February 9, 1997

We left Vienna on a U.S. Army plane. My brother George had to stay behind for a few days as his papers were not quite ready. I was not too happy to leave him but he assured me that he would be fine.

On the plane the crew rigged up a little hammock for Peter who slept through most of the seventeen hours it took us to reach our destination. He sat up once in his hammock and said,

“Something’s wrong.” and then went back to sleep. We grilled the crew about employment opportunities and salaries in the U.S. Somebody said an aeronautical engineer could make as much as eight thousand dollars a year and we were impressed. We landed in New Jersey on December 5th, 1956.

After having survived the Holocaust in Nazi Hungary, communism in Stalinist Hungary and a failed revolution, we were grateful, happy and excited to be refugees in the United States. We were quickly ferried to Camp Kilmer, an army camp where we were treated to good old American know-how. In a short time, we were fed, processed and GREEN CARDED. A crib was set up for Peter and an officer inquired if I needed any special food for our baby. Our baby was a baby no more and happily ate everything. We were served in the cafeteria and I was amazed at the amount of food the GI’s could put away for breakfast, everything liberally splashed with ketchup.

The next day a Red Cross volunteer took the New Jersey turnpike and drove us to New York. This was the first time I had ever seen a freeway and those huge lorries which transported a dozen cars at a time. This was America!

Between 1945 and 1949, I had seen quite a few American motion pictures and all my preconceived ideas about the United States came from these movies, many of them musicals. I remember seeing “Gilda” with Rita Hayworth, some movies starring Fred Astaire, “The Wizard of Oz” and “The Blue Bird”.

The only books that had been available in Hungary by American writers were the books of Upton Sinclair and Howard Fast, both communist sympathizers. During “The Thaw”, “The Old Man and the Sea” by Hemingway was also published.

In New York, we checked into a small hotel on Broadway and some people from the Jewish Family Service told us where to eat and then left us alone for a few days. For all practical purposes my non-Jewish husband became Jewish. They were not going to separate families. We promptly embarked on our explorations of Broadway and Times Square. It was cold, slushy with dirty snow and it was magnificent. This was on a Friday and that very afternoon my Uncle Adi showed up at our hotel. He was an old timer who had lived in America since 1938 and he was a chochem (wise guy). After our emotional reunion, he said,

“I could take you home with me but you are better off here.” Translation: “ Let the Jewish Family Service take care of you.” I said he was a wise guy, didn’t I?

He invited us for Sunday Brunch and quickly departed because the Sabbath was closing in and it is forbidden to orthodox Jews to travel on the Sabbath. Uncle Adi was an orthodox Jew and he eyed my half-Jewish husband suspiciously. The next day I dug out five dollars from the lining of my winter coat and had my hair done. On Sunday we took the subway and found our way to Uncle Adi’s apartment in Brooklyn. “Your hair is very nice.” My Uncle said. “I had it done.” I answered. Adi was rendered speechless but he did not waste any time in delivering to us Lesson Number One: We do not come to America to have our hair done, we are here to SAVE MONEY!

We spent a few more days wandering around New York. A couple of my cousins came to see us. My cousin Eva and her husband took us to see the Auto Show. She was very pregnant at the time and she had a lot of info about life in America and we have been friends ever since.

New York was exciting, New York was breathtaking. We went to Central Park and walked Park Avenue, gazing up at the Empire State Building. I heard of some of these places from the game of Monopoly. Once I read a book in which the story took place in New York. There was a puzzling sentence in it when the hero said,

“I went to have breakfast in the drug store.” I could not understand this, in Hungary, a drug store meant pharmacy, there was absolutely no breakfast served there. In New York, I discovered the drug store’s “lunch counter” and an “Aha” clicked in. There were many more “AHA” moments in the weeks to come.

A man from the Jewish Family Service informed us that they were shipping us to Los Angeles where there seemed to be a shortage of aeronautical engineers. By this time, George had caught up with us from Vienna and as I relayed the news, I asked him,

“Should we go to California?”

“Why not?” He answered. “We haven’t been there yet.”

And that is how we came to California. Planning did not have anything to do with it. I think it was Freud who said something to the effect that in major decision making, it is best to trust our instincts. California was calling to us so the next day we were on a plane headed for Los Angeles; Tony, George, Peter and Agi.

I think we landed at Burbank Airport even though representatives of the Jewish Family Service were waiting for us at the Los Angeles Airport. Eventually a taxi driver was entrusted to take us to the Agency’s headquarters on Vermont Avenue. The driver tried to engage us in a little friendly conversation. Americans are a freedom loving people and they were really passionate about the Hungarian freedom fighters and refugees. We could not communicate much but the driver pulled over and bought an Eskimo Pie for Peter. We thought that was very sweet and it was much appreciated. Our son could use it, too, as he was wearing a sheepskin coat while the children on the Los Angeles streets were wearing shorts. The day was December 10th, 1956, and the temperature was in the eighties.

The sky was blue and the palm trees were real. I had never seen a real palm tree before and I thought I had died and gone to heaven. The Jewish Family Service rented a furnished apartment for us on Hyperion Avenue off Sunset Boulevard. It had a Murphy bed in the living room for George and a crib for Peter. I had never seen a Murphy bed before. The ladies took me to a supermarket and instructed me on how to shop. They recommended the use of Crisco but later on, I considered that to be a mistake. And then, we were on our own.

The next day Tony and George went to visit the Jewish employment agency and came home reporting that Monday they would be starting work on a FARM. Since neither had ever been in close proximity to a cow or a tractor, I thought this might be a wrong career move. But as it turned out, they were hired by an engineering FIRM to work as draftsmen at the salary of one dollar and a half an hour. Their picture appeared on the front page of the Los Angeles Times.

We had an Aunt Julia, my father’s sister--the one kicked out of Barcelona by Franco,--living in Los Angeles and she was about to receive the surprise of her life. I called her and we talked for about five minutes, Aunt Julia still under the impression that I was calling from Hungary. But when she realized we were in Los Angeles, she was so excited to have her very own Hungarian refugees that she and her husband rushed over in the middle of the night to see us.

