Roger Zee Memoirs
My Dad 06/22/20
You've got to play the hand you're dealt. And my dad, Dr. Bertram Erwin Zeitel, did a pretty good job of that! If you get a chance, check out the movie, "Avalon." It tells the tale of a Russian-Jewish family of eight brothers and sisters who emigrate to the US just in front of getting lined up against a wall and shot like the rest of their relatives... And so begins another excerpt from my memoirs, "Life and Times of a Pandemic Musician."
A few years back, I began an interesting conversation with my good friend, Michael Murphy, about a racial incident I experienced. "People obviously see you're Black, and therefore take care of what they say to your face. But I don't look like a stereotypical Jew, so people speak freely in front of me." I relayed an incident about sitting outside The Bayou at Johnny Feds' Monday night jam and listening to a well known, local singer/guitarist claim that, "The Damn Jews are taking over and ruining the world." Calmly, I told him, "I guess you didn't know that I'm Jewish." Then got up and walked away before I lost my temper and laid him out.
I'm sure my father faced much worse. Born to Meyer, a dentist who suffered from Spina Bifida and looked exactly like the "Hunchback of Notre Dame," dad's mother (whose name I sadly don't even know) died in the midst of the Great Depression when he turned 11. Meyer sent him off to live with poor relatives in Brooklyn where he and his cousins scoured the streets day and night for aluminum foil, tin, pennies, and anything else of value.
A few years later, Meyer married Pauline and brought his son back home. Bert passed the entrance exam and went to City University for free in NYC. He enrolled in ROTC which eventually put him through medical school at Cornell University.
There, he started dating a very beautiful, intelligent woman, Gloria Kulik, my mom, who looked like a cross between Audrey Hepburn and Sophia Loren! When the Korean War broke out, my dad got called up to serve. As a Captain in the Air Force, they offered him his choice of station in Korea or the UK. He picked the UK, LOL! My mom, pregnant with me, followed him and gave birth in Cheltenham.
My dad never talked much, at least to me. He loved football and baseball, and as a kid, I took absolutely no interest in either. So he just ignored me. One day, I asked him why he chose to specialize in Radiology. He explained that he didn't much like dealing with people/patients, so he narrowed down his choices to Radiology or Ophthalmology (eye doctor.) Makes sense. Sorry now that I didn't reach out to him more. I'll explore this further in another session.
So on another sweltering, Covid-19 summer day spent in lockdown, I ponder the enigma of my dad while I devote myself to learning the bass parts to Bob Dylan's aptly titled album, "Bringing It All Back Home."
From "Ballad of a Thin Man:"You try so hard but you don't understand just what you will say when you get home. Because something is happening here but you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones." One <3
YouTube - Ballad of a Thin Man - Bob Dylan
©2020 Roger Zee
