A Rose Garden?

Marash Boy recalls the following.

One day when my friend and classmate Armen S. and I were walking down the street in Harvard Square, we were able to view a young woman from behind, and he came out with this Persian phrase:   "She may look like a rose garden from the back, but when you see her from the front, she looks more like a vegetable garden." 

Remembering Armen Sahakian

Photo from Internet

Marash Girl remembers the first day she learned of you, Armen.  Her good friend Judith told her about a very handsome young Armenian man who was studying in the Graduate School at Harvard University, living in a private apartment complex on Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge. You were a roommate of Judith's friend (although Marash Girl doesn't remember the friend's name).  Judith said she wanted me to meet you because you were a good-looking, intelligent young Armenian man, and therefore was inviting you and her friend to the Jolly-Up -- a dance/mixer for young Radcliffe women to meet young Harvard men.

Judith introduced us.  You were so handsome with dark, wavy hair.  You asked me to dance, and I accepted, and as we danced, I learned that you were Tashnak.  Naive as I was in those days, I remember saying to you, "I'm so sorry, Armen, but I won't be able to date you because you're Tashnak." . . . not that you had given me any hint that you would ever want to invite me out on a date.

Years later, I learned that you had been very good friends with my husband, Levon.  And still later, you and your family visited us at our summer cabin in Wilbraham, Massachusetts, and at Mt. Tom Greenhouse in Holyoke, Massachusetts, and more recently, you came to Boston on business and visited our family in Newton, Massachusetts.  I think that was the last time we were together.  It was then that I took you to visit the editors of the Armenian Weekly and the Armenian Mirror Spectator.  I knew they would be interested in writing about your visit to the United States, and they were.

                                                                                                   Photo by Marash Girl                                                                                            

Asdvadz kezi louysavoreh, Armen Sahakian.

Armen . . . May the Lord our God welcome you into His Kingdom.

"My mother chooses my leg of lamb . . ."

Many years ago, at a meeting of the Harvard Armenian Club --  (it hadn't, as yet, become the Harvard-Radcliffe Armenian Club -- did it ever become that. . .? not that it matters as Radcliffe is now a misty memory from the past . . . ) -- young Armenian undergraduate women were fluttering around a young Armenian Harvard graduate student when, grinning, he commented, "My mother chooses my leg of lamb; my mother will choose my wife!"  

On Being Identified As Armenian

Meeting with a playwright from Los Angeles last night, Marash Girl was telling stories from the old days -- stories from the years that she was an ardent member of the Harvard Radcliffe Armenian Club.  Her friend, the playwright, insisted that Marash Girl record the following story on her blog.  So here goes. . . 

Many years ago, Marash Girl met David Balaban, an ardent member of the Harvard Radcliffe Armenian Club, a brilliant young man who had travelled from the Northwest to study at Harvard College (later to become a brilliant and successful lawyer, of course!)  David was Armenian, but unlike the rest of his, he did not have the identifying marker at the end of his name.  He had no ". . .ian".  No one would know, looking at his name, or, for that matter, looking at him, that he was Armenian.  But David soon corrected that problem.

David Balaban submitted application to the courts to change his name from David Balaban to David Balabanian. When he appeared before the judge, (as David tells it), the judge asked him, "Are you sure you want to lengthen your last name?  Everyone who appears before me for a name change wants their name shortened . . . And you want yours lengthened?  Really?"  And, of course, the rest is history.  David Balabanian was Marash Girl's good friend in college . . . one of Marash Girl's and Marash Boy's best friends . . . and he is now one of the best lawyers on the west coast. 

So there, all you guys that changed your names so that no one would know that you were Armenian. . .  Some of us WANT to be Armenian!  See?  Get it?

Olive Drab . . .

An ardent member of the Harvard-Radcliffe Armenian Club back in the day, David Balabanian was brilliant and funny.  To this day, Marash Girl remembers David's quip when a fellow Armenian classmate left college to join the United States Armed Forces.  "Olive drab on olive drab."

Being Armenian in the Jazz (and Not So Jazz) World of the Past . . .

"Many years ago in Boston, there was a really great tenor sax player named Varty Haroutunian.  He was superb and played nightly at the jazz club downtown called the Stables.  He and Herb Pomeroy were co-leaders and later had a wonderful big band.  I was honored one evening to be asked to sit in with the quintet and had a great time.  The jazz world knew Herb and Vardy, but the two musicians didn't want a life on the road, so they stayed in Boston and played the Stables for years.  As a joke we would sing to Vardy a version of My Wild Irish Rose.  Only we sang, "My wild Armenian nose, how it grows and grows and grows"  He had a bit of a large nose, of course, and in the jazz world we were not particularly kind to one another."