On Monday morning Tony and George left for work and Peter and I started to explore the neighborhood. Uncle Jerry, who had just moved to California, asked me,

“Aren’t you afraid of getting lost?”

“No.” I replied with perfect confidence. “There is a Shell station on the corner.” I did not know that there was a Shell station on just about every corner. These were heady times for us, exploring Los Angeles, California and the United States of America.

After living in post-War Hungary, California was to us the land of plenty. We delighted in the supermarkets, marveled at the richness of choice and the calvacade of taste and colors in the multitude of new foods and fruits we had never sampled before.

I had not had a well fitting pair of shoes since before the War when I was a child wearing laced up brown high shoes. In Hungary shoes only came in medium width so having narrow feet, I forced them into too short shoes in order to achieve some sort of fit and decent look. In America shoes were wonderful thus the torture of my poor abused feet was finally over. The varied household machines were terrific, particularly the washer and dryer.

The people were friendly and I recall strangers visiting us bearing gifts. I kept a puzzle a kind woman gave Peter as a memento. He used to love fitting the pieces of the small house puzzle together sometimes sitting contentedly for hours at a time.

We were given a gift certificate to the May Company in Downtown Los Angeles so that we could buy some household items. We had a ball making our selections; a broom, a dustpan, an iron, towels, etc. And what a huge selection we had to choose from. Capitalism was glorious.

During our first week living in Los Angeles we bought a television set on an easy payment plan. What a country! This precipitated another lecture from Uncle Jerry who was trying to convince us that we were here to SAVE money, not to spend it.

“You don’t even have a bed of your own.” He exclaimed.

“We had a bed before, but we never had a television.” We retorted. Meanwhile my parents arrived in Vienna and settled in for a long wait for a visa to come to the United States.

Once George and I went to Hollywood High’s English for Foreigners class. The class was very slow paced so during the recess we wandered off down Hollywood Boulevard. This was a lot more interesting and we loved the dime stores. Oh, the stuff you could buy for a dime!

To tell the truth, I was a little disappointed in Hollywood. From the movies I had the impression that it would all look like Beverly Hills. But it was still an experience even if it was a little seedy. From then on we learned our English mostly from the ‘I Love Lucy’ show and George started taking classes at Los Angeles City College.

Sometimes it was funny being an immigrant. Once I bought dog food instead of tuna because I misread the label. We teased Tony that he was learning Turkish instead of English from the Turk who worked next to him at the firm. We went to Griffith Park and made friends with a drunken Indian.

When Peter met our neighbors, twin boys dressed in western outfits, he followed them around and called them cowboys. Practically overnight our son gave up speaking Hungarian and spoke only English. The only thing he remembered of his life in Budapest was that he had a shelf of toys over his crib and on it, among the other toys, was a mechanical toy airplane which could do somersaults. Maybe he also remembered the teddy bear his father made for him with his own hands.

Uncle Jerry introduced us to pancakes (too greasy), steaks (too bloody) and the banana split (yummy!) His wife, Betty, pushed Jell-O on us. “It is good for the bones” She said. but we did not believe her. Jerry tried to teach Peter to sing, “All day, all night Marianne” from the Hit Parade but Peter resisted. Jerry thought our son was not very smart but, by George, he turned out to be wrong. For Christmas that year, Aunt Julia bought Peter a tricycle and his fondest dream came true.

The first movie we saw was “The Bridge Over the River Kwai” which was a good choice even though we could barely understand the story. Our second film was “Peyton Place” which was not bad either (at least the thirty percent I could understand). The first book I struggled through was “The Caine Mutiny”. I had been in this country for just six months so, of course, I understood it better after I saw the movie. I missed my friends and it took years to learn to speak English well enough to participate in good conversation and collect some new and interesting friends. We loved the beach and the Pacific Ocean which was the first sea I had ever encountered.

Tony received his driver’s license on the second try and we bought a 1943 Ford. One of the uncles--who shall remain nameless--refused to co-sign the three hundred dollar car loan for us. He was guarding his good credit.

My parents arrived from Vienna and George went to live with them. Soon thereafter, he received a scholarship to the University of Arizona and once in Tucson, fell in love with Veronica, a Catholic. Both families were up in arms and eventually a true and passionate love affair died away. Tony got a new job as an aeronautical engineer which was no small feat since he was still not a citizen and could not qualify for a security clearance. Since he worked a ten hour day, we moved closer to his office in the San Fernando Valley. We rented an apartment in a building with a swimming pool on Laurel Canyon.

I pushed, pulled and cajoled until I managed to get my mother-in-law, Boske, into the United States. Here we were living together again, but we could not afford to maintain two households on Tony’s salary alone. To my surprise, there was not a great demand for Hungarian high school teachers or reporters so my employment opportunities were limited.

I worked for one week as a sales girl in the May Company’s basement but I quit because I was expecting another child. Pregnancy is tough but it is nothing compared to standing on your feet all day in the May Company’s basement.

We received another lecture from the uncles,

“We are not here to multiply. We are here to SAVE MONEY!” But I thought since I was not doing anything, I might as well supply a little brother or sister for Peter. Besides, I always wanted a second child. My mother-in-law found employment, assisting new mothers in the care of their newborn infants. She was gone most of the time. Everything was coming up roses........for about five minutes.

Russia’s Sputnik went up in orbit in 1957 and this was big news as it signified the beginning of the Space Age. A new technology was born and we were not going to let the Soviet Union get ahead of us. The day after Sputnik went up in to space, Tony lost his job because aeronautics as it was then known became obsolete over night.

We had three hundred dollars saved and we had our 1943 black Ford with one working door as the door on the passenger side had been permanently jammed closed after our first accident. And Tony was eligible for unemployment benefits. I made a mental note;

“The next time I planned on becoming pregnant I would look for a lot more security.”

