Remembering My Grandpa Al
My Grandpa Al loved to tell the story about his first job at age 16 working at a Brooklyn hospital. One day he was asked to carry a recently deceased corpse from the basement morgue to the second floor autopsy room. As he hauled the heavy body up the stairs, rigor mortis set in and the body’s stool loosened causing a bowel movement. Al dropped the corpse onto the stairwell and said, “If you can poop, you can walk.”
My grandfather was a seminal figure in my life. The youngest of 12 children, he was born in 1913 in Austria-Hungary and came to America when he was two. He was raised in a poor Jewish neighborhood, the son of a Hasidic scholar who spent most days studying in a Yeshiva (a Jewish seminary). His mom worked as a seamstress in a garment factory. As a result, Al was raised primarily by his older sisters. At an early age, Al made deliveries for his Uncle Sam who owned a grocery store in Brooklyn.
As a teenager, Al snuck into Ebbets Field to watch the Brooklyn Dodgers play baseball. He loved the music of Louis Armstrong, Enrico Caruso and Al Jolson and was one of the first kids in the neighborhood to own a record player. He became an accomplished dancer and an amateur boxer.
