Buffalo Gal

by Laura Pedersen

  Every Sunday, we sang our modified hymns along with life-

  affirming poetry put to music and songs from other religious traditions, all to the piano stylings of a longtime church member named Charlotte. By the time I began attending the service, she was quite elderly and losing her eyesight. However, Charlotte knew the hymns by heart, so being unable to see the music wasn’t a problem. As the years passed, she often unknowingly repeated verses, added a few new ones, or segued into other hymns entirely. For the congregation, it was like being participants in a fast-moving volleyball game—we didn’t know what was going to happen from moment to moment, so everyone remained alert, anxiously glancing from their text to Charlotte for a clue as to where she was headed. More often than not we managed to catch up by the time we saw her lean over for that last big chord.

  The UUs made a lot of statements while I was growing up, however fashion was never one of them. Back in the seventies, a typical Sunday put the following on display: a beaded necklace from an African or Far Eastern country where one had gone on sabbatical or to serve as a human-rights observer, a protest T-shirt, a long, flowing peasant skirt, a brightly colored madras shirt sold by village-women’s collectives, jeans painted with peace signs, Dr. Scholl’s, Birkenstocks, and clogs. Put UUs in suits or dresses for their funerals and they’d most likely consider it a waste—all dressed up with no place to go.

  Despite talk of separation of church and state, prayer and religion were everywhere in the Buffalo area, the village atheist be damned. My public school teachers were mostly Catholic and Evangelical Christian,

  so there was a fine line between homework and the Lord’s work. One administrator was fond of reminding me that Saint Laura was a ninth-century Spanish martyr who became a nun after being widowed and was later scalded to death in a vat of molten lead by her Moorish captors. Was this a threat or a promise? Prayers were said before most athletic events at my public high school, and I would think, If we win, then that must mean God doesn’t like the opposing team. Even the chorus sang mostly religious music. Once a year, a student who was Jewish

  or agnostic would ask our Bible-backed music teacher why all the songs featured God, Jesus, Mary, the Twenty-Third Psalm, and other religious references. She always replied that some of the best chorale music is religious. I don’t doubt this. However, we might want to consider that this was coming from a woman who believed that during the

  Rapture she was going to be sucked out of her Buick Skylark up to heaven while the rest of us went over the guardrail to die a fiery death in a roadside ditch.

  Because of my friends’ diverse beliefs, they had several religious holidays when they were able to stay home from school. And that’s the only change I’d recommend for UUs—how about a day off for the kids? Susan B. Anthony’s birthday, February 15, would be good.

  She was put on trial and fined for voting in Rochester, New York, in 1872, because only men were allowed to vote until 1920. My idea is that we all go sledding and drink hot cocoa to honor Susan the way people have barbecues and three-legged races to celebrate Memorial Day.

  ***

  I was actually raised Jewnitarian, or as a U-Jew. My little church was constantly on the brink of financial disaster and, in order to survive, depended on the Jewish Congregation Havaruh to rent space from us. As a result, my Sunday school featured a papier-mâché mountain with Moses and God having a tête-à-tête, along with timelines of Jewish history papered over the walls.

  More significantly, my godparents were Jewish, somewhere between Orthodox and Reformed, depending on whether or not they had to drive their five children anywhere. We regularly went to their home for dinner, including Shabbat on Friday, when Betty would bless the bread and Irving would sing the prayers. I knew the answers to the four questions asked at a Passover seder before I knew the three parts of the Holy Trinity. Every fall, we celebrated the harvest festival of

  Succoth around a lean-to shelter built in their backyard to remember the forty years that the Israelites wandered in the wilderness.

  The sound of Harry Belafonte singing “Hava Nagila” and “Matilda” could usually be heard throughout their house. Don’t ask me why all the midwestern Jews in the seventies adopted a brown-skinned Caribbean entertainer, but they did.