Tony went out to look for a job every day. He maintained an elaborate card file of the companies he applied to. But his English was still rudimentary which certainly did not improve his chances for obtaining employment. Once I called up a company running an ad for a draftsman. The manager told me,

“Lady, if your husband wants a job, he should call himself.” He was right, I was always jumping in, trying to run to the rescue when it was not my business. Three months later, Tony lost his nerve and refused to go out looking anymore as there were no jobs available.

I was getting bigger, my due date quickly approaching. We had to move as we could not even pay the reduced rent. This time we moved near my parents who lived in a housing development in Venice, a part of Los Angeles close to the Pacific Ocean. We rented a large two bedroom apartment for eight-five dollars. We had no medical insurance but the Cedars of Lebanon Hospital took care of my prenatal care.

Finally a friend of a friend came up with a job opportunity for Tony but it required him to retrain as an electrical engineer. The tiny company offered a small salary, a lot of overtime without pay and a boss, John Silver, who held out a promise as a carrot stick; at the end of the year Tony and another fellow in the same shoes were each entitled to twenty percent of the profits. Tony caught the bit and ran, working day and night without complaint.

My due date came and was gone...and gone...and gone...and gone. Since Peter was born after eight months, I was sure that my next child would do the same but I was wrong about that. Paul Michael Linhardt was born on May 11, 1958 on MOTHER’S DAY!

I have yet to receive a present as great as the one I was given on that day. He was a beautiful baby with dark hair, a good appetite and so much energy that he was immediately ready for action. We chose the name “Paul” because both of our families lost a young Paul in the Holocaust and his middle name was Michael after my father. Tony was very proud of having a second son and boasted that we do not “make rejects” referring to girls, of course. What a stupid thing to say!

A week later, I was alone in our apartment with my baby and I started hemorrhaging. Because of our poor English it was difficult to get medical advice over the telephone. I was bleeding heavily and there was much blood all over the bath room. It was not until hours later that Tony took me back to the hospital.

They admitted me but refused to take in my newborn, Paul, whom I was breast feeding. So it was up to Tony to buy supplies, prepare the formula, sterilize the bottles and then try to convince Paul to accept the change of menu.

They both got so exhausted that they wound up sleeping through the night.

Tony claimed he was training Paul not to wake us up during the night. Unfortunately that was the end of my breast feeding Paul. In the hospital they gave me shots to stop the flow of milk. Years later I overheard Paul explaining to one of my friends,

“My Mom was nursing Peter but when I came along, she ran out.....”

When Paul was nine months old I missed my period and thought I was pregnant. Abortion was strictly illegal so I called around to my friends and located a doctor from Spain who was performing abortions in his dingy South Los Angeles office. Tony drove me there and under local anesthesia, the doctor performed a curettement. I was very frightened and was in severe pain. How could I have been so stupid? I had not even gone to my own doctor for an examination to be certain that I was really pregnant.

A couple of years later the same thing happened again but this time I made certain the frog died before I underwent the expensive and painful procedure. And if this was not bad enough, I was sure the doctor was caressing my private parts before the abortion. I protested and he said,

“You’re old enough to be used to it by now.” What a creep! It was not easy being a woman in those days before the pill and legal abortion but I have suffered no pangs of conscience since I could barely manage the two young offspring I already had and we did not want any more children.

We moved once again to a better neighborhood in Palms. We started going away on week-end trips to Lake Arrowhead, Santa’s Village and Desert Palm Springs, often taking our parents with us. My mother-in-law remarried and offered to take care of our children for ten days so Tony and I took off on a driving tour of California. We drove up the coast, visited the Hearst Castle, Carmel, San Francisco, Lake Tahoe, Bryce and Zion National Parks and Las Vegas.

Tony was a reckless driver and no matter how I begged him to slow down, he always took it as criticism and raced on. My feelings were hurt because my husband could not have cared less that I was uncomfortable and scared. All of his aggression came out in his driving.

We were constantly fighting in the car. Once, during the drive to Palm Springs, Tony passed one hundred cars. With our two children in the car, too!

I never should have gotten into an automobile when he was driving. After a day of bickering, I was seldom romantically inclined at night. Our ten day so called “second honeymoon” was anything but. Tony used to flirt with women walking by or with waitresses serving us in restaurants and it was always unpleasant, embarrassing and hurtful for me. This never happened to me again with any other man in any situation.

Once we went horseback riding in Lake Arrowhead. Half-way up the trail a ring broke on my saddle and it slowly slid to the ground. Since I happened to be in the saddle I slid along with it. I cracked my pelvic bone and could not walk for a month. The stable’s insurance company paid for a house-keeper and I read murder mysteries for four of the most restful weeks of my life. Tony jokingly threatened to sue them for having his conjugal rights interrupted. People were telling me that I had to get right back on the saddle after falling from a horse or I would never have the nerve to ride again. That was all right with me as I am no Jackie Onassis I can live happily without horses and just consider horseback riding one more sport which I do not know how to participate in.

We were invited to Acapulco by my brother, George, who was at the beginning of his meteoric rise in the financial world. On our first day I was swept off a rock I was sunbathing on by a tidal wave. I do not remember having my life flash before my eyes but as I struggled in the turbulent waves, slowly but surely drowning, but I do recall thinking,

“This is what I wanted, to die.” Two beach boys pulled me out and although I was scratched badly from the rocks, I was still among the living. During our days on holiday I also sampled quite a lot of those cute little bottles from the bar in our room in the Las Brisas.

Being a new immigrant was stressful and our struggle with our new language, English, was humiliating. Our children were handsome, smart and affectionate. It was easy to raise children like ours and they gave us so much joy, but taking care of them still took a lot out of me.

I did not like being a housewife. I identified with every word I read in the book “The Feminine Mystique” by Betty Friedan. Thank God this book and similar ones were available to me because the time had come for me to go back to working. We adjusted well to our new surroundings and we frequently had to provide help to my parents and in-laws. They were all working hard and they did not need financial aid but help in coping with the everyday nitty-gritty details of living in a new country and dealing with a new language.

