Life Is a Mystery but You Don't Have to Solve It

By Mark J. Seitman

He grew up in Brooklyn, New York, playing stickball, kick the can, and chasing girls before venturing into Manhattan to see what the grown-ups were doing, and then began shaping his life from what he learned.
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You will love Life Is A Mystery, But You Don't Have To Solve It; a 75-year journey from the streets of Brooklyn to a Carmel estate overlooking the Pacific.
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Stories about life, lessons learned from big city experience, ups and downs in business and in love. Mark ends with the elusive solution to the mystery that has puzzled man since he started to think.
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You will laugh, and cry, as our author takes you on his bumpy path in search of the answers to life. An entertaining autobiographical read, with names you will know, places you have been, and finally, the solution to life's greatest puzzle.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Apr 30, 2018
• ISBN: 9781543934052

Book preview

Author

PREFACE

This work is a series of short anecdotal essays. Writing in this format has allowed me to cover the wide variety of jobs and life experiences that I have had, and people that I have encountered, in my life.

My goal in life has been to touch lives that I have passed in a positive way. This book is my attempt to reflect on the journey, laugh about life, see the good and bad, learn from it, and try to impart some of the value of my experience to others.

The title of this collection of memoirs indicates I have found the answer to the great mystery and I have. Follow me over these pages and you will see the bumpy road that has brought me to the conclusion. I hope you enjoy the side trips that I have included. It is a journey that has taken most of my life.

Many personal details have been omitted in order to protect the privacy and memories of those involved in my tales. Everyone tries to decipher the right and wrong of past events, but no one who lived those events ever remembers them with perfect accuracy. These are my stories and are told through the perspective of my memories.

I feel my journey is an inspirational adventure showing that life can have special rewards gained simply in the process of living. Guiding you through these abbreviated chapters allows me to act as your escort. I will be leading you through a big part of my journey. I hope you will have a chance to look at mirrors that reflect your life, even while you may be laughing at or pondering mine.

INTRODUCTION

My mother was a first generation American. My dad, with his family, arrived here from Russia when he was three. Although they both lived with the old ways and practiced the old customs, they did their best to be true Americans. Unfortunately, because they worked so hard to be a part of their present and even more so their future, they left behind an important part…their past.

I grew up on the streets of Brooklyn, where one could not avoid being Americanized. Those streets were a constant education on American morals and values. My family’s assimilation, which allowed them to be a part of life in New York, had come at a price. Sometimes they had tried to avoid the ethnic flavor of old customs and tradition in order to become real Americans.

I’ve thought back on how easy it would have been to talk to my mom and dad about the old ways, family life, and New York during the large immigrant flow of the early twentieth century. With no living grandparents and no day-to-day opportunity to experience such things, my home life became the study hall for my growing up in America. While I listened to their conversations and stories, none were specifically directed at filling my void of family culture and history. They didn’t realize the treasures they possessed. Later in life I realized the complexity of their journey and understood how much they tried to raise me right.

During my early years, life was full of challenges, as World War II (1941-1945) absorbed our complete attention. My parents’ thoughts were focused on my older brother, Arthur, who joined the paratroopers and was fighting in Europe. Weighted down by the thought of whether or not he’d be coming home, my mother and father didn’t have the desire or inclination to tell me the stories that made my parents who they were.

Mom and Dad spent many nights sitting around the kitchen table with a magnifying glass, trying to decipher Arthur’s V-mail written in tiny letters to squeeze all he had to say onto his one allotted page. We kids had used-can drives when we would gather empty food cans, made of any metal and toss them on to an empty flatbed truck. Sometimes there was a drawing of the axis leaders on a big board at the head of the flatbed. This gave us a good target to throw the cans at, as we happily tried to do our part. As we watched the cans hit the big board and fall into the truck, we felt like we were in the war effort. Hitler, Mussolini, Hirohito—the enemy was clearly identified.

There was meatless Monday and gasless Tuesday. The war was always on our minds, and we did anything to help. World War II became very personal even if you didn’t have a family member in military service.

Days and nights were filled with war news and the concern for our troops. It wasn’t until after the war’s conclusion in September 1945, that we saw the disappearance of Rosie The Riveter, air-raid drills, blackouts, and the top half of car headlights painted black to limit their light. Now all of us could get back to living. I was ready to experience growing up in post-war America.

In this book, I am also trying to tell my two daughters my story—showing and explaining my past as I in the hope that it will enrich their future. They are familiar with my tales especially about growing up in Brooklyn. Some are adventures I’m proud of, and some I probably should keep quiet. Regardless, I want my children to know about their dad’s life and how the winding road has brought all of us to this time and place.

The lessons I learned from my own mom and dad and from my life’s adventures have served me well. I hope some application of that experience, related in these stories, will ring a familiar tone with you, regardless of where you are from or your ethnic heritage.

