Deed, Skating and More, March 2019, R 1/20

The ice was thick enough at WideWaters, a former Erie Canal turnaround now a recreational pond in Cobbs Hill Park, Rochester, and strong enough to support many skaters. One stood out, that cold weekend day in the late 1940s, a man in his 40s, who skated more expertly than anyone else. A couple friends put down barrels for him to skate over, he was practically flying, and then he skated backwards in figure 8 loops with one person holding his hands facing him, and others hanging on each behind the other in a line. However, as he led the figure eights at a fast pace, one by one everyone peeled off as the turns were made. That was a permanent memory of my father, whom we referred to as Daddy or Deed, and whom we called “Deed”, for the simple reason that that's what Stuart called him, who according to memory, incorrectly pronounced Dad when very young, and it stuck.

He was unique, always busy, unless he was reading, making things in his shop in the basement, or at his upholstery store, or outside, whether they were fireworks, or a telescope at a time when we were interested in the stars and the moon. And, the telescope worked quite well, about 4 feet in length, with the requisite mirrors and other lenses about which I knew nothing. He also made model motorboats for Stuart and me, using clock engines, and they too worked. I don’t know what happened to the telescope, but we still have the motorboats.

He grew up in western Pennsylvania, in a small town, St. Mary's, and then Jeanette, to which his parents emigrated from Lithuania after his two older sisters were born around 1904. They subsequently moved to Rochester, and after he finished schooling, he learned the upholstering trade working his way up to being a master upholsterer. However, when his father, Morris Kaplan, died in 1938, and for whom I am named, he took over his father's hide and tallow business, and the big truck which Deed then drove around to stores and farms, twice a week in Rochester and three times on journeys east, south and west of Rochester, collecting hides and tallow, used for soaps and other products, and in high demand during the World War II. He delivered them to Genesee Hide and Tallow, and was paid in cash.

Deed was immensely strong and athletic, and enjoyed teaching us ping-pong, badminton, which he set up in the backyard, and throwing balls back and forth. He built a working fireplace in our backyard on which we grilled, and he created a rock garden, and was always disappointed at how little effort we would make in helping make the gardens look as good as possible.

When we moved into the home at 237 Berkeley Street in 1946, he and a builder friend named Goldstein, designed the first floor, opening up the old-fashioned rooms into one continuous flow: entrance hall, living room, dining room and wrought iron banister going up the stairs.

He played ‘stiff’ with us and ‘flip’. In ‘stiff’ we would walk up the stairs at a 45° angle holding our body stiff, while he pushed us up from behind. In ‘flip’, he lay down on his back with his knees bent, and we took turns sitting on his shoes and all of a sudden we were flipped over his head and end up standing behind his head, all of us laughing with joy.

In the summers on Berkeley Street, he would get a small kitten, which lived on the front porch and outside, and never in the house, which was immaculately decorated by my mother. At the end of each summer, the kitten moved to the home shared by Aunts Pearl (Pallie) and Bessie, as they adored cats.

Occasionally, we would go for rides in the country, in his car or station wagon, and stop for ice cream. Automobiles have always had a fascination for me, perhaps starting with his wonderful 1940 or 41 Buick four-door sedan, with the suicide doors, meaning that the back doors opened to the front. None of us will ever forget when Deed drove Stuart and me to the hospital in 1944 to wave to my mother and baby brother Jim who had just been born. Stuart was in the front seat next to my father, and I was behind Stuart. As we were driving up Park Avenue, Deed told me to pull the door on the right side shut as it was not tightly closed. But instead of just pulling it shut, I opened the door so I could pull it with more force! But as the car was moving, the door swung open with me on the way out. Deed reached over and yanked me and the door back in. Perhaps that was my third attempt at danger.

The first is when I was born and there was an epidemic, dysentery or diarrhea, at Highland Hospital. I had always heard that several babies died; I came home from the hospital after about eight weeks; and my parents always credited Dr. Jerome Glaser, one of the world’s great pediatricians, and one of the first pediatric allergy doctors, with saving my life. Jerry Glaser did that again in 1942 when I had an emergency appendectomy and perhaps a repair of some other twisted organ of my intestinal tract.

Deed also taught us to drive, which accounts for the fact that Stuart, Jim and I are all good drivers and be we tend toward being racecar drivers.

Deed worked 5 1/2 days a week when he was in the upholstery business. But prior to that, during the years which ended around 1950 or 52, when he drove the truck starting early in the morning at a coffee shop deli on Joseph Avenue and went out to the country, we would take turns, each of us, going on this big truck, visiting farmers he knew and storeowners in the small towns all around Rochester from Batavia in the West to Sodus in the East. He worked hard and we had great conversations with all the people he dealt with. We also stopped at diners for lunch, and my favorite was the one west of Rochester on the Buffalo Road, filled with working men sitting at the counters and eating hearty sandwiches. I tried to do that too.

Many years later, Stuart and I drove Deed on his eastern route revisiting those towns and would you believe it? Deed ran into a grocer he had known and dealt with many years earlier, while walking on the streets of one of those towns. He was also friends with farmer Webster, in the town of Greece, and Stuart and I would go with him with Deed and his 22 rifle to shoot at targets on the farm, walking past the cows and going to a part of an open field and target shooting. I of course shot with my right arm, and had the problem of not being able to close my left eye in order to look through the site with my right. So, I would lean way over and look through the site with my left. Somehow it worked, and when I took Ben to Disney World in Florida many years later, I knocked off 9 of 10 clay pigeons that were maneuvering along a track ---- inviting targets for my good eye.