In 1960, only three and a half years after we arrived in California, we bought our first home. My parents loaned us five thousand dollars towards the down payment which we duly repaid. We paid fourteen thousand dollars for our house, the bank loan interest rate was three percent. Our new home was in a rustic area of West Los Angeles called Westside Village. There were no sidewalks and the place had a country feel to it which I liked.

We had a living room with a dinette, two very small bedrooms and an even smaller bathroom, a kitchen and a cheerful enclosed porch which we used as a playroom. The house had an one-car garage and a huge backyard, sharing our fence with the athletic field of a junior high school. We had a beautiful poinsettia tree in the front of our house.

We were ecstatically happy with our charming little home. Only four years ago in Hungary we were sharing an apartment with my mother-in-law. Our small home represented to us our wonderful, generous new country with its boundless possibilities. By the end of moving day everything was in its place, even the pictures were hanging. During the three years we spent in this house Tony, almost single-handedly, accomplished most of the remodeling while I was coming up with more and more projects for him.

He remodeled the bedroom closets, took out the wall between the dinette and the service porch, enlarging the dining area where we put down white vinyl tiles. With George’s help, Tony poured cement for a patio and built a cabinet outside for the washer and dryer. He rewired the electrical system, and for his sons, built a terrific tree house that could hold eight children, the entrance was by rope ladder only. No wonder the poor man was not anxious to own a home in his later years. We were very busy and by the end of the day, we were tired. We needed a drink and we wanted to have a drink. In Hungary we barely drank alcohol, only on New Year’s Eve or when we went out to a nightclub with friends.

The minute we crossed the threshold of anybody’s home in California, the first question we were asked was

, “What are you drinking?” Alcohol was introduced to our lives and we took it without even noticing what we were doing. First, we bought a bottle of scotch in case we had visitors. Slowly we drank its contents so we bought another bottle. We liked the booze, it made us feel better. Romance became more feasible and our fights became more spirited. Alcohol sneaked up on us gradually, slowly...

Tony’s association with his new firm turned out to be a great disappointment to us. They were very busy, my poor husband often working long days and weekends counting on his promised share of the profits. But at the end of the year, the owner gave himself a big raise then announced that there were no profits left over to distribute. We were both green immigrants and not everybody we met was kind....or honest.

Tony needed to study for his Electrical Engineering License administered by the State of California. I made sure that our social life came to a halt and the children were tucked in early so Tony had the opportunity to study. But I would see him night after night watching television, perhaps with a drink in his hand, instead of studying for this License. It was a miracle that he passed the examination on his second or third try.

The job market had made a turn for the better and Tony got a job with the prestigious architectural firm, Welton Becket. He was the only electrical engineer in the firm with an Electrical Engineering License, and the right to sign any of the electrical plans. His future looked secure and laden with possibilities.

I was still a housewife but not one in the best of shape. I was nervous and anxiety ridden although I barely knew the meaning of the words. When Tony was working at night, I was fearful to move from our bedroom to the playroom. I did not know what I was afraid of but this signified the beginning of my episodes of “nameless fears” and a touch of agoraphobia. When I became frightened, I would eventually take a drink or two to calm my nerves. I remember once being very upset because I had come home from the supermarket and could not find the bottle I was sure I had bought. By this time, I depended on alcohol.

A teenage cousin came to us for a long visit and although she was no trouble, she was no help either. I found myself shaking all day, her sheer presence was difficult for me to bear. Perhaps I just wanted a drink. I knew I was in trouble and I turned myself in at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute, Outpatient Department. My first psychiatrist was Roger Gould and he wasted no time in introducing me to the wonderful world of Valium. During my weekly visits we agreed that all my troubles could be blamed on my mother, the Holocaust and Tony. I think we were excellent diagnosticians together, Roger and I, but we were missing out on any kind of an effective treatment.

While our sons, Peter and Paul, were coming along well, that does not mean that there were not problems as we brought them up. Since the time he first started to speak, Peter had a very high pitched voice. He underwent various and numerous examinations both physical and psychological. Once he was placed under anesthesia while his vocal chords were examined. He had about a year and a half of speech therapy but with no positive result. The older he got, the more noticeable his high pitched voice became. It caused him emotional pain at school and at home. I was frustrated and felt guilty for yelling at him to stop squeaking as though the poor kid was doing it on purpose.

Peter’s problem was not resolved until he was thirteen years old. He lost his voice completely after a bout with the flu and through a series of lucky breaks, Doctor Morton Cooper, a well known speech therapist accepted Peter as his patient. Doctor Cooper determined that Peter was not using his vocal chords correctly and in three months time taught him how to speak properly by drawing air from his abdomen. Now he spoke with a beautiful deep voice. This made a big difference for all of us, particularly Peter who was now entering his adolescence with a renewed confidence. I always felt that Peter’s high pitched voice was my fault, guilt is mother’s milk to mothers. Now I think the fact that he was premature had something to do with it.

Our younger son, Paul, had a different problem. Until the age of seven, he was a bed wetter. This was humiliating for him and sometimes I yelled at him as if it had been his own free choice to wet his bed. I have since learned that this is not such an unusual problem with male children. Now he is a big shot executive and he was very supportive of me writing this book until he read this part. Now Paul would rather if I wouldn’t get on the bestseller list. He also suffered from growing pains in his legs. One year Peter and Paul had three broken bones between the two of them so I asked our doctor if there was anything wrong with my sons.

“Only clumsy.” he answered.

The boys did well in school and played together constantly. When Peter was in the first grade, I received a call from the school informing me that my son had gathered some dry leaves together and attempted to start a fire by focusing the Sun’s rays through a magnifying glass. Evidently the experiment was a success as he did light a small fire but the school was not appreciative. We had a scientist in the making. Another time Peter was afraid to present his report card to me so he hid it under a rock, although his grades were not bad.

Peter had a duck which used to follow him as he rode his bicycle around. Later on he had a bird which was eaten up by the proverbial cat one day while he was playing at a neighbor’s. A miniature turtle got lost under the carpet one day but was still alive when we finally found it, one year later! Peter also had a snake or two which were not very popular with the cleaning woman who refused to enter his room. Later on we had Suzy, a miniature gray poodle who was affectionate and so smart she used to take herself for a walk every morning. We inherited a Pomeranian from George. A beautiful red furred animal but stupid and mean. He only ate hot dogs so there were hot dogs under the beds, under the cabinets and all over the house. Puff-Puff also nipped the boys.

