Teaching Music
December 1 ,2015
Theatre Club
Theatre, my new interest, after seeing how they made movies when I lived at the “Kibbutz” I kind of lost interest. Seeing that the actors had to reshoot every scene so many times turned me off. What kind of actors are those if they can’t remember their lines? Theatre actors have to do it live in front of the audience. So, I decided to join the acting club at the school.
“Would you please read this?” Asked Marcella the Director/Teacher. She gave me a poems book by Haim Nachman Bialik. I hate poems – I could never figure out what they’re all about and why. Yet, I read it out loud, pretty dry, I would say. Marcella still accepted me to the cast, and we started to work right away on a play depicting the life in Jerusalem before 1948. We sang and even danced I finally got to dance at the school. I had no choice, I didn’t have to impress anyone, it was part of the play. I promised myself; next time I go to the basketball court on Friday night, I will dance. Yeah right!
Anyway, being a part of the Theatre Club had many privileges; We never had to pay admission to any show or play performed on our fancy theatre. We always had a reserved seat on the front row. We had backstage passes to meet with the performers. And we got to go out of school to perform. One of the places where we were invited to perform was an Army Camp in the outskirts of Haifa. “Mahane David” It was a military school for new immigrants and soldiers who didn’t have good education. We felt very proud to perform in front of the soldiers and felt as if it was a special did for our country. When the show was over, we were invited to join the soldiers for late dinner at their dining room. The soldiers came and slapped us on our shoulders and thanked us in person. By the time we got back to our dorms I was walking to my room with my eyes closed.
Meanwhile, my cave was a great place to practice my guitar playing and I was slowly getting better. The year before I joined the school “Mandolin Club”. We first learned to read music and play simple songs. It wasn’t easy for me to read the music. By the time I read the next few notes, the song was over. I had to learn to play by ear. No one really knew, not even the teacher. Before the year was over, I was able to join the little orchestra on a few performances. But I didn’t like that instrument. Guitar was my calling. Still, I had to learn to play by ear or at least read chords. I was getting better and was able to sing and play at the same time. Yet I did it only in my cave. Every Friday night after dinner and before the Israeli dance session we would gather at the fancy theatre and get to sing along, watch a few kids who wanted to perform. Hezi Akerman was singing almost every week. He was good, he was even singing his own songs.
When Purim came that year, I asked Manuel, a friend from South America who was giving me cords for songs to play for me while I was singing a funny song I made up to the toon of “Bad Moon Rising”. We dressed up like hippies and got nice applauds when the song was over. After that I managed to sing a few more times even a popular French song by Adamo.
One Friday evening we were all required to go and see the show of one of our school alumni. “Joukie Arkin”. Joukie was a mime, he gave an hour show where he was a weightlifter, a wall climber, a clown, and even an eagle. I loved it, and as soon as I got back to my room, I tried to do the same. It worked pretty well, I remembered almost all of his tricks and when Edna the ballet dance walked by my room and saw me, she stood and looked at me for a few long minutes.
“You should take some ballet classes,” she said.
“Dancing?” not for me, I am too shy.”
“What do you mean? I don’t know why; you got the moves.”
“No way!” I answered “I saw how you dance with Nathan Grada. He is a dancer; I can’t dance like him.”
Yet, I was still shy about dancing. I have no idea why; I was dancing at the parties in Netanya. I had a folk-dance partner when I was in 5th grade. We were good together. So, what if there are new dances? I should be able to get up and learn them like everyone else. All I did was just sit and watch. I watched the circle dances, the partners dances and the line dances, I just looked. I even would go to watch Nathan the gay boy dancing with all the girls in our building in one of the girls’ rooms. I would sit there and feel jealous, I wanted to be just as popular with the girls.
