Page 288 - The Legacy of Abraham Rothstein - text

Reminiscences

there, and (I think unbidden) carried those sacks down to the
backyard. He was about seventy years old, and the bags must have
weighed at least fifty pounds each, but he did it, noisily sucking in air
through his mouth and blowing it out through his nose with each
step. His face was purple and the veins bulged on his neck and
forehead; his expression was awe-inspiring. I stood and watched him
but dared not say a word.
Three events from my early teenage years have a permanent place
in my mind. The first occurred when I was still in junior high school.
A couple of friends and I went by bicycle one school holiday
afternoon to play miniature golf at a course (now defunct) on La
Cienega Boulevard. We had just started playing when along came AR,
pushing a broom. I was surprised (and probably embarrassed), but he
took it in stride, greeting me without stopping his work. Looking
back now, I realize his attitude was probably that I should feel guilty
for being involved in a trivial pastime instead of studying Hebrew,
and that since he was engaged in productive labor I was not
occupying the higher moral ground!
A year or two later, one of my household tasks was to plant
dichondra on a strip of ground between the house and driveway. The
soil appeared intractable, and I hadn’t a clue how to proceed. AR
saved the day by showing me how to break up weed-embedded dirt
clods against a piece of plywood, saving the soil while at the same
time crumbling it into manageable bits. The method was labor-
intensive but effective, and the dichondra found a congenial
environment.
The third occurrence, I now recognize, harkened back to AR’s
rough and rowdy days in the bet hamidrash. It was at some family
function at our house. AR, inspired by some unknown turn in the
general conversation, suddenly insisted that all the boys accompany
him into my bedroom. I don’t remember who was in attendance, but
at least three or four of us followed him, completely baffled by his
request. When we youthful males had gathered around him, and he
had carefully closed the door against any prying female ears, he said
the following: “Boys, you should not believe everything in the history
books. What Marie Antoinette actually said was, ‘let them eat shit!’”
This revelation was delivered with a twinkle in his eye, and it was met
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