Tony played various games of Monopoly, Battleship and cards with Peter and Paul. They built construction projects with legos and erector sets. He wrestled on the floor with his sons and together they watched Star Trek and Mission Impossible religiously. Paul adored his big brother. Once he chipped in to buy him a unicycle which was a highly successful present. I am afraid I was not much use playing with them but we did produce two hooked rugs together. They used to rush home from school to get into the hooking.

Although we did everything plausible to improve our little house, I no longer wanted to live there. The bedroom was too claustrophobic and the noise from the nearby school’s athletic field drove me crazy. I wanted to live in a better neighborhood and provide my sons with better schools. I even had the schools picked out; Fairburn Elementary with its Spanish tiles, Emerson Junior High and finally, University High School, and UCLA. The first time I went out with the real estate agent to look at houses, I fell in love with a duplex in Westwood, only two short blocks away from Fairburn Elementary.

This duplex had been custom built in 1940 and had beautiful french windows, hardwood floors (covered with ugly gray carpet), two fireplaces, paneling, a patio with a barbecue and a large yard with numerous lemon, orange and pear trees. The upstairs rental had a thirty foot living room with a fireplace, windows on three sides and a balcony.

It was love at first sight and I wanted this house. The price of the duplex was forty-nine thousand, five hundred dollars, way above our means but we had two lucky breaks. The nice real estate lady was willing to take over our old house if we could not sell it in time to close escrow on the duplex, and she did, too. And I had a generous husband who said that if I wanted the duplex soooo much, we would buy it if we qualified for the loan. This was in April 1963, only six and a half years after leaving Hungary. I have been living in this duplex for thirty-four years and I love it.

The moment we moved in to our new home, the upstairs tenant gave notice. It turned out that she was a previous owner living upstairs incognito and the real estate agent had made an extra five thousand dollars over his original commission by adding this to the price of the house. At any rate, the deal was not quite kosher but I had my dream house.

I needed to go to work to help with the mortgage not to mention the fact that it was not good for me to stay home in close proximity to the bottle. My first job was at the Automobile Club of Southern California in Century City as a Travel Counselor. I was supposed to help club members about to leave on automobile trips on how to reach their destinations. I was responsible for putting together those cute little tripticks (maps).

This was a questionable career choice as I could not find my way around the block, my English was still dicey and I had had the worst geography teacher ever and in stressful moments, could barely tell my right hand from my left. Probably they hired me because I was a University graduate, agreed to pay me a pittance and they got me. At first I had a little trouble handling the phones. A woman called and asked me,

“Are the bears in Yosemite Park dangerous?” Being a conscientious travel counselor and not knowing the exact information, I checked with my supervisor. “Tell her to let out the child she is least fond of first.” He advised me. “Where is Third Street?” another caller asked. After consulting the map for ten minutes, I returned to the telephone. “There is no Third Street in Los Angeles.” I said with authority. After I got the hang of it, I put everybody on Highway 66 no matter where they wanted to go. It is a small wonder that anyone ever came back.

For this “excellent” work and for standing behind the counter for eight hours a day, I was paid almost nothing. After I paid the baby-sitter, I had less than nothing. Nevertheless, I felt like I had to start somewhere.

After forty years in my adopted country I experienced my single face to face anti-Semitic incident while working at the Autoclub. A lively Irish man worked at the desk across from mine. We shared an easy camaraderie and many laughs together. One day when we were busy jumping around and fielding innumerable inquiries he declared. “If one more Beverly Hills Jewish woman comes in here and wants something I am going to blow up....” I was quick to answer him with thunder in my voice. “Mike, I am Jewish and I won’t stand for such a remark!” He was very apologetic and took it all back. Only one occasion in four decades is certainly not bad--although I am aware from the news that anti-Semitism is alive and incidents of desecration of churches and cemeteries and anti-Jewish graffiti were happening all the time in Europe and the United States. Anti-Semitism is prevalent in Hungary and the Jews living there are fearful.

While I was working at the Autoclub, I tipped off my cousin Eva that they were looking for a filing clerk in one of their offices. She got the job and in time became their highest ranking woman executive in the Los Angeles area. After I have left the Auto Club was subject to a class action suit. They were paying their women employees less than the men who were performing the same duties. One day I received a check for five hundred dollars, my share of the settlement.

In 1964 my cousin Frank came for a visit from Canada. We liked each other and he was in and out of our home a lot. Frank wanted to stay in the United States and according to Immigration Laws since he was under eighteen he needed to live with a family so he asked for our help. I was working at the Auto Club at the time. Problems in our marriage were very much in evidence and drinking was not only a part of our lifestyle but also an integral part of the problem. Troubled and exhausted, I simply did not want another person living with us. More honestly put, I did not want a witness.

I also remembered the stress I experienced when we had a long visit from another cousin. I am not at my best having house guests and it had almost pushed me over the edge. I turned down Frank’s request and I am sure I hurt him deeply but he managed to find a way to stay in the country and made a success out of his life. We only started seeing each other again a few years ago. I owe Frank an apology and perhaps when he reads these pages, he will understand. He is a good man with a lovely family and he is my favorite cousin.

After I have left the Autoclub I was aware of the fact that I needed to work not only for the income but to structure my day and keep myself from drinking.

Tony was not happy at Welton Becket so he went into partnership with another small electrical engineering firm. Then he joined in with another one. Neither of these partnerships worked out and finally, he ended up opening his own office. From this point on our financial situation took a nose dive and while I never doubted that he was a good electrical engineer, Tony was not a good businessman. He undercut his prices to get jobs and he had trouble collecting his fees. Tony extended credit beyond what was reasonable and spent a great deal of time socializing with his clients and paying for it. Once I came across a Diners Club statement for four hundred dollars and that was a lot of money spent on entertaining clients when we didn’t know where the next mortgage payment is coming from. Needless to say I had a few things to say about that.

