Welcome Back, Sidney

Walking down the streets of Laguna Beach, I saw an old man that reminded me of my grandmother's brother, Sidney. I can't pinpoint exactly why the man reminded me of him, but he did. Or maybe it was the shops. Store after store after store of useless junk (albeit, pricey useless junk, and a ton of art galleries. Why, one town needs so many galleries, I will never know). Either way, I was reminded of Sidney, and I remembered an essay I wrote for my thesis at Northwestern. It tells the story of Sidney. It helps me remember a man who made such a great impression on me. Yet, he was also kind of scary. I've never met a man like Sidney. He was unique. Everyone should have an Uncle Sidney in their lives. Here's the essay:


Several years ago, I gave Frederic a wallet. More precisely, I gave him my wallet. My first wallet. The wallet I got when I was seven. The wallet I got from my great-uncle, “Uncle Sidney.”
I loved this wallet; still did when I gave it to Frederic. It’s a light brown leather wallet with plastic inserts for pictures. On the front of it—and this is why I loved the wallet so much—is a color picture of a group of un-teachable, under-achieving and incorrigible students, better known as the Sweathogs, from the television show Welcome Back Kotter. Welcome Back Kotter was one of my favorite television shows as a kid. While I grew up in a middle-class suburban town, very dissimilar to the inner city Sweathogs, my friends and I felt like we connected with the motley gang of students. We used to worship the show so much that we would pretend to be the Sweathogs. Tom Bray was Vinny Barbarino, the group leader. Jeff Hagen was Freddie “Boom Boom” Washington, the tough jock. And Jimmy “Jimbo” Vanacora was Juan Epstein, the plot scheming jokester of the group. I always got to play the role of Arnold Horshack, the nerd.

I held on to this wallet for almost 30 years because of my affection for a silly television program. I’ve owned many wallets in my life. In the 80’s, I had an orange nylon wallet with a Led Zeppelin insignia. The wallet had Velcro on it to keep the contents inside. It did not have the plastic picture holder in it so I had to keep the class pictures of my friends in the money slot. In high school, I had a brass money clip with a big $ on it. I’ve had black wallets, brown wallets and grey wallets. Some have been leather, others vinyl. The wallet I have in my pocket right now was given to me by my children this past year for father’s day. It too, is special. Every time I look at the Sweathogs wallet, I told Frederic when I gave it to him, I think of Sidney. Without Sidney, there would be no hand-me-down to my son.

Sidney was the kind of person everyone liked, literally. I never heard anyone speak poorly about him. A birthmark covered most of the right side of his face. It wasn’t a mark, really, it was more like a splat of deep pink paint that dripped onto his forehead and slowly worked its way down to his jaw. It was always embarrassing to him. He refused to take pictures by himself or in a group. Most of my memories of Sidney are stored in my head.

Sidney had a junk stand in a section of Chicago known as Maxwell Street. This was Chicago's port-of-entry neighborhood for many of its immigrant and ethnic groups—the Ellis Island of the Midwest. Maxwell Street was a reminder of the great open air markets of the Old World where people from all over the city and suburbs would gather to experience ethnic foods, listen to authentic Chicago Blues and shop for merchandise.

Sidney was a staple of the area. His shop was where you went to buy costume jewelry. “Gold” rings, “Silver” hoop earrings, and mood rings that only worked for a day. He had furry cardboard animal knickknacks, naked lady playing cards and naked lady pens, key chains and a wide assortment of sexual aides. Sidney sold French ticklers, colored condoms (absolutely not guaranteed to ward off STD’s or unplanned children) and it was from his stash of Gold Coin Condoms that my father—when I turned 14—handed me my very first. It was promptly placed in my Led Zeppelin wallet. It stayed there for at least another year, making a circular indentation on the outside of the wallet.

Sidney was a very personable man, well liked and respected by the tight community of the Maxwell Street, but he only knew the love of one woman, Edith Stein. Edith was a first generation Russian Jew who wore expensive clothes, flashy jewelry and too much make up. Despite Sidney’s physical imperfection, she agreed to marry him. Edith was the love of his life. As unbelievable as the story was, the courtship ended over what was always described as the “electric finger.”

I imagine Edith, standing in the living room of my grandparent’s house on Farwell Avenue, shaking her finger at Sidney, shouting, “You are a fool! It is for our future! You spend our money foolishly!” Sidney and Edith were not married yet and he did not appreciate her referring to the money as “our.” It was his money and he felt matters that belonged to him should not concern her.

It was a small gesture, shaking her finger, and it was a subtle comment. It was a situation most men would dismiss as the action of an overbearing woman trying to secure her future. But to Sidney, it was a mortal sin; punishable by the termination of what could have been a lifetime of joy and eternal love.

Sidney never had any children of his own, so he treated me and my brothers like sons. He never took us anywhere, I never even saw him outside of my grandparent’s house. He just paid attention to us—when he was in the mood—when we visited. After the breakup with Edith and until the day he died, Sidney lived in the second bedroom of my grandparent’s house. Whenever he came home from work and we happened to be visiting, Sidney’s eyes lit up and a smile appeared instantly on his soft blemished face.

