A Chicago Jew in Racine, Wisconsin…by Robert M. Katzman
© July 11, 2015
Ain’t nobody like me, up here
Or just barely
I’m a Mediterranean oasis
Wherever I go
A hot-house flower among
All the dour Teutonic people
***
Young girl cashiers
Mostly blonde
See my silver Star of David
Dangling from my neck
Glinting in the harsh lights of
Small Wisconsin stores
“Ooooooh, how pretty!”
Some of them exclaim
When first noticing it
Bright against my olive skin
“What is it?”
Some ask me
***
Could be worse
I think to myself
Green
Oceans of green
Driving south to my
Exotic collectible paper store
Every blessed day
Sixty miles one way
Six days a week
***
Sun burning me
From 93 million miles away
Seems closer
My left arm, my left face
Turning Sabra brown
***
Deep green/Evergreen
Pale green/Oak green
Maple green/ Birch green
Ponderosa Pine green
I found a beautiful drive
South on Highway 31
Green Bay Road
Empty and undulating
A ribbon of determined concrete
An artery from laidback Racine
To hysterical Illinois
***
Grey weathered barns
Dark red new barns
Plowed fields
Perfect rows
Wandering horses
Bored cows
Short green tractors
Creeping forward on giant black tires
Belching smoke
Peaked white-frame farm houses
Spreading wide as hips
Pregnant with tall windows
Porches
An epidemic of porches
***
A “Barn Sale” sign
Handwritten on cardboard
Stuck on a stick in the moist earth
Not cute stuff
Real barn equipment
Heavy leather saddles
Shiny where thighs in jeans
Endlessly rubbed against it
***
Worn harnesses
Rusty tools
Enough spread out to
Build another barn
Amish-type Buggies
Corn wagons/Pitchers/Washbowls
Ancient chests of drawers
Chipped silvered-back mirrors
***
Rarely a toy
No electric contraptions
Old metal Seed Company signs
Bent and rusted
Nothing treasured
Attitude seems:
***
“Damn stuff is old
Worn-out
Useless
Taking up space
Sell it and move on
We got serious work to do here”
***
More “For Sale” Signs
A local guy making cedar swings
Sometimes two of them
Face to face
Under a shingled roof
Romantic rustic country love
Fresh corn
Lots a cheese
Wisconsin Cheese Damn-it!!!
Watermelon
Bales of Hay
Potatoes
Cranberries
Brats?
***
Calves, pigs & bacon
Are not sold
At wooden roadside stands
Neither are cowhides
Nor milking stools
With hairy hooved legs
Nor yummy Badger Burgers
with
Wisconsin Cheddar Cheese
But I’m new here
Maybe later in the year
***
Took me sixty round trips
To move us here
’93 Chevy Astro leaking both
Oil & transmission fluid
I check both at sunrise
I baby my worn wheels
***
Weekends
Racine County is a
Collective garage sale
The whole County
Everyone selling the same stuff
To each other
Back and forth
Forever
Kitsch never dies
Not here
***
I find my
Long, long commute to be
Soothing / Meditative / Hypnotic
NPR fading in and out
Even passed a Racine
Root River waterfall today
***
Serious and squinting
Old motorcycle people
Harley-Davidson’s Homeland
No plastic helmets
No leather jackets
Wrinkled and Tattooed
Men and women
A movable Tribe holding on
Tightly holding on
To the Sixties
***
My driver’ window open
Racing Wind reaching inside
Grabbing my ear
Violent Earth music
Sounds like crumpled
Wrapping paper
***
But also causing me
To think much more
About cloud-burst rain storms
Jagged lightening strikes
Exploding oaks
Flash floods
Blizzards
Washed out roads
Stranded trucks
***
How good are my tires?
Is my gas tank full & ready?
Do I have enough
Emergency weather supplies?
Does anyone?
Blankets, candles, cell phone charger
Matches, candy, flares
Heavy coat, gloves, boots
Pen & paper
Prepared suicide note
What else?
***
Guy who sold me his house
Off-handedly commented
Three years ago
After a blizzard
Snow went as high
As the roof of the
Top of the garage
Then he showed me
A long aluminum Snow Roof-Rake
Gave me chills in July
***
On Hwy 31 I saw a
Stranded tow truck
Hood up
Sad guy sitting
Butt on the big bumper
Blocking traffic
Not reassuring
***
Oh, yes.
Leatherbound Prayerbook
for
Wisconsin’s Nirvana Gods
Maybe not including mine
But Jesus Christ!!
