Uncle Julius, unleashed on an unsuspecting public by Ethel Rosenberg in her “Uncle Julius and the BMT” a year or so ago, is here materialized again, indomitable as ever—do him something.

_____________

Sometimes it’s hard to realize my Uncle Julius is past eighty. His hair is white like cotton but his cheeks are pink; and his zest is the stuff of youth. Take the time my Uncle Julius makes up his mind to visit the Bronx Zoo. You realize what a trip it is from Brooklyn? To Philadelphia you could go quicker.

“You think you should take pastrami sandwiches?” Aunt Frieda says, for the tenth time. She is worried. After all, delicatessen, and my Uncle Julius isn’t so young any more. . . .

“Frieda, please, am I a man?” my Uncle Julius says impatiently. .“So enough already. Where is my thermos bottle?”

“You’re sure it will keep hot?” My Uncle Julius throws her a look. Always the same question. Do her something. She just has no faith in thermos bottles.

“What are you looking for?” says Aunt Frieda. “Everything is packed.”

“The glass also?”

“The glass? What glass? The thermos bottle has a cup.”

You hear? She expects my Uncle Julius to drink tea from a cup! Can the tea have a taste?

“You’re positive you don’t want to come?” he asks for the last time.

“To the Bronx I should go yet to look at animals?” My Aunt Frieda is scornful. Well, no is no. Listen, a day doesn’t stand still. A man has to get started some time.

On the BMT my Uncle Julius makes himself comfortable. Before he knows it, the train is at 14th Street, and he has to change for the IRT. The subway express becomes an elevated after a while, and my Uncle Julius looks out the window. Such houses! Worse than jails. My Uncle Julius shakes his head and nudges his neighbor.

“You see how people live?” he asks incredulously. The man looks out the window sourly. He looks at my Uncle Julius.

“So what?” he says. So nothing. What is he mad at?

At the 180th Street station, my Uncle Julius gets off and walks past the peanut stands, the hot-dog concessions, and the soda pop counters. A street like this, dirty, un-swept, papers underfoot, is not a pleasant forshpeis for a picnic. But once my Uncle Julius is in the park, it is forgotten. The moats that separate the lions, the dainty animals grazing on the field—sha, isn’t that a peacock spreading its plumage? It is! It’s a peacock! My Uncle Julius nods his head up and down. There is a bird for you.

So much to see . . . the tall, ugly bird that paces back and forth with its head bent, like a man with plenty of troubles, the little bird that peers at you sideways and titters, the panda, a doll just like the one he got for his grandchild Ruthie (she should only live and be well). .My Uncle Julius is so excited he walks and he walks until his feet give way. Then, while he is resting on the bench, he decides to have a glass of tea. Where did Aunt Frieda put the lump sugar? He searches in the box. When he lifts his eyes, he has an audience, a solemn little boy with black staring eyes.

_____________

“You’re enjoying yourself?” my Uncle Julius asks him. The little boy doesn’t move. He doesn’t talk. He stands there, staring. My Uncle Julius pours tea into the glass, corks the thermos, and rolls the glass back and forth in his hands. When he pops a lump of sugar in his mouth, the boy edges closer. His eyes get wider and blacker. When my Uncle Julius unwraps a sandwich, the child drops his jaw expectantly.

“A little piece pastrami?” my Uncle Julius says hospitably. No answer. My Uncle Julius breaks off some of the sandwich and hands it over to the child. The youngster backs up a little way, stuffs the food in his mouth, and chews without expression. “You like it?” Silence. .“Maybe you are lost?” No comment. “You call this a conversation?” my Uncle Julius says. “Here, have some more pastrami. That was good, hah? Now the tsushpeis. Look.” My Uncle Julius holds up a graham cracker. The lunch box is empty now, except for a handful of graham crackers. My Uncle Julius brushes the crumbs off his pants, and looks around for a wastepaper basket. He passes one several times before he realizes that the hollowed-out tree stump is a receptacle.

“You see that?” he asks with delight, turning to the little boy.

“Yes,” he says suddenly, taking himself and my Uncle Julius by surprise.

“You can talk?” This is really remarkable.

The child backs away to a safe distance.

“Ya wanna see the raccoons?” he offers.

“Why not?” my Uncle Julius says reasonably.

“They’re over there,” the youngster waves his hand. .“Feed them the graham crackers.”

On the way to the raccoons, my Uncle Julius is puzzled. Such up-to-date animals, you have to feed them graham crackers? Still and all, it’s possible. In America, anything is possible. In America, even the animals are smart. Under the sign that says Please do not Feed the Animals my Uncle Julius beckons to a bright-eyed creature. They study each other carefully. My Uncle Julius pushes a cracker through the mesh fence. It begins to crumble, but a large piece is snapped in mid-air by the grasping raccoon claws. Immediately he plunges it into a bowl of water. This is clean, but with a graham cracker this is positively not practical. It goes limp. Quicker than a yawn, nothing but crumbs remain. The raccoon looks frustrated, but not nearly so frustrated as my Uncle Julius.

“Please,” my Uncle Julius says, “just eat it. Don’t kasher it.”

In goes another cracker. Another fast dip in the water. But not fast enough. My Uncle Julius’ brown eyes are bright with anger. He rubs his hand through his white fuzz in exasperation.

