Grampa So Loved his Lemon Tree…by Robert M. Katzman
By Robert M. Katzman © June 4, 2021
Grampa Warman sure loved trees
I watched him as a child
On the South Side of Chicago
Come to my house
Dragging tree after tree after tree
Behind him, with his strong hands
Dig wide deep holes
Then plant them
Pear, Apple, Plum
And water them
Then stand back
Look at them
And smile
*
He was about five foot four
Barrel-chested and muscular
With bright white hair
His smile was wide
Deep creases framing it
A Yiddish accent shaping his English
He would knock my skinny elbows
Off the table, over and over
When I sat in his kitchen
And then he would laugh
*
My Mother parked me
At my Grandparents Chicago house
Between 1955 and 1960
When I was five to ten
Until late in the evening
Where I discovered
Perry Como and Walter Cronkite
And watched them each night
During dinner
*
I watched my grandparents, too
My angry Gramma Celia
Her mouth a tight line
Her eyes cold and forbidding
She saw you and saw through you
She was four foot eleven
Snow-white hair
I did what she said
No hugs from my Gramma
I felt a shortage of love
And maybe Grampa did too
*
Gramma was born in Dobra, Poland
Spoke Polish there, and also
Ukraina, A dialect
To the Jews, she was a Galitzianer
*
Grampa was born in Minsk, Byelorussia
Don’t know what Jews from there
Were called by other Jews
Minskys?
He spoke Russian there
When they met
Yiddish was their common language
Like Greek and Latin were
In Biblical times
English came later
Or, their version of it
*
Grampa told me in 1914
The year he left for America
The year it became worse for the Jews
That Minsk had:
One hundred thousand people
One third Russian
One third Polish and
One third Jews
Today, there are two million there
But only twenty thousand Jews
I did not learn I was
One half Byelorussian Jewish
Until I was thirty-five
He only said “Russia”
*
My Grandparents spoke
Only Yiddish in the kitchen
While I drew pictures or
Watched the news or the singers
I wasn’t supposed to understand
But over those years
I slowly began to comprehend
*
When I asked either a question
They would answer me
In awkward English
I thought they were very old
When I was seven in 1957
But Grandpa was 66
Grandma was 56
Today, at 71, to me
Those ages seem young
*
Grampa crossed the cold Atlantic
August 21, 1914
When he was twenty
His successful family in Minsk
Objected to his leaving them
World War One began
August 28, 1914
When he was half-way to New York
They heard about it on the radio
He arrived in New York
A week after that
*
All of his large family
Who remained behind
Were murdered between
World War One and Hitler
The Fathers, Mothers and their children
None were soldiers
I am here because he was defiant
*
I learned the date he left Europe
Later in my life
When it was a strange surprise
I too left home in 1964, but at 14
Also defying my family
Had to support myself
Opened a newspaper stand to do that
On August 21, 1965
Exactly 51 years after my Grampa left Europe
Bob’s Newsstand
Lasting twenty years
Once famous, now forgotten
Gone 36 years now
Just like newspapers, too
Time erases everything
*
Grampa’s home was forbidding
Cold and mostly silent
Gramma’s Father Moishe was
Beheaded in front of her
In a Pogram in Poland
In 1914
By a Cossack on a
“Big Black Horse”
With “A long sharp sword”
She told me many times
And I think Gramma’s soul
Died with him
*
Grampa’s three children
Were busy, busy, busy
Some saw him seldom
As years passed
Moving far, and one very far, away
There was no warmth
No celebration of family
Just a constant chill
*
In the 1960’s, Grampa
Bought a tiny Lemon Tree
In a slender black pot
Caring for it in his basement
Watering it, pruning it
Fertilizing it
Keeping bugs away from it
Letting the sun pour onto it
Thru a large basement glass door
*
For years and years
And the Tree grew
And the pot grew larger
And the Tree grew
And the pot grew larger
And the Tree grew
Thick branches spreading
All across his wide ceiling
His basement like a forest
Branches heavy with fruit
Lemons as large as softballs
Bright, yellow and firm
My Grampa amazed me
*
No one could touch his Tree
No one knew the Tree’s pet name
He loved his Lemon Tree
More than anything else
And maybe Grampa
Felt his huge Lemon Tree
Loved him back
*
When Grampa grew too old
Too ill, too fragile to remain
In his South Side Chicago brick home
He moved with Gramma to
A faraway small apartment
With a nurse caring for him
Nothing mattered much
To him about what
They took with them
Or left behind them
*
But when Grampa
Suddenly realized, at 85
He would be leaving his
Beloved Lemon Tree behind
Behind to Strangers
Hot tears fell from his dark eyes
And fell, and fell,
Streaming down the
Deep creases on his face
Drenched his white shirt
And I watched his chest heave
And seeing this terrible pain
His helpless agony
Did something to me
Changed me
*
Grampa died on July 4, 1987
He was ninety-four years old
Proud to be an American
I inherited his big American flag
He hung outside of his home
Every day, for decades
*
Many came to his funeral
His three children
Their three wives
His seven Grandchildren
Their assorted wives
Their nearly dozen
Great-grand children
*
Later, when I was standing
Near his two daughters
One of them my Mother
At the after-funeral “Shiva”
The Hebrew word
For a Jewish Wake
I heard them, angry
Whispering to each other:
“He loved that damned tree more than his children”
And I thought to myself
Yes, of course, and
Why were they surprised?
*******
Over the seven decades of my life
In the many places I have lived
In homes where my wife and
My four children were loved
And their five children
Were loved
And all of them knew it
Because I said it
Uncountable times
So my words would linger
Inside of their minds
Where they would be needed
In years to come
*
I have planted more than
Sixty Trees
Six in Israel
Just outside of Jerusalem
Nine in Wisconsin
Fifty across Northern Illinois
One last week
A beautiful Purple Maple
Named for Celia
My Gramma’s name
Because though
Maybe she couldn’t
Give me love the I wanted
I can still, defiantly
Give it to her
*
But every other Tree
Some now huge
Collectively
Millions of leaves
Swaying in the wind
Every other damned Tree
Is for my Grampa
*
Because I loved his Lemon Tree
As much as I loved him
And maybe they all
Will survive me
In the decades to come
And maybe he will know it
*
That I was my Grampa’s boy
That I understood him
And that even after he died
And even after I died
We would keep talking
Talking to each other
Through our many, many
Tall, strong and proud
Beautiful Trees
**************
Publishing News!
Bob Katzmans 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
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