
someone didn’t want to talk, they would just talk
about not wanting to talk.
"How the hell would I know what he felt?" would put an
end to both discussion and the possibility of a
non-verbal friendly encounter. Which would have been
just what Max would have done.



Max influenced us all with an impatient bluntness that
could both charm and shut up as he saw fit; a useful
survival skill for a person who refuses to be a
stranger to the wide world of human nature, wherever
he travels. In this day of confusion between what is
politically correct and what is honest, Max was often
the savviest of us all.