  My godmother was a kind woman with a warm smile, porcelain-doll skin, and a lap that always held a child. My mother once told me that her shoulders were on backward, but as many times as I stole a glance, I couldn’t see anything wrong. Betty was a terrific cook who made wonderful matzo-ball soup, latkes, and kugel. If something boiled over she’d say, “Oh, Christmas,” instead of a curse word. And when she hugged us good-bye she almost always said, “Next year in Jerusalem.” I used to wonder if when I became old I’d start saying, “Next year in Copenhagen.”

  My godfather, Irving, had a rapid-fire temper, and all of us kids were terrified of him. My mother told me he was a genius, so I didn’t associate the word with anything complimentary. He refused to read directions, and whenever he put a bike or toy together, there’d always be a pile of “extra” parts. Once he couldn’t get a can of Raid insect repellent to work and, rather than read the plastic cap that was clearly marked Twist to open, he banged the can against the counter so hard that it exploded.

  Betty and Irving’s oldest child suffered brain damage at birth. Technically, I suppose he is what’s called an idiot savant—a mentally disabled person who exhibits superior intellect in highly specialized areas, such as math or music. When I later saw the movie Rain Man, I immediately thought, It’s Clifford! Clifford could give anyone’s telephone number or date of birth off the top of his head. But what he really excelled at were directions. My godmother would be driving, become lost, and ask Clifford the route. This was thirty years before GPS. Without so much as a map, he’d reel off a list of highways, exits, detours, mile markers, turns, and alternatives like a modern-day

  MapQuest. Clifford was also very definite about his likes and dislikes, especially when it came to people. Someone would arrive at the house and he’d immediately and loudly announce whether he liked that person or not—and then repeat the verdict several times until no one could be unaware of his preferences.

  Since I rarely saw my Long Island grandparents, I easily adopted my godparents’ parents as grandparents—Bubbe Zelda, Zada Joe, and Bubbe Dora. When I was in eighth grade, my godfather died from complications of diabetes, at age fifty-three. As soon as the casket was lowered, Bubbe Dora flung herself into the grave. However, the nephews and grandsons were standing by and ready to seize her because apparently this a longstanding and revered tradition among Jewish mothers, especially when the son was a doctor.

  My godparents’ five children were like brothers and sisters to me. Together we played dreidel, danced the hora, and attended Purim

  parties, and when they began having bar mitzvahs and bat mitzvahs, I was surprised to find out that I wouldn’t be having one too. (At age

  sixteen, I was invited by the UUs to sign the membership book, and they gave me a necklace with a flaming-chalice charm. No money arrived. In fact, a few years later they began asking me for money.)

  I regularly helped friends rehearse for their bar and bat mitzvahs (drink lots of orange juice to get the throat-clearing sound just right). My first kiss was at a record hop following a bar mitzvah. The Jewish boys were definitely faster than the Catholics. Maybe it had to do with getting all that money on their thirteenth birthday. Or perhaps it was the whole ceremony about becoming a man. No matter. Most of the Catholic boys were still pulling our hair and dropping rubber snakes in our bags.

  Buffalo has a large population of Jews. Although there was a private Jewish school called Kadimah that went through the eighth grade, most Jewish children attended the local public schools. However, I happen to know that Kadimah was an excellent school. When Andy Freedman transferred from there to my junior high school, he knew all the presidents. I mean, he had them memorized, in order. We public-school kids
were truly stunned. Yet Andy didn’t view this tremendous knowledge as a big deal and didn’t even attempt to show off. Once, our eighth-grade teacher, Mr. Heffley, was struggling to remember who came after John Tyler, and Andy just casually ticked off the presidents on his fingers starting with George Washington. (It would later come to light that he also knew vice presidents and state capitals!)

  From my godparents and their extended family, I learned that every large Jewish family has, somewhere within it, two brothers or cousins or brothers-in-law who aren’t speaking to each other. And it is the job of every party organizer to make sure these two are seated at opposite ends of the room. Sort of like every Irish wedding has one designated drinker who must be pointed out to the photographer in advance so as to get that picture taken first.

  Fourteen

  Water Hazard…Is That Your Child?

  The Great Lakes, found in the upper eastern part of the Midwest, contain one-fifth of the world’s surface freshwater. I’ll save you the trouble of learning their names by providing the mnemonic device straight off—HOMES: Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior.

