We Never Would have Met, Norwegian Girl……..by Robert M. Katzman
By Robert M. Katzman © Mother’s Day 2012 (37 years later)
Oh Dear God, it became her eulogy exactly five years later
on Mother’s Day, 2017-
Please let her find peace, somewhere
If Jacob the Carpenter
Hadn’t left
Mogilev, Byelorussia in 1901
Traveling from
New York to Kentucky To Chicago
and there met
Rose from Lithuania
We never would have met
If the Polish Border Guards
Hadn’t just missed Jacob
When they thrust their
Killing bayonets
Into the haywagon
He hid under and escaped in
We never would have met
If Beautiful Teenaged Celia
Alone and from Poland
Hadn’t
Waitressed in Beer Halls
All across Germany to Hamburg
To sail to America
Relentlessly Traveling from
New York to Seattle to Whiting, Indiana
to meet and swiftly marry
Nathan from Minsk
After only one English class
And then move to the
East Side of Chicago
We never would have met
If Jacob’s son Israel
Hadn’t decided to skip lunch
In the jungles of New Guinea
One steamy day in World War Two
In the US Army’s big mess hall tent
Just a mile away
He would have been killed
With all the rest of the soldiers there
That day
When a squad of Japanese planes’ bombs
Destroyed the mess hall tent
We never would have met
If my tough scarred father, Israel
From the rough and tumble
Jewish West Side of Chicago
Hadn’t returned from World War II
With Japanese shrapnel
Still in him
And then become dazzled by
Sensuous Jewish Anna
Artist and Designer and
Mediterranean Beauty
We never would have met
If I hadn’t
Fled in terror at fourteen
From that Crazed and Violent
Artist and Designer to
Chicago’s
Bohemian Hyde Park
We never would have met
A year later
If I hadn’t built and opened
A Wooden Newsstand
with friend Rick Munden
And learn to survive on
Hard Chicago Streets
We never would have met
If you hadn’t left
Dalton, Illinois for Hyde Park
To learn to play Tennis
And maybe, just maybe
Find a Guy
The right guy
For a tough chick like you
We never would have met
When the two doomed
Steel and Speeding
Illinois Central Trains
Smashed and Telescoped
Inside of one another
October 30, 1972
Horribly Killing
Forty-Four Commuters
Except that you
were in the Next Train
Right behind them
We never would have met
If your Tennis-Playing Pal
Krystal
Who was also my
Newsstand customer
Hadn’t introduced us at a
Hyde Park Dance in a
Unitarian Church
Well, maybe
We never would have met
You were so demure
Pink pants-suit
Quiet, shy
Smiling Norwegian Girl
Me: Scrubbed and Trapped
Jewish Guy
Uncomfortably
Uncharacteristically
in a Suit and Tie
We talked for hours
And never even Danced
You left with Krystal
But first inviting me:
“Join us for coffee?â€
I said:
“Nope, sorry
Gotta get up early to
Open my Newsstandâ€
Too Shy
Too Dumb
To even ask for your phone number
And we went our separate ways
Except:
You wouldn’t take “Noâ€
For an answer
Determined and Focused
Norwegian Girl
Evidently deciding
That the One Guy
Who wouldn’t hit on you
But wanted to
Talk to you
Was the One Guy
For you
How could I know?
Three days later after work
On the Illinois Central Train Platform
Instead of going home
South to 53rd Street
You changed lives by turning
North to 51st Street
To say
“Happy Birthday!â€
To me at my Newsstand
Except this time
Dangerously
Dressed to Kill
You found me moments later
Shirtless and Sweating
Dirty and Abrupt
Tying up heavy bundles of
Unsold old magazines
To return for credit on my bill
Not in any way
Expecting you–
Blindingly Stunning
Norwegian Girl
To reappear into my empty life
Not expecting your:
Long Shining Blond Hair
Your Short Skirt
Your Dynamite legs
Your Big Smile
and the
Promise awaiting me
Behind your Big Blue Eyes
You approved of the
Gritty sweating exasperated
Chicago Newspaper Guy
Now Frozen and Speechless
And Beautiful You
were thinking exactly
How Long
Would it take
Star struck Me
To realize
You
Were the Girl for Me?
On behalf of all of our
Children and Grandchildren:
The answer was:
Not very long, at all
Even a rough Newspaper Guy
Was smart enough to
Get the message
You were sending
I think
all of those
“Never-Would-Have-Metsâ€
were actually always
“Meant-to-Besâ€
My Destiny
Was waiting for me
Right there in your Smile
Over forty years later
I love you intensely
Then and forever
Norwegian Girl
Bob and Joy, after 42 years together, 39 of them married, renewed their vows in a kind and generous friend’s home in a traditional Jewish ceremony surrounded by family and friends and the service led by Rabbi Martyn Adelberg on Sunday, March 26, 2017. About sixty people were there, including all four of their children aged 20 to 42, and all five of their small grandchildren.
This was all organized and assembled by a group of very determined women in only two weeks, immediately after Joy was placed in hospice in mid-March because of an incurable and spreading cancer. They decided to share their love with everyone there while she was still alive to experience it, and even though she was no longer able to walk, she was the queen of the evening in a lacy white wedding gown. It was an unforgettable night of ancient Hebrew words, rings exchanged, wine glass crushing, brisket eating, cake cutting, kissing and hugging and enough warmth from the kind hearts there to melt all the ice in the Arctic.
While all friends and relatives present quietly knew they would again be gathered together some unknown date later, that rainy March night, that wonderful night, was hers to remember for the rest of her life, no matter how long that would turn out to be.
Final Note:
That time remaining turned out to be exactly seven weeks later, on a Sunday at 5 pm.
Joy’s eventual obituary was originally written as this Mother’s Day gift above to her in May 2012.
It was read by Rabbi Martyn Adelberg, a blessing in our lives, at her Sunday May 21st, 2017 memorial service in Racine, Wisconsin, the day after what would have been Joy’s May 20th 67th birthday
As eternity capriciously decides these things, that happy Mother’s Day gift became her unexpected eulogy because Joy died exactly five years later, on Mother’s Day, My 2017.
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: https://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.