We refinanced our duplex and got a loan from George. I do not do well with financial insecurity and our marriage did not do well, either. One day I suffered a debilitating anxiety attack and, well padded with Valium, I ended up in another shrink’s office. I recited the list of my symptoms and their respective causes all neatly diagnosed for me by Dr. Gould and myself; “My mother, the Holocaust, my husband.” I added that I was also thinking of killing myself.

Dr. Glasser was a few years older than I and he was friendly but noncommittal. I remember noticing that he had a great sense of humor. We agreed that we were going to see each other for awhile, my insurance covered most of these visits.

When I left Dr. Glasser’s office that first day, I felt better. He was a “talking” kind of psychiatrist and I noted that he was smart and gave sensible advice. I thought about him during the week. When I went back for therapy the next week, I was just as anxiety-ridden, depressed and suicidal as before. I understood well enough that it was unforgivable for the mother of two children to commit suicide. Dr. Glasser was a conservative man dead set against divorce. I was against divorce, too, but I was willing to consider suicide.

Dr. Glasser stressed my responsibility. In fact, he had a book on the best-seller list entitled, “Reality Therapy” which was all about being responsible for our lives and happiness. I agreed that I needed to be more responsible to my family but I continued to be anxious and depressed. My marriage was in a terrible state and I knew this could not be good for our children. Tony was no longer around much as he was “entertaining clients.” Or........entertaining, period. I am certain that he was seeing other women.

‘I forgot’ to mention to my psychiatrist how much I was drinking. Actually, I did try to tell him once. “I think I drink too much.” I said. “Agi, you don’t have an alcoholic personality.” Dr. Glasser replied. Cool, I thought. In that case, I could drink with a clear conscience. But if all truth be told, my conscience was not clear and I was worried about my daily drinking.

I can safely say that by the time I was in my mid- thirties, alcohol had become an integral part of my life and it took only five years for me to become an alcoholic. Not that I was aware of it being an alcoholic, I was well aware of having emotional problems and of being unhappy and I felt a lot of guilt because of my drinking, even about spending money on booze. It took another five years of drinking to get me in to trouble. For many years I functioned, in some fashion, and alcohol was my friend; it helped me do all the things I needed to do. Then everything started to go wrong.

The first serious faux pas which was a consequence of our drinking happened in San Francisco. Tony and I went to visit my brother, George, and his family right after they moved there from the East coast. One night during our stay Tony and George spent the entire evening watching porno movies and hours later, when Tony joined me in bed ready for a little action, I did not want to have anything to do with him. It was so hurtful that he aroused himself with those movies and now wanted to use me without offering any love. That was not the right way to romance me.

Next morning George’s duplex was full of workmen who had been plied with a few drinks in order to keep the pace. There was not one room, not even a corner, to find some peace and quiet. It had not been the best of circumstances to invite house guests but George and his wife, Dale, were excited and anxious to show us their spectacular new duplex.

I was drinking quietly all day, it was available and I was not comfortable where I was. In the evening everybody went out for Chinese food except me because by this point, I did not need any food. Some people who supposedly n invited by Dale, my sister-in-law dropped by and I was at a loss as to what to do with them. I was ready to go back to Los Angeles but Tony refused to return with me. My sister-in-law realized that I was four sheets to the wind and she was afraid to let me leave alone. Eventually she took me to the Mark Hopkins Hotel, checked us into a room and we spent the night talking, mostly me complaining about Tony. The next day I returned alone to Los Angeles looking terrible and feeling worse. Admittedly the week-end had presented some challenges but nothing a sober person could not handle. By this time I could no longer predict my behavior when I was drinking.

I made countless attempts to curb and to give up drinking. I managed to survive long periods of time not drinking, once as long as two and a half years. I was also taking tranquilizers, Valium, Librium, Thorazine and God knows what else. I was getting into a lot more trouble when I was drinking than when I managed to stay sober. I knew my drinking was going to get me sooner or later..

It has only been during the last fifteen years that I have been completely and continuously free of alcohol and any mind altering medication and able to start on the big adventure of restructuring my life with the help of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I was still deep into my cups when I had an important dream. In the dream I was a ballerina dancing gracefully on a stage when suddenly a large lifeless form, a golem, flew at me from the side of the stage and fastened his arms around my neck. It had no face, this golem, and it was stuffed like a rag doll but heavy. I could not continue to dance, the weight of the golem was too much for me. My friend Rochelle, who acted as my analyst at the time, asked me, “Who was the golem?” “Tony.” I answered without a moment of hesitation.

The fabric of our marriage was tearing apart. One night Tony went to play cards with his old friend, Tibor. To while away the evening I called Tibor’s wife, Sheila, to chat. During our conversation, she asked. “You don’t know, do you?” No, I certainly did not know that my husband had gone to an American Legion stag party where sex was performed on the stage and available, for a fee, in trainers. Some card playing! This little outing put Tony on the living room sofa for awhile.

Once I accidentally came upon a booklet Tony had assembled by drawing stick figures in various sexual positions. Perhaps it was just an immature pastime on his part but it upset me a great deal. Our approach to lovemaking was different, I was a romantic who needed to be courted and Tony who was matter-of-fact and mute when it came to pillow talk.

What hurt the most and made me the angry was when Tony had lied to me and a close second was how shameful it felt that my husband had such an interest in pornography. I was naive and romantic and this kind of sex offended me as did the boxes of Playboy magazines in our home. The enthusiasm Tony demonstrated for his new hobby was symbolic and told me that I was not enough and not good enough for my husband and he preferred impersonal sex to the love we were supposed to have in our marriage. Tony admitted as much, finding me prudish and frigid.

Fortunately I made a speedy recovery from this malady the moment we divorced, enjoying beautiful sex with the first loving man I attempted intimacy with. Dr. Glasser set me straight when he said, “You are not frigid, you just don’t like your husband and you are angry with him. Angry women don’t enjoy sex.”

