Harold and Ruthie
By Tess Baumberger
Harold sat on the piano bench
at a party when he was seventeen.
It was one Sunday in Chelsea around 1930
where his friend took him
to play some records and maybe meet some girls.
Half an hour later Ruthie came in.
She was late.
There was a space next to him on the bench.
She sat down.
When he’d pick her up for dates
she’d bring a bundle with her
and put it in the glove compartment.
She’d pull out some knitting
and that meant “Keep your hands to yourself.”
They saw each other a few years.
One Sunday his mom gave him lunch
and he went over to Chelsea.
He said to her, “If (and it’s a big if) we get married,
how many people would come to the wedding?”
She didn’t say a thing.
Next day he came back from working in Lawrence.
He worked in water, he says, and chemistry.
His mom gave him dinner
and he drove over to Chelsea.
He pulls up, parks his old Ford.
Ruthie’s father, mother, sister, brother and then Ruthie file out.
“Get back in the car,” says Ruthie.
“I’ll tell you where to go.”
They drive over the bridge to Boston
then to Roxbury – some street off of Blue Hill Avenue.
He goes in the house.
There’s a man with a long beard and a tallit. A rabbi.
“And we made a wedding.” He says.
They had a nice wedding, him and Ruthie.
Not much money, but they had a nice wedding.
Later they open a yarn store in Brookline,
on Beacon Street – “It’s a money street,”
his friend tells him. It’s a success.
They bought a penthouse apartment around the corner.
You could watch the sun come up –
see the river and the Common. Beautiful.
He’d get up early, go the store.
At 9 he’d call and let it ring once.
That meant, “Wake up, Ruthie.”
She’d come down to the store.
“I’m not bragging but telling the truth
when I say Ruthie was a fantastic knitter.”
He tells me, a smile on his wrinkled round face.
He gestures with his hands.
“Never a mistake. One time she fixed a skirt
a lady needed for the next day.
Couldn’t even tell there was a mistake.”
They were married a long time,
danced on several continents.
Not having kids made it easier
to pick up and go places. He shrugs.
They thought a couple times maybe
she’d have one, a kid, but it didn’t work out.
Then Ruthie just kind of wore out,
in her 90s (Harold is one hundred and three)
She went to sleep one Saturday
and didn’t wake up on Sunday.
But they had a good life, he says.
And it all started on a piano bench
in Chelsea, around 1930,
where Harold went with some friends
to play some records and maybe meet some girls,
and Ruthie walked in late.