Zegar Mazel: It All Started in 1951

By Marc Zegar

This book consists of 26 short stories of a young boy in the 1950's and his adventures in mostly rural New Jersy, Pennsylvania and New York.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Feb 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781543923049

Book preview

Come!

Preface

Why did I write this collection of short stories about growing up in the 1950s? For reasons unimportant for this telling, I have no family other than the one I created for myself. I determined that this Zegar family would begin at my birth. I became a parent relatively late at age 45. It was an exhilarating time for me. I created what was missing in my life: love!

I put my legal career aside and moved our new family to a safe, wholesome environment. Not having grandparents, ready-made aunts and uncles or even cousins to introduce to my kids, I chose to enrich their lives with what I could tell them about where and how their father and hopefully one day, grandfather grew up.

Every night before bed I would weave a tale of adventure and excitement. My kids always wanted more. I’m hoping to meet my grandkids, but if not, I wanted them to know from whence they came. I didn’t want to chance a misinterpretation of what I might have said at any of those story-telling nights. 

My stepson and twins always had enjoyed my stories and wanted more of them. It was fun to get animated and put on a performance. I wanted them to be there with me. These days, the world I grew up in would be unrecognizable.

I grew up with a mother who wanted to be called Mother and who saw her children as prized calves. This is sharply contrasted with the mother of my children who read out loud, sang and played music while her children were still in her womb. What better way to begin a new generation? I believe my children knew that their parents tried their best!

Why Zegar Mazel?

Throughout the world, most people knew or heard the phrase mazel tov. Generally, the understanding is a positive one. It means good luck or congratulations. In my family, however, it was something to overcome. Zegar Mazel victimized our family! Or, so my mother would have us believe. Anything that went wrong was the result of random events and circumstances, rather than choices made, beyond anyone’s control and least of all my mothers’.

This collection of short stories about the 1950’s is as close to the truth as I remember about some of my most personal experiences. I tried to step back into the shoes of the protagonist and tell it from his perspective when possible. My memories, even after 60 years or so, are crisp and indelibly ingrained in my mind.

Many of the descriptions are not politically correct as of 2017 but were perfectly acceptable at the time. Zegar Mazel is not meant to evoke intellectual discussions about politics, racism, religion, etc. but in fact, an attempt is made to accomplish quite the contrary.

When I was growing up, in a household that spoke mostly Yiddish, most Jews often used the word schvartze when talking about Negros or colored people. In Yiddish, schvartze meant black person. As it turned out, Jews were ahead of their time. Black was a respectful moniker since the early 1960’s and still is to this day and used interchangeably with African-Americans since about 1988. There was a time when Jews had common cause with Blacks in America. For most Jews, schvartze was not a derogatory term and certainly not meant as a racial slur.

I am happy to say that I was able to experience some of the joy as I plied my memory to this time in my life. I was also left with much sadness and pain reliving some of these feelings.

For reasons not explained here, I wasn’t able to introduce any part of the family from either of my parents to enrich the lives of my children. For better or worse, you are the judge. I can only hope to start our family history with two caring parents that tried their best. However, I want my children to imagine what life was like for a precocious young boy growing up the way their father did.

I learned early on that I would have to create the life I wanted to live without input or advice from the usual places. I didn’t however want to weigh in here with dreary narratives. Even for my generation however, my stories are unique at a time when they were possible. I doubt very much any of it is probable today.

Many of the stories are about ordinary events in the life of a small boy. If you can indulge the author while reading some of these stories, you may be able to reach back in your own life and quite possibly relate to the timeless problems of early childhood. Do you remember your first pair of sneakers? How about the dreadful things that might befall you if you didn’t do exactly as your mother instructed? At what age could you distinguish between reality and wives tales?

There is so much left unsaid, but you can’t expect 10 years of anyone’s life to be neatly confined to a hundred pages or so. But what you might enjoy if you are old enough is reminiscing your own childhood to compare and contrast your experiences. In some respects, we are all the same.

Chapter 1

The Strongest Man in the World

Most every Thursday night we headed off down the highway in many different directions to far away places like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Rhode Island, New York, Delaware and once even to Maryland. Sometimes we stayed in New Jersey, but almost nearly as often we would drive for hours to a new destination. My mother was a pitchman, except she was a woman. Other than my godmother, everyone else who was a pitchman really was a man. We missed a lot of Fridays at school, but my mother was convinced we would learn more on the road than in the classroom on any given day. At least she convinced herself of that. Of course, my brother and I were not so sure as we presented her excuse notes to our suspicious teachers. But given the choice, we always wanted out of school.

Now, it was a warm sunny day in the summer of 1957. School was out, and the farmer’s markets my mother would attend extended market days to Thursday through Sunday each week to accommodate the warm weather. My mother could make more money, or so she thought.

For my mother, a greener pasture was a farmer’s market where few pitchmen had gone or yet discovered. In such cases, my mother’s makeshift stage and lights brought glamour and excitement to an otherwise-mundane farmer’s market that also sold underwear and produce. Merchants often would congregate around farmers selling fruits and vegetables in remote places. It was an opportunity for these merchants to bring gadgets, clothes and small kitchen appliances like blenders, choppers and knife sets to people who didn’t get to the big city, which often was fifty or more miles away. Some of these merchants were just showmen, selling trick decks of cards or magic tricks for usually a dollar or two. These merchants added much needed and wanted excitement, creating a county fair atmosphere. On many occasions, the focus of the market was a livestock auction. These auctions were the most fun to watch as farmers bid hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars on cattle, horses and giant pigs. You could get close to the animals before they were sold and pet them if you wanted.