“This is positively the last one,” he warns the raccoon. While he is pushing it through the mesh, a park attendant arrives on the scene.

“Cancha read, Pop?” he inquires laconically. This is a time to read? “Don’t feed the animals,” the park attendant points out. .“That means you, Pop.”

“Who’s feeding?” my Uncle Julius says innocently. .“A graham cracker is feeding? Besides, I am feeding, but he isn’t eating.” This is undeniably true, but a rule is a rule.

“Ya wanna pay a fine?”

A fine he should pay yet? For a dumb raccoon like that? Children . . . raccoons . . . graham crackers, my Uncle Julius thinks, as he wanders up and down the walks.

_____________

Thus preoccupied, my Uncle Julius is brought up short by something he has never seen before—a children’s zoo. I ask you. My Uncle Julius looks over the fence. What is going on in there? Look at all those small buildings. And that tiny arch to go through. This my Uncle Julius must inspect. He reads the sign: No Adults Admitted Without Children. Adults, 10¢. .CHILDREN, 15¢. .He raises his eyebrows. How does the printer happen to make such a mistake?

“One,” he says.

“One what?” the cashier asks.

You hear? One what.

“What one what?” my Uncle Julius asks. The cashier eyes him suspiciously.

“How many?” he tries again.

“One,” my Uncle Julius says patiently.

“One what?” the cashier begins, and then adds hastily, “one adult and one child?”

“What child?” my Uncle Julius inquires.

“How should I know?” the ticket seller says angrily.

“Then why do you ask me such a foolish question?” my Uncle Julius says logically.

“Don’t you believe in signs?” the cashier asks. .“No adults admitted without children.”

“Excuse me, please. I don’t want I should tell you your business. But you mean no children without adults.”

“Mister,” the cashier says firmly, “when I say you have to have a kid with you to get in, that’s what I mean. You have to have a kid.”

“So how am I going to get in if I have no child?”

“You’re not.”

“Not even to have a look?”

“You heard me.”

“Not even if I look very fast?” My Uncle Julius is a man who is willing to compromise.

The ticket seller glares. He opens his mouth.

“No!” he shouts explosively. All right. All right. No is no. Go fight City Hall.

“Next time,” my Uncle Julius threatens, “I’ll come with my Ruthie. Then I’ll go in. You’ll see.”

“We’ll be waiting for you,” the cashier says.

_____________

My Uncle Julius is very downcast. What did he want, after all? A look. Not more. One look. Rules. Regulations. For a minute he is sorry he bothered to come. In Brooklyn, people don’t act like this. But then his glance falls on a sign. The words on the post read—to The Hayride. A hayride! In the Bronx! My Uncle Julius is on fire again. He is on the wagon and it is in motion before he calms down sufficiently to look around. Then he laughs to himself. This is a hayride? A plainer wagon he has never seen. Two long benches line each side. The hard wood is not kind to one’s person, especially when the wheels hit a rough spot in the road. There are a few straws scattered sparsely on the floor. And what a horse!

Meanwhile the man in the driver’s seat turns around. Once. Twice. What’s this?

“Excuse me,” the man says.

“Why?” my Uncle Julius wants to know. “You did something?”

“A question,” the man says. If he is not mistaken, doesn’t my Uncle Julius come from Rumania? From Ratich? Aha! Wasn’t his Fetter Schmuel the shoichet? Of course. Of course. And to whom has my Uncle Julius the honor of speaking? Does he remember the shamas? Well, he is Meyer, the sixth son. Many times he saw my Uncle Julius in the shul. You hear? He stops the cart and my Uncle Julius climbs up in front. So how does it come that Meyer is driving this wagon? Is this, God forbid, what he does for a living? Meyer laughs. He is helping out his nephew just for today.

Can you imagine? From Ratich to the Bronx. Who would believe such a thing? Now the sun shines a little brighter. That horse is really a fine-looking animal, when you get up close, especially now that my Uncle Julius holds the reins. The road is lined with trees. People wave their hands in greeting and smile. My Uncle Julius calls to everybody, “Are you enjoying yourself?”

“Yes,” they call back. Isn’t that wonderful, how people can enjoy themselves in the Bronx?

Meyer says my Uncle Julius must come home with him for supper. No, it is Meyer who must come home with my Uncle Julius. But Meyer’s house is closer. Still and all, who is older? This argument is a pleasure.

___________

The whole day they ride back and forth, from the park to the farm, from the farm to the park.

Is it surprising Aunt Frieda is anxious? So long it has to take for my Uncle Julius to come home? Never mind the supper is spoiled. Maybe, bite your tongue, something has happened to him. Now she is sorry she didn’t go too. After all. . . . When my Uncle Julius slips the key in the lock, she is so relieved she starts to yell at him even before the door is open.

“This is a time to come home? Where were you? A person could go crazy. Talk already.”

“Frieda,” my Uncle Julius says. “This you will never believe. Today I met an old friend. A Lanzman. From Ratich. On a hayride yet.”

What kind of a mishmash is that?

“Certainly. Why not?” Aunt Frieda says coldly. .“A hayride. In the Bronx. Believe me, Julius, you have to get up early in the morning to fool me.”

When he swears on his health, on her health, on Ruthie’s health (zul im zein far eera bainer), Aunt Frieda has to be convinced. A hayride, she marvels. A hayride in the Bronx. Such things could only happen to my Uncle Julius.

_____________