Rick was alone with our mother for almost 5 years. I was not welcome when I came along. I was a hairless creature. He thought girls should have hair, so I must be a boy, right? He called me “boop-de-boy” and tripped me as I learned to walk. But as I became more fun to play with, and a little less of a threat, he was kinder, in a way. The featured image is on my 3rd birthday. I looked up to my brother in every way and wanted to tag along on everything he did. I was a pest. We had a window seat in the den of our little house in Detroit, which we both liked to play on. I used it as theater for my dolls, he used it as a desk for drawing cartoons. When I was just a little girl of 3, he pushed me out of the way so he could draw. I was furious, tried unsuccessfully to push back against his much larger 8-year-old self, so I walked around behind and bit him where I could reach…in the behind! I had a temper.

But we had more and more in common as we grew older. We both loved to sing and are very musical. I am a good singer, he has perfect pitch and is a much better musician. We would stage musicals with the whole neighborhood in our backyard. We played games until the streetlights came on, running around on summer nights, the streets full of friends. I ached for him when he went away to overnight camp. He preceded me at the National Music Camp in Interlochen, Michigan. His elementary school music teacher had recommended it. I loved to go visit and couldn’t wait until I could also attend, which I did, finally, in 1964. He was in High School Division by then, I only a lowly Junior and he didn’t want to be bothered by me, until I wound up in the infirmary with the flu (I threw up during Sunday morning services; I was infamous – the kid who threw up during The Lord’s Prayer). I missed seeing him in a leading role in the Gilbert & Sullivan operetta. He finally came to visit me.

 

We moved to a near suburb of Detroit in 1963 and we were both miserable; smart, gawky misfits. He was half-way through high school, I was entering 6th grade which was the oldest grade in the elementary school. I had skipped part of 5th grade due to a complicated system in Detroit, so I was also the youngest in my class. He tried to fit in, I had almost no friends and the gulf between us at that age was huge. Our mother had a nervous break-down and took to her bed. An aunt came in to care for us. Rick did the best he could and in two years, he left for Brandeis. Our father hand-picked that school for him. I think back on the decision with some amazement. Brandeis (like my brother), was 18 years old at the time. Founded by Abram Sacher of St. Louis in the ashes of WWII, Abe had gone to Washington University with my dad’s oldest sister and knew the Sarason family well. Few people in the mid-West had heard of Brandeis in those days. It was a bold and successful choice.

Now I was alone with our increasingly fragile mother. I eagerly waited for Rick to return on vacation and we would sit up half the night to talk about her and us and “why us?”, and how to survive her (we both have survived her, by the way). I decided I didn’t want to follow in my brother’s footsteps and almost didn’t apply to Brandeis. A parent at our temple talked me out of that. I didn’t get into Yale (only the second year they took women and, though outstanding along many dimensions, my board scores were merely average) and I decided against Northwestern when I learned that the Greek system was a strong component of life on campus. I’d had enough of cliques already. So follow Rick to Brandeis I did, though he was already a year out by the time I got there.

Rick and I look nothing alike. He is tall and thin, I am tiny. We both are near-sighted, but I got contact lenses at 13, had to give them up when my eyes dried out more than 20 years ago. He started wearing them fairly late in life. Our coloring is entirely different. No one would take us as brother and sister. He majored in Economics at Brandeis; I, in Theatre Arts. He was Phi Beta Kappa. I was not. We both were magna cum lauda with honors; he was so highly recommended that he received an honor from the Economics Honors Society and a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship. But he had spent the semester, right after the 1967 war, studying in Israel. He sent home incredible letters. He decided he wanted to be a rabbi, so turned down the fellowship and continued his studies at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. He went off to Israel for two years of study (the second year was spent at Hebrew University). Having not seen him in two years, I visited during the summer of 1972. I stayed in his (all male) dorm, which was rather hair-raising. No one believed we were related. Most students were gone by that time so I had my own room, but Rick had to guard the door when I used the shower or facilities and I think there is one guy who will never be the same, as he walked in on me while I shaved my legs in the sink!

Two years later, Rick was ordained and I was married. Rick continued his studies at Brown University where he received a PhD in Rabbinics. He taught there for a year, then went back to HUC in Cincinnati, where he has taught ever since. He met a wonderful woman there and they were married on his 35th birthday. They have two terrific sons. Rick is a mensch and a respected member of his community.

I worked for 11 years, also have two sons, retired when I was pregnant with the second and have done various types of volunteer work since, mostly in the arts. We don’t get to see each other nearly as often as we like, but we consider ourselves very close.

 

There were games and water balloon fights. I think of scenes from The Music Man, when I remember those holiday picnics.
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Get paid to blow things up?? He was in!
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I had just returned from a tour of Alaska with a rock and roll band. It was June, 1980 and we were about to descend into the Reagan Era. The glow of the late 1960s had contracted into the dire and apocalyptic 70s and promised to flow headlong into Iran Contra.

Our friend Carmelita, one of our theater partners, had won a trip to Hawaii for four in a lottery. None of us had any money worth mentioning; we were embroiled in getting grants to support our theater and putting up shows. Not much dough there so…

A trip to Hawaii with our Gang of Four — Lily and me, Bob and Carmelita — sounded like a hoot. Cool, I thought, one week I’m in Alaska rocking out and the next week I’m on a flight to the Big Island.

