My father used to tell the story like this....
His poor widowed mother took him and his younger brother and left him on the front steps of a distant cousin's home. This distant cousin also happened to be the headmaster of a boarding school. She wanted her sons to have an education. He and his little brother would sleep on the same bed until another bed became available for him. I forget the details in its entirety now.
To make a long story short, he did get his education. He worked his way up to a Masters in Physics. He once told me the story of how he flunked English in college because he had spent all his time and focus on Mathematics and soccer. So the following year, he focused on English and less on the other two. He got top marks in English but his grade in Math went down. Not sure why that detail sticks out in my head.
He said he came to America because on the Bangladeshi passport that he had said it would grant the bearer entry into every country except Israel. My father loved to travel. So he moved to America just to travel to Israel. I'm sure I'm over simplifying that significant event of his life. But that's a story for another day.
When he came to this country, this man who had worked as a programmer in a cholera research institute, held a Masters in physics, wrote better English than most of Americans his age, worked whatever job he could to keep his family well provided. I never knew growing up how efficiently my father ran his family finances on a shoe string budget. I wouldn't learn that until I became an adult and offered to shred my dad's personal papers. It was a herculean task and I soon gave up. He had saved everything. It was too much to shred.
But in that short time, I learned that my father wrote check after check for my class trips to see Broadway shows. I have fond memories of those trips. They became more significant after that shredding episode. He really couldn't afford to spend that extra, but he did and he made it work.
One of the jobs he held was that of a grocery store clerk. He told me how to bag my groceries and how to arrange the cold items together. Vegetables should be together. To coin my mother's favorite phrase, there's an art to it. This is why, to this day, I hate other people bagging my groceries. It is a pet peeve of mine. I like my groceries bagged just the way I like them. It drives me nuts when I go shopping with someone and watch them just stuff things in bags.
Funny how something an mundane as grocery shopping and bagging my groceries will always be a part of my father.
His poor widowed mother took him and his younger brother and left him on the front steps of a distant cousin's home. This distant cousin also happened to be the headmaster of a boarding school. She wanted her sons to have an education. He and his little brother would sleep on the same bed until another bed became available for him. I forget the details in its entirety now.
To make a long story short, he did get his education. He worked his way up to a Masters in Physics. He once told me the story of how he flunked English in college because he had spent all his time and focus on Mathematics and soccer. So the following year, he focused on English and less on the other two. He got top marks in English but his grade in Math went down. Not sure why that detail sticks out in my head.
He said he came to America because on the Bangladeshi passport that he had said it would grant the bearer entry into every country except Israel. My father loved to travel. So he moved to America just to travel to Israel. I'm sure I'm over simplifying that significant event of his life. But that's a story for another day.
When he came to this country, this man who had worked as a programmer in a cholera research institute, held a Masters in physics, wrote better English than most of Americans his age, worked whatever job he could to keep his family well provided. I never knew growing up how efficiently my father ran his family finances on a shoe string budget. I wouldn't learn that until I became an adult and offered to shred my dad's personal papers. It was a herculean task and I soon gave up. He had saved everything. It was too much to shred.
But in that short time, I learned that my father wrote check after check for my class trips to see Broadway shows. I have fond memories of those trips. They became more significant after that shredding episode. He really couldn't afford to spend that extra, but he did and he made it work.
One of the jobs he held was that of a grocery store clerk. He told me how to bag my groceries and how to arrange the cold items together. Vegetables should be together. To coin my mother's favorite phrase, there's an art to it. This is why, to this day, I hate other people bagging my groceries. It is a pet peeve of mine. I like my groceries bagged just the way I like them. It drives me nuts when I go shopping with someone and watch them just stuff things in bags.
Funny how something an mundane as grocery shopping and bagging my groceries will always be a part of my father.
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