The Bar Mitzvah

My mother died on June 4, 1957.  That year, I graduated from Spring Park Elementary to attend Landon Jr-Sr. High School in 1958 when I turned thirteen.

It was the end of the school year when my mother died.  My Christian classmates took up a collection and bought a huge bouquet of flowers which was thrown unceremoniously by the Rabbi on top of the casket. He specifically left it in the hearse rather than placed at her gravesite.

My father cried bitterly to his sisters in New York about being left with two children. Finally, they agreed that I should visit them in New York rather than stay in Jacksonville with my father and sister during the summer.

My father’s oldest sister Lillian was a childless shrew. First, she let me know that the airplane ticket cost one hundred dollars. Then, she tried pumping me for information about my father.  I was a guileless child and had no gossip or stories to amuse her.  Of my large family, she wanted to know which one was rich, which one was poor,  who was unhappy, and who was sick.

The other sister was a nutritionist for the City of New York.  She supervised and managed the menus for all the orphanages in New York. In addition, she was tasked with purchasing a Bar Mitzvah suit for me.

She sighed at this.  She didn’t have children, and although they surrounded her daily, they were just part of her job process.

Aunt Belle took me to the part of New York City where they made suits.  I was overwhelmed by the noise, the stacks of cloth, the worker who were cutting, sewing, ironing, packing, and shipping.  It was going on out on the streets and inside huge cavernous buildings.

She picked out a bolt of cloth from many.  She had a friend of hers who furnished clothing to the orphanages.  He measured me.  He was to cut the suit out and send it to Jacksonville so I would have something to wear to my Bar Mitzvah.  “What did you wear to your mother’s funeral?” she asked.

I never owned a suit before.  I was only twelve years old and lived my entire life in Florida.

My father bought me a tallis bag to hold my head cover, a prayer shawl, and religious phylacteries. After that, I wore everything, including my new suit, Friday and Saturday at my Bar Mitzvah.

For some reason, maybe to preserve that particular day, I hung the suit in my closet.  Years later, I took the small suit out of my closet and threw it away.  But not before I cut a large piece of cloth from one leg.  I put the fabric in the prayer bag, perhaps for sentimental reasons.

When I was an adult in 1980, I worked as an officer at a large national bank.  I copied the attire of my peers, a suit with a vest, and bought a copy of “Dress for Success” by John Malloy.

I went to a bespoke tailor to purchase a custom-fit suit.  The tailer checked my waist, my shoulders, and my cuffs.  Each time he touched me, he spoke glowingly of what his tailor shop was creating.

When I went into the shop to pick up the finished suit, I brought along the fabric I had saved for so many years.

He smiled and said that it was very cheap.  It was the original Dupont polyester fabric.  I told the tailor how my father kept saying it was very special and came from New York.  The tailor said that they would not ever try to cut a suit out of it.

I realized that my aunts were very thrifty.  They lived in New York and looked down on us but lived in cramped apartments.  They must have existed day-to-day, although we didn’t know how expensive it was to live there. 

My father sent a photo to each aunt of me at my Bar Mitzvah in the suit, and I doubt that they kept it.

When I was in the Army in the 1970s, I was stationed near New York City.  I could see that they still lived in smelly buildings with window air conditioners.  I told my aunts that I still had the Bar Mitzvah suit. 

  My Aunt Lillian, who lived in a small one-bedroom on Park Avenue, said that they had spent a lot of money on it and were surprised it still fit.