Melvin and Lydia
I don’t know how old I was when I met Melvin and Lydia. They truly were surrogate parents to me. My first clear memory of them was when I was nine.
A classmate in fourth grade gave me a very used bicycle, which as far as I know, is still under Noah’s house. Having a bicycle gave me freedom to explore away from my house. One of the first things I did was go visit Melvin and Lydia.
Melvin and Lydia were probably in their 70s. Possibly they were originally from Ohio or Nebraska. They had just gotten married and were riding in their horse and buggy, cars were only a recent invention. They were driving along, there was an accident and Lydia injured her spine and lost the use of her legs.
Melvin moved them to Los Angeles for the fabled weather. As a handyman he built contraptions and comforts for her. He made things in the house that enabled her to get around in her wheelchair on her own, he lowered counters, made ramps, and like that.
Melvin made her as good a life as possible. She had a bedroom which I never saw, and she had a sunroom in the back of the house, where everything was in reach, she could make herself comfortable, she had books and music.
But even more than comfort, Melvin would go out in the world and find interesting things and people and bring them back to her.
And he used to take me places and show me interesting things.
It seemed Melvin did not believe in stop signs or red lights. Nevertheless, we always got around safely and no one ever honked at us, and he was never stopped by cops. If there is such a thing as a saint, he was one.
One day we went to the Natural History Museum where there was a working replica of the Gutenberg printing press, and an original copy of the Gutenberg Bible. There was a man there showing how the press worked. An important lesson I learned from Melvin; when the crowd thinned out, Melvin asked if we could operate the printing press, and the man agreed to it. The lesson was, All you have to do is ask. I was going to get to do many things in my life just because I asked.
There was a page of the Bible set up to print. He had me put the paper under clips, ink the type with these impressive leather puffy things, then pull on the spindle that pressed the paper to the type, and the page was printed. We printed a page on the Gutenberg press on cheap paper to make sure we understood how to operate the machine and then another page on nicer paper. I thought these pages were lost forever, but a couple of years ago, cleaning out Noah’s house, I found them. They are now in the bookshelf in the hallway.
Melvin asked for a second printing to take home to his wife.
Melvin showed me how to tighten spokes on bicycle wheels, and what to oil, and what to adjust, and to keep my bike operating well.
He taught me how to drive a nail, how to use a brush, about appropriate screws and screwdrivers.
The phrase, Righty tighty, lefty loosely.
When Lydia died, Melvin remarried and went around the world.
Now to the bigger story.
Lydia had an enclosed sun room where she could look at the garden that Melvin kept, and the birds, and the weather. I’d enter through that sitting room.
Melvin had what we would call salons. He would go out in the world and meet people and bring them back to her, bring the world to Lydia. He would gather together many interesting people, many subjects. I’d sit in when I could.
This one day I visited Lydia, she patted me to get up on her bed and she said that maybe today was not a good idea to visit. Melvin had some people in, and the subject matter might not be good for me. At that moment Melvin comes running back and says, “David, here you are, I want you to come here with me,” Lydia objected and looked disapprovingly, but Melvin said, Pish Posh, which is where I got that very useful phrase, and off we went to the living room.
There were three people there, maybe 25 to 35 years old, two guys and a beautiful redheaded buxom woman who smelled wonderful, so I sat next to her.
These were Holocaust survivors. While in L A they had not met other survivors. This would’ve been 1962.
They started telling stories of the camps, but not mournful stories. The two guys were almost competing with stories of how terrible it was. They forgot I was there. Some of the stories were not appropriate for a nine-year-old kid. Then one of the guys remembered me and he said, “So David, what do you think of all of this, have you heard of this before.” Yes, I had heard.
I was nine so I could ask, Why would anyone be willing to live through that? I asked, Why wouldn’t it be better to just kill yourselves?
The woman put her arm around me, and she held me comfortably close.
She said,
"Oh darling, it isn’t what happens to you in life, it’s how you react to it."
All my senses were filled, my mind soaked that in.
This changed my entire life perspective.
It was wisdom that has lived with me, daily, ever since.