Thylias Moss

The owner of the first house I lived in was a Jewish man named Mr. Arnstein. I was only five, and if I knew his first name, I have forgotten it. From Poland, he survived because he could make stuff, a carpenter and metallurgist.  His wife was a seamstress. That is the reason they survived. They could make stuff. No Easy Bake oven, actual electricity.  Also had a miniature oven. Just being able to craft stuff made a difference, between living and dying.    My stove has the original cord. 

I made the first latkes of my life on this stove, and I was their surrogate child,  My first babysitters.  They understood value.  Mr. Arnstein had blue numbers on his hands.   I have always questioned making stuff  because of enhanced value it had for that husband and wife.  My making stuff out of words falls short, the consequences are nil.  I have the benefit of Freedom of Speech.  No Life or death matter here, and the stove has meaning to me, personal meaning because this skill meant he could live another day and another, until the war ended. 

Deborah was the wife.  She saw her daughter become smoke and rise as high as freedom.  I do not know what if anything either of them prepared on the stove.  No idea how it tasted, if sand blasted the pot clean, or was there the buildup of much, filling  pots, stuck like glue?  Or what electrical power Mr. Arnstein could rig.  What did he have to build for his captors?

I made latkes for taste and satisfaction.  I had choice,  But I never thought I was playing.  Life and death was what I cooked and called everything Chicken Soup.