All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten (3 page)

H
AIHO
L
AMA

E
LIAS
S
CHWARTZ REPAIRS SHOES.
He is short and round and bald and single and middle-aged and Jewish. “An old-fashioned cobbler,” says he, nothing more, nothing less. I happen to be convinced that he is really the 145th reincarnation of the Haiho Lama.

See, the Haiho Lama died in 1937, and the monks of the Sa-skya monastery have been searching for forty years for his reincarnation without success.
The New York Times
carried the story last summer. The article noted that the Lama would be recognized by the fact that he went around saying and doing wise things in small, mysterious ways, and that he would be doing the will of God without understanding why. A guy like that would be worth looking for, all right.

I found him. Through some unimaginable error in the cosmic switching yards, the Haiho Lama has been reincarnated as Elias Schwartz. I have no doubts about it.

My first clue came when I took my old loafers in for total renewal. The works. Elias Schwartz examined them with intense care. With regret in his voice he pronounced them not worthy of repair. I accepted the unwelcome judgment. Then he took my shoes, disappeared into the back of the shop, and I waited and wondered. He returned with my shoes in a stapled brown bag. For carrying, I thought.

When I opened the bag at home that evening, I found two gifts and a note. In each shoe, a chocolate-chip cookie wrapped in waxed paper. And these words in the note: “Anything not worth doing is worth not doing well. Think about it. Elias Schwartz.”

The Haiho Lama strikes again.

And the monks will have to go on looking.

Because I’ll never tell—we need all the Lamas here we can get.

A
NGELS

“A
RE YOUR STORIES TRUE?
Are the people real?”

The simple answer is Yes. The more complicated answer is that I am a storyteller, not an investigative journalist. A good story can be improved by adding necessary facts—spice to the stew. A dash of hyperbole may be used to encourage laughter. And sometimes I combine two very similar good stories into one better story—sacrificing what is true for the sake of Truth. Often it’s necessary to change names and certain identifying details to protect the privacy of the individuals about whom I write. Not everybody wants to be well known.

A case in point is the Haiho Lama.

The story is true. But, from the beginning, the shoemaker was adamant about not being identified. He felt it was not right to get credit for simply doing what everybody ought to do in the first place. “Please don’t use my name or tell people where my shop is,” he asked. So I made up a name: Elias Schwartz. It was just as well. The shoemaker’s real name was too improbable to be credible: Eli Angel.

Mr. Angel is dead now, and I feel free to correct the facts and tell you the rest of the story.

Eli Angel was an Orthodox Sephardic Jew born on the island of Rhodes. Though his formal education was limited, those who knew him considered him a very learned man. He could hold his own in Greek, Spanish, French, Hebrew, and English. He knew history and philosophy and theology. A generous man, he was active in helping other immigrants settle into their adopted country. In his neighborhood in Seattle he was revered for his many small acts of perceptive kindness, for believing that whatever good a man does comes back to him. When he died, the synagogue was filled to overflowing. They called him a
tzaddik—
a righteous man, worthy of respect.

By coincidence, my wife knew Eli’s wife. My wife, the epitome of medical discretion, had never told me that she was Mrs. Angels’s physician. After Eli’s death, Mrs. Angel was feeling pretty bad and came to see my wife. She missed her beloved husband. She wished more people had known him. My wife told her the story of the Haiho Lama from the
Kindergarten
book, and explained that millions of people knew about her husband—they just didn’t know his real name. His acts of kindness had come back around to comfort his wife.

Doing good things without expectation of reward was Eli’s specialty—way beyond putting cookies in shoes he wouldn’t repair.

The Jews have a word for such deeds—
mitzvoh.

Mrs. Angel died recently. And now I can tell you even more.

When Eli met Rachael, it was love at first sight. He proposed after knowing her two days. She turned him down. Why? Because she had cancer; she had been told she could not have children and would not live long. He insisted. He would love her until the end, whenever it came. With love as a shield against impending doom, they married. Love produced four children. And love kept them together into old age. Mrs. Angel was as good at
mitzvoh
as her husband—a conspirator in doing good deeds without getting caught at it.

