Happy Halloween from Edgartown!

Sunday Morning Sunrise In Edgartown

Growing up with three languages, sometimes four!

Kind of fun, growing up with three languages, oh, and sometimes a fourth!  English and Turkish downstairs with Mummy and Daddy (Mummy had forgotten her Armenian when she was five because her grandmother came to live with them, a grandmother who knew no English and no Armenian -- only Turkish -- more on that subject in the future), English and Armenian upstairs (Uncle Paul had been able to study Armenian in school in  Marash before the war broke out), and English, Armenian and Turkish on the third floor where Grandma Yepros and Grandpa Movses resided . . . oh, and English, Armenian, Turkish and French when cousins from Paris arrived!

In fact, when Marash Girl was quite young, the older generation (her grandparents' generation)  either knew no English, or spoke heavily accented English, and hearing that evidence of life outside of these United States promised  a world of adventure for Marash Girl.

THE WAY TO A MAN'S HEART . . .

Well, in Marash Girl's case, the way to Marash Boy's heart was the hot dogs that her mother Jennie prepared for lunch on the first day Marash Boy came by to visit.  He loved hot dogs, and his mother, of course, would never make anything but wonderful Armenian food . . . shish kebab, losh kebab, kufte, sarma, dolma . . . But Marash Girl's mom made all that AND hot dogs, and why she happened to be serving hot dogs on that first day when Marash Boy just happened to stop by (his car, he said, had broken down in West Newton, and he didn't have a quarter to make a phone call for help) is the secret of a lifetime of happiness!

The problem with reading a good book

The problem with reading a good book is that you never want to put it down!  All else falls to the wayside!

What class are you?

Overheard:  I never even knew about "social class" until I went to Harvard, where I learned, in       Soc Rel 10. that I was "upper lower class"!

The Armenian and the Armenian

"The Armenian and the Armenian" is best known for its last two paragraphs,^[2][6] in which William Saroyan "unleashes emotional energy and praises the Armenians' ability to survive as a nation".^[7] The original text reads as follows:^[1]

“

I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose history is ended, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, whose literature is unread, whose music is unheard, whose prayers are no longer uttered. Go ahead, destroy this race. Let us say that it is again 1915. There is war in the world. Destroy Armenia. See if you can do it. Send them from their homes into the desert. Let them have neither bread nor water. Burn their houses and their churches. See if they will not live again. See if they will not laugh again. See if the race will not live again when two of them meet in a beer parlor, twenty years later, and laugh, and speak in their tongue. Go ahead, see if you can do anything about it. See if you can stop them from mocking the big ideas of the world, you sons of bitches, a couple of Armenians talking in the world, go ahead and try to destroy them.

”

The quote is often (sanitized and) modified; commonly, the phrase "see if they will not create a New Armenia" is added at the end. It remains unclear under what circumstances it was added.^[8]"

My thanks to James Russell for calling this to our attention at a NAASR panel presentation at Harvard University on March 31st. 

NJK

And Marash GIrl's thanks to Newton Kupelian for the above.

Keep Your Toes Warm!

As the days grow colder here in New England, and as Marash Girl spent all last night trying to keep her toes warm, she was reminded of her father's warning.

"Don't stretch your toes beyond the length of your yorghan (quilt)!"  Marash Girl wrote to her dear friend Murat to learn the expression in its original Turkish . . . Murat writes as follows:  "Ayağını yorganına göre uzat."    (The saying exists in Armenian . . . any of you out there know how to write it?)  But what does it mean?  Can you help, dear reader?

As best as Marash Girl can figure, it means that if you want to keep your toes warm, you keep them under your blanket!  That's the metaphor, at any rate.

Okay . . . Now, dear reader, it's your turn. What is the true meaning of this expression?

As Marash Girl understands it, "Don't overstep your boundaries . . ."   Really?

Elephants and Ants, Marash style

"If your enemy is an ant, regard him as an elephant . . ."

Peter (Marash Girl's dad) and all the great Middle East scholars at Harvard quote this one!

But according to Google, this is a Danish proverb. How would the Danes know about elephants?  How did the expression go from Denmark to Marash?  More likely it was the other way around!

A Good Recipe for Banana Bread

Couldn't find Grandma Jennie's recipe for Banana Cake, but Marash Girl has been using the following BANANA BREAD recipe to make use of those over-ripe bananas. The result is delicious.  If you want a more cake-like product, just add more sugar to the recipe below (2 cups instead of one) and replace some of that canola oil with butter.

