dec2015

MALE MATTERS
By Elliot Goldenberg
A Dilgard “merry” Christmas
The most wonderful time of the year
I
grew up in Queens, New York, as a
Jewish kid who got gifts for Hanukkah,
and, every Christmas, would
cross the street to exchange presents
with one of my best friends, Bobby
Dilgard, whose family was Lutheran. As
Andy Williams used to sing, it was the
“most wonderful time of the year.”
My other good friend on the block was
Marvin Waldman, also Jewish, who
lived with his two older sisters, Rita
and Shirley, his dog, Wagsy, and his
parents, Leo and Dorothy. Leo, as a
young boy, survived the pogroms in
czarist Russia.
My next-door neighbors were
Rudy Weiss – a Holocaust survivor
– and his wife, Mildred,
who worked for a publishing
company. During
Christmas (or Hanukkah),
Mildred would bring me
a beautiful coffee table
book, usually about
mammals, birds, or
reptiles. Most of the
books were written
by Ivan Sanderson,
who was actually
more famous for
his controversial
views on
UFOs.
Marvin,
who
was
also
As for me,
I loved almost
everything
about my
childhood,
but nothing
more than
Christmas.
friends with Bobby, enjoyed Christmas
as much as I did. Marvin and I saw no
distinction between being Christian or
Jewish during the holidays and both
of us used to make a pilgrimage to the
Dilgards’ home every Christmas morning
like two little Greeks bearing gifts.
Indeed, the neighborhood I grew up in
was a real melting pot – not of white and
black, but of Christian and Jew – and,
for the most part, everyone got along.
True, there were the occasional fights
with kids from the Catholic school a few
blocks away, so it wasn’t quite like Mayberry.
As for black kids, there were only
two in my neighborhood back then – the
Reed twins. If there were others, I never
saw them.
However, there were still the hoods, or
“rocks,” as they were often called. They
were mostly Italian, and some were
tough, like the “Fonz,” while others
only thought they were tough. Many of
them wound up in jail, were victims of
shootouts with the police, or became
the police.
My old address was 76-63 174 th Street,
Flushing, New York, although my house
wasn’t anywhere near Flushing. Actually,
my family lived in Jamaica Estates
North, with Fresh Meadows on one side,
and, if you crossed Union Turnpike –
which wasn’t really a turnpike – Jamaica
Estates on the other. Just across the
“turnpike” was the sprawling campus of
St. John’s University – at least it looked
sprawling to a little kid, just like my
house looked a lot bigger to me than it
really was.
Truth be told, people in Jamaica
Estates, by and large, did have bigger
homes, and more money, but
they weren’t snooty, at least I don’t
remember them to be that way. What
I do remember is that there seemed to
be lots of doctors living in the Estates
and a higher percentage of Jews than
Christians. One Christian kid who grew
up there was little Donnie Trump, today
known as Donald.
As for me, I loved almost everything
about my childhood, but nothing more
than Christmas. That’s why I cringe
when, due mainly I think to political correctness,
I hear advertisements in which
instead of “Merry Christmas,” we see or
hear “happy holidays.” Well, Christmas
is part of the fabric of America and it belongs
to all of us – even if we’re Jewish –
and its message of goodwill toward men
needs to be celebrated by all of us.
My parents thought the same way. Not
surprisingly, they used to drive me and
my sister all around the neighborhood
in the nights leading up to Christmas to
look at the beautiful Christmas lights.
Never once did I feel like an outsider
because we didn’t have our own lights,
or Christmas tree.
After all, as Adam Sandler says in that
song, we still have Hanukkah. P
56
DECEMBER 2015