HUNGRY GERALD

Bathgate Avenue in the East Bronx is now a municipal industrial park. In my late Mother’s fractured English/Yiddish it was pronounced “Bethkit Avenoo.” In its earlier day, it was lined with flimsy storefronts and pushcarts. Fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, “appetizing” items like smoked fish and pickles; grains (groats aka kasha);  dried pasta  (Mom made her own noodles that enriched chicken soup and made a lush breakfast when mixed with cottage cheese and melted butter.) It was a long walk from the family apartment on Prospect Avenue but the reward was cheaper prices than could be found anywhere else. (This was the time of The Great Depression and saving pennies was important when feeding a family,)  “Bethkit” was noisy and crowded with much arduous bargaining between thrifty Jewish housewives and wily, often treacherous, merchants. There was a heavy thumb on the scales and sneaky substitutes of cheap ingredients and charging for a more expensive one. HG remembers a witty exchange between Mom and a fish merchant. He tried to sell Mom a dead fish.  Mom screamed  “The fish is dead!!” The smiling fish guy answered: “Dead? Ehr shluft !! ( He’s sleeping). Mom laughed as he gutted and scaled a live and fresh fish before weighing . No heavy thumb. On the way back to our home, Mom relented to pleas and bought HG a slice of pizza, Big disappointment.  Little HG thought it was cherry pie.