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Uncle Peter will always be part of my music, I thought.I'll always see his smile.
As long as I played, he lived.
I would play forever.
And we would never say good-bye.
Maybe that was God's way of saying He was sally, too.
2 Uncle Simon
We lived in a turn-of-the-century two-story structure with a wraparound porch and nearly fifteen rooms. It was typical of many of the farmhouses in our region of Ohio, houses that were expanded as families grew and their needs increased. The floors were all hardwood. Some rooms had area rugs worn so thin anyone could see the grain of the slats beneath them. Grandad believed in keeping things until they literally fell apart. To replace something merely to change a style or a color was wasteful and therefore sinful. He expected the same sort of sacrifices from his possessions as he did from his family.
All of the art in the house was simple and inexpensive. Most wall mountings consisted of pictures of relatives in dark maple oval frames, all of them captured witho
ut smiles on their faces. Daddy explained that, once, people didn't believe in smiling for photographs,
They thought it wasn't serious and made them look silly if they smiled."
There wasn't one picture of Grandad Forman smiling. Most of the ancestors looked like they suffered from hemorrhoids. I thought, and told Daddy so. He roared with laughter, but warned me never to say such a thing in front of Grandad.
The remainder of our wall hangings consisted of dried flowers pressed under glass, some simple watercolors of country scenes. And lace designs made by Grandad's mother and sisters, all of whom were now gone.
The appliances in the house, including the refrigerator, were nearly twenty years old. Everything had to be repaired as much as possible, even if in the end the repairs would cost more than a replacement. It was true that Grandad was very handy and able to fix most of his machinery himself. He believed the less dependent a man was on anyone, the stronger he was, and the better able he was to live a righteous life. Too many moral compromises were made to satisfy other people, he said.
Mommy wasn't ashamed of what she could do in the house. She kept it very clean and whatever could shine, did shine, but she was too ashamed of the age and the tired look of our furniture to want to invite anyone to our home. I couldn't remember a time when she or Daddy had asked friends to dinner, and we never had a house party.
On occasion my music teacher. Mr. Wengrow, was asked to stay to dinner. He appreciated Mommy's good cooking, but it was easy to see he wasn't fond of sitting across from Grandad, who made negative remarks about his profession. He called it frivolous, and insisted that any activity that wasted our time made us more susceptible to evil. He defined a wasteful activity as anything that didn't provide something useful to touch.
"Music touches our hearts and our minds, our very souls, if you like," Mr. Wengow suggested softly. I thought that was a beautiful way to put it. but Grandad's reply was simply. "Nonsense and more nonsense."
Grandad's credit, everything on our farm-- the barns, the henhouse, the fields, the equipment-- was kept in sparkling clean shape. Dirt, rust, grime, and grease were all treated like symptoms of disease. As soon as I was old enough to bear any responsibility and complete any chore on my own, I was given work. Mommy and I bore all the responsibility for the house itself, but Grandad Forman had me out in the fields bailing hay, helping with the planting and the harvesting, cleaning equipment, picking eggs and feeding chickens as well as cleaning out the henhouses. Often, when the work was really too hard for me. Uncle Simon would instantly be at my side, completing it quickly. I had the feeling he was always watching me, watching over me.
One consequence of having all these chores was the difficulty, if not impossibility of participating in after-school activities along with other students my age. Mommy complained about that. and I think because of her complaints. Grandad restrained his criticism of my violin lessons. At least I had that, thanks to Uncle Peter, who on occasion would stand up to Grandad and argue, which was something Daddy just never would do.
But I never thought Daddy was simply a good son honoring and respecting his father, As I grew older. I became more and mare curious about Daddy's relationship with Grandad Forman. I sensed there was something beyond the biblical commandment to honor your parents. There was something else between them, some deep family secret that kept Daddy's eyes from ever turning furious and intent on G-randad, na matter what he said or did to him or to Mommy- and me. Rarely did either he or Grandad raise their voices against each other. Grandad's voice was raised in his glaring eyes rather than his clicking tongue. and Daddy choked back any resistance, disapproval, or complaint.
He seemed to go at his work with a fury built out of a need to channel all his unhappiness into something that would please Grandad and, at the same time, give himself some respite, some form of release from the tension that loomed continuously over us all, that darkened our skies, and that kept the shadows on our windows and made us all speak in whispers.
In the evening, when all my chores were done and all my homework, too. I would practice my violin. My room faced the barn. and I could often see Uncle Simon sitting by his open window, listening to me play. He had no television set, nor did he have a radio. For Uncle Simon, watching television in our house was equivalent to my going to a movie in town. Mommy asked him over often, but when he came, if he ever came, he came meekly, moving in tentative steps, waiting for Grandad to bark at him, telling him he should be getting an early night to prepare for the morning's work. Sometimes he did drive him out, but if Mommy protested enough. Grandad backed down and went off muttering to smoke his pipe.
Daddy enjoyed Uncle Simon's company, even if it was only to talk about the farm, the crops. and Uncle Simon's flowers. They also talked about animals and the migrating birds. Daddy knew how close Uncle Simon had been to Uncle Peter, After Uncle Peter's death. Daddy did tend to make more of an effort to spend time with Uncle Simon.
Because Uncle Simon was not usually invited to eat with us. I was to bring him his hot supper.
If Mommy could have her way. Uncle Simon would be invited to eat with us every night. but Grandad complained about how he stank and said it ruined his appetite.
"What do you expect. Pa?'" Mommy countered. her Russian accent still quite heavy even after all these years. "He doesn't have a decent place to bathe or shower. That outdoor shower you constructed isn't much, and it's cold water!"
"You don't need to spend hours wasting water. Keeping it cold makes him move faster and waste less," Grandad said.
"You have hot water, don't you?" Mommy fired back at him. Sometimes she showed great courage, and when she did. Grandad always looked for ways to weasel out of the argument, rather than take a fixed position and stubbornly defend it.
"I don't use much of it," he bragged.
"But you have that choice." she continued.
"I won't waste any more time talking
