LISTEN UP

My father wore a hearing aid from age 50-on. He went to a hearing expert, William Lippy in Warren, Ohio, for stapedectomy surgery, but the surgery didn’t help.

My dad missed nuances because of his poor hearing.  For instance, I would say, “Haney [a custodian] is burning some shit in the incinerator. The firemen told him not to.”

My dad would answer, “A lady is learning what?”

I repeated it slower. My dad would say, “Now you’re starting to tell me something!”

My father liked to give advice, maybe because he didn’t hear advice. He spoke very deliberately. He was like Sevareid. My dad’s main advice was “Look out for yourself, no one else will.” Bill, a tenant, ran a beauty parlor; my dad said to him, “I’m only looking out for myself, Bill.  You’re just giving me a two-percent CPI increase.”  (Bill was trying to low-ball a renewal figure on his beauty parlor lease.)

Bill said, “You don’t have to tell me about looking out for myself. I own a rental condo.” Store tenants frequently owned residential rental property on the side, like double houses or condos by the lake.

“There is nothing short of outright speculation that will equal real estate,” my dad  said.  “There are unmerciful and countless forces arrayed against us.”

Listen up.

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The quote “There is nothing short of outright speculation that will equal real estate . . .” is out of context here; my dad didn’t say it to Bill. My dad wrote it in an unpublished manuscript.  More on that some other time.

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I wrote a good article about my father for the latest Belt Mag.

Theodore “Toby” Stratton, age 50, 1967

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Come to  Cain Park (Cleveland Heights) Sunday (June 28) at  7 p.m. for a free klezmer concert. Evans Amphitheater. No tix necessary. Yiddishe Cup plays the second half of the show. The first half is Steven Greenman and Lori Cahan-Simon. The 37th Annual Workmen’s Circle Yiddish Concert.

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