Friday, November 25, 2005

Ate the big turkey with my parents, my cousin's family, my cousin's aunt and her husband, Will. Will is one interesting fella. The last time I saw him was when my cousin, a friend and I headed to NYC for the 1999 NYE to see the big ball drop. We stayed at Will's apartment. We met him at a Turkish bathhouse where he was a masseure.

His Jewish parents fled Germany in 1938 and settled in China where he spent the first 13 years of his life. He grew up watching heads roll. Back then the Chinese chopped off thieves' hands and murderers' heads in the public. Bells would ring in the town square and people'd flock to watch the spectacle.

Nobody taught him to write or read—he communicated only with homemade signs. Then his family moved to New York City and he finally got some education at PS #47. Now, he talks and acts like a typical jolly grassroots deafie. In addition to wages from kneadin' up stressed out hot babes, he receives $1200 monthly compensation for lifetime from the German government because a Nazi doctor did something to cause his deafness when his mother was pregnant with him.