He’s sure got Wisconsin covered:
A hundred kinds of Christianity
African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church
To
Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA
Also a range of:
Native American religions
Buddhists and Taoists
But for a wandering Jew??
***
My bright six-pointed
Silver Star of David
–Big as a nickel–
An irrefutable badge
of
My self-perception
I know who I am
A descendant of Brown-eyed
Desert Tribesmen
My ancient genes witnessed
Rise and fall
Rise and fall
Rise and Fall
of
Great and cruel Empires
Immortality eluding all of them
***
I am a breathing remnant of a
Biblical People
Drifting through Time seeking:
Meaning
Understanding
Compassion
and
Acceptance
***
However few of us still remain
Jews do matter
Would any of all those
Many Christian Churches
Exist without us?
After all was
Jesus Christ
Accused by the Romans
Of being
“King of the Unitarians?”
Think about it
***
In the local groceries
No gefilte fish
No matzoh
No lox
No wrinkled Salami
No chopped chicken liver
***
No kosher brisket
No yahrzeit candles
No Shabbat candles
No Chanukkah candles
All the stores will be open on
Yom Kippur
***
Our small Synagogue
Quietly nestling at
9th and Main Street
Disintegrating
Walls falling
Without Jericho
***
Funds to repair them evaporated
With the deaths of
So many former members
Our Cemetery now larger
Than our Congregation
We fear both God and Rain
My new small town should help us
A reprieve from Racine?
Why bother with us?
Who would notice?
Who would care?
***
Racine should intervene!
Would the voters in this Quiet Town
Want to witness
The sinking of the
Last Synagogue in Racine?
Like watching the Titanic
OK, a very small Titanic
Slip under the waves
***
Racine!
Send us some lifeboats
Racine!
You don’t know what you’re missing!!
Import more of us from Illinois!
Chicago can spare a few Jews
***
We could add a little sparkle
A little weltsmersch
Yiddische savoir-faire
Each of us a maven
Add a decent deli here
And watch how many people
Come to visit Wisconsin from New York
Dropping from the skies in
Parachutes
***
My wife and I joined
Lonely Beth Israel Sinai
The Last Synagogue in Racine
When two dozen of us meet
Every so often, I noticed
None of us looks like
One another
Nearly extinct
and
Distinctive?
***
Racine should declare each of us
A Civic Treasure
Quick Before we’re gone
I’m here less than a month, Racine
A Chicago refugee
Already I’m writing poems to you
About you
About how beautiful you are
How frightening your weather may be
How lovely are thy People
O Wisconsin
How very different from my native state
What more could you ask of me?
***************************
(Epilogue: Thirteen months later, the last synagogue building in Racine Wisconsin was offered for sale and almost immediately sold to a Christian organization. Then on Mother’s Day May 14, 2017, exactly 23 months after Joy and I arrived in Racine as new citizens, and after 42 years together, she died from cancer.)
****************************
Publishing News!
Bob Katzman’s two new true Chicago books are now for sale, from him!
Vol. One: A Savage Heart and Vol. Two: Fighting Words
Gritty, violent, friendship, classic American entrepreneurship love, death, heartbreak and the real dirt about surviving in a completely corrupt major city under the Chicago Machine. More history and about one man’s life than a person may imagine.
Please visit my new website: http://www.dontgoquietlypress.com
If a person doesn’t want to use PayPaI, I also have a PO Box & I ship anywhere in America.
Send me a money order with your return and contact info.
I will get your books to you within ten days.
Here’s complete information on how to buy my books:
Vol 1: A Savage Heart and Vol. 2: Fighting Words
My books weigh almost 2 pounds each, with about 525 pages each and there are a total together of 79 stories and story/poems.
Robert M. Katzman
Don’t Go Quietly Press
PO Box 44287
Racine, Wis. 53404-9998 (262)752-3333, 8AM–7PM
Books cost $29.95 each, plus shipping
For: (1)$3.95; (2)$5.95; (3)$7.95; (4)$8.95 (5)$9.95;(6) $10.95
(7) $11.95; (8) $12.95; (9)$13.95 (10)$15.95 (15)$19.95
I am also for hire if anyone wants me to read my work and answer questions in the Chicago/Milwaukee area. Schools should call me for quantity discounts for 30 or more books. Also: businesses, bookstores, private organizations or churches and so on.
My Fighting Words Publishing Co. four original books, published between 2004 and 2007 are now out-of-print. I still have some left and will periodically offer them for sale on my new website.