LETTER TO MY GRANDSON, JEFFREY BIBEL
September 3, 2000
Dear Jeff,
The Jewish New Year will be here soon, and I’m thinking of giving you something personal, but what? I can’t give you some family apartment house, or some prestigious car, - but what?
After long deliberation, I think I found it. It’s not of monetary value, but perhaps "even higher."
And since I am in a writing mode, I will give you some written words.
I. L. Peres was a great Jewish (Yiddish) writer, a father of literature, a possibly a relative. He went to school in my town in Poland, and lived in our home. (Look him up on some web site.)
One of his stories is titled "If Not Higher." It is the tale of the rabbi of our town who disappears at night before the holy days. Where does he go?
The pious people know he goes up to heaven to plea for the people to be forgiven for their sins, and to bring back life, peace, and prosperity.
But the younger ones, the unbelievers, just laugh. An agnostic young man decides to find out. One night he hides out in the Rabbi’s home. After midnight, he hears the holy man get up, say some prayers, and pick up a bundle from a hidden place.
The Rabbi gets dressed, but not in his clothes. He puts on a Polish peasant hat, a long sheepskin coat like every peasant wears, and takes some tools in a sack. There is a strong axe, a saw, and other tools.
What is the Rabbi up to? Is he a burglar? The Rabbi leaves the house. The young man very cautiously follows.
They go to the forest. The holy man takes the saw, cuts down some branches from a tree, cuts the wood into smaller pieces, bundles up everything, and turns back to the village.
The young agnostic follows. There is an old house where a poor woman lives. The "Peasant" enters.
"Don’t be alarmed," the peasant growls.
"I brought you some wood, it’s cold here, and I am starting a fire to keep you comfortable."
"But I have no money," cries the woman. "I can’t pay you."
"It won’t be necessary," answers the man. "And I am leaving you a few coins to buy food."
The Rabbi returns home and changes to his own clothes to study and pray.
When the young unbelievers begin to question the agnostic about whether or not the Rabbi really went up to Heaven, he becomes very serious and assures the doubters – "Who can tell where heaven is? Maybe the Rabbi went up ‘even higher’."
This was a classic story. Here is my twist of the same occurrence. It was printed years ago in a Jack Rosenbaum column. And it is NOT made up. (I am looking for the page, but can’t find it now. If I will find it, I will forward it to you.)
When Pacific Woodworking was on Guerrero Street in San Francisco, a very tough policeman stopped the owner, Philip Bibel, for not giving a pedestrian trying to cross the street, the right of way. I, Philip, talked him out of giving me a citation, and surprisingly we became friends.
This police officer, a well-known tough cop on a two-wheeler, wrote a lot of tickets. He was as stickler for the "Law." Everyone in the district knew, and even feared, Officer Fitzgerald, but he and I got along very nicely.
When not in uniform, we went out for lunch, and for a few drinks. I let him putter in the shop. He liked the smell of wood and sawdust, and occasionally he made some cutting boards for his wife’s kitchen.
The shop also had a lot of small pieces of wood that the neighbors came in to collect for their fireplaces and stoves.
Every Friday night when the shop was closed for the weekend, Sergeant Fitzgerald borrowed my truck to help his wife with her shopping, and to do other chores around his home.
He did not have a personal car. Before leaving, he loaded up the truck with boxes of choice woodcuttings – enough to last me, had he not taken them, the whole week for my wood burning stove and fireplace. Not a problem for me since woodworking shops generate a great deal of wood scraps, but he always took the best pieces.
Every Monday morning I found my truck parked in the usual legal parking place. This went on for years. I knew that this Irish-Catholic pious man was troubled. His first wife left him and married a younger man. Of course there could be no divorce because the Church would not consider this. The woman that lived with my friend was "living in sin" according to their religion. Consequently, he could not participate in the rituals of the church, and he suffered because of this.
I would listen to him and try to reassure him that since this was not his fault, God would forgive him.
Our friendship went on for years. This tough cop could not make friends, so I was the one, maybe the only one, that took him out for lunches and drinks, and introduced him to my friends as an equal.
After some years of our normal activities, I received a call from an older sounding lady, thanking me for all the kindness of providing her and her neighbors with fuel to warm themselves and cook with. I didn’t do anything, I protested, but she insisted that it took her a long time to find out who her benefactor was, because he never left any evidence.
So why now? And why me? Oh, she had checked the containers of all the wood that was left for them (perhaps saving their lives, and certainly their health), and finally saw the name "Pacific Woodworking" and the address on some of them.
When I approached this William Fitzgerald about the phone call, he admitted sheepishly, that for years he had been doing this - leaving boxes of premier firewood at the doors of old and poor people in the Mission and Hunters Point districts.
I called him a "softy" – a white, tough guy, red haired Irishman "softy."
The exposure to the elements for many years took a toll on this light skinned man. Skin cancer set in, and it affected is nose mainly. I began to notice the flesh of his nose receding and his nostrils becoming very large. He started with chemotherapy and other treatments, but to no avail. His nose was being eaten away, and in desperation he glued on a cheap plastic nose. It was awful and disgusting.
The Police Department took him off his motorcycle and gave him an office until his retirement.
He came into my shop more often, and I insisted we go out to restaurants and bars. People turned their heads in fear and disgust, but I prevailed and some of my friends were tolerant.
There was a restaurant called "Cigar-Box" that we often went to, and I even convinced one of the waitresses/owners to give us prominent tables; she, like us, ignoring his deformity.
Christmas 1964, he brought me a present. He wanted something that would last, something that I would use, and remember him when I did. It was a whiskey shot tumbler in silver and inscribed "To My Friend, Philip Bibel – 1964." It was in the form of a thimble.
I hope, Jeff, that you will use this, and remember me every time you take a shot of booze.
He left the Police Department (they pushed him out) and he took a job as a night watchman at the airport; working for Pan American Airways. He was hidden away from the public.
His visits to me became fewer in number - but when he did show up, he told me of all the waste. Every time a plane returned, and people began to clean it up, all the leftover food (excellent fresh and packaged food in those days), bottles of Champagne and wine (almost still full, but opened) were thrown away.
He could not abide by such extravagance, so he saved all that he could, made some packages, and in the morning he delivered all these delicacies to poor and lonely people.
When Pan American was went bankrupt, he disappeared. Holy Cross, where he hoped to be buried, did not accept his corpse. He is buried someplace in Marin County.
I am closing doors now; too many accumulations, and I came across this silver tumbler. What will happen to this memento after I move on?
So I think that I can deposit it with you. Please remember what our sages teach us -"There are 36 (Lamed Vov) righteous people alive in this world, unknown humans."
No one know them, they don’t even know their position in the universe, but the world owes its’ existence to them. Without them the world would burn up in a heap.
With love to you,
Grandpa-Zaida
