Nana & Popeye

Nana & Popeye. They’re my maternal grandparents. I knew them only briefly but sometimes I remember them so clearly—childhood memories can be like that. Look how dapper they look. I was told this picture is from a vacation, it was taken sometime in the 50s. Seems there was some occasion or swell party involved.

They were married in 1911. Nana was Irish and Popeye was Jewish, Anne Feeney and Louie Bergere. They had five children, who lived. The word is some still births and infant or child deaths were involved as well. Louie was a glove salesmen, a garment industry sales guy. They were Brooklyn (ugh!) born and bred and at some point moved to Belmar New Jersey, but Louie liked the ponies—I recollect my father using that exact phrase. He suffered a big loss gambling, the house in New Jersey had to be sold. The family was forced to move back to Brooklyn. My mother hated Brooklyn and would not move back and lived with some family during her teen years and early adulthood until she met my father and the rest is history.

What did they face, what kind of resistance? I can’t imagine there being a lack of anti-Semitism among the Irish of the time. There must have been cries of goyium and shande from the Jewish contingent. Their love had to be strong to survive back then seems a reasonable assumption.

I’m not even sure how secular Popeye was. My uncle told me a story about meeting one of his Jewish uncles, once, at a deli. He offered no additional details. There were no other mentions of that side of the family by my mother or her siblings. Jewish-wise, we were always told that he was a “French Jew,” and I imagine his parents coming through Ellis Island and getting the name Bergere, after the follies, instead of the original, harder to pronounce, more ethnic moniker. Then we heard another story, from an aunt, that Popeye’s family was from Russia and that when she was in grammar school, and the teacher saw the name was Burgur or Bergman or something undeniably Semitic, the Teacher changed it to Bergere and it stuck. A teacher changed their name? That doesn’t make sense, but I guess it was the 20s, and Catholic kids could not have Jewish surnames. Why stick with the French Jew if not to somehow obscure the Semitic facts? I still go with the French Jew, because it was the myth instilled in me at a young age and I love how exotic French Jew sounds. Nana & Popeye died within a year of each other. The Aunts deemed me too young to attend the funeral. They never liked us kids much, another story. Nana & Popeye are not buried together. This information startles me still. She was buried in a Catholic cemetery, he in a Jewish cemetery. “It was the way they wanted it,” said my Aunt, “But they’re both in Queens.” That’s what I mean not being sure how secular Popeye was—the insistence of being buried in a Jewish cemetery, away from his wife of something like 50 years, indicates a sincerely felt Jewish identity.

The children were raised Catholic. Religion goes through the mother, the Jews believe. I remember asking once about the sacraments, you know confirmation and communion, how they were handled while growing up. It didn’t seem that Nana demanded they get the instruction, the children wanted it. In terms of my family, this makes sense. The sibs and myself were all raised Catholic—there’s six of us—but only I and my older sister practice the religion. Two of the sibs married Jews and raised their children Jewish, mainly secular but still, they’re “Jews.” Another Sib married a Muslim and their child considers himself Muslim. It’s never been an issue, religion. My father, who was protestant, rarely attended church and once you became a teenager, weekly mass attendance was never mandatory. There were no arguments about religion. Arguments about other stuff, sure sometimes—okay, a lot—but religion something we all tolerate, encourage and mainly make jokes about. Never the kind of jokes that would belittle the person, just the institutions and the wackiness of the cultures. It’s not a big deal. Now, most of my peers and pals, they are amazed by this—nearly every Jewish friend of mine bust my chops with “quarter Jew,” and my catholic friends know that calling me wasp gets my goat—but everyone else I knew growing up were either Irish or Italian or Jewish. A known quantity, an identity easily shared with other. Them and their siblings and all that, they’ve all intermarried or most of them, so it’s no big deal. Now! But as a kid and young adult, the idea of being Catholic but not being of a specific ethnicity was strange. The Jew thing was almost too preposterous to be believed.

So, here they are, Nana & Popeye, during their golden years. Whatever sort of arguments their families had, lost to history. We started our own family with our own dysfunction, who went on to start their own families with even newer dysfunction. Thus America renewed itself.

I have two distinct memories of Popeye. Now, the maternal aunts and uncles, sort of cold folks. The entire generation was from the children should be seen, hit and not heard. Indulging children, encouraging them or enjoying their company was simply not done. It’s now a Pizzeria, but there was a sort of an early form of a convenience store in the neighborhood known as The Little Store. Popeye walked there with me and my sister, said get anything you want. I couldn’t believe it. Candy? Yes, Timothy, whatever you want. A water pistol? A balsa wood glider that does the loopy de loop? Yes! Yes! In an adult world of No, Popeye was entirely Yes! The joy was pure and absolute. I wanted that balsa wood glider, would see it every time I went in there with my allowance and of course the allowance was never enough.

Then there was my first holy communion. I wore the white suite with white shoes. The party was for me. I went to hug Popeye, he said, men don’t hug, and he shook my hand. He died the next day. Was he equating this first communion with a Bah Mitzvah? Was that his way of explaining the rite of passage to himself? But I am not thirteen! I’m not a man. I’m only seven. Not manhood, just transubstantiation. Hug me, Popeye! Take me to the Little Store!

Look at that smile. He looks so Jewish! A stylish warm weather suit. Entirely unrumpled. I rumple pretty easily. Guess only the bald head and myopic eyes were inherited. Now, look at his left hand. Cupping a cigarette—filterless! The era of the smoker, the warm weather jacket, ties—a good part of his adulthood was spent in the 20s, Jews and other immigrants assimilated by adopting WASP traits, conforming to the WASP culture. Keeping that misinformed ideal alive thirty years hence. Maybe this WASP want to be attitude had something to do with the downplay of ethnic pride, as well as prejudices between the Irish and the Jewish. A side effect of conformity? Their daughter brought up an ultimate WASP, whom they embraced. Maybe even a misinformed ideal has an upside, in addition to fashionable apparel.

And, what would a wife of a glove manufacturer wear? Ultimate gloves. Look at Nana’s dress. Matronly, yes, because she is pretty old and spent most of her fertile years pregnant but notice how glamorous the dress design is. Flowing, fancy, lace details How I wish I could find out what the occasion was, and believe me I’ve tried. The dress and the gloves are part of singular outfit. The gloves go up to the elbows, covers her entire forearm. The patterns of the lace are extremely intricate and that same lace patterns in the sleeves of the dress are in the gloves. Have you ever seen something like this in the stores of today, a glove and dress combination? And the hat. Not an outfit you just slip into. Is that a gardenia on her shoulder? Orchid? She’s wearing an entire floral arrangement! He has a carnation.

World War I. Jazz age. Prohibition. The Great Depression. World War II. Somewhere else, new alchemies like Elvis making the sun sessions, or Jack Kerouac typing on the scroll. Flannery O’Conner back in Georgia feeding chickens on her farm and writing letters to Thomas Merton. Atom Bombs. All that history that clutters our mind with headlines that each year, each decade, just turn into another round of headlines. New Boss same as the old boss, today’s fad the same as yesterday’s fad. Sure it matters and maybe your vote makes a difference and maybe things change for the better. But in the end it’s all just background noise. Whatever the era, the only thing we get is our own life to live. Try to find love, someone to wear nice clothes with, a grandson in whom you inspire quiet awe all his life.