Sandee’s ZD Initiation - June 1958

Sandee’s ZD Initiation - June 1958
When I was 13 years old, I had to go through an initiation into my Family’s Organization. My Bubbie and Zehda had taken me to New York to celebrate the fact that I had gotten through grade 8. In the fall, I would begin High School and become another kind of person entirely.
So, the summer of 1958 I spent on Long Island with my Mom’s older sister, Aunt Matt, and her 2 kids Jane and Frank and her husband Uncle Tom. Jane is 13 months older than I am and Frank is 13 months younger, so we were quite a trio! Jane and I were both to be Initiated and so it became a real deal since our Zehda was busting his buttons over having both his grand daughters there.
Part of the ceremony was to pick our own father or in my case grandfathers forehead from all the others. There were 5 of us going through this silliness and all the men were balding. So we were blindfolded, led up on the stage and seated.
We are told our Daddies have followed us up and we will kiss each bald head pick out our own. The Family, about 280 people, are laughing so load that we can’t hear ourselves think. Suddenly a warm, slightly furry something is under my nose, more laughter. The next thing I knew I had this cold slimy thing under my nose, that was a give away, it was a dead fish and it smelled like it. Then a small round slightly warmish something and next was a... Oh it went on like that for at least 20 minutes.
Of course, none of the things we had to kiss were our Papas. There were balls of raw bread dough, the dead fish, a toupee, a balloon with yarn glued on to it, a round silver pitcher filled with tepid water and I don’t remember all the other things.
We were told that we had to pick one of those things as ours, and since I was the youngest and from the wild west, I was first. So I told them of the things that I thought I had touched and pronounced that none of them belonged to me. But if I had to choose one, I thought the pitcher was the closes to my Zehda, because it was the neatest.
Well, that ended the game. I guess I was not supposed to tell the truth because we were herded off the stage and each Dad claimed his own and dinner began.
At least we didn’t have any monkeys around