Laugh, You Dreary Russians!

It's a wonder I'm not bipolar, or schizophrenic--or worse. I don't mean that facetiously--I mean, it really is a wonder, considering the family dynamic I grew up with, that I'm not much more melancholy and introspective and philosophical than I already am.

Don't get me wrong; I love a good laugh. And I think I have a good sense of humor. Thankfully, I'm a free thinker and don't take any of society's rules and trappings too seriously. But, unfortunately for me, I seem to have gotten my core temperament from my Father's side of the family, not my Mother's.

My Mom had the cheerful, warm, happy-go-lucky, down-to-Earth disposition that people were drawn to. She rarely complained, even in the face of illness and personal tragedy, but instead, made those around her feel happy, comfortable, and welcome. I picture her teaching me to jitterbug and playing 500 Rummy in the kitchen with my Grandmother.

My Dad was honest, kind, loving, intelligent, well-read. Happy-go-lucky and cheerful he was not. My Father had an Old World, Eastern European mindset: Family, respect, and tradition were what he was all about. There were no off-color jokes, no inapporpriate TV shows, no profanity, no drinking, no referring to your parents with a pronoun. My Mother used to say he had Abraham Lincoln's morals and Gregory Peck's face. But when she got fed up, she would tell him he didn't know how to laugh.

Gregory Peck's face didn't do me a lot of good, but Abraham Lincoln's morals were always looming over me. It wasn't just Abraham Lincoln's morals, either. There was that dreary Russian thing. That grawing darkness that always hung over my Father's family like a dark cloud ready to pour torrents on my head. The "Nostrovia" at the holidays that sent chills down my spine before I even knew what it meant, just because it sounded dreary and scary.

My Dad was the second youngest of six children, and the only boy. Had they been a little less depressing, my aunts could have had successful careers in the funeral industry. My memories of them are of somber, stone-faced, stick-thin women dressed in black and smelling like camphor. They were "good," my Mother reassured me when I was very little and hiding under the dining room table because I knew my Aunt Olga was coming for a visit. I was an astute four-year-old, though. I quickly picked up on the fact that she said "good" and not "nice," so "good," for me, came to be synonymous with someone who wouldn't kill you but wouldn't ever hug you. The Gloomy Gene seemed to have skipped only one--my Aunt Betty--the middle sister, the sweetest one, who I always just assumed was adopted. She was married to an Italian, and I am sure some of his warmth rubbed off on her over the years. But Russian and Italian is a volatile mix; there's just too much intensity of different kinds to ever co-mingle in a harmonious way.

I liken the combination of Italian and Russian blood in my veins to the ethnic equivalent of a speedball.