Stubborn as a BULL?

STUBBORN AS A BULL?

          My mother said my sister was stubborn. She’d yell at her, not too loudly, she never did scream, and my sister would not flinch. She’d whack her on the bottom; my sister would just stare her down. “Stubborn as a bull(we had never seen a bull),” she said. “Stubborn like your father…” Now, that was a mouthful, wasn’t it? 

          Stubborn was not a bad thing I thought. Staying firm in what you believed even at 6 was a good thing. “No, I’m not putting those toys away now. Why? In an hour I’ll play with them again…”  “No, I am not eating that lamb chop or those green beans.”

          But my sister won the stubborn award; she was the Queen of Stubborn. We were little and ate meals together with our mom. Sometimes we ate with our dad if he wasn’t working late at the post office or visiting his mother and sisters on the lower east side. We’d sit up straight, often forgetting or just not caring, to put the napkin on our laps so a mountain of crumbs and good food would not find a new home on the linoleum floor. After all, that was wasting food and there were "those starving children in Europe..." I didn’t know what Europe was and had never met those kids. “Use the forks,” mom would say. And when she wasn’t looking, my sister would use her hands, hands washed, yes, but who knows where they’d been in those few moments.  Stubborn. And I would tell—“Ma, Gladys is shoveling the food with her hands.”

          We went on like this forever. And always I would finish eating first. I still do. I’d look the sister in the eye and make a face and she knew, yes, she knew, I was going to get up from the table and head out. “Sit with me, sit with me,” she cried. And I didn’t. This became a real problem. She stubbornly demanded I sit; I stubbornly decided I wouldn’t. How to solve the dilemma? 

          My mother made a decision. She would take the issue to court, really. She wrote a long letter to Jack Barry the host of JUVENILE JURY, a tv show in these post WW2 years, and laid out our family dilemma. She put the letter in my words even though I would not have said them just that way: “Dear Mr. Barry, My name is Judith and I am 6 and I have a little sister who is 4. Whenever we sit down to eat, I finish first and she yells ‘sit with me, sit with me.' I do not want to. I have things to do. I want to get up. She is stubborn. What should I do?” We put the penny stamp on the letter and one day mailed it.

          Weeks later, much to our surprise since we had actually forgotten about it, we got a response in our mailbox. I am sure now I don’t recall the exact words but it did say that my problem was one they would like to put on the radio with me, Judith, in front of a microphone and even an audience, telling my tale of woe. We couldn’t believe it. Stardom. 

          We would spend months getting ready. It wasn’t easy. After all we had a real life: school, family, chores. But this was big. My mother decided to knit me an outfit. She took me to the knitting store and I picked out a green color wool. I had green eyes and red curly hair. Perfect. My sister was not getting anything new and she stubbornly even at her 4 years old liked what I chose. Knit- purl –knit- purl were sounds in my house for a long time. I remember the little pieces of yarn all over the place, even in my sleep!

          My father was a tailor and he did his part, making sure our hand-made coats and hats were primed for the occasion. We even had fur trims put on them. We got new shoes, party shoes, the kind you didn’t wear at play or even to school, the ones that were worn so infrequently you outgrew them before they were old. And in my family shoes were not included in the hand-me-down category.

          The day of my debut was nearing. The radio station WOR was someplace in the city. We would walk to the Queensplaza Train Station, all the neighbors in the Queensbridge Houses waving to us, waiting to turn their radios on and listen to me, a project kid talk about her earthshaking problem.

          I do remember this: at the studio I was led away from my family and that was ok, and brought to a well-lit stage with Jack Barry and maybe five kids who were to be the jury. I think one of them may have been Margaret O’Brien. I do remember hearing GERITOL being advertised. Where is Geritol now?

          I was told to rehearse this problem before the actual show began, in front of the 5 kids and at the microphone. I think I must have looked adorable, each curl, each freckle and my outfit.

          Soon it was time, the real deal. Introductions were made, products advertised, the stage adjusted for little me and with a wave of the hand I was to begin. I remember looking out from my well-lit spot to a dark audience, I think. I clearly told the jury my problem and waited. What was their solution to the stubborn sister’s demand? I don’t know. I tried all the years, decades later to think about it. I do remember laughter. I think there was clapping.  I do know that at the end I got a prize, an Underwood Portable Typewriter in a black box with a little key. I still have it, not the key though. I don’t know if we carried it home or it was sent. But I cannot remember what that jury suggested I do. I’m not sure my sister does either.

          I do know that for a while I was a neighborhood star. Even my sister was basking in the stardom. After all, it was her demand, her stubbornness that made all this happen. Now, you might ask, “Did you change your behavior and sit with her even though you finished eating first? Did you?” Probably not. And more than likely other things took the place of this, things more important fortunately. And you might ask about the sister’s stubbornness. That didn’t change. It never will. 

          I have tried to find a tape of this program in the many radio archives available now. I cannot. I can only have my memory of it. And I have the sister. And for the time, that is more than enough.