  Lake Erie makes up the western border of the city of Buffalo, continues above Ohio, and has its northern shore on the Canadian province of Ontario. To the Indians who lived there in the 1600s, Lake Erie was known as one of the Sweetwater Seas. Before colonization, it teemed with northern pike, lake sturgeon, smallmouth bass, walleye, cisco, and whitefish. From the first explorer to see the lake in 1669 to the settlers of the 1820s, conditions in the region remained about the same. It wouldn’t be until the mid-1900s that the white man would flock to the Seneca Nation Indian Reservation for tax-free gas, cigarettes, and bingo.

  However, starting in the 1820s, milldams were constructed on nearly every stream that entered Lake Erie. This spelled doom for many of the abundant species of fish that needed to be able to migrate up tributaries to reproduce. Meanwhile, the human population soared in lakefront cities such as Buffalo and Cleveland, and so did the discharge of oil, sawdust, animal carcasses, agricultural residue, flour, and human waste.

  By the early 1970s, the lake bore little resemblance to the one enjoyed by Native Americans, who happen to have this proverb: “We did not inherit the land from our fathers. We are borrowing it from our children.” Years of indiscriminate industry dumping of chemicals (PCBs, mercury, DDT, dioxins) and wastewater, along with the release of millions of gallons of untreated sewage, had fouled the once-great lake to the extent that Erie was officially declared a dead lake. Advisories were issued warning locals against any contact with the water.

  Actually, the lake was filled with life, just not the right kind. Excessive algae became the dominant plant species, covering beaches in slimy moss and killing off native aquatic species by soaking up all the oxygen. This overabundance was primarily caused by the overload of nutrients, such as phosphorous, in the lake. Oily sludge allowed spontaneous fires to erupt. Fishing now meant scooping the dead and discolored sturgeon off the top of the lake, though I doubt anyone would have wanted to eat them.

  Buffalo was once again a national joke. Lake Erie was too thick to drink and too thin to plow. Johnny Carson claimed it was the place that fish went to die. The situation was referenced in an environmentally themed Dr. Seuss book called The Lorax. (“I hear things are just as bad up in Lake Erie.”)

  Suffice it to say that the perennial Seuss best seller didn’t attract the tourists the way that Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables brought them to Prince Edward Island. The poor conditions in Lake Erie during the early seventies were a major factor in the decline of the fishing industry and also limited the lake’s recreational use. It smelled bad. With an abundance of dead fish and decaying algae, only three beaches were declared clean along the entire shoreline.

  Finally, Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau and President Richard Nixon signed the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement on April 15, 1972, and both Canada and the United States committed themselves to restoring the Great Lakes environment. The agreement established guidelines for reducing pollutants and improving treatment of human sewage.

  And that’s why I swim with my eyes closed.

  ***

  Is that your child? No, mine is the bright green one.

  Love Canal is about ten miles northwest from where I was raised. This ironically named neighborhood near Niagara Falls is the country’s best-known hazardous-waste site. It provided much of the local news while I was growing up, especially after evacuations started in 1978, when I was twelve.

  In 1942, Hooker Chemicals and Plastics Corporation (now

  Occidental Petroleum Corporation) began dumping tons of chemical waste, including carcinogenic dioxin, into Love Canal (a three-thousand-foot trench). Shortly after they stopped, in 1953, the land was sold to the Niagara Falls School Board for the price of one dollar, and two years later the Ninety-ninth Street Elementary School was built. Families moved in and soon the area became a thriving working-class suburb.

  In 1976, following a wet winter and spring, portions of the landfill sank and large drums began to bob up. Chemicals seeped into the groundwater, leached into basements, contaminated ponds, and made for strangely colored puddles, while foul odors filled the air. Add to that Bethlehem Steel’s blast furnaces and smokestacks belching fumes from the southwest and the stench of rotting fish coming off now-dead Lake Erie, and it was hard to tell which way the wind was blowing.