I know all this because I recently spent time talking with Angels. Eli’s son is a third-generation cobbler, running his father’s shop up on Capitol Hill in Seattle. People in the neighborhood speak of Raymond as they once spoke of his father—a real
mensch
—a worthy man. I watched him engage customers with patience and attention. Another
mitzvoh
specialist, I thought to myself.

I spoke with Raymond’s sisters and his daughter, and saw the family scrapbooks. Eli Angel and his dear wife, Rachael, were talked about as if they were still around—still taking care of their corner of the world. I went away reminded that not all people are no damned good and the world is not going completely to hell. I went away admonished and blessed.

The evangelist, Billy Graham, says angels are real, we just can’t see them.

Wrong.

I know where the real Angels are. I have seen them with my own eyes.

Some Angels I know can fix your soles. And mend your soul at the same time.

H
IDE AND
S
EEK

I
N THE EARLY DRY DARK
of an October Saturday evening, the neighborhood children are playing hide-and-seek. How long since I played hide-and-seek? Fifty years; maybe more. I remember how. I could become part of the game in a moment, if invited. Adults don’t play hide-and-seek. Not for fun, anyway. Too bad.

Did you have a kid in your neighborhood who always hid so good, nobody could find him? We did. After a while we would give up on him and go off, leaving him to rot wherever he was. Sooner or later he would show up, all mad because we didn’t keep looking for him. And we would get mad back because he wasn’t playing the game the way it was supposed to be played. There’s
hiding
and there’s
finding
, we’d say. And he’d say it was hide-and-seek, not hide-and-GIVE-UP, and we’d all yell about who made the rules and who cared about who, anyway, and how we wouldn’t play with him anymore if he didn’t get it straight and who needed him anyhow, and things like that. Hide-and-seek-and-yell. No matter what, though, the next time he would hide too good again. He’s probably still hidden somewhere, for all I know.

As I write this, the neighborhood game goes on, and there is a kid under a pile of leaves in the yard just under my window. He has been there a long time now, and everybody else is found and they are about to give up on him over at the base. I considered going out to the base and telling them where he is hiding. And I thought about setting the leaves on fire to drive him out. Finally, I just yelled, “GET FOUND, KID!” out the window. And scared him so bad he probably wet his pants and started crying and ran home to tell his mother. It’s real hard to know how to be helpful sometimes.

A man I know found out last year he had terminal cancer. He was a doctor. And knew about dying, and he didn’t want to make his family and friends suffer through that with him. So he kept his secret. And died. Everybody said how brave he was to bear his suffering in silence and not tell everybody, and so on and so forth. But privately his family and friends said how angry they were that he didn’t need them, didn’t trust their strength. And it hurt that he didn’t say good-bye.

He hid too well.

Getting found would have kept him in the game. Hide-and-seek, grown-up style. Wanting to hide. Needing to be sought. Confused about being found. “I don’t want anyone to know.” “What will people think?” “I don’t want to bother anyone.”

Better than hide-and-seek, I like the game called Sardines. In Sardines the person who is It goes and hides, and everybody goes looking for him. When you find him, you get in with him and hide there with him. Pretty soon everybody is hiding together, all stacked in a small space like puppies in a pile. And pretty soon somebody giggles and somebody laughs and everybody gets found.

Medieval theologians even described God in hide-and-seek terms, calling him
Deus Absconditus.
But me, I think old God is a Sardine player. And will be found the same way everybody gets found in Sardines—by the sound of laughter of those heaped together at the end.

“Olly-olly-oxen-free.” The kids out in the street are hollering the cry that says, “Come on in, wherever you are. It’s a new game.” And so say I. To all those who have hid too good:

Get found, kid!
Olly-olly-oxen-free.

C
HICKEN
-F
RIED
S
TEAK

T
HE WINDING DOWN OF SUMMER
puts me in a philosophical mood. I am thinking about the deep, very private needs of people. Needs that when met give us a great sense of well-being. We don’t like to talk about these for fear that people will not understand. But to increase our level of intimacy, I will tell you about one of my needs: chicken-fried steak.

