Some Family Legends

Some Family Legends

 

 

 

          Playing Chicken with Earl

 

My father, Earl Hellerstein, told me this story when I was a young lad, many years after it happened. It was a home-front war story. During World War 2, my Dad served on a secret mission. His mission was to truck supplies for the armed forces. He did not know why he was trucking those supplies, for he did not need to know; but he did need to know what those supplies were, and where he was going. The truck he drove was full of high explosives. His destination was a secret weapons laboratory, in a small town in the American Southwest, named Los Alamos.

He did not know then, but he knew by the time that he told me this tale, that he was working for the Manhattan Project. Young me hung upon his words, wide-eyed.

It was a long drive, through boring empty desert. An approaching driver chose to break the boredom. He shifted into Dad’s lane and stayed there. And stayed there, and stayed there. He was playing chicken!

Decades later, I blurted, “What did you do?!”

My father mimicked holding a steering wheel. He said, “I did nothing at all. I kept driving, as if nobody was in my lane, and pretty soon, nobody was.”

Young me had two realizations.

First, that the other guy (and it was certainly a guy) made five mistakes:

1. He played chicken...

2. ... with an Army truck...

3. ... filled with high explosives...

4. ... for the Manhattan project...

5. ... driven by my Dad.

The second realization was that it’s a miracle that I exist!

Since then I have realized that I have no proof that this incident ever occurred, but nonetheless I know for certain, from personal experience, that my father was that stubborn.

 

 

 

Noncompliance

 

        Right after World War Two, my father went to Japan as a doctor for the Occupation Army. He brought along his wife Marjorie, his daughter Deborah, his young son Marc, and his then-youngest son Dan. (Seth and I were yet to be born.)

        Aboard the ship, Earl found Marc repeatedly throwing a paper airplane towards an open porthole. Marc threw, missed, and retrieved the airplane, threw, missed, retrieved. Marc said to Earl, “Try to throw this airplane through that porthole.” Dad aimed, threw, and the airplane went straight through.

        Marc started to cry. Dad asked why, and Marc said “I told you to try to do it, not to do it!”

 

 

 

        Objection

 

        One weekend day, Marjorie was running a slide projector in our living room. Click-chunk. “This is Deborah when she was a baby.” Click-chunk. “This is Marc when he was a baby.” Click-chunk. “This is Daniel when he was a baby.” Click-chunk. “This is Seth when he was a baby.” Click-chunk. “This is Nathaniel when he was a baby.”

        Young me yelled, “I WAS NEVER A BABY!”

        In my defense, I didn’t remember being a baby. Dear reader, do you? I guess we’ll both have to take it on faith.

 

 

 

     Born Yesterday

 

          Hannah reports:

        “Mom told me a story that when I was a newborn, just two days old, she spent a good amount of time just holding me and telling obvious lies. ‘The moon is made of cheese’ is the main one I remember. Years later, when I asked her why, she gleefully said it was because just then I, the clueless infant, was literally born yesterday.”

       

 

 

 

Requirements

 

A couple of years later, I, her father, sat infant Hannah on a tiny potty-chair. I told her that we require only three things from her: that she learn to walk, that she learn to talk, and that she learn to poop in a potty. I advised her, “Learn just those three things, and we will accept you as human.”