Above is a memory sent to Brother James by musician Phil Welch, now in his eighties.  Having never heard of Varty, Marash Girl looked up the name on the internet and found  http://troystreet.com/tspots/tag/varty-haroutunian/

N.B. It wasn't only the jazz world that sang the song; Marash Girl remembers George Bedirian, Nevdon Kupelian and Raffi Yeghiayan, all members of the Harvard Armenian Club, laughing and singing at the top of their lungs, "My Wild Armenian Nose",  as they drove through Cambridge and Watertown (Massachusetts) in Raffi's convertible Volkswagon bug, with the top down, of course!

Spitting on the head of a donkey

The first time Marash Girl visited Marash Boy at his home on Dearborn Street in Springfield, Massachusetts, was with Raffi Yeghiayan, on the way back from a mutual friend's wedding in Western Massachusetts.  Raffi had offered to do the driving.  All four of them were old friends, having been members of the Harvard-Radcliffe-(MIT) Armenian Club.  Marash Boy's mother Azniv greeted them at the door and was a bit taken aback to see Marash Girl standing there with a boy (other than her son!)  She invited them in, and went up to the third floor where Marash Boy was working on his Ph.D. thesis.   Apparently Marash Boy (or so his mother reported years later to Marash Girl), upon being told that Marash Girl had come to visit, replied, "Eshekin bashuna tukururum", roughly translated, "I spit on the head of a donkey!"  What do you think he could have meant?

Boston's South End and Mike Sarkissian

 

Walking along Waltham Street in Boston's South End, Marash Girl was greeted  by sunflowers, 3 for $10 bordering a small greengrocer, most of whose vegetables were organic, the ironwork railings left by the 19th Century developer of South End row houses, now almost impossible to afford, and, as she and her daughters crossed Shawmut Avenue, there it was, the Sahara (Syrian) Restaurant. [Interesting that it was only a few blocks from where Uncle Vartan, Rev. Vartan Bilezikian, first preached the word of God in his apartment, the early beginnings of what was to become the United Armenian Bretheren Evangelical Church in Watertown, Massachusetts.] The Sahara -- physically close, yet a far cry from the evangelism of the Christianity of that day.  The Sahara.  Wow.  We thought it was closed! Early on, Mike Sarkissian and his band [see  http://www.armenianmusicarch.com/sarkissian.html and  Record Fiend's take on Mike http://record-fiend.blogspot.com/2009/11/blog-post_10.html] would play on Friday and Saturday nights, and often members of the Harvard-Radcliffe Armenian Club, as well as friends like Charlie Kouyoumjian (an oud player himself) and Harry Papazian (dumbeg) would end up at the club on any given weekend.  Great Middle Eastern food and music -- Armenian, Turkish, Greek, Arabic, and at least one belly dancer, of course.  [It should be noted here that although many of the oud and dumbeg players were Armenian, rarely was a belly dancer!  That was left for the non-Armenian women.  The Armenian men would not tolerate Armenian women belly dancing!]  Marash Girl was so excited that the Sahara was still there -- she couldn't wait to go there again . . .  But wait. . . as she turned left onto Shawmut Avenue, seeking the entrance to the 

 restaurant, this is what she found. Ivy covered doors, an ivy covered building front, and no way to enter.  It was akin to a dream, a disappointing dream. So instead of taking her daughters into the Sahara where 50 years ago they would have been served hummus, sarma, shish kebab/pilaf, and joined in a line dance or two, Marash Girl and her daughters continued on to a small restaurant in the SOWA district (South of Washington Street), and enjoyed the chic environs of the day . . . with a cup of iced American coffee, Greek yogurt and a blueberry scone.

HARVARD CONTINUES TO CELEBRATE 375 YEARS

Photo Credit:  Kent Barrabee '62

Former Harvard Radcliffe Armenian Club enthusiasts posed for the camera yesterday on the steps of Widener Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

MORE ON NAMES: Does it end in 'ian'?

In my childhood and youth, whenever we (my father and mother, sister and brother) went to a show or a movie or a concert, we would peruse the program, looking at the list of participants -- either before the show opened, or (at a movie) at the end of the film -- looking for a name ending in 'ian', joyful if and when we found such a surname.

This habit continued. As a member of the Harvard Radcliffe Armenian Club, the skill I had developed was invaluable.  It was the way we found our members, going over the list of Harvard undergraduate and graduate students for that year, looking for ian's or yan's, and upon finding them, sending out invitations (on postcards) to our first meeting for that year.  One September, a tall, handsome man entered the Armenian Club meeting room at Phillips Brooks House, looking around, puzzled, holding up a postcard.  He did not look Armenian, but then. . .  As it turned out, his surname was Masakayan, a good Filipino name (who knew?).  None the less, Jose became an enthusiastic regular at our meetings; we were delighted to have a Filipino member (along with the Irish-American and Chinese members) of the Harvard Radcliffe Armenian Club.

Later in life, when I was on the Board of the Armenian Dramatic Arts Alliance, I continued the hunt.  Will I never get over this obsession?

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

"He changed his name from Khalladjadjian to Johnson, but he couldn't change his ethnic identity -- his face is the map of Armenia," my father would chortle.

