The other thing that was totally exotic about Ed was that he’d had a Yeshiva education and came from an Orthodox Jewish home. My background was the polar opposite. Although I was technically Jewish, we were completely assimilated. We celebrated Easter by marching down Fifth Avenue in the annual parade with my Aunt Paula, married to a southern WASP; exchanged Christmas presents, and ate shrimp, bacon and Chinese food religiously. The first time Ed was invited to my parents’ home, he asked me if he should wear a Yarmulke at the table, to which I jokingly replied, “Are you kidding?”.(Years later a close friend joked that I was as close to a “shiksa” as my husband could date and still bring home to Mama.)

He pursued me relentlessly for another two years while I completed my Master’s Degree at the University of Michigan. I went out with other people while I was away, but they were the typical self-absorbed, boring guys I’d grown up with, and I missed him. We were married in December 1963 and lived in our rent stabilized apartment in the South Bronx for four years through the birth of our first son. Altogether, it took him eight years to complete his BBA; working all day in the “rag business” on Seventh Avenue, coming home from classes via the Third Avenue EL subway line three nights a week at 11pm, shutting himself in the den all weekend to catch up on his studies.

As soon as he was finished with the undergraduate degree, he decided he needed a Master’s Degree, too; another six years of night school intertwined with a move to a co-op in Queens, the birth of our second son, his father’s premature death from lung cancer, and almost two years of unemployment during the 1970’s recession. I was working as a Speech-ESL teacher; first at Morris H.S. in the south Bronx, then as a part-time college instructor at St. John’s University, but it wasn’t enough to keep us from shopping in Pathmark’s food warehouse where you could get a six-pack of beer for ninety-nine cents. When his unemployment insurance ran out, he took a job ‘on the truck’ in the family moving business, hauling pianos, boxes, and refrigerators up bone-breaking flights of stairs day and night alongside the other workers whom his brother hired off the streets of the Bowery for low, non-union wages. All his working life, there was nothing he wouldn’t do, short of theft, to support his family.

So, here we are some forty years later, slowly hauling our bodies to the parking lot after our fifth yoga class. I ask him what he does about the spiritual side of the instruction: chants in Hindi, hands in prayer position, feeling the “light” pass through his body during the relaxation exercise at the end of each session.

He answers bluntly, “I think it’s a crock, so I ‘substitute’ my own chants. When the rest of the class is swirling through “sa,ta,na,ma,” I’m chanting, “oi!, oi!, oi!, oi!” under my breath. Likewise with “namaste, he continued,” which I change to “Amein!, or sometimes, “Shalom.” And when the teacher encourages us to “let the light pass through the parts of your body you wish to energize,” I know exactly where that ball of heat and light is heading.”

As we reach the car, I hear him calling for his breath as if he were calling a lost dog or cat, something like- “Here breath; come on out. I’m waiting for you.” He turns to me when he sees the puzzled look on my face, and, without missing a beat says, “The teacher wants me to ‘find my breath,’ and I’m still looking.” As he hands me the car keys because he’s too worn out to drive, he hits me with his final critique of our yoga sessions: “This better be working because it’s killing me!”  Driving home, my “Mr. Intrepid” puts the passenger seat back, closes his eyes, and within a minute or two he’s fast asleep, snoring like the bear he emulated in the yoga class. The next day, he tells me to sign us up for another ten yoga sessions “After that,” he adds, “we’ll see how it goes.”

Excerpts from the memoir “Runaway,”
The second day of my hitchhiking journey

By Terrence Michael Fanning

Continuing my journey on the road, I hitched a few uneventful rides through the glorious Blue Ridge Mountains, where route 81 made sharp winding turns around the mountainside and into the state of Tennessee.

Patriotic fervor was rampant in this neck of the woods. The spirit of 1976 was in full swing for the July 4^th bicentennial celebration. Large colorful signs above welcomed travelers: “Happy 200th Birthday America!” And bright, blinking billboards with red, white and blue bulbs reading: “Fireworks For Sale,” blanketed the city.

A tall thin man in a ten-gallon hat, painted red white and blue, outfitted like Uncle Sam, stood beside a tricycle selling American flags. Old Glory was everywhere! Tennessee was a firecracker sizzling with the Bicentennial atmosphere!

Townsfolk’s sat on lawn chairs in front of their homes observing the bustling shoppers and barbecues. It promised to be one immense extravaganza! A hootenanny! I passed by picnic tables filled with all the southern fixin’s:  barbecued ribs, chicken basting in secret sauce (probably an ancient, coveted recipe handed down from family descendants of yore), sweet black eyed peas, steamed collared greens, chitins and freshly baked corn bread buttered on both sides.

The sight and smell of the southern delicacies made me keenly aware I hadn’t eaten all day. Finally found an old mom & pop deli across the highway and strolled inside.

Glancing into a mirror I did a double take. This fifteen-year-old face, beet red from the sun, long hair a lighter shade of blonde, torn jeans, grimy shirt and old rucksack resting on my tired shoulders, sure made me look like a bona fide hitchhiker. I stood there astonished, as my mind went back to a few days ago: my dad tearing up the application for my drivers license right there at the motor vehicle bureau, with everyone looking at us, our subsequent raucous argument, and my ultimate act of revenge when I ran away from home that very night. For a few fleeting moments I was homesick.

