When Our Neighbor Tried to Convert My Father

In 1965, Homer and Melva lived next door to us on Hampton Boulevard, in the naval town of Norfolk. Homer and Dad went way back. They’d been in the same fraternity at William & Mary, played college pranks together, and were as close as two men could be. I don’t know if it was a fluke or by design how they ended up living side by side.

Homer stood a robust six-foot-four, to my father’s lanky five-foot-eleven. When he entered a room, it was like a mountain walking toward you.

My most vivid memory of Homer is him teaching me to body surf at Ebbtide Beach when I was five or six. He was patient and kind, his back as sturdy and broad as a dining room table. We all loved Homer. As for Melva, she was always off painting a canvas somewhere. A few of her fruit paintings hung in our house.

Standing beside Homer, Dad looked frail, due to his physical tribulations, which were many. Still, he had other attributes. He could dance, sing, play guitar, and compose songs. Any word you gave him, he could turn into a joke in five seconds. His card tricks were famous.

Homer and Melva were churchgoing Episcopalians, while we were at best Belly Jews — Jewish by the food we occasionally ate

Everybody wanted to be with Dad, and I guess you could say the same of Homer, but for entirely different reasons.

Homer and Melva were churchgoing Episcopalians, while we were at best Belly Jews — Jewish by the food we occasionally ate: lox, sable, matzah balls, brisket, borscht.

The biggest difference between Homer and Dad was that Homer made a good living. He never looked worried, always beamed a kind of modest prosperity, although I have no idea what he did. He was steady as the sidewalk.

Homer and my dad circa 1975

Dad, on the other hand, was what you’d call a luftmensch — a drifting cloud. Though he could spin circles around Homer with his many talents, he barely scraped by. He tried his hand at photographing homes for a real estate company, did a stint in a pet shop and a
tailoring shop, and now he’d latched onto selling vibrating furniture. He believed vibrating furniture, due to its novelty and therapeutic appeal, would take off, and the commissions would come rolling in. Our rental on Hampton Boulevard housed a few leftover pieces in colors nobody else would buy.

The commissions didn’t come rolling in, though. And Dad had four of us to feed and a fetching wife from Casablanca eager to start living the American dream.

What Do You Think of Jesus?

I’ve heard my father tell what happened next so many times.

“I come home from work,” my father tells me, “and I’m wondering how I’m going to hold it all together, when I see Homer. We start chatting. He’s trying to encourage me about my work, telling me I’m in the wrong crowd.”

He says, “Bert, people don’t understand what you’re offering. It’s not just furniture — it’s a medical cure.”

Dad says, “Honestly, I wouldn’t go that far, but it has brought people relief.”

So Dad and Homer are standing there on the front sidewalk when suddenly Homer says, ‘What do you think of Jesus?’

Now that question took Dad by surprise. In all the years he knew Homer, he never brought him up. Not once. And now he’s asking Dad what he thinks of Jesus.

He didn’t know what to say. Jesus doesn’t cross his mind much.

So Dad said, he was a good man. Lived a long time ago. Did some good things. But he wasn’t God, and not the son of God.

Dad was afraid he’d offended him, but Homer just smiles and says, “Did you know there are people in my church who feel exactly the same way you do?”

Then he tells Dad that to be in his church you didn’t have to believe Jesus is the son of God. His church was different, it didn’t get inside people’s heads and tell them what to think. You didn’t even have to believe Jesus did miracles.

Given your job and situation, you might as well become Christian, Bert, because Lord knows, you sure as hell aren’t much of a Jew.

Dad’s wondering where this is going, when he puts his arm on Dad’s shoulder and says, “We look out for each other in my church. It’s a brotherhood. I could introduce you to people who might be interested in your furniture.”

Then he said these words that are engraved on his forehead. “Given your job and situation, you might as well become Christian, Bert, because Lord knows, you sure as hell aren’t much of a Jew.”

It was like a tornado came down and sucked him right up to the sky. Like a vacuum. He’s getting whooshed up, higher and higher, till he finds himself looking down at him and Homer on Hampton Boulevard from the vantage point of the Milky Way, and he’s trembling, like God himself is shaking him out of his puny mind.

He goes back down to the sidewalk, and Homer is looking at Dad, asking if he’s all right. He must have looked like he’d been through three wars and a goat roping. Dad just tells him he’s fine and excuses himself.

The very next day Dad yanks me and my sister right outta James Munroe Public school and puts us into the Jewish School, Hebrew Academy of Tidewater Virginia.

Thanks, Homer

The way I see it, we owe Homer. If not for him, who would’ve set in motion generations of Torah observant Jews, at least 60, among them Talmudic scholars, philanthropists, rabbis, rebbetzins and teachers, nearly all of them ethical human beings?

History shows when people start caring too much about another person’s eternity or soul— watch out. Homer was nothing like that.

But hear this. When those ladies in plaid skirts and buttoned-up blouses come to my door trying to convert me, they will say it is love, that they want to save my soul, but their words hit me like acid. Not because I fear they’ll any make inroads, but rather history shows when people start caring too much about another person’s eternity or soul— watch out. In the name of Heaven, any act no matter how heinous can be justified. Just ask the Spanish Inquisitors.

Homer was nothing like that. It wasn’t Dad’s soul that drew him, but the question of Dad’s bills, work, health — practical stuff. I think he hoped to help out my father — neighbor to neighbor — and was willing to dumb down his religion to the basics in order to get Dad
into the club with all its attendant perks. All you have to do is this, that and the other, and it’s a shoo in!

When I last saw Homer, it was at my sister’s wedding. He stayed overnight at our home before returning to Virginia. He still reminded me of a mountain. I overheard him and my father talking late at night in low, intimate tones — the way old friends talk. I don’t remember the words, only the cadence of it, something steady and familiar. And when it no longer felt right to listen, I slipped back to my room.