Father’s Day makes me so wistful – sentimental and sad and longing for the real “Man in the White Sharkskin Suit,” my father Leon. Here, a small excerpt from the book that I especially like: Dad and I are walking together on a long-ago summer day, he has taken me with him to work – He is a textile broker, a fancy way of saying that he paces the streets of the Lower East Side near Canal Street going in and out of the lower-end fabric shops, those specializing in “remnants.” It is the 1960s, the world is changing – but he is not…..He decides to give me some career suggestions – now if only I had listened: Only my father didn’t change. He cast a dubious eye on all these developments. Whoever heard of a woman working? It was part of his inviolate code of conduct that women – certainly a wife or a daughter of his – should steer clear of the rough-and-tumble business world. I asked him, if I had to work, what should I do? “You can have a little job,” he said finally. The “little job” he had in mind took me aback. He suggested that I open a flower shop. “But you don’t even like American flowers,” I pointed out. His idea seemed out of left field. I had no interest in plants or flowers. He didn’t seem to hear me. “Loulou, you can open up your own flower shop,: he repeated, and there was a faraway smile on his face, as if he were smelling the roses of Egypt. But his final piece of advice on that summer day was sparse and to the point. I had to marry and marry well – un banquier – a banker. I had to find a man who would give me back all we had lost when we left Cairo.
Posted on: Mon, 17 Jun 2013 04:09:26 +0000
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