There is no end to the violations
Committed by children on children
Elizabeth Bowen


No one ever paid attention to my Aunt Celia. She was the baby of my mother’s family, born in the front bedroom of their house on Baker Street. She arrived at dinnertime on a cold Friday evening in 1916. When the four children huddled outside the bedroom door heard my grandma’s cry of pain and Celia’s primal shriek, they were certain that their mother was dead and there would be no food for them ever again.

Poor Celia! She was an annoying presence to them from that moment on; a squalling intruder who sopped up their mothers attention and captivated their ordinarily taciturn father. “She looks just like me!”” he exclaimed and tickled her under her chin.

Whenever the baby cried, it was they who had to stop having fun and wheel her in the carriage. When their mother was busy in the kitchen, it was they who had to amuse her and she wasn’t easy to charm. She knew instinctively that her sisters didn’t want her around and she screamed until my grandma finally came into the room, chastised the three older children and consoled the baby. When they wanted to pound on the player piano or dance around the living room they had to wait until she was awake or worse, they had to dance with her and she couldn’t even walk.

While all of them tried to pretend she didn’t exist, she ate, slept and grew into a fat, happy child who played by herself in the kitchen while her boisterous family filled the living room with noise. Whenever my grandma was too busy to notice her, the four children taunted their baby sister about her size. “She’s as fast as the milkman’s pony!” they would say and they would laugh. “Look how she waddles! She’s like an overstuffed horse!”

Right before Chanukah, the year Celia was five, my Uncle Moishe arrived from Poland. He was my grandpa’s brother and the two men looked so much alike they could have been twins except that Uncle Moishe was twice as big as my grandfather and twenty times as rich. The minute he walked into the house, he was drawn like a magnet to my fat little Aunt Celia. He pinched her cheek and gave her candies from his pocket. He smoothed her hair and kissed her several times and said (in Polish, of course) “SHE LOOKS JUST LIKE ME!”

Before he was in Toledo a week and well before he could speak English, Uncle Moishe managed to communicate his Great American Dream to a car salesman and when he came over for Friday night supper he arrived in a bright red Stets Bearcat. The children ran outside and they gasped with pleasure. “Look at that silver trim!” exclaimed Uncle Charlie. “I’ll bet it can beat any car on the road.”

“It has velvet seats and a real glove compartment!” said Aunt Hazel.

“Do you think he might let us ride in it?” whispered little Aunt Tick

“Lets ask Mama to ask him,” said my mother and the children trooped into the kitchen to tell their mother what their Polish uncle had bought. That night at dinner after my grandma served the chicken and before they got to the sponge cake and fruit, my grandma said a lot of things to my uncle in Polish. He listened and nodded and his eyes filled with tears. Then he looked at his four nieces and his nephew and he smiled. “What would you like for Chanukah this year?” he asked.

No one had ever asked them a thing like that because they were so poor, they didn’t dare dream about gifts. But they knew exactly they wanted that year and they all asked for the very same thing. “A ride in your Stutz Bearcat!” they said.

“There isn’t enough room for all of you in that little car,” said my grandma. ”Maybe one of you can win the first ride and then Uncle Moishe can take each one of you for a turn on the other nights of Chanukah.”

“Let’s have a latke contest,” said Uncle Charlie who was known for his immense appetite. “The one who eats the most latkes each night of Chanukah gets the ride of the evening.“

Latkes are potato pancakes as crisp as a potato chip with a soft little cushion of potato and onion inside. They are cooked in oil and are symbolic of the miraculous oil that kept the eternal light burning in the Temple for eight days. My grandma was a champion latke maker and she created pancakes so delicious anyone with a grain of sense tucked in as many latkes as they could as fast as possible so they could fill up their tummies before the platter was empty.

On the first night of Chanukah that year, the family gathered around the menorah and my grandfather said the prayer over the first candle. Even though my grandma had created a meal fit for celebration, the children didn’t touch a morsel. They waited until the latkes were ready and the contest could begin. “I’ll keep score,” said my mother.

“I’ll bring in the first platter,” said Aunt Hazel. “Don’t you dare start without me. “

“You know I’m going to win that ride,” said Uncle Charlie. “Not one of you can eat as much as I can and I skipped lunch.”

“That’s cheating,” said my little Aunt Tick who was the tiniest and doomed to failure.

Aunt Celia didn’t say anything at all. She just licked her lips and sat with her empty plate before her waiting to be served. My mother brought out the platter heaped with potato pancakes and the four children leaned across the table to spear the latkes. Their heads collided and their forks clashed but they couldn’t capture the pancakes because they kept bumping into one another. Finally my grandma said ”Everyone sit down. I will give you your latkes ONE AT A TIME”

The children all sat down, their forks raised and then they gasped. The platter was empty. “What happened to our latkes!” said my mother. “I brought out thirty pancakes and not one of them is there.”

My Aunt Celia burped and she beamed at Uncle Moishe. “I saved the last one for you,” she said.

“The winner!” said my Uncle Moishe (in Polish) and my Aunt Celia glowed with all the attention she was getting. “I’ll wash my hands,” she said. “I wouldn’t want to get fingerprints on the dashboard.”

The four losers watched as uncle and their sister walked out the door and grandma smiled at them and said. “I saved another platter of pancakes just in case,” she said.

“Who needs to win a ride in a car, when you can eat potato latkes instead?” said my little Aunt Tick.

“That’s the Chanukah spirit!” said my grandma. ”Would someone like sugar?”

“I would rather have the recipe,” said my mother with an eye to the future.

“I’ll whisper it to you,” said my grandma and this is what my mother heard:


POTATO LATKES


For every two peeled, grated potatoes, add one beaten egg and one grated onion plus one extra egg for the pot; a dash of salt and a smidgen of pepper.

Heat Crisco in a heavy skillet until it bubbles. Drop a spoonful of batter in the hot oil and flatten into a large fairly thick circle; flip over as soon as it browns around the edges. Place the finished pancakes on a cookie sheet and bake at 300 degrees until very crisp.

Enjoy each latke with applesauce, sugar or jam and you won’t want any reward except another helping!

HAPPY CHANUKAH

Nothing succeeds like excess

Oscar Wilde