You take a piece of stringy beef, pound hell out of it with a kitchen sledge, dip the meat in egg and flour, drop it in a skillet with bacon drippings, and fry it up crisp. There you have it: chicken-fried steak.

Next you take the meat out of the pan, throw in some flour and milk and salt and pepper, and you got serious gravy. On the plate with the steak you lay peas and mashed potatoes, and then dump on the gravy. Some cornbread and butter and a quart of cold whole milk on the side are necessary. Then you take knife and fork in hand, hunker down close to the trough, lift your eyes heaven-ward in praise of the wonders of the Lord, and don’t stop until you’ve mopped up the last trace of gravy with the last piece of cornbread.

Disgusting, you say. Absolutely disgusting. Sure. Like a lot of good eating, this began as a way to disguise a sorry piece of old meat so you can’t see or taste it. And you probably eat something that stands for home and happiness that I wouldn’t approach without a Geiger counter and a bomb squad. It’s okay. You eat yours and I’ll eat mine.

Now everybody has some minor secret yearnings in life. And I’ve kind of been keeping my eye out for the ultimate chicken-fried-steak experience. You have to look in truck stops and little country towns off the freeway. Little temples of the holy meal out there in the underbrush, reached by blue highways or dirt roads.

If you’re interested, one summer’s search produced these results:

One Star to the Torres Bar and Grill in Weiser, Idaho—free toothpicks, too.

Two Stars to the Farewell Bend Cafe in Farewell Bend, Oregon—with special praise for a side of “Graveyard Stew,” which is milk toast, and that’s another story.

Two Stars to the Blue Bucket in Umatilla, Oregon—free mints afterward.

Three Stars to the Roostertail Truck Stop on Sixth Avenue South in Seattle—the waitress used to drive a truck in Alabama. She knows all about chicken-fried steak.

Five stars and a bouquet to Maud Owens’s Cafe in Payette, Idaho, where the chicken-fried steak hangs over the edge of the plate and is accompanied by parsley, a spiced peach, two dill pickles, and a fried egg.
And
free toothpicks
AND
free mints.
And
a map of Payette under the plate. The manager shook my hand when I left. The waitress gave me a kiss on the cheek. I left her a two-dollar tip. I don’t think anybody had ever eaten the whole thing before. I could still taste it three days later.

The Rolling Stones are famous for their phrase about how you can’t always get what you want but sometimes you can get what you need. Well, I’m here to tell you that sometimes you can get what you want
and
what you need at the same time, with free toothpicks and mints, and a kiss for topping!

I wrote that gloria to chicken-fried steak a long, long time ago. I have not changed my mind one bit. After the story appeared in print I got a call from a traveling salesman who had checked out the cafes I mentioned in the story. He had an update. Some are still cooking, but one of the best had been closed by the health authorities. Seems they found dirt in the cream gravy. The salesman said he was told that the cafe regulars figured now they knew the cafe’s secret ingredient.

He nominated Mom’s Café in Salina, Utah. I went. I ate. A four-star winner.

To guarantee that a blue-ribbon version of chicken-fried steak will always be available close by, I made a special arrangement with my favorite Seattle cafe. (The Shanty—on the waterfront at 350 Elliot Avenue West. No dress code, no valet parking, and no violence. A sign on the wall says, “All perverts must be on a leash.”)

On the dinner menu now is the Captain Kindergarten Blue Plate Special. It’s gourmet chicken-fried steak. An aged, choice, lean, New York strip steak that’s been butterflied, pounded, dipped in fresh egg wash, peppered, dredged with flour and bread crumbs (from sourdough bread), and fried light golden brown (ninety seconds on a side) on a hot grill that has been greased with a little butter and a touch of bacon drippings. The steak covers the whole platter it’s served on. Everything that goes with it comes in little dishes on the side: rolls, soup or salad, mashed or French fried potatoes, corn or green beans, a pitcher of cream gravy, and fresh seasonal fruit or custard pie. Endless iced tea or coffee. A toothpick, a mint, great conversation, and a hug from the waitress. (Worth a generous tip.)

I once talked them into cooking chicken-fried bacon for me.

Oh sure, I know if you eat this way you’ll die.

So? If you don’t eat this way you’re still going to die.

Why not die happy?