  A study by the Agency for Toxic Substance and Disease Registry

  would list 418 instances of chemical pollution in air, water, and soil samples. High incidences of birth defects, miscarriages, cancers, and other illnesses started to occur in the area. Led by housewife Lois Gibbs, whose children suffered from recurring health problems, residents pressured state and federal officials with protests and lawsuits. In April 1978, New York health commissioner Robert Whalen declared Love Canal a threat to human health, ordered that the area near the old landfill site be fenced off, and a few months later closed the school. President Jimmy Carter assigned federal funds and ordered the Federal Disaster Assistance Agency to help the city of Niagara Falls. The case sparked the creation of the Superfund law, which would force polluters to pay for cleanups and make them more cautious about the disposal of waste.

  The state decided to pay for the relocation of 239 Love Canal families, leaving 700 behind in worthless homes, their inhabitants suffering from illnesses and caring for children with birth defects. After two years, the patience of the remaining residents ran out, and they took two EPA workers hostage until President Carter approved moving the rest of the families.

  As environmental cleanup became a national issue, more than thirty thousand toxic sites were found across the country. Americans had something new to fear—the very ground they walked on.

  In 1990, the government declared Love Canal hazard-free, and houses are for sale again. They’re a national bargain, starting at thirty thousand dollars apiece.

  Fifteen

  Will Joke for Food…It’s a Mad, Mad House…

  How I Learned to Cook

  Where I believe things took a turn away from how “normal” kids were raised, at least among my middle-class friends in the Buffalo suburbs, is that I don’t recall my parents telling me to do this or do that. Sure, they gave a few general directions, but I clearly remember being the architect of my day. Rather than The Pedersens, the label on our mailbox should have read The Existentialsens.

  When Mary and I played hooky together, we’d have lunch at the local mall, enjoying free samples at Hickory Farms and York Steak House, and then stop to hear the mynah bird at Sattler’s department store say the curse words that kids had taught him over the years. Afterward, we’d ride our bikes downtown to check out boys. Mary was excellent at finding guys anywhere, anytime, and she would always generously give me her extras or castoffs. By the time we were teenagers she could stop traffic with her Marilyn Monroe figure, long red hair, and sparkling green eyes. I can recall more tha
n one instance when drivers took their eyes off the road for that extra second to stare or wave at Mary, and then hit the car in front of them or swerved up onto the curb and crashed into a signpost or mailbox. Meantime, it’s safe to say that I’ve never caused a driver to so much as accidentally cross a dotted white line.

  We’d often pass my dad walking through Main Place Mall, which was only a block away from the courthouse where he worked. Dad never

  noticed us because he operates in a parallel universe. People claim the Internet wasn’t rolled out until the eighties, but I’m quite certain he was surfing some kind of intergalactic wireless network back in the sixties and seventies. If we stopped Dad to say hello, we always had a story ready about there being teacher conferences, in case he wondered why we had so much leisure time on a school day. But he never did. And we skillfully avoided Mary’s father because he worked in law enforcement, and the school situation would definitely have crossed his mind, first thing.

  Visiting Mom at work was always an education. She supervised a nursing home and then a psych center. At both places, the patients would stop me and make unusual requests. For instance: Would I please call Bob Hope and fly them all to the Caribbean?

  On the low end of the parent-child chain of command, I wasn’t ordered to straighten my room, make my bed, finish dinner, or eat vegetables. (I became a vegetarian, so maybe there’s some reverse psychology in that.) Fifi, our poodle, was always more than happy to finish leftovers. My room was an area of cyclonic chaos, not unlike a Manhattan garbage strike in its fourth week, and Mom simply closed the door, refusing to clean it or even scout the perimeter for any reason. If I was given one instruction as a child, it was from my mother, and that was to put on a coat and hat in the winter “or else you’ll perish from hypothermia.” Though once I recall her reading a brochure a local politician dropped off and advising me, “I can’t tell you whether to vote Democrat or Republican, but make sure the candidate was a B-student or better.” My mother is clearly not interested in a world run by C-students or dropouts. Or people who spit in public. One afternoon she witnessed a campaigning councilman hack up a giant phlegm wad on our front lawn and quickly scratched his name off her list of candidates.