Truer and more brilliant words were never spoken but I had trouble accepting them because the moment I did, I would have to do something about our marriage, like divorce Tony. He was not even remotely interested in improving our marriage.

We had a session of couple’s therapy with Dr. Glasser. At the end of the hour the good doctor informed us Tony need not return for another appointment. I was outraged but Bill Glasser. explained it further. “Tony is not complaining. He is happily married.” To whom? I wondered as our marriage became a scene from hell. By this time we were fighting constantly, Tony was hardly spending any time at home and when he did, I was intoxicated.

Tony lied to me often and I caught him frequently. This destroyed not only our marriage but our friendship as well. He was not a bad or evil person but among his other shortcomings, his childish sense of humor often embarrassed me when we were with friends. Worst of all he had no intention of changing. I never felt cherished or loved and do not even remember hearing him say “I love you.” It goes without saying,” his attitude seemed to say. Suffering from anger and disappointment I yielded a sarcastic tongue, a method of domestic warfare learned only too well from my mother and I had a hell of a time trying to unlearn it when I was finally ready to do so.

I also felt guilty for not having chosen a better father for my sons. Tony loves his sons and Peter and Paul love him but I wished for a mature and wise “Father knows best” kind of father figure, and for someone more successful as a role model. I should have chosen my mate more carefully. And yet I do feel some compassion for Tony. If one thinks of one’s life as a piece of art in progress, I do not think he is well along the way with his art piece.

Tony was drinking as much as I was but he was not effected by the booze as I was. In my opinion, he is an alcoholic but since it is a self-diagnosed illness and he is convinced that he is not an alcoholic, in my family, he is not one.

I adopted a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde personality. My children and my husband never knew which one of us was going to be present. Paul was particularly effected, but both of my sons often scurried away to their rooms to avoid the line of fire.

The one good thing that happened in 1965 was that we bought a sailboat. Our first one was a fourteen foot Javelin we christened ‘La Mancha.’ Later we traded up to a twenty four footer already named ‘Bonita’. I loved sailing, rather, I loved to be taken sailing. Sailing and having a few drinks just naturally went together. The way one felt after a couple of hours of sailing was pretty close to the way one felt after good sex. Sailing was the only activity left that Tony and I enjoyed doing together so we spent every weekend out on the Pacific. Our children often came with us and later, we bought them their own small Sabot sailboat.

One Thanksgiving day, we took out our boat even though there was a Small Craft Warning and we managed to overturn it. The water was very cold but we had a hilarious time. I had become interested in sailing because Dr. Glasser was a sailor and I started emulating him.

After I left the Auto Club, I got a part-time job as a clerk-typist at the Public Library. I still do not know how to type even halfway decently. The work was easy and I enjoyed being amongst the books and readers but I wanted to do something more challenging.

While Dr. Glasser was diligently working away trying to raise my self-esteem, he was not a great career counselor. He believed that the mother’s place was home, raising her children. He had three children of his own and I did learn a lot from him about how to handle adolescents. Dr. Glasser’s biggest contribution was that he kept me from killing myself. I was a little in love with him and I enjoyed talking to him. Ultimately there were no deep seated psychological problems triumphantly resolved. I still complained about my mother and my husband and I was still depressed and suicidal, and I was drinking more and more.

I was serious about not wanting to live but my suicide attempts were of the lame variety. I knew I could not do that to my sons and leave them with such a horrible legacy. I often thought about my friends who had perished in the Holocaust and how they had died so young and were never given the opportunity to live and make something out of their lives. By some miracle I had survived it all and not only had botched up my life, I was ready to throw it away. My sweet friend, Eva, should have lived and I should have been the one who died.

After the Holocaust, Eva’s mother returned from the concentration camp and came to see me. She had heard that I had a photograph of her daughter and she had none. I had a tiny snapshot of Eva dressed up in a folk costume, looking sensational and knowing it. Her expression was mischievous. “Look at me!” It said. I gave the picture to her poor mother and felt guilty to be alive.

I have to admit it, poor Tony got on my nerves quite a bit. It was difficult to get him rolling on weekday mornings, often the day was half gone by the time he left for the office. On weekends I used to beg for him to clean out the garage/workshop. When he finally relented and was safely ensconced in the garage, I was entertaining fantasies of how the place would look by the end of the day, orderly if not immaculate. Four hours later I poked my head in to the garage to feast my eyes on the progress...nothing had changed and it was as much of a mess as ever.

What happened? Tony had a cabinet filled with L&M (the cigarette) boxes and every box had a different nail or screw stored inside. And there was my husband happily sorting out nails and screws in to their respective boxes, righteously secure in the knowledge that he is indeed cleaning out the garage--his way.

Nothing could explain our irreconcilable differences much better than what I have just described. We were temperamentally unsuited for each other. Had I been in his place I would have dumped all the nails and screws in a jar and then sorted out the big pieces to have something to show for my efforts.

One night, after we had one of our marathon fights, Tony finally fell into an exhausted sleep. But in those days, I wanted to continue fighting until there was nothing left but a bloody mess. If Tony left the room, I followed him around there was no escape from me. On this night, I tried unsuccessfully to wake him up.

In my fury I went to the bathroom and with a razor blade, carved a five inch slash on my right thigh. They call it self mutilation stemming from self hatred and to do something like this was pretty sick. Of course the gash bled and was still bleeding the next day when I went to see my doctor. “What is this?” He inquired. “I was trying to kill myself.” I answered. “There?” He raised his eyebrow while applying butterfly tape on my superficial wound. He sent me back to Dr. Glasser, my favorite shrink.

My psychiatrist listened to my sad tale and told me an anecdote: A gypsy was going to end his life. He hung a rope from the roof and tied it around his waist. Another gypsy walked by. “What are you doing?” He asked. “I am committing suicide.” Replied the first gypsy. “That is not the way to do it. You have to put the rope around your neck.” Instructed the second gypsy. “Oy, you can get killed that way.” said the suicidal one indignantly.