It all changed one day like within a flick of a finger. One Friday after the folk-dance session we went to our club room for some disco dancing. As I walked in, I saw Tall Mark dancing his usual frantic “Jo Cocker” style while everyone standing around him and cheering him up. I joined them, clapping my hands to the beat of the music when I felt someone pushing me into the center of the group and edging me to join Tall Mark and dance. Now I had no choice and I started dancing, but I was not shaking like Tall Mark. I had my own beat, and I moved to the actual tempo of the music. Anni my classmate joined me with her younger sister, and we danced the rest of the evening together. The following Friday at the folk-dance session I got up and asked Anni’s sister to join me and like I never stopped dancing, I was able to dance all the dances I was watching all that time.
***
Tenth Grade
1970
A new social guide, Nahum started working with us. He was the son of Josef our school director. Nahum had a new philosophy. He thought that we needed more social activities. We had to be able to get out of our school grounds once in a while. He managed arraigning a few projects for us over the weekend at a nearby kibbutz. We had to pick oranges or weed some pepper field. With the money we earned Nahum bought us tickets for a new musical “Irma La Douce” in Tel Aviv. He borrowed the school’s big touring truck, and we spent a whole evening in Tel Aviv. We sang and reenacted the show on the way ack to our school, until one by one we fell asleep, waking up only when we heard Nahum’s call: “Time for bed everyone!”
It was a stormy night; the thunders and lightings were almost muffled by the rain hitting the round tin roof. It is always like that when the last rain of the year falls, but this was a little too late. I almost didn’t hear the door open. Everybody was asleep when I saw the familiar shape of Hezi Akerman’s handicap older brother. He was using his crutches to walk toward his brother’s bed.
“Hezi,” he whispered. “Hezi, we need to go home.”
“What happened?”
“I will tell you on the way, come on, get dressed.”
By the time they left we were all up. Our counselor, Nahum stayed with us.
“Hezi’s father had been killed,” Nahum started. “His fishing boat was hit by an Egyptian missile a night before.”
On the 13th day of May 1970, an Egyptian war ship shot 4 Russian missiles on a small wooden fishing boat called Orit. Four people were on the boat. The Capitan Adam Yashar was the first to get hit and died instantly. The mechanic Segal Akerman was hit next. His other two crew mates managed to jump overboard taking him with them and swam to shore all night and day until they reached the shore. Unfortunately, Mr. Akerman lost too much blood and died by the time they reached safety. Israel retaliated by bombarding a big military port in the Red Sea.
When Hezi returned after the “Shiva” he wasn’t the same. He stopped singing and was hard to talk to. His older brother who was a pharmaceutical distributor would come visit him twice a week while on his delivery runs. One day Hezi got into an argument with Mean Shimon. As usual, Shimon lost his temper and cursed Hezi’s father. Hezi lost it, even though Shimon was a lot bigger, Hezi hit Shimon so hard he lost conciseness. Mark ran to get Nahum the counselor. By the time he got there, Hezi was nowhere to be found. It took 2 days to find him. They called the police and searched all over the school grounds. At last, he was found hiding in a burial cave outside of the school’s campus. Hezi was sent home the next day.
“In a burial cave?” Asked David Twito from the room next to ours. “They found him in a cave? I had no idea we had caves here.”
“Come on!” I said, “Of course there are caves, this is the Carmel mountains, there are many caves here.” I didn’t want to tell him about my cave, not yet anyway. “This village we on was built next to a very old archeological village and it had a burial ground – caves. Maybe we should check it out.”
“You know?” Said David Twito, “I always wanted to make a night light with a skull. Maybe we can find one at the caves. I know how to run electrical cables and will put the light bulb; it will be scary.”
That day, after school David Twito and I went to the area where they found Hezi. We found three man made caves. Inside we saw shelves on each wall of the cave like I saw in the old house in Jerusalem. There were no dead people in the caves.
