Page 34 - WhyAsInY

Why (as in yaverbaum)
in all probability, my father—I proceeded to walk over to the grand piano and to point to Dad’s photograph. After the mirth and kvelling subsided (to kvell, at least in a home where Yiddishisms are employed, is to burst with pride—and is usually reserved for members of one’s own mishpucha) and the hugging commenced, there undoubtedly fol- lowed a disquisition on the difference between the thing and the image of the thing. This, too, probably contributed to my interest in philoso- phy. I doubt, however, that there was a discussion concerning the difference between the name (in this case, “Daddy”) and the object to which the name referred (the being referred to as “Daddy,” at least in relation to me), it probably being the consensus that I was then too young to grasp such subtleties.
Finally, I don’t recall whether the fourth story was reputed to have occurred in my father’s presence, but given its substance and the fact that my mother recalled it to me, and recalled it often, I’ll just assume that it was supposed to have occurred at 414 Hampton Avenue when he, she, and I were alone. My mother always swore that my first spoken words were “Is that a book?” Not one word, but four! Not a statement, but a question! Concerning reading material, yet! Perfect! (A close con- tender was her story about my looking up, while in my stroller, and, in midafternoon, announcing, “I see the moon”—something that she did not believe at first but that was true and obviously validated my genius or, anyway, the acuity of my vision.)
Well, I’ve now spent a fair amount of ink on events of which I merely have recollections of other people’s recollections. The two most impor- tant recollections of others were those that I started with: first, that mine was a difficult birth (and that, as a consequence, my mother was not to have any more children), and, second, that my father was not around at the time of my birth or for a significant time during the earliest period of my childhood development.
My parents certainly felt the consequences of both my father’s absence and the difficult birth itself; they were subjects that both he and she returned to with differing degrees of emphasis through the years. Of the two, the subject of the difficult birth was far and away the more
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