In all of the memories stored in my head, Sidney always wore the same clothes. He was fond of white v-neck t-shirts, black slacks and worn out black sneakers. Even though he came home, every time I saw him, with a giant wad of cash—which he kept stuffed in his mattress—Sidney never spent money on himself. His wardrobe was a testament to his frugality.

Sidney was never a man of many words, but whenever he did talk with us, he would pretend to forget our names. He’d look at me and call me Ira, my middle brother’s name or he would look at Ira and call him Darrell, our older brother. It was a trait we grew to love and look forward to during our visits. If he was having a particularly bad day and happened to forget the cherished banter, our hearts would break until we begged him to play. It was one of those traits you find endearing in a person; one of those things you hope that person passes on to his children. Since Sidney did not have any children, I am grateful that my brother, Ira, enjoys this same banter with Frederic and my daughter, Lily. It is a trait Ira did not realize he received from our uncle until the day I mentioned it to him.

My grandmother used to tell a story about Sidney that always fascinated me. When he came home from work, he would walk straight into his bedroom without stopping to talk to my grandparents. He would close the door and immediately turn on his television. Sidney was extremely hard of hearing, so he liked to watch his black and white 13-inch TV with the sound as loud as it would go. Even over all of the noise—and this is what bothered my grandmother most—you could hear Sidney coughing. It was a cough filled with wet phlegm. Phlegm that Sidney would spit into his hand and fling across the room. Whenever we heard this story, it made my brothers and I giggle.

My grandmother loved to complain about Sidney. Sidney and his hearing, Sidney and his sedentary lifestyle, and mostly Sidney and his flying mucus. I always wanted him to do that in front of me, but never got the opportunity.

The day Sidney died, it was just before my 13th birthday and my family was throwing me a big celebration. My father and I were in our basement, setting up tables and chairs. We were listening to a Louis Armstrong 8-Track tape on our stereo system when the phone call came in from my grandfather. Sidney had been in the hospital for several days. He had pneumonia and emphysema. It was January 1983 and Sidney was 72 years old. He died earlier in the day from respiratory distress. I was mad at what that meant regarding my party. I was afraid it would have to be cancelled.

I remember being angry at him for dying on the night of my party, even though it wasn’t cancelled. But, I can’t remember what I did with the stack of 10 $100 bills that were pulled from between the mattresses in Sidney’s room; the room which was littered with dried mucus.

Sidney was mysterious to me because I only saw glimpses of who he really was. Shortly after he died, my father was given the responsibility to drive down to Maxwell Street and clean out Sidney’s shack. It was the middle of February and my father told me not to dress warmly because he said we would be busy working. If I dressed too heavily, I’d sweat and then have to deal with wet clothes.

I had never been to my uncle’s shack on Maxwell Street because my father hated going into the city. He especially didn’t like Maxwell Street. He thought that the neighborhood and the people were bad. He refused to bring us there to visit.

Although I was never there, I had seen what it looked like on film. Sidney was so popular amongst the regulars on Maxwell Street that when movie directors scouted the area for people and scenes to include, most people suggested Sidney. Because he was embarrassed about his face, Sidney refused to be on camera when John Landis approached him to be in The Blues
Brothers and Tony Bill wanted him to be in My Bodyguard.

Sidney’s shack was located directly across from a clothing store. The store obviously catered to the people who lived in the neighborhood, but I could not help being drawn to a hat they displayed on a mannequin. It was a brown leather hat that was shaped just like the hat that Rudy wore in the Fat Albert cartoon. My dad refused to let me buy it, preferring me to stick close to him while we worked. It was freezing cold outside and the brown leather boots I decided to wear provided little comfort or warmth because both my feet were numb.

As I think back about the day we had to empty the source of my uncle’s amassed fortune, I can’t help but remember the amount of junk he had; stuff buried on top of stuff. There wasn’t even an empty spot for him to stand on. He simply stood on his wares, hawking one piece of gaudy jewelry after another.

The only possible end in sight may have been his death. When you are a man born with a physical abnormality, I can only assume, you may tend to live life in a more introspective way. At least that was how Sidney seemed to live. He kept himself sheltered in a box everyday, surrounded by people looking for a cheap bargain; people who may have seen beyond the mark he had on his face. People that made him feel normal. He loved his sister and appreciated the attention she gave him so much that he never let her go. Sidney never wanted to let go. The items he sold were simple, nothing he treasured. The only time he did give into the urge to reject, it probably broke his heart.

When we got to the bottom of the shack, we had filled a 15-foot U-Haul truck from front to back and top to bottom. My father also had a tough time letting things go. He refused to throw any of Sidney’s stuff away. We drove home in silence, my feet warming from the heat blowing through the floorboards. Later that spring, we built a shed in our backyard where we stored the boxes packed on Maxwell Street. Boxes that were piled high on top of one another, filled with nothing but memories of a man insane enough to cough into his hand and special enough to remember.