This year our GADNA trip was moved to the late spring. The week after Hezi’s escape we were on our way to the north of Israel. The Jordan River is the largest river in Israel. It starts up in the north at the Golan heights from three smaller rivers the Banyas, Hatzbani and Dan. We were going to explore each one of them and a few other sites. The first site was a place called “Bell Voire” or as it was called in Arabic “Qawkab el Hawa” it means the star of the winds. It was an old crusaders fort on top of a mountain. We had to walk on the winding road leading to the top for 5 hours carrying heavy defused “Mouser” – a Check rifle and our gear on our back. At the top of the mountain, we were able to see the Mediterranean Sea on the west, the Syrian and Jordan Mountains on the east. We saw the Dead Sea on the south and the snow top of Mount Hermon to the north. That what the Arab name really means, the directions of the winds like in a compass.
The Buses were waiting for us at the top to take us north to another fortress. “Nimrod’s Fortress” located on a narrow mountain 800-meter-high at the Golan Heights. We slept at the bottom of the mountain and early next morning we were practicing an invasion. Carrying, this time, our Uzi assault rifle in our hands and some supply on our back we crawled all the way up to the fortress. I had to carry the communication device too. That time it took us 6 hours with a short lunch break to reach the top. The whole way we had to navigate in between mine fields from the Six Day War.
As a surprise bonus the buses took us to a very nice waterfall called the Banyas to cool down before heading for our camp for the evening. Our last stop was my favorite place of that trip. Tel Dan is an old archeological site. It is believed to date back to Abraham days. But the forest that covered it was something I have never seen in my life. Being is a dry country where trees were just being planted everywhere Tel Dan stood out like a rain forest. The streams that were connecting to form the river Dan and from there gushing to the Jordan looked like something out of this world to me. I felt like running and jumping onto the trees. As I was running in the narrow trails David Twito joined in running just behind me.
“Hey, I forgot to tell you,” He yelled. “I found a place where I can get a skull.”
“Wow! Really?”
“I think I will bring it when we get back. You are going to love it.”
David Twito has disappeared for the next two days, for some reason, no one looked for him. I think he had a special permission to go home whenever he wanted. He came back whispering to my ear two days later as I was about to go to my room. He pulled out of his bag a stinking plastic bag round like a soccer ball. It smelled like a dead animal left in the sun for weeks.
“What the hell is that?” I asked.
“A skull,” David Twito answered with excitement. “I found a skull!”
“Where did you find it?”
“In an old graveyard.”
“You dug out a grave?” My voice was shaking now.
“Yeah!” He was so excited now he almost screamed.
“It stinks! It is fresh! This isn’t an archeological dig; it is desecration of a graveyard.”
“Oh, come on! Don’t be such a woos, I got it in an old Arab graveyard.”
“Even, worse! Take it back. It stinks!”
“I can’t, I don’t remember which grave I took it from. it was dark. I will pour after shave on it, it will stop smelling in no time,” he said. “And look I also got the electric parts for the light.”
David Twito couldn’t figure out how to connect the light and I was not about to help him. He did pour “Paco Rabanne” aftershave and it just made it worse. After about a week I finally convinced him to bury it at the edge of our village. Somewhere where no one will find it.
The next day he came back from behind the soccer field with dirty muddy fingers and told me he took care of it. He also made me sick to my stomach every time I smelled “Paco Rabanne.” Imagine how much fun I had when I got home and learned that Avi’s favorite aftershave was … you know …
***
Decisions
“Something to think about,” I was sharing my thoughts with Efri. “I know I can get my High school diploma at Shfeya, but will I have a profession?”
“Didn’t you say you liked to work with the tractors? Next year they will give you a driving license.”
“Well, as much as they say they like me, they still give the most important tasks to the Ashkenazi kids, or the stronger kids. All they give me is to wash the trucks. Don’t forget, I still want to be an electronic engineer.”
“Yes, I know, so, I’ve been thinking about the military option.”
“Didn’t you try that already?”
“Yes, but this is a different school. I have the option to go to the Navy School to become a marine mechanic, or to the Airforce Academy and study electronics which was what I wanted to do all the time.”
“So? What do you think? Will you leave Shfeya?”
“I think so, but I have to make up some math and physics classes and pass a test before I get admitted. Oh, there is one more benefit, instead of paying for my education like I do now, I will have to serve two extra years in the military”
“Two years?”
