Van Gogh's Right Ear

I was a good, dependable child growing up; in fact, I never ran away from home until I was five years old. Things had taken a turn for the worst at the ole homestead, and I was clearly under-appreciated. I had learned from listening to college football games on the family Philco (an invention that brought sound into the house well before television) that ratings were all important. My grandparents, who were then raising me, had dropped alarmingly in the polls. In fact, because of their malevolent leadership, they had fallen out of the top ten. So, not unlike Columbus wanting to go east, I resolutely turned my face to the west, climbed on my sturdy tricycle, and peddled furiously up Laketon Avenue. Soon I faced a great decision. Laketon Avenue abruptly ended about one mile from my grandparents’ house. I had to turn left or right. Anticipating a later political decision, I lurched to the left toward Lake Michigan. Within a few blocks, I had to push my trike up a steep hill, which, of course, allowed me to ride it hell-bent down the other side. Legs splaying out from spinning pedals, and yelling at the top of my lungs, I sailed through a stop sign and right into oncoming traffic. Miraculously, no one hit me. So very early, I learned one of life’s great lessons: not only is there good and evil in this world but also lots of luck.... For years I was convinced someone was practicing catch-and-release in the nursery the day I was born. How else could one explain a child so unlike his very proper, albeit detached, Scandinavian mother? Nevertheless, I did remember my manners. After exiting the womb, I reached up and shook hands with mom. It was the last time we ever touched. I was born into a small Midwestern town that somebody once called a hotbed of social rest. The year was 1934. It was the depth of the Depression, and my hometown of Muskegon was also at economic rest. Not being a particularly precocious child, I was unaware of all this, although I do recall strange-looking, unkempt men coming to our back door and begging for food. They frightened me, but I was also embarrassed for them, knowing somehow that decent people did not resort to this kind of behavior. I also learned early on that according to both biological law and accepted convention, every child receives one set of parents but two sets of grandparents. When such is not the case, the offended child should immediately alert the proper authorities. Of course, none of the aforementioned six are required to stick around once the newborn makes his initial appearance. Sometimes the grim reaper has prematurely done his work, and sometimes other factors are involved. In my case, only three of the mandated six spent much time with me during my early years. My father’s parents came from Northeastern Europe in the late nineteenth century. Both were Jewish, and they may well have been fleeing the religious pogroms that were then all too common. For the uninformed, a pogrom is one part ignorance and one part hatred, inspired by the perpetrators’ firm conviction that they are performing God’s work when they drive you and your family out of the community. For such true believers there is only one authoritative religion, which, coincidently, happens to be theirs rather than yours.