Soccer Hooligan

** Hi, my name is Jonathan, Jo’s friend; I met Josiah while studying abroad in Israel. **

I have a picture of my grandfather Erich and his soccer pals from when he was a young teenager in Germany, in the early 1920s. He and his friends look exceedingly fierce in their poses, and I would add, quite unintentionally hilarious. It’s not enough that the boys decided to put on the airs of soccer hooligans, it’s the notion that in the 1920s, they would have held these affectations for at least ten seconds to prevent blurring, that makes me laugh and cringe.

Or, maybe they were soccer hooligans? What scares me mostly, to tell you the truth, is that I have no idea. I never met my grandfather, and yet in my recent years, he has taken up a sizable residence in my psyche.

I used to only know the facts about Erich. I knew that he fled Germany in 1933, much the same young age as I am now, taking with him also a young wife. I knew that he was the first refrigerator engineer in Israel, something I regarded with an admittedly lackluster respect as a child. As I aged and realized how bad milk might smell after just a few hours in the sun (pungent!), his successes took on more importance.

I knew that he had unmanaged diabetes, and a curious bald spot that my while father attributes to a fridge that fell and dented his head, my aunt affirms is male pattern baldness. I knew that although he was a barrel chested bear of a man, he loved a peewee dachshund hot dog as his child.

I knew that when he had a stroke at age 60 which paralyzed half of his body, he was nevertheless strong enough to sit up in the hospital bed. Always bullish, I imagine that he flirted with the nurses, albeit with only half a mouth. I knew that when he died a few days later, my grandmother, who I’ve also never met, loved him so much that she killed herself, presumably to be with him.

These were the facts, garnished and embellished upon by family members, that I absorbed. But in the past few years, as I’ve explored and interviewed my family, I’ve tried to unravel a bit more about Erich as more than just my grandfather of legend. My family, not being the objective types, nonetheless still describe him as an almost mythically perfect man. It is hard to shed light on his negative qualities.

Except for the photograph of soccer player Erich, every other image of my grandfather finds him aged over 45. His features resembles mine a good deal, and I wonder what he looked like at my age. I like to think that sometimes, I model my actions based on what Erich, aged 23, would do. I try to inflect my words as he might, and tell the same kind of folksy jokes he might regale others with at dinner. How much of his personality is conjured, and how much real, seems to blur together a bit more every passing year.

Erich Mannheim; third from the right. Fierce.