THE MARTIN LUTHER KING MITZVAH: GRAPPA’S HOUSE AND GRAPPA AT THE DUCK POND
Text © Copyright Mathew Tekulsky
Photographs © Copyright Leo Fish
In my book The Martin Luther King Mitzvah, Adam Jacobs visits his grandfather (named Grappa) at Grappa’s house during the winter of 1966 and the spring of 1967. In the novel, Grappa gives Adam his Leica camera and he also teaches Adam how to make black-and-white photographs in a darkroom, which he has in his basement. Adam’s grandfather is an inspiration as Grappa puts an anti-war bumper sticker on his car, while the Vietnam War is raging on.
In real life, I had my own Grappa, my mother’s father. His name was Leo Fish, and outside of my father, he was the greatest guy I ever knew. In real life, Grappa was a photographer and he had a darkroom in his basement, as does his character in the novel. When I was young, I remember being in the darkroom and smelling the chemicals, but I don’t recall actually seeing Grappa making a photographic print. (He had moved on to color slides by then.) In the novel, Adam becomes much more involved in the printing process, as he and Grappa develop photographs of Adam’s twelve year-old friend Sally Fletcher; his older friend, the blacklisted author named Gladys McKinley; Gladys’ housekeeper named Honey; as well as legendary musician Pete Seeger and Martin Luther King, Jr.
I have a collection of my real grandfather’s photographs, and here are three of them. Photo 1 and Photo 2 show his house in Larchmont, New York, in the wintertime, where the fictional Adam would have gone to visit his Grappa. Photo 3 shows my real Grappa at the Duck Pond, where I used to skate when I was a kid in the 1960s. (I have an important scene at the Duck Pond in The Martin Luther King Mitzvah.) Grappa’s photographs were taken in the 1930s and 1940s, and they bring back great memories of what it was like to grow up and live in Larchmont, which in the novel is the fictional town of Beachmont.
Oh, and in real life, Grappa did put a bumper sticker on his car to protest against the war in Vietnam. As I said, he was quite a guy.