I found clarity in telling my story, through relating specific events in my life that appeared to contain a message for me. I seldom recognized them as they happened, but now looking back it is easy to see the lessons that were or could have been learned. Whether I was a quick study or slow learner, my past successes and failures will speak for themselves.

My life has been a wonderful adventure, full of humor and unique experiences. In this book, I relate the tales of my life and give you any insights I may have discovered, while telling a few jokes and stories along the way. When I have looked back and re-read some of my escapades, they made me laugh. I hope you will, too.

On some level, every chapter in these memoirs points to solving that Great Mystery of Life. I hope, if you stay with me to the end, you will find the journey worthwhile and together we will discover that elusive answer.

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

A KID GROWS IN BROOKLYN

My first detailed recollection of a childhood memory was when I was about five years old. We had lived in Brooklyn on Lancaster Avenue when I was born and then, when I was five, we moved about three miles, still within Brooklyn, to Avenue H.

At 1001 Avenue H, off the comer of East Tenth Street in Brooklyn, New York, the clear memories of my journey really begin. For almost two decades, I viewed life from my window two flights up in the front apartment overlooking Avenue H.

My education in street smarts started right away. On my very first day in the neighborhood, another five-year-old who lived on the first floor—Harvey Sanderowitz, now known as Harvey Sanders—gave me a sock in the eye. I never played with his truck without permission again. I may be a slow study in some areas, but in this one I was quick.

The years at home with my mom and dad were my foundation for life. It was Joe, Ellen, and a young Mark. My half siblings were a decade older than myself, so I spent a good deal of my childhood as if I were an only child. By the time I was ten they were already out of the house, making their own way in the world. Arthur had become a paratrooper and fought in Europe during WWII. Martin was in design school, working towards his career, and Sheila was busy doing everything she could to drive my parents crazy.

Eventually, Arthur returned safely from the war, all limbs intact. Martin started a business designing, manufacturing, and selling his lamps to a high-end market. Sheila tried to prove that insanity is hereditary, since parents often get it from their children. She and my mom had horrendous battles, but eventually, after twenty years, they became the very closest of friends.

My dad was the best. He always made time for the ongoing problems of my youth: whether school, girls or sports; it didn’t matter. Joe was always there and ready with a friendly ear and often good advice. Looking back, I see why he was the favorite of more than just a few of my friends. They loved him. There were times when my friends sat and learned pinochle from Joe, but mostly, they just hung out at my house, talking to him.

When we were older and all of us were going on dates or on some New York City adventure, my dad was there to start the evening with worldly advice or at the very least some timely encouragement. He was the kind of guy who took his hat off in an elevator when any women entered or gave his seat in a bus to a woman, pregnant or not. If you had had a daughter then, you would have wanted her to date a young man that had benefitted from Joe’s tutelage.

My father died in 1964 after his second heart attack that year… I was twenty-seven. It was just three months before my firstborn arrived. I didn’t realize then how much he and my mom and their ways, had guided my life. So much of the way I lived had been influenced by my first years with them and what they had taught me. I don’t think they consciously thought about planting the seeds for my future; it was just their way. They wanted to teach their son as well as they could.

Today, many parents realize how their positive and negative actions can influence their children. These parents understand their responsibility as role models. Unfortunately, some parents still do not see how easily negative actions can leave a lasting mark on their children’s future. Throughout their lives, children carry on the habits and deeds they formed from what they had witnessed early in life.

The parent-child exchange affects a great deal of future adult actions. You don’t need a degree to figure that out!

Your children are the product of the environment you create, whether it is intentional or not. Remember the old adage, An ounce of prevention… is worth a pound of cure, or in today’s case, …is better than lengthy and costly sessions with an analyst.

Be mindful. Thank you, Joe and Ellen.

CHAPTER TWO

JOE AND ELLEN SEITMAN, MY MOM AND DAD

My father, Joseph Seitman had no middle name. He often joked that his family was too poor to afford one. He had come to the United States from Nikoliav, a small town south of Kiev, in what we then called Russia. The year was 1908 and he was three. My father arrived in New York with his mother, two older brothers and two older sisters. His father (my grandfather) had previously died in Russia from a fever, which in those days could have meant anything. The family arrived in New York and settled on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

Grandma brought a bunch of kids and a lot of courage to the land of opportunity but she wasn’t alone. Boatloads of immigrants—including some aunts, uncles and cousins—lived on every street on the Lower East Side in Manhattan. Based on the friends and mishpokhe (family including remote cousins that were first, second, once removed or otherwise), I would guess that the boats from Europe unloaded hope and opportunity within a block or two of Avenue A, B or C, between Third and Fifth Streets on the Lower East Side. It must have been very crowded there because for years everywhere we went there were scores of old friends from the neighborhood. There seemed to be an endless line of former Lower East Side residents that Mom and Dad kept as friends well after most of them had moved out of the Manhattan ghetto to nicer areas in Brooklyn.