There was a woman busy at the cash register collecting money from a customer. Standing next to her was an older, portly man with a crimson face, attired in a chef’s hat, tee shirt, and soiled white apron. He was standing behind a glass deli case.

I was hungry but needed to be thrifty, and treated myself to a cold bottle of yoo-hoo and ring dings.

“Hey, now. What can we do fer ya t’day, mistuh Wally?” Asked the man in the chef’s hat.

“I’ll have a pound of dat der rust beef and a quatah pawnd  of dat dere tater salad, mistuh Henry,” Wally said.

“And ya’ll don’t chit me now ya heah, Henry.” Henry laughed.

Beads of sweat protruded from his forehead as he scooped potato salad out of a flat, silver pan.

“Nah, Wally.  We don’t be chitin nobody in Nashville.  No suh.  We all kindred folk down heah.” He drawled.

He quickly withdrew the marker from behind his ear like a cowboy drawing a gun out of his holster, and scribbled the prices on both packages.  They sure talk funny down here in the Deep South.  I thought.

“There ya go! Happy eatin’s good buddy!” Said Henry.

“You betcha. In case I don’t see ya’ll, you and the missus have a happy 4^th of July.”

“Sure will, Wally. Ya’ll be safe now, ya heah?” Henry bellowed.

I approached the register preparing to pay the lady.

“Well, well.  Looka’ what we got heah, honey. A real hitchhikah!  Look at ‘em will ya, Henry?”

“I’ll be damned!  Where the hell are you goin’, boy?”  Henry asked.

“California.” I replied.

He looked at me with scrutiny, making me feel like a traveling hobo.

“Whereabouts ya from?” Henry asked again.

“Alexandria, Virginia.”

“You gots a long way to go little buddy! Ya have any idea how big this fucken country is?” He asked.

“Watch yer mouth b‘fore I wash it out with soap,” The lady said.

With a look that asked for forgiveness, he continued.

“This country is huge, boy. Ya evah been out West b’fore?” Henry asked.

“Nope. Never.”

“Well, ya have plenty of miles to go. I reckon’ bouts 2,000 miles er so.  You’ll git tired of hitchhikin’ n probably give up, more ‘n likely git yerself kilt.”

“I ain’t afraid of nothing, “ I lied. “No turning back for me.  I’m gonna get to California if I have to walk the whole damn way.”

“Ya outch yer cotton pickin’ mind, boy! Awful dangerous out there.” Henry warned.

 “What’s yer name?” The woman interrupted

“Terry”

“My name’s Elizabeth and this here is my hubby, Henry.”

“Pleased to meet you” I replied. We shook hands.

“Honey, fix this young man sumptin’ to eat.” She demanded.

“Okay. Anythin’ you say, honey.”

Henry motioned for me to come over toward the food.

“Ya evah heah of Honey-do’s?” He whispered.

I had heard of mountain dew but honey-do’s?

“Nope. Can’t say I have, sir.”

“When you meet a girl like ‘Lizbeth. Marry her. And when she aks ya to do sumptin’- just do it. Don’t aks no questions. That’s a Honey-do.  Ya got it, boy?” He winked.  I looked back at him and smiled.

“Got it.” I said.  Getting married was the last thing on my young mind.

Elizabeth ogled me like a detective.

“Look atcha!  Yer a mess!  Ya can’t be hitchhikin’ lookin’ like that.  Nobody’ll pick you up.  They’d be too scared!” She laughed.

She held my sunburned face in her cold, soft hands, gently brushing the hair away from my eyes. It felt like a cool, clean salve on a fresh open wound; a tender, meaningful caress.

“I’ll tell you what, Terry,” she said in a soft southern voice, like she was singing me a lullaby. “Why don’t ya come on home with me ‘n Henry and I’ll fix ya a hot bath and a hot suppa. How’d ya like that sweetheart? She asked. “And I made some pun’kin pie that’s just sittin’ on the winda’ sill, coolin’ off and waitin’ to be ate.” She added.

“As a matta’ of fact, since one of my boys has gone to D.C. for the big celebration there’s extra room for ya:  a warm bed with pilla’s and ever’thang, …. her voice trailed off as tears welled up in my eyes.

A home? A warm bed? A hot meal and a bath? It sounded tempting. The road was making me weary and her gentle voice sent a warm sensation from my fingertips straight to my heavy heart. This lady was nothing like my mother who raised me the only way she knew how: with an iron hand.

“Terry, did ya heah me?” Elizabeth asked.

“Oh, uh, sorry. I was just thinking.”

“Watta ya say, boy?” Henry asked.

“Oh, uh, no thanks. Gotta move on.  Appreciate your generosity though. Wanna’ make it to Texas by tomorrow.”

“Oh, ya poor child. Well, have it your way. Please, take some groceries with ya and some fruit. Here are a few bottles of juice for the road.”  She handed them to me and I put ‘em in my rucksack.

“Thank you so much for everything. A pleasure meeting you both.”

“Glad we could help. You be safe now, Terry.” Elizabeth said.

“And don’t ride with any strangers now, ya heah?” Henry bellowed. And we all laughed.

They walked me out the door. I turned around to see them waving good-bye. Elizabeth blew me a kiss when she saw that somebody had stopped to pick me up. I blew a kiss back to them, thinking how lucky I was to meet nice people for a change.  And that’s what I remember most about my introduction to Tennessee.

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