My friend and one-time personal mentor, Eddie Felsenthal, is getting really old now. He said, “I am not dead yet, so I am doing pretty good,” when I asked him how he’s doing, upon picking up my call. This was funny, but it made it true that he is getting old, his health is declining. Eddie has always been friendly. He was around, where I grew up in Memphis. He lived by my great grandmother’s house on a chunk of land in Germantown. Eddie befriended my great uncle, Lee Taylor, when they were attending the same college, up east, at an Ivy League, at Princeton. Eddie played tennis on the PGA tour, at one point in his life. He asked me to play tennis, and he took me to the courts in Germantown, where we hit for a while. He also took me out running, when I was about 20 years old. Eddie used to play tennis against my great grandfather, Papaw, who had courts on the massive chunk of property.
In my years attending University of Memphis, I would visit my great grandmother’s property often, sleeping over, swimming in the swimming pool, and visiting with my great grandmother, Grams. We would sit in the library and talk. Eddie would come over, occasionally, for dinner. He came on one special occasion, when I brought my ex-girlfriend. We sat on the screened-in porch and ate. One of Grams’s servants cleaned up and brought in our food, of which I only remember the avocado and tomato salad.
Grams’s cook, Dorothy, would cook fish some nights. Fried fish, with cajun spices. She also used to make fried chicken. It was soul food. There were green beans, mashed potatoes, biscuits, greens, squash, peas & carrots, etc. Usually, there would be a soup, for a starter, split-pea soup, or any of a number of soups. Then the biscuits would be brought out, served with slices of butter. The servant came in with a chilled sterling carafe and filled everyone’s water glasses. The main course would be brought out, usually a meat and three vegetables, cooked southern style. Then there would be a dessert, sometimes ice cream, sometimes charlotte with jam inside and butter cookies, sometimes pecan pie.
Eddie got me a job the summer between high school and college. His insurance firm put me to work, making phone calls, helping out. I used to work there in the mornings, in an office building, sat in an office chair, in Germantown, off Poplar, on the very edge of east Memphis. Eventually, Eddie told me he would not be employing me any more, that he could not afford to keep paying me out of pocket. It was not a real job anyway, no check, just cash. He and I talked a lot after that, though. We used to see each other at Grams’s and chat on the phone, too. I would call him up for advice. He had allowed my aunt Sarah and my uncle James to help him in work, too, decades before me. I believe Grams suggested to me that I try working for Eddie. Grams had a lot of good advice.
I took Eddie to Little Italy one time, where I was an employee. I remember we ate together, one afternoon I had off. We had side salads. There were no kosher options there for him. The salad was okay, though. The Cokes, too. I think he may have had cheese calzone. I am sure I would have wanted to eat one myself, it being delicious, still the best calzone I have found.
I visited with Eddie, today. I called him. I told him I might stop by, when I am in Memphis, in September. He invited me to bring my girlfriend there, said we could stay with him. Might not be the best. Might need to get a hotel, if I bring Gloria, my girlfriend, from Miami. If we went to Eddie’s house and stayed a night, then they could feed us and the two Glorias meet. Wouldn’t that be funny? We could eat food from the Commissary, sit around Eddie’s beautiful sun room, and talk about precious things. Eddie could tell Gloria things about my family that I do not know how to say as well as he does. Eddie and I could take Gloria out to play tennis, because she says she wants to go play, just needs someone to coach her out there, get past her laughter and teasing.
Eddie has a car. He can take us somewhere. He can take us for a walk at Shelby Farms. He can take us to the farm, my great grandmother’s house, the property I grew up visiting often, invited people over to to attend my birthday party, to hang out for the afternoon, to sleep over, where my Mom invited half the class over for my going away party, when I moved to Nashville, where my childhood friend Wyatt Thaemert had his wedding, where every 1990’s Christmas Day was celebrated, where I would go for celebrating holidays like Halloween and Valentine’s Day, to get themed candies from the stores, where Grandmother would have someone buy gifts for us, where I would go to walk in the wild sunshine of nature on free afternoons. ‘The family home is called the Farm,’ I will say to Gloria B. Eddie will show us around, show us what it looks like now, how it is different, how it is the same. The gate will be open to us, as I was told by my mother that we, the children of Grams, will be allowed to enter the campus, whenever, as an offering from the school to make it seem nice to us, the family of the donators.