“Yes, but I will get paid very well.”
“when will you decide?”
“I have a month, I either go back to Shfeya for the half of the summer work or go to the special prep course in September.”
Do you remember Sarah and Yaakov Garon our previous neighbors? Their aunt Aliza who lived 3 floors above them worked at a supermarket in the southern side of the city.
“Hey Haim!” she said when she saw me walking back from Efri’s house. “How are you? I haven’t seen you for a long time.”
“I was away at boarding school.”
“That explains it, what are you doing now?”
“Looking for a job.”
“Oh, really? I work as a cashier at the supermarket you know; they are looking for a delivery boy. I can give them your name if you want.
“That would be nice, thank you.” It wasn’t easy getting a job in Israel those days, you needed someone to recommend you.
“I’ll come visit your mom tomorrow and we can talk more. It’s been a while since I have visited with her. I love her cookies.”
“Can you ride a bike?” Zalman the assistant to the butcher asked.
“Yes.”
“How about a Tricycle?
Zalman showed me a big tricycle with the two wheels in the frond and a big flat bottom to carry crates of groceries. My job was to get to the supermarket early and put groceries on the shelves, help the butcher clean the floor and stock the freezer shelves. My most favorite part was to help the bread delivery. Every morning, the bread truck will come with freshly baked bread. The smell was so strong, it overpowered the sweaty smell of the truck driver. On Friday mornings the smell was even better with the delivery of the Hallahs. But my real task was to load the tricycle with crates of groceries, deliver to customers’ homes, and hope to get some tips. The heavies work was on Friday’s afternoons. Most of the ladies were shopping for Shabat but they didn’t want to carry all their groceries home. This is where I came in. I had to take it to all the customers in that neighborhood. Except for one who was living about 30 minutes ride north, and then I had to climb to the seventh floor with five different crates. One of them with about 10 glass buttles of coke ½ a gallon each. By the time I got the tip, and it was a good tip, I wondered if it was worth it. My muscles were getting stronger, my back, my arms and specially my legs. Climbing stairs while carrying big crates add to my physical shape.
When I was in middle school, I had a tutor not too far from the supermarket. Her next-door neighbor was a very pretty girl. I think she was a year or two older than me. She looked very much like Ali MacGraw, just with bigger breast.
“So, you like Naomi?” My tutor said when I asked her about the pretty neighbor. “I really don’t know much about her except that she is older than you. And she seems nice.”
Working at the supermarket I got to see Naomi every other day walking in for some shopping. And as usual I chickened out and hid somewhere and stared from behind the shelves.
One Friday as I was leaving the supermarket, I had the tricycle loaded with 6 crates full of goodies and a lot of coke buttles. Across the street I could see the skinny shape and the unusually big breast. Her long hair, below her small round behind was blowing in the wind. She was walking closer toward me yet looking almost above me. But I was looking at her, a little too long. She didn’t, she didn’t even look at me when I hit the curb and all the stuff in the front load just kept on going forward and crashed on the sidewalk. All the soda buttles broke and spilled all over the sidewalk. Naomi didn’t even look back, I was glad, she didn’t see my embarrassment. Zalman came out yelling at me and calling me stupid, apparently someone told him about the incident. He helped me pick the stuff up, replace the soda and sent me on my way.
Two afternoons per week I had to take the bus to Tel Aviv and go for the Math and Physics class. There was one more student from Netanya, His name was Yossi Cohen. He was very friendly and within two weeks we were taking the bus together and comparing notes from our class. It wasn’t easy, we had a tough teacher with very high expectations. We had a test every class and we had to get at least 90% to be able to stay in the course.
“You’re destined for a special team, and we expect very high results from you, or you will be just a simple electricians or mechanics.” The teacher kept saying. “I will expect nothing less than 90% from you, so keep working.”
And we did. Yossi and I kept at it on the way to Tel Aviv and the way back including some other afternoons. But we made it. By February we boarded the train to Haifa and got off the station right next to the Airforce Academy.
***
