Norman Lear read an article in Variety magazine about a cutting edge British Sit-Com, Till Death Us Do Part and it reminded him of his relationship with his father. (Episodes of Till Death Us Do Part can be found on YouTube.) His father once called him the laziest White man he has ever seen. I kind of get that feeling he never got over that insult.
Lear was not born in New York city but New Haven, Connecticut in 1922. His
mother was born in the Ukraine, and his father was the son of Russian
Jewish immigrants. His father was a traveling sales man who got
convicted of selling phony bonds when Norman was only 9, serving 3 years
in prison. Needless to say it was quite embarrassing to him. He
always referred to his father as a rascal.
According to family lore, his mother dropped him on his head when he was 3 months old, while bathing him in the kitchen sink.
Frightened she fled to her neighbor while she left him there on the
floor crying, over the years it seemed increasingly funny to her.
More @ Quartermain's Quarter
If one reads the entire article, you'll come to a paragraph where the author tells of ethnic jokes told at work all day long and then they all went out for drinks later. My old army unit was the same way; the Germans picked on my boss - who was Jewish - the Italians made fun of the two Jamaicans and so on and so forth. At the end of the day we would all gather in the parking lot and have a cookout and beer and we were all brothers. Today, three quarters of those people - mostly combat veterans from multiple encounters - would be thrown out the door and dishonorably discharged. So much for "progress"
ReplyDeleteThanks and precisely. At military school we did that and "cut" each other merciless. We've lost our minds.
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