Not so long ago I complained to my wise friend, Joy Kellman, that my role as a father was perilously close to being a big failure. The issue afoot was my inability to ingratiate two out of my three kids with a common skill. The skill being the wu-shu of the tidy backpack.
Without much prompting, my son aptly places all of his particulars neatly in his bag well in advance of our departure for the school bus each morning. My daughter is . . . different. While she’s supremely adept at assembling all of her stuff, most of it remains clutched in her hands. Her backpack rests emptily on her shoulders, longing to shepherd a Hydroflask, tie-dye hoodie and whatever Raina Telgemeier graphic novel du jour is in play.
“If you think of your kids as uniform widgets that you seek to carve the same way every time you WILL fail, Adam,” Joy imparted. “But, if you think of them each as unique plants, you’ll find that success isn’t such a mystery. Every plant is different. Some are flowers, some are leafy, some bear fruit. All you can is add your own sunshine, water and soil in the form of love, attention and safety. Then, they grow into themselves.”
Emboldened with Joy’s salient view of the world, I’ve learned to appreciate my daughter’s strengths that lie beyond organization. Specifically, she’s taken an interest in behavioral economics because, as she puts it, “sometimes you can make people think a certain way just by how you ask a question. That’s kind of cool!” To her father, the lifelong Marketer, this is a dream come true.
Recently we were reading about scarcity, citing how it influences consumer behavior. The recent covid run on toilet paper was an easy warm up example. We then got into the subtle cases of what happens when a plate is piled high with my wife’s icing cookies versus when the plate has a scant few left. It was then that my daughter inquired about scarcity and time honored Jewish tradition of craving treif. Was there some correlation between pulled pork sandwiches and the ancient laws of kashrut forbidding us to enjoy them?
As I meditated on my daughter’s question, my mind meandered to the great Jewish men and women in my life who truly loved treif. Amongst them were Rabbi Rick, who’s East Coast pedagogy had engendered a lifelong love affair with lobster. And then there were my own brothers who hold widely different life views but are unified in their devotion to BBQ and bacon.
But it was my late Great Uncle Bern who rose above all comers as the Prince of the Verboten. The kid brother of four doting sisters (his amazing wife, dearly departed Aunt Edna, often noted that marrying Bern amounted to having five mothers-in-law), Bernie was cherished in our family for being the patriarch who radiated kindness. Where others made a sport out of petty gossip, he would take the high road, waxing on about how meschenkeit so-and-son was.
Uncle Bern absolutely loved treif, adding another element to his ethereal role in our family. When I was a poor student in Chicago, we would take Clarke past the zoo a few clicks for our bi-annual pilgrimage to Twin Anchors. In the Windy City’s cutthroat contest for the best baby back plates in town, Twin Anchors held a special cache. Most folks in the near north side attributed the edge in taste over Miller’s and Carson’s to the famed Prohibition sauce slathered liberally over slabs and half-slabs. The sauce was great, but it was the fact that it was my Uncle Bern’s favorite that made it such a joy.
Sitting down with him in a window booth was akin to taking our seats at Temple Emanuel for Rosh Hashanah services. There was a certain degree of anticipation and austerity strewn through the air. In the case of our davening, it was the anticipation of an amazing nap that Uncle Bern would enjoy whenever he went to shul. He had somehow mastered the ability to rise when the Rabbi beckoned only to retreat right back into his slumber upon seating. He was the Roger Federer of shul napping.
In the case of the ribs, sometimes Uncle Bern wouldn’t even speak until his full slab arrived. It was an almost Buddhist act of deference to the fallen pig who had paid such a price to make us so happy.
“Adam my dear,” he would impart, the Prohibition sauce finding purchase on his trimmed white beard, “isn’t this GRAND!!!”
His reverence for all things unkosher extended beyond pork. In the summer of 2008 my wife and I traveled to Cape Cod for a Brownstein-Katz Family Reunion of sorts. After a long weekend of quasi kashrut meals (which were delish, btw), Uncle Bern gently tugged on my elbow and beckoned me into a corner out of earshot of the broader family.
“Adam, I’ve come all this way to Harwichport, and I have yet to eat a single oyster!” he cavilled.
“Uncle Bern,” I retorted. “That is indeed a shande.”
“Well, maybe we should do something about it, Adam.”
Our solemn quest now affirmed, I grabbed the car keys. We glided along the brackish marshes of Route 28 in my late-mother’s silver Jag, jettisoning from West Harwich into the neighboring hamlet of Dennisport. Once over the border, our clandestine destination came into view.
“Clancy’s!” Uncle Bern chortled. “This looks PERFECT, Adam.”
Unlike Thompson’s Clam Bar (the Mecca of shucked Little Necks and 90 minute wait times), Clancy’s afforded an easy glide path from the parking lot to the barstools overlooking the languid Swan River inlet. That was table stakes for most pubs of their kind, but it was the raw bar at Clancy’s that set it apart. Like many bartenders around the Cape, ours was a college kid, there for the season from BU or Tufts or Eastern or wherever. We eschewed studying the menu, rattling off each local oyster species we could name.
“Four Cotuits! Four Wellfleets! And four Kumamotos for good measure!” I engendered with as much authority as a small Jewish man in a large Irish pub could muster.
“And two Heinekens,” issued Uncle Bern, seeking to slake his thirst before the oysters arrived.
The chilly pints were dispensed before us, and we sipped together, taking in the scene. August afternoon. The sun commencing it’s lazy descent beyond Nantucket. The friendly banter of O’Connells, Murphy’s and Healey’s in the background. Picture fucking perfect.
We imparted our ritual of silence to the scene, sipping quietly until the oysters arrived. Each one was tucked into a bed of crushed ice and flanked by lemon wedges and the requisite bottle of Tabasco sauce. Prior to digging in, Uncle Bern issued one last smile, his eyes soft with a life well lived and sense of easy peace that comes only with the passing of time.
“Thank you, my dear nephew,” he said. “Thank you for this.”
That was the last opportunity I got to spend really quality time with Uncle Bern.
Since returning to Japan a few years ago, I’ve been on a bit of a mission to honor him by savoring all of the treif that this amazing country has to offer. Each morsel of Hirata pork shoulder, each ebi-furaii, each Date scallop takes me back to our booth at Twin Anchors and bar stools at Clancy’s. My family’s sweet Prince of the Verboten. A blessed memory.
The Tokyo Yenta 