My dad’s sister, Aunt Fanny, had a sweet and loving husband, my Uncle Sam. He told me stories of how, in Manhattan, they lived entirely within the neighborhood—working, socializing, eating out, playing, and praying. All this was done without the need for any language other than Yiddish. Only in America. he would say, lovingly.

A New Yorker since age three and a naturally good student, my dad was completely Americanized within a few short years. He had a high school education, and with Yiddish spoken all around him, he spoke it fluently, but with a Russian accent. He couldn’t write it very well but could speak and understand every word.

Although my mother was born in New York, soon after her parents came to America, she grew up hearing an Austrian dialect of Yiddish at home. Attending the New York neighborhood school gave her a bilingual upbringing as well.

By the time I was born, in 1937, none of my grandparents were alive. Like most of the older generation, my parents spoke Yiddish only when telling family secrets or revealing the punch lines from off-color jokes. Although these folks accomplished their goal of being Americanized, but many of my contemporaries and I were robbed of the chance to pick up and carry that verbal gold forward and then pass it on to the next generation.

I am pleased at how many Yiddish words I do know, but I can’t speak a coherent sentence in Yiddish for love or money, or even a taste of my Aunt Anna’s secret rugalah recipe (a delicious bite size pastry made with fruit, nuts and sometimes chocolate). Since my parents had no desire to speak other than English and there were no grandparents around to spoil me and exchange chores for Yiddish lessons, I was raised monolingual.

I heard a joke that captures the thought.

A mother mouse and her three little babies were scurrying across the basement floor, when suddenly a cat appeared at the top of the stairs. Terrified, the three baby mice huddled beside their mother, as a loud cat shriek cut the air, YEEEOOOW!

The babies were trembling as they hid under their mother’s protection. Without a thought, the mother mouse turned her head to the side and let go a loud and ferocious bark, RUFF RUFF!

With that, the cat flew up the stairs and was gone as quickly as it had appeared.

The mother mouse saw her relieved, but still trembling babies and looking each one in the eye. she said calmly, I cannot stress too firmly the importance of learning a second language.

CHAPTER THREE

MORE ABOUT JOE AND ELLEN

My dad graduated from Stuyvesant High School, in Manhattan. Both of his brothers and his two sisters went to work full-time before they finished high school. With no father, the family needed the income. The two older boys were excited to start work, and feel some independence from their mother so they did not need to ask her everyime they wanted or needed something. In those days, entitlement didn’t exist on the Lower East Side. The words they lived by were: work, family, responsibility, respect, and then more work. My dad often said, When hard work meets opportunity some people call it good luck. They all knew that hard work was the way out of the ghetto and toward a better life. Unfortunately, after a few short generations, in some cases, that work ethic and drive have been almost totally lost in some cases.

A solid build, Joe stood 5’8" and played guard in basketball, boxed—the manly thing to do—and played handball, the urban tennis. When he graduated from high school his family was very proud, and, since he was also the youngest, he was the apple of every family member’s eye. College wasn’t in the family experience and was not even a thought, so Joe went right to work. He started on Wall Street and spent most of his working life at 120 Broadway, for Abraham and Company. On the day of my birth, Mr. Abraham, to honor my father and acknowledge his value and work ethic, wrote a congratulatory letter, with a promise to guarantee me a job in the future, if I ever wanted it. Joe was always proud of his relationship with Mr. Abraham and saw that letter from the boss as an appreciation for doing his job well. I used that letter seventeen years later.

My mom and dad were high-school sweethearts, and although I never heard the full story, they broke-up soon after graduation. A real neighborhood beauty, my mother married shortly after the split. Although my dad was crushed, he was true to his family’s needs and continued to focus on work. However, he carried a smoldering torch for the next fourteen years even after my mother, Ellen, moved to the Midwest.

My mother eventually divorced and then returned to New York where she reconnected with my dad. Joe was glad she had returned and brought with her that same smile, charm and those great looks. But, Ellen also brought with her three children—ages seven, nine, and twelve—with enough baggage to fill a steamer trunk. Joe had once again found his true love, but this time she had three children: boy, girl, boy. The details remain unclear, but he apparently had been ready for the challenge, and soon after the reconnection, they married.

His family didn’t support the thought of marriage. They felt Joe wasn’t prepared for a wife along with three children. But his old dream had come true, and my parents married anyway. After being on hold for all those years, Joe was finally able to start living the rest of his life. They had me within a year.

My dad’s deep love for my mom and his incredible good character were shown to me over and over again during the twenty-seven years he and I shared together. He loved her unconditionally and enjoyed the challenge of making their marriage and life together work. He never had to sit down and explain those details, it was evident to me by the way he lived his life every day.

Joe was the best step-dad imaginable to Ellen’s three children: Arthur, Sheila, and Martin. All of them spoke of their love for him till his passing and beyond. He had