But to get back to my suicide attempts. The next time I took a few pills, no more than four or six and who knows what kind, with my nightly intake of booze and went to sleep. An hour later I woke up not being able to breathe. I knew, I just knew, I had done something stupid and dangerous again. I climbed out of bed and walked around until I could breathe again. I did not even wake up my husband.

I remember turning myself in at the Suicide Prevention Center on Vermont Avenue. I went to group therapy for a while, sometimes with vodka in my purse. They did not seem to mind. One therapist saw me taking a hit by the water fountain. “Maybe this is the answer for today.” he suggested -- as opposed to killing myself. Even then I knew that he was an ignoramus. Years later I mentioned to my boyfriend, Ivan, that I had been a patient at the Suicide Prevention Center. “And I was a volunteer counselor.” he said.

I do not know what kind of success rate they have there but obviously the blind were leading the sightless.

Even during these years I have had good friends who have enriched my life every day. Women offered their love, expertise and resources. They have been through a lot with me.

Once Edith unexpectedly stopped by and found me drunk. The very next day she called and told me that unless I did something about my drinking she would no longer be my friend. She was the only person who cared enough to confront me. My family was shrouded in denial.

I myself tried an intervention when I sobered up and became convinced that an old friend had a drinking problem. She said “When I am ready to talk about it, I’ll be in touch.” If somebody does not want to give up booze, we cannot do much about it.

I was still functioning in a fashion. I applied for admission to the UCLA Graduate School of Library and Information Science. I struggled through the Graduate Record Examination, repeating the math test once. I also had to pass a test in two languages and I chose German and Russian. My knowledge was and is negligible in both languages (as it is in math), but I managed to squeeze through by some miracle . The day I was accepted to Graduate School was such a happy day marred sadly by my Uncle John’s burial.

I received a call from UCLA to come in and help them to evaluate my Hungarian college transcripts.

“Four years of Marxism-Leninism. What is this?”

asked the administrator conducting my evaluation.

“Philosophy.”

I answered promptly.

I bet I knew more about Hegel, Nietzcsche and Feuchtwangler than most undergraduates at UCLA. Besides, I could quote Marx and Engels verbatim, not to mention Lenin and Stalin.

“Military Practice?” inquired the lady.

I had a sudden flashback to those blasted Military Practice classes we were forced to take. We had to take apart and then put back together a 35 mm machine gun in sixty seconds. When I was finished I always had a handful of parts left over and I was obliged to stuff them in my pocket when the Teaching Officer called on me to demonstrate.

“Military Practice.” I hesitated “That was Physical Education.” I translated somewhat liberally.

I was in! I zipped through four quarters earning a Master’s Degree in Library and Information Science and a Junior College Teaching Credential which entitled me to serve as a librarian in a Junior College. I am not so sure I could do this again stone sober.

Every morning during cataloging classes I held a cold can of Coca-Cola to my temples, trying to nurse my hangover. Surprisingly I was doing well earning “A’s” and “B’s”. It was a lot of busy work but not really difficult and I enjoyed being a student again.

I think it was good for my sons to see me study and receive good grades perhaps I inspired them. Peter scored the maximum score on his SAT’s and was accepted by UCLA. He has spent years getting to know the UCLA Medical Center computers, compliments of Professor Wilner whose son, David, has been Peter’s best friend since the fourth grade. Peter graduated from High School and I graduated from UCLA Grad School the same year.

For Peter’s high school graduation, Tony and I bought him a small motorcycle. The idea was that he could scoot up to UCLA and back as the campus was just a couple of miles away from home. This was not very wise of us because in no time at all, Peter was motoring up to Northern California putting his life on the line. He gave up the motorcycle only when his bride insisted.

I worked for a couple of months at the Beverly Hills Public Library. When I was manning the Reference desk one day, the telephone rang and the caller inquired,

“Can you tell me how to change a spark plug in a Buick?

I was bewildered but promised to search through the manuals.

“I hope you’re not on the freeway.”

I consoled him sympathetically “because this is going to take awhile. The poor guy could not wait it out. What a reference question! I was impressed. At the beginning of my career as a librarian some of these reference questions drove me wild even though I liked reference work very much.

I was trying to get a job as a librarian in the Beverly Hills High School so that I could coordinate my hours with my sons’ schedules. I was among the last three finalists but lost out because they were looking for someone with a strong audiovisual background.

I worked for a year as a substitute librarian at the Los Angeles City College. I bought a brand new fire engine red Karman Gia with my first year’s earning and let Peter, a new driver, borrow it. I saved my salary and during the summer of 1970, we took off for Europe as a whole family.

Tony went shopping the night before our departure, a last minute man if there ever was one. He came home with a navy blazer lined in red satin which depicted a scene from a bullfight in vivid colors. The jacket was so tasteless and so awful that I had to say a few selected words about it.

Well, I did not exactly ‘have’ to, but I did anyway. I am not my mother’s daughter for nothing.

“I don’t want to go to Europe.” Tony retaliated. He certainly waited until the last minute to let me in on it, but he ended up coming with us. We landed in London and visited the Tower, ogled the Queen’s baubles, watched the Changing of the Guard (and took a hundred pictures of it.) We checked out the British Museum, Hyde Park and Madame Toussaud’s and took the train to Oxford.

From London we took a sleeper to Switzerland where we sailed on Lake Geneva and where Paul got so mad at me he wandered away only to show up at our hotel an hour or two later. That was the first time that I experienced open

hostility from him. We also visited beautiful Florence, Venice where we fed the pigeons on St. Mark’s piazza, Vienna where we ate wienerschnitzel and seven layer cake. From Vienna we drove to Budapest to show our sons our home town and to visit with old friends.

We admired Paris – I fell in love with the city and returned to it many times.

Once we were having a meal at Le Drug Store in Paris when Tony ordered pancakes and espresso with Tuaca, an Italian liqueur. Everybody was being served when I caught the waiter’s astonished face and followed his glance to see Tony picking up a small glass pitcher containing maple syrup and pouring it with a great flourish into his espresso mistaking it for the Tuaca. We laughed through the entire meal.