We would drive all day and pull into a motor hotel or motel late in the night. These places had been carefully selected by pitchmen before us who often touted the best places to stay or eat. Depending on who gave the recommendation, it was either really great or really cheap. My mother wanted accommodations that were both great and cheap. In the summertime, for example, the motels needed to have a pool to keep my brother and me happy. It was no easy task sitting in the back of the car for hours on end before we knew what our fate would be depending on where we were going. The promise of a pool could keep us quiet for quite a long time.

I never did know the name of the market where I first met Amos. All I remember is that my mother headed over to a large field earlier in the day, talked to a man with a large stomach and baggy pants before going into a small trailer parked on the dirt. She came out shaking her head like something terrible had happened. The door behind her slammed shut and dust flew up all around her. She stopped to look up and shake her head. She said something to my grandma in Yiddish, to which my grandma replied with seeming resignation. Apparently, this man collected a fee and determined where my mother would set up in the marketplace. From the car, all I could see was dirt and weeds, but I knew that by sundown on Thursday night, the place would be teeming with merchants, farmers, magicians and demonstrators of all stripes. They would transform the terrain into a thriving marketplace.

Here’s what I learned: everyone who came to the market passed through the main gate to the main artery. This lesson served me well for many years to come. Location, location, location was drummed into my head. If you were somewhere at the far end of the market, potential customers might not visit your stall. Now, my mother didn’t have a stall; she put on a show. But what better way to attract a crowd than to be situated near the main entrance. Apparently, my mother was dealt space halfway back in the market, which was not to her liking. She, however, had a strategy to overcome this impediment. She was a very clever lady.

Eventually, she was set up and ready to go as the sun started to go down. When she began her pitch, my grandma would stand in front of her makeshift stage looking interested. Thinking back on this, and now being a parent myself, I could only imagine how proud of her daughter she must have been. Soon, a few people, then many, would start crowding around Nanny in front of the stage. To overcome the marginal location, my mother added another speaker to her amplifier and placed it as far forward as possible aimed in the desired direction. She cranked it up, too! Her stall neighbors didn’t complain because they knew they would profit from her overflow. In fact, no one complained because everyone loved the excitement my mother created.

On Saturdays and Sundays, this market opened at noon. The aisles would be packed with people; some carrying large prizes from the game stalls and some with cotton candy, candied apples and other food items my mother called junk. To be truthful, I really liked that junk. Big trucks formed part of the perimeter of the market, with their back ends a few feet apart lined up with bushels, crates and boxes of every kind of produce imaginable. Family members of farmers carried small knives, cutting pieces of fruit to give away to entice potential customers. They were aggressive but friendly. How could you not like a farmer? They all bragged about how great their fruit or vegetables were. This was mostly true. My mother said the market prices were half of what city grocers charged, and those city grocers were not nearly as fresh.

I got to know many of these salespeople. I made friends everywhere I went. My mother said I had the gift of gab. I think that meant I was friendly and got along with folks. One such fellow I got along with was a dark-colored man named Amos. He stuck out quite conspicuously and possibly was the only Negro within fifty miles. For some, the sight of Amos may have been unusual, but it was a familiar sight for me. Several Negros had lived at our house when I was younger. I fondly remembered Mary, Dicey and Cloritha who took care of me in my mother’s absence.

Amos worked for an Amish potato farmer. Most of the farmers were Amish, and they were white. I experienced first-hand how many of these people disrespected Amos. Hey boy, someone wanting potatoes would say that was the worst insult of all. Strangers who had never met Amos could obviously see Amos was no boy. He was far from home, surrounded by many unkind people that didn’t look anything like him. I imagined what that could look like and how threatened Amos must have felt. He was about six feet tall and worked in the hot sun with his shirt off, stacking sacks of potatoes. The sacks were almost as big as I was. He was always smiling and humming. He took pride in his stacks. He built what looked like a three-walled fort with walls as high as six or eight feet. Once the fort was built, he could relax out of the sun, protected by the middle wall he had constructed. By that night, he fully expected to sell all the potatoes. I liked talking to Amos. He didn’t have any kids and liked talking to me, too, or so it seemed. What impressed me the most about Amos was how muscular he was. Every muscle in his stomach and chest was clearly defined. I had wished I could have his body.

Innocently, I asked, How strong are you?

He smiled, looked carefully at me and in a deep voice said, Pound for pound maybe the strongest man you’ve ever met, he started laughing.

I was fascinated with his stomach muscles. They rippled and glistened in the sun as he hoisted yet another sack of potatoes to a customer’s pickup truck.

If he wasn’t the strongest man I’d ever met, he certainly was one of them, I thought.

He said years of tossing sacks of potatoes made his stomach so hard even a bullet might bounce off it.

Well, I wasn’t going for any of that. "Really, a bullet bouncing off your stomach? I have an idea and I dare you to