gratified nor consumed, but eternal, she was only dimly aware of her daughter’s voice, and maybe it wasn’t even Valentine singing, but a choir of angels rejoicing as Miriam groaned to the faint sonants of Arrrre Vey Ma-ree-erhh .
Five
L iterally overnight the weather turned from cold to a freezing and exhilarating cold. Children, on their way to school, exhaled so as to see their breath. Teenage boys zipped up their parkas. Under their pea jackets and midi-coats and bunny furs, teenage girls sported the latest in sweaters, novelty sweaters with a puff to the sleeve and patterns of kittens or apples knitted into the weave.
As if he’d had a mild headache for the last few years, and now it was gone, John Wosileski felt okay, maybe even good. Having something to look forward to does that, brings light. John Wosileski walked to work with a slight bounce to his otherwise shlubby step.
Joanne Clarke ducked into Nevins Bakery, selected four cupcakes with vanilla icing, and asked the woman behind the counter to put them in the tin Joanne had brought from home instead of a bakery box.
During homeroom, the fifteen minutes at the start of each school day when attendance was taken, when announcements were made concerning choir practice or class elections, when information was given concerning schedule changes, Mrs. Kornblatt passed out a flyer announcing the formation of a ski club.
Valentine Kessler looked down at the flyer, at the words SKI CLUB printed in large, bold letters. What use would she have for a ski club? For all her loveliness Valentine was a spaz. This was a girl who could not throw a ball so that it would sail past her feet. Unable to master riding a bicycle, she never got beyond wobbling for perhaps half a block before falling sideways into the hedges. In gym class, she was the one left standing when teams were chosen; then the team that got stuck with her would groan audibly. Not once in her life had Valentine volunteered to partake in an activity which required coordination. But as she was halfway into the act of crumpling up the Ski Club flyer, her eye landed on the fine print at the bottom of the paper. Faculty Advisers: Mr. Ornstein and Mr. Wosileski.
Skiing, a rich man’s sport, was beyond John Wosileski’s means until Mark Ornstein, a history teacher, had left a note in all the faculty mailboxes asking for someone to assist him in the formation of a school ski club. If we can get 25 kids signed up for a ski trip, all our expenses will bepaid. i.e. WE SKI FREE! To sign up twenty-five students, to arrange for a bus, to endure three hours in a bus with twenty-five students, to purchase the lift tickets, to rent skis and bindings and poles for those without equipment was an atrocious job, but oh so worth the effort. Thirty-five dollars, the price for a day on the slopes, was, for a school teacher in those days, a hefty chunk of change.
And yes, the thought did cross John Wosileski’s mind— Leave it to a Jew to come up with a way to ski for free —but he didn’t think it in a mean way, the way his father would have. Rather, he was impressed with how clever they are, the Jews. With the note flapping in hand, John raced to the third floor, to Mark Ornstein’s room, hoping, hoping he wasn’t too late, hoping some other teacher hadn’t gotten there before him, and he burst through the door and said, “Yes. Please. Me.”
John Wosileski was a skier, and a good one, which could be considered out of character. That he should be skilled at a sport and that there was something about which he was passionate seemed antithetical to his otherwise passive and bloblike demeanor.
When he was eleven years old, John was sent from Brooklyn to Plattsburgh, New York, to stay with relatives—Uncle Joe and Aunt Marie and their three sons who were much older than John, teenagers already—because his mother was sick and needed an operation for something that no one would mention by name except to call
Five
L iterally overnight the weather turned from cold to a freezing and exhilarating cold. Children, on their way to school, exhaled so as to see their breath. Teenage boys zipped up their parkas. Under their pea jackets and midi-coats and bunny furs, teenage girls sported the latest in sweaters, novelty sweaters with a puff to the sleeve and patterns of kittens or apples knitted into the weave.
As if he’d had a mild headache for the last few years, and now it was gone, John Wosileski felt okay, maybe even good. Having something to look forward to does that, brings light. John Wosileski walked to work with a slight bounce to his otherwise shlubby step.
Joanne Clarke ducked into Nevins Bakery, selected four cupcakes with vanilla icing, and asked the woman behind the counter to put them in the tin Joanne had brought from home instead of a bakery box.
During homeroom, the fifteen minutes at the start of each school day when attendance was taken, when announcements were made concerning choir practice or class elections, when information was given concerning schedule changes, Mrs. Kornblatt passed out a flyer announcing the formation of a ski club.
Valentine Kessler looked down at the flyer, at the words SKI CLUB printed in large, bold letters. What use would she have for a ski club? For all her loveliness Valentine was a spaz. This was a girl who could not throw a ball so that it would sail past her feet. Unable to master riding a bicycle, she never got beyond wobbling for perhaps half a block before falling sideways into the hedges. In gym class, she was the one left standing when teams were chosen; then the team that got stuck with her would groan audibly. Not once in her life had Valentine volunteered to partake in an activity which required coordination. But as she was halfway into the act of crumpling up the Ski Club flyer, her eye landed on the fine print at the bottom of the paper. Faculty Advisers: Mr. Ornstein and Mr. Wosileski.
Skiing, a rich man’s sport, was beyond John Wosileski’s means until Mark Ornstein, a history teacher, had left a note in all the faculty mailboxes asking for someone to assist him in the formation of a school ski club. If we can get 25 kids signed up for a ski trip, all our expenses will bepaid. i.e. WE SKI FREE! To sign up twenty-five students, to arrange for a bus, to endure three hours in a bus with twenty-five students, to purchase the lift tickets, to rent skis and bindings and poles for those without equipment was an atrocious job, but oh so worth the effort. Thirty-five dollars, the price for a day on the slopes, was, for a school teacher in those days, a hefty chunk of change.
And yes, the thought did cross John Wosileski’s mind— Leave it to a Jew to come up with a way to ski for free —but he didn’t think it in a mean way, the way his father would have. Rather, he was impressed with how clever they are, the Jews. With the note flapping in hand, John raced to the third floor, to Mark Ornstein’s room, hoping, hoping he wasn’t too late, hoping some other teacher hadn’t gotten there before him, and he burst through the door and said, “Yes. Please. Me.”
John Wosileski was a skier, and a good one, which could be considered out of character. That he should be skilled at a sport and that there was something about which he was passionate seemed antithetical to his otherwise passive and bloblike demeanor.
When he was eleven years old, John was sent from Brooklyn to Plattsburgh, New York, to stay with relatives—Uncle Joe and Aunt Marie and their three sons who were much older than John, teenagers already—because his mother was sick and needed an operation for something that no one would mention by name except to call
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