A little background: Carmelita was an actress with a wicked penchant for organizing things, and her guy Bob hailed from Fresno. Bob collected his identity largely from a Great American Heritage ,was smart as hell, well-educated and with a bit of a flat spot when it came to social graces. He played self-conscious chop-heavy piano and could sing like Hogey Carmichael. He remains a good friend, despite what was to follow.

As with any theater partnership, exasperation formed a large part of our vocabulary. But we loved each other and thought a trip to Hawaii would make a great break. And the tickets were free.

We landed in Oahu but island-hopped to Hawaii where we shacked up at an odd set of bungalows constructed largely of bamboo and woven palm mats. Large green leafy things lurked everywhere and moss lurked under the large green leafy things.

Joel, an old friend of Bob’s, had arranged for our weird bungalow domicile. Joel, a philosophy professor, had left a tenured position at UC Santa Cruz to become an itinerant blacksmith on Hawaii. Once each month, for a week, he and his wife Susanna, a lovely local women with six toes on each foot, and their child, Lola, would circle the island, while Joel repaired broken metal things for Hawaii’s ranchers.

The next morning, we hit the rental car place in Hilo and picked up a tiny Chevy econo rental. Again, cool, but Bob is six foot four and the rest of us never graduated out of the five-foot range. Sometimes Hawaii feels like California only it’s Hawaii, and renting a car there in 1980 was all different, like crazy lazy and mildly hallucinogenic.

We cram into the car, excited to begin our off-the-beaten-path, around-the-island tour, mapped out by Joel the blacksmith philosopher. We would hit all the non-tourist places, hidden waterfalls and hot springs, ancient indigenous power places; we would visit with hand-picked friends of Joel and Susanna and come as close as possible to shedding our unmistakable essence of haole.

We’re eating our first breakfast on the road When Carmelita says, “We have to go to the courthouse.”

“What?” we ask.

“We have to go to the courthouse.” Carmelita turned around, looking quite purposeful. “We need to file some documents.”

“What kind of documents?” Lily grows wary. She knows Carmelita very well and this isn’t Carmelita.

“Bob and I are getting married,” Carmelita announces.

Silence. We’re sitting in the back seat of an econo Chevy, knees jammed to our chins and the couple sitting in the front seat, our theater partners, have just announced they’re getting married. Here. Now. The Hawaiian sun beams down upon the Hawaiian greenery.

“There!” Carmelita points to a courthouse sign. Bob turns right.

More silence.

“It’ll be fun,” Bob says.

“Aren’t you happy for us?” Carmelita asks.

“Wow. Cool. Congratulations.” I crank out the suitable responses. “Congratulations!”

“Here,” Carmelita says, pointing to a courthouse sign.

Bob turns right.

“Here?” Lily asks. “Now? You’re going to do this now? Why didn’t you say something before? Jesus, Carmelita!” But people who are in phase three of a relationship can be unpredictable.

Bob and Carmelita were in phase three. Phase one 90 days: You want to bottle it, keep it to inhale forever. Phase two, six months to a year: Exciting, weird, even annoying but still curious. Phase three: We’re still here? Okay. How are we going to make this thing work?

During phase three, the marriage thing appears. It’s not always the best option but one of many possibilities. So what the hell.

We sat in the sun outside the courthouse cursing, musing, and shrugging while Bob and Carmelita spent an interminable time in Hilo’s hallowed halls, procuring their marriage license.

The date was set, three days from now. Until then, we would continue our island trek. We would be their witnesses at the wedding so we said yay, let’s have a good time. Oh, but first…

Carmelita needed a wedding dress. Joel wasn’t much help, but Susanna knew hippie designers, even on the Big Island, which still largely resembled a WW II naval airbase a la “South Pacific.”

While the women shopped for a dress, Bob and I decided to climb Mauna Kea. The mountain took us through each ecosphere on the planet, from rain forest to barren volcanic rock, spotted with red arctic lichen. If you measured Mauna Kea from the sea floor, it’s the tallest mountain in the world. We descended exhausted but the day wasn’t over yet. I had to throw Bob a stag party.

We found a Quonset hut turned saloon near the airport and, within three beers apiece, had launched a profound conversation on some now-forgotten topic. I do remember reaching a pivotal point in the dialog when a giant cockroach sauntered across my forearm. They were everywhere, these cockroaches, and we had already grown casual about their presence. The bar was made of bamboo.

We did make it around the island, switching from front to back seat. Whoever sat in the back became instantaneously cranky but we managed to create equity. It was a beautiful experience. I’d never felt as powerful and distinct an indigenous presence and its history than I did during that drive around Hawaii.

We ended our excursion at Joel and Susanna’s homebuilt ranchero, built entirely of junk. Their recycled dwelling felt wide-open, with charming verandas and breezy hallways and a dirt floor.

That night, Joel and Susanna’s floor came alive with large cockroaches. Two nylon net hammocks hung over our sleeping area. There was no question as to who would ascend to the peace and insularity of the hammocks. The only interjection to our unmitigated laughter were recriminations from Lily and Carmelita, hanging above us unsullied. Somehow, this was all our fault, Bob and me. More laughter.

Bob and Carmelita were married on a lovely point of land overlooking a Pacific sunset. The breeze blew balmy. The marriage was officiated by a friend of Joel’s, licensed by the Universal Life Church to marry anybody. Joel and Susanna brought a fresh-caught Bonita as a wedding gift. Everyone was as happy as could be.

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Charles Degelman