Pambook Jack and Uncle Khosrof

Another tale Peter delighted in telling featured two of his favorite Newtonville relatives.

One day, Khosrof's son was complaining to the owner of the local Armenian spa.  "The problem with my father is that he doesn't hang out with people more educated than himself."  (The young man's father, Khosrof, was a self-styled intellectual who read French novels in his barber shop and would not put the novel down until he had reached the end of the chapter, if even to cut the hair of a waiting customer. Khosrof's best friend was Pambook Jack, an unread shoe repair man who never wrote anything down, but knew whose shoes belonged to whom and could look at a long row of figures and tell you the total in less than 3 seconds.)

When the spa owner told Pambook Jack of the conversation he had had with Khosrof's son, Pambook Jack, without pause, answered, "You tell the dumruk that I tried what he's suggesting, and it never helped me any."