Banana Bread Recipe

1/2 cup canola oil
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
3 mashed very ripe bananas (preferably the skin should be mostly black)
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder (Marash Martha's recommends using both)
2 cups flour
1/4 tsp salt
4 tsp sour milk (add a smudge of vinegar to milk or use yogurt or flavored yogurt -- if you use flavored yogurt, you'll keep your guests guessing as to the "je ne sais quoi".)
1 or 2 tsps. pure vanilla (not the artificial variety) or lemon flavoring

Beat eggs; add sugar and oil.
Mash bananas well and add to mixture.

Into a separate bowl, sift flour, salt, baking soda/powder.

Make a well in the dry ingredients and add the sour milk and egg/banana mixture. Stir gently until smooth.  Do not over beat!

Bake in a greased pan at 350 degrees fahrenheit for about one hour, or until done.  (Test with cake tester to make sure batter is firm.) 

Cool well before slicing.

Marash Girl's recommendation?  Make more than one recipe and share with your neighbors!

When life gives you rotten bananas . . .

You know the old adage that goes, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!"  But there is NO old adage that goes, "When life gives you rotten bananas, make banana cake!"  And yet that is the lesson that Marash Girl's mom taught her!  Even today, Marash Girl baked up 4 banana cakes (it only took about 10 minutes to whip up the batter, and another half hour to bake the cakes), banana cakes that made her local post master and post mistress very happy!

And Speaking of Cemeteries

Every time we would drive past a cemetery, Grandpa Peter would ask the passengers in the car, a mischievous grin on his face, how many people are buried in that cemetery?

Everyone in the car would start counting and figuring -- using addition, geometry, algebra, calculus, or simply multiplication  -- and start offering answers.

Grandpa Peter would answer with glee,

"Nope, nope, nope.  How many people are buried in that cemetery?  All of them!"

Wise Advice

Marash Girl spotted a road sign offering wise advise to reckless drivers cruising over the speed limit on a narrow, curvaceous mountain road in Monson, Massachusetts:

"Caution! Cemetery Ahead!"

The sign is no longer present, though the cemetery is . . . !

"Happiness is a dishwasher!"

Emptying the dishwasher this morning while my stepdaughter was preparing to go to work, I quoted Marion C who years ago quipped, "Happiness is an empty dishwasher!"  My stepdaughter replied, without hesitation, "Are you kidding?  Happiness IS a dishwasher! . . . Not one of the apartments I've stayed in ever had one!"

Invest $1 to make $10?

Peter, as he got older, would be sitting in his living room with his feet up on a footstool, chatting with whatever visitor had come by for a bit of Peter's wisdom, and invariably the telephone would ring, and Peter would be heard to say, "I invest $10 to make $1."

"Whatever did the caller want?" the visitor would ask.

"My money.  He wanted me to invest $1 to make $10.  If his investment was so great, why was he wasting his time on the telephone?  Why hadn't he invested his dollars to make ten times what he had invested?"

Hear, hear!  And this was long before the Bernie Madoff scheme came to light!

A Mosque in Gaziantep

Too sad to remember.  Gaziantep, (known to Marash Girl growing up, as Aintep, the city of her maternal Grandmother and Grandfather), this beautiful city, once the abode of an elegant, educated, Armenian populace, now strangely lacking that population. Hope the link works.  If not, simply copy and paste into your browser.  With thanks to Varteni for the link . . .

independent.co.uk/voices/turkey-gaziantep-armenian-genocide-a7362771.html

Calling an allergist?

Marash Girl called an allergist to set up an appointment to find out what she was allergic to, if anything.

The intake person on the telephone asked, "What are you allergic to?"

Was she the model for this nautical figurehead?

Was the ancestor of this antique shop owner the model for this antique nautical figurehead?

Known as "Neptune's wooden angels", carved nautical figureheads, usually of women, wooden figureheads such as the one pictured above, used to be mounted on the bows of  ships  and were thought to bring good fortune to the ships on which  they were mounted, as well as to those ships' sailors.

The nautical figurehead pictured above was for sale in an antique shop on Route 6A, in Sandwich, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, this past August. The only nautical figurehead Marash Girl has ever seen outside of a museum! It may still be there, if you hurry.

"When a Church Becomes a Restaurant"

    Sandwich, Cape Cod, Massachusetts
 "When a Church Becomes a Restaurant"
And the altar (not pictured) has become the bar!

     Photo by Marash Girl