At Harvard, in the early 1960's we had the opposite experience -- we met an Armenian who wanted to add the 'ian' back to the end of his name and non-Armenians who wanted to do the same!  (The 'ian's were often removed at Ellis Island by the immigration officers when Armenian immigrants officially entered the United States.)

All of us at the Harvard Radcliffe Armenian Club, even those who were 1/8 Armenian, had ian's at the ends of our already long names, all of us, that is, except for Robert.  Soon after coming to Harvard, Robert went before a judge to have his name officially changed back to what it had been when his parents arrived on these shores.  At court, the judge, astounded, questioned him:  Are you sure that this is what you want to do?  Everybody comes to my courtroom wanting to Americanize and shorten their names and you come in here wanting to lengthen your name by adding the 'ian'?  Yes, I do! Robert answered.  And from that day on, our friend Robert Djanadjan (later a Marshall Scholar), became Robert Djanadjanian -- Armenian,  and proud of it!

And that was another story that my father loved to tell!

N.B. Names changed to protect the innocent!

REMEMBERING ARSHAG MERGUERIAN, LOVE, & EGG LEMON SOUP

Many years ago, at the Harvard Radcliffe Armenian Club, Marash Girl got to know Arshag Merguerian, a sweet and wonderful man, a brilliant student of architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.  Born in Jerusalem, the son of architect/engineer Merguer Merguerian, Arshag would often remind us with great pride that his father was a cross maker. No wonder, then, that Arshag's life goal was to build contemporary Armenian churches which were true in essence to the cross, the traditional Armenian architectural design of the Armenian churches in Eastern Anatolia (Western Armenia). [Building boxes laid beside boxes was not Arshag's idea of a church.]  Little did I know then that Arshag would design and build his dream, a jewel, St. Gregory's Armenian Apostolic Church (Indian Orchard, Massachusetts), the church in which Marash Boy and I would be married some 10 years later.

              St. Gregory's Armenian Church, Indian Orchard, Springfield, Massachusetts

               Arshag Merguerian, Architect, photo by G. Karen Merguerian, 2010, Courtesy of Wikipedia

And it was as much due to Arshag and his choice of bride as it was to God's grace that I married the man of my dreams in the beautiful contemporary Armenian church pictured above, Arshag's church.  Here's the story.

Arshag fell in love with Barbara.  He fell very much in love.  He would sing her name to the world whenever he thought of his Bar-bar-a.  And she was as wonderful, as sweet, as bright and as beautiful as his love.

One day, soon after Arshag and Barbara married, they invited me to have supper in their little apartment on Grant Street in Cambridge.  Having arrived early, I found Arshag's bride in the throes of preparing dinner.  As a last minute decision, Barbara had chosen to make her quick version of Greek Egg-Lemon Soup, a soup I had never before tasted.  She put me to work, cutting and squeezing two lemons while she opened a can of Campbell's Chicken Soup, poured it into a sauce pan, added a can of water, and in a separate sauce pan, cracked and beat two eggs.  Now watch carefully, she said, bringing the soup to a boil and then, as she continued to stir that mixture, slowly adding the hot chicken broth to the two eggs .  When all of the broth was added to the egg mixture, she poured the egg/broth (now somewhat thickened because of the egg but smooth because of the stirring) back into the pan that contained the soup fixings, added the lemon juice, and kept stirring as she slowy reheated the mixture, careful NOT to let it boil this time so as NOT to coagulate the eggs and spoil the soup.  Heated to just below boiling, the soup was ready to serve.  And was it ever delicious.

Okay, so what does this have to do with my marriage?  Well, as I have commented before in this blog, the way to a man's heart is . . . you know the answer!

While I was at home in Newtonville during my college Spring Break, there was an unexpected knock at the door.  Whoever could it be?  Almost supper time, we had planned on having leftovers, but unlike most nights at our house, the pickings were slim.  No matter.  It was probably just the newspaper boy coming to collect.  Answering the door, was I ever surprised to see the love of my life who did not know he was the love of my life.  Standing there. Unannounced.  Whoa.  This was not fair.  Life is not fair.

So taking a deep breath, I invited him into the house to join my mother and father in the living room while I scurried around the kitchen trying to figure out what I could throw together for a light supper that would be more than leftovers.  And yes, if you've read the first part of this post, you've guessed it.  There was a can of Campbell's Chicken Soup on the shelf, and there were 2 lemons in the refrigerator, and two eggs!

That was it.  To this day, my husband remembers THAT day, and tells me that the egg lemon soup I served him was the turning point for him.  His only disappointment is that I've never again made Barbara's Egg Lemon Soup!  Maybe I'll try it tonight with some homemade chicken broth and surprise him.

Recently (now many years later), I asked Barbara about that evening and her delicious soup. She doesn't remember making that soup, ever.  I wonder if it was only a dream . . .