Sooner or later

My mother used to say that her sister-in-law, Aunt Bessie, would be late to her own funeral. Well, I’m telling you Mom was wrong about that. Bessie arrived on time for that event, but she was late for just about everything else.

On Thanksgiving, a meal for which Mom was the annual designated hostess, as the family gathered, year in and year out, as the turkey dried out, we all sat in the living room, hungrily waiting for Bessie and her husband Uncle Charlie, and their two kids, Richie and Jonathan. My sister and I, when we reached the appropriate ages, would arrive home from the Weequahic football game, which was a perennial loss to Hillside, invigorated but starving from the cold weather, and the frantic, if unsuccessful, cheering on our team (which did win once in 1951), and excitedly racing home up Aldine Street, accompanied by the tantalizing fragrance from almost every house of the roasting bird, the sweet potatoes drowning in marshmallowed maple syrup and the always creative and delicious stuffing. We would be famished as we walked in the door, greeted by the dog of the moment, who had spent the morning impatiently awaiting the special holiday meal.

We were all set to go, with the table set, and Mom’s cooking delectable and ready. Only Bessie’s delayed arrival stopped the clock.

Thanksgiving was a special meal. It was completely American. We celebrated with the entire country, and we pretty much shared the national menu. It remains a unique holiday for us even today and was true back then too, even though our own progenitors were still living the perils of other places like Poland or Russia, and we were hardly celebrating the pilgrims from whom we didn’t descend.

The only other distinction was that our turkey was kosher. On those annual November days, the weather was always brisk and the football field, Untermann, was packed with us Weequahic Jews in the bleachers on one side and the more mixed group from Hillside on the other. I found football to be totally without merit, but not going was never considered an option. I went. It was an annual routine, always followed by going home to await Aunt Bessie.

It took several years before Mom came up with the obvious solution. Scheduling deceit! Mom would invite everyone for 2 p.m. but Bessie would be told to arrive at 1. It worked like a charm, until the one year she actually arrived on time, at 1. Oh well.

Bessie was hardly alone in being a latecomer. There are many like her, to whom an arrival time is a mere suggestion rather than an appointment. But in our family, being on time is a genetic trait. We are never late!

Promptness is ingrained in us. We are the folks who look at Waze and expect that if she says we’ll reach our destination at 2:43, then that’s the final arrival time. We all know the vagaries of life, even if the little lady who sits calmly within our navigational app doesn’t. Perhaps there will be unexpected traffic, or a flat tire will cause some havoc. There could be endless distractions to make 2:43 something else, unexpected, but nonetheless disruptive. But our goal will still be to get there on time, wherever the there might be.

I remember being a teenager with a 1 a.m. curfew. Once, when I was on a date with the boyfriend of the moment, he had an issue with his souped up and decked convertible. I saw immediately that I would not be home by 1, and I knew the consequences. Not anger from Mom, while Dad slept soundly, but intense worry. She knew I was never late. And I know she conjured scenes of highways slicked with her daughter’s blood. I’m sort of that kind of conjurer too.

Luckily there was a tavern still open and I knew, in the centuries before cell phones, that they would have a pay phone. With intense trepidation, while the nice Jewish boy who was then the guy in my life fiddled with the car, I walked into the bar unescorted, all 16 years of me, so that I might call Mom and tell her I’d be late. So scary. I had never been in a bar in my life, and I have never been to one since. But that was an emergency. I never ever wanted to make Mom worry. And I don’t think I ever did. Her yahrzeit is this month, and when guilt about this or that comes my way, as it does, at least I can truthfully say I never forgot to call when I was going to be late.

When I was the mother of young children, they quickly learned that I was always punctual, always reliable. And, of course, the young man I married turned out to be my clone. Another person who’s just not ever late. Put two parents like that together and it’s pretty obvious that the children will turn out to be prompt-niks.

But there are many people who are chronically late. I know that from my days as a carpooler. Those historic times of my life are now gone forever, but time was when I seemed to spend most of my waking hours taking kids to and from school. With four kids in day school, it was not easy. The two younger ones started out in what our Jewish day school called the Lower School, which was not physically attached in any way to the Upper School. As a matter of fact, the two were separated by miles and they dismissed at different times. So figure it out if you can. At 3 p.m. I’d have to appear at the younger kids’ school and follow that by 4 p.m. at another building in another place. It was actually more complex than it sounds and I spent uncountable hours driving. Hence, the carpool.

Some people are just not meant to carpool. I learned that I’m one of them. My kids were always ready a couple of minutes early, waiting impatiently by the front door or on the stoop for the carpool ladies, who just seemed very casual about when they arrived, sometimes two or three minutes late, often more. Rarely exactly on time. And often I’d be dealing with two carpools; remember Lower School and Upper School. No better way to start a day than with whining kids complaining that it was too cold or too hot or too wet or snowy for them to be waiting inside or outside. Finally I got so frustrated with one of the other moms that I resigned, retired, rebooted, and became the sole driver in a carpool with no other participating adults.

That dramatic occurrence was promulgated by a very sad event. The father of a boy in the carpool died suddenly, a total tragedy. The boy’s mother was a non-driver, already over 60. She was not going to learn how to drive ever. So here was little Bobby with no way of getting anywhere.

I don’t want you to think I’m a tzadik. I’m not a paragon. No one who knows me would ever think that. But it was obvious that the carpool would have to reorganize to do more driving without Bobby’s father. We were now reduced to two participating drivers instead of three. But lest you think that’s what happened, that the two of us just picked up the slack and did additional shifts, I’m here to tell you otherwise. The other driver refused. She needed parity. If Bobby had no one to drive him, that was clearly not her problem. She wouldn’t drive unless it was “fair.”

I promise you that this is a totally true story, and even though it happened many years ago it definitely did happen. That was when I restructured my life so that I never again drove carpool. Although I wanted to go back to work, I would find a career that worked with my flexible hours.

And I did. I became a licensed real estate agent. A couple of years later I became a broker. And now if you want to hear stories about people being late, I’ve got plenty!

Rosanne Skopp of West Orange is a wife, mother of four, grandmother of 14, and great-grandmother of seven. She is a graduate of Rutgers University and a dual citizen of the United States and Israel. She is a lifelong blogger, writing blogs before anyone knew what a blog was! She welcomes email at rosanne.skopp@gmail.com

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