A HALF SOUR PICKLE, A DIGRESSION

A HALF SOUR PICKLE, A DIGRESSION

The world is white and the laconic tone of Madeleine Peyroux’s 'La vie en rose' croons me on this cold and silent morning. As I sit in the 'platfonds bas' of my regular morning church and I begin to settle down to the Monday meeting my mind wanders to the earlier beginning of the day. And I was somewhat taken aback when, running a bit late for my morning appointment with the rooms, I stepped out into and onto a freezing fluffy firmament, I was once again astonished by the weather. Why it should have affected me so is a mystery to me. After all, what could I have possibly been thinking of when I viewed those fluff flake iconographs on my I Phone’s weather app? Washing detergent?

Or maybe it was the complete contrast between yesterday and today, all crystal blue and bright, a perfect day to go condiment hunting tracking down the source of the perfect wild sour pickle, tomato and sauerkraut. Or another excuse to go into a sleepy New York City on a Sunday morning and roust my daughter, tempting her sour palate with the joys of sour and half sour pickles and such that she loves. (Not me of course). And although she is just a few miles from that hallowed ground, it requires prodding from the likes of me to get her to replenish her stores. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that I am paying either, (not that such sour delicacies come at a high price. Such ambrosia is plenty cheap enough.)

But the truth of the matter is that the vinegary vindication for this lower east side excursion was to soak up some of the long overdue nostalgia of the place.

I had re-read a letter to a 'removed' cousin of mine in which I described as best as I understood, our relationship to one another and that led to a description of the family and its attachments to some iconic places in Jewish lore , beginning in the Galicia of Poland and ending in New York’s Lower East Side. A history that bridged two centennial celebrations, two world wars and the Great Depression.

Hence, the need to have me land my feet once again on Hester Street not just to visit Guss Pickles, but to stop by the long forgotten dry goods shop between Orchard and Essex Streets on the north side of Hester, where my grandfather’s last name was still embedded in the mosaic tile on the store stoop.

And did memories swirl back; to bare light bulbs, tin-pressed ceilings, creaky warped wooden floors and musty shop smells with huge bolts of fine woolen material stacked high on either side of the middle aisle. As a kid I thought those bolts rose to a height of at least fifty feet although adult inspection proved that it could not have been more than fifteen.

But to my surprise, but not my displeasure, Guss wasn’t there. Revisiting memories of a grandfather who took me to concerts, would surreptitiously feed me bacon (he called it chicory because bacon was verboten in my Kosher home) or made me 'san-a-viches' which he said in his inimitable eastern European Jewish accent), brought a noisy smile to my face.

So on a bright sunny brisk Sunday, on a hunt for the wild pickle, one cannot be put off by so trivial a matter that Guss had move to Borough Park across the East River. And having located the new lair of condimental comestibles, I hiked myself off to Brooklyn to retrieve quarts of the acidic loot. Although there is an AA saying of 'once a pickle, never again a cucumber', this sort of downplays the elegance of the former too much while over-extolling the virtues of the latter. Frankly, I’m a pickle lover, admirer, courtier. Whereas at best I tolerate a cucumber and at worst, I detest them.

(So I guess this really means I am a true alcoholic! Well, sigh, never mind.)

Which is all a circuitous way of returning to these pale, white mornings, and this one in particular for which I was evidently unprepared, as was, apparently, the rest of Norwalk and lower Fairfield County. The streets empty, unplowed, quiet, traffic unchallenging and me unchallenged by any other pilgrims wandering in the white-out.

So when I did pull into the church parking lot, I was somewhat astonished (although experience has shown me that among my co-practitioners this should not be the case), to find at least eight cars already parked and more pulling in. And by the time the 'Beginners Meeting' began more than 25 hardy but regular souls had shown up ready to do battle with their personal demons today, just this one today, one day at a time.

And the best thing that I can say on a snow day is that the world may appear to stop. On these days the world goes quiet. And for me and my kind that’s a good thing.

Because this quiets those restless spirits that haunt our souls. These are days that we cherish together sharing these quiet moments before we take on that world; that world which you call Life.

© res 2/21/11