25 Stories about Zander

Last updated: 12/18/2009

1. The big question. One time when he was 6 the two of us were in a Mexican restaurant and he suddenly said to me in a very serious tone: "Dad, I've got an important question for you." And I thought: "OMG this is it!" I had thought it through and rehearsed it and knew exactly what I was going to say: "Well son, when a man and woman become a husband and wife and decide they want to be a mommy and daddy..." But then he said: "Dad, I'm wondering. What do you think? Since there was a World War I and a World War II do you think there'll be a World War III?" For two whole minutes I sat there sputtering in disbelief. Then I replied to the effect that with any luck the atomic bomb was so terrible that humanity would never get that far. He didn't look convinced.

2. Zander was an extremely clever candy hound. He would explain to adults that you mustn't eat too much candy or you'll get sick. He would express great concern about fruit candy (which was his favorite kind) which could get stuck in your teeth (and so you had to drink water afterwards). So he never ate more than half the packet at a time. And so it came to pass that I always wound up with half packets of candy in my jacket pockets which he wouldn't eat because it wasn't fresh.

3. Zander approached Halloween like a military operation. He carefully planned his outfit (frog, bumble bee, pirate, vampire) and the size of his bucket (which he periodically dumped into a shopping bag). When he got home the first thing he did was to spread all the candy out on the carpet and sort it and count it so that Mommy wouldn't throw half of it away.

4. Zander didn't like museums but he knew how to behave in them. He knew that the secret to persuading adults that you were paying attention was in the captions which he could readily read from age 4 and could summarize for you on demand. Zander did not approve of other kid's fascination with dinosaurs: he thought dinosaurs were too big and slow to survive and were an evolutionary mistake.

5. One time we were in the Met walking through a show on the haunting and disturbed art of the Weimar Republic. Twice museum guards came up to us and shooed us away from all the nude figures. Having a Mom who is an artist meant that Zander was utterly unfazed by adult nudity (and indeed, he was embarrassed by adult prudery). I however was fazed: I was trying to explain the Nazi regime at the time.

6. Zander was way more spiritual than his parents. One time, when he was in the bath, I carried on at length about why some people needed the idea of a God and some people did not. When he looked doubtful I asked "So do you think there's a God?" And he responded to my highly loaded argument by saying "Who knows Dad? May be there is a God."

7. Zander did a lot of his serious thinking in the bath. Once, when he was 5 he declared "We've got to end this war!" Another time, when he was 8 he declared "We've got to elect Obama. People must take this election seriously. My future is at stake."

8. Zander knew his Presidents and his American history. In his own way he was an expert on Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and FDR. He loved Benjamin Franklin. One time, on the way to one of his visits to class, I was explaining the differences between Democrats and Republicans and he turned to me and said "What about the Whigs?" He was coy about his political ambitions, but when pressed, he admitted he was considering a run for the Presidency. If it really did come down to who voters would rather have a drink with he'd probably have beaten Obama.

9. I only smacked Zander once in his entire life. He had a play date and when it was time to take her home he refused to let her go and insisted she should stay for a sleep-over. He insisted that since her parents had four kids they wouldn't miss one. I insisted they would. This went back and forth for a while and finally I decided it was time to make a stand. He burst into tears and said "That's it! My life as I know it is over. Now I'm going to have to emigrate to California!"

10. Zander did not like Robert Moses. Partly it was because I showed him too many documentaries on the history of New York but mainly it was because he understood that Moses had nearly destroyed the subway system in making the city fit for the automobile. "How could he have done that?" he cried in anguish.

11. Zander adored 'Dancing with the Stars'. Every Monday evening, when his parents were out teaching, he would watch the show with his Aunt Faith. It was Zander's very favorite night of the week. Aunt Faith would bring candy and he would dance around the living room. It was the only time we were never welcomed home. He was an amazing dancer. One time he even danced the pasa doble in the security line at JFK. A dance teacher once laughed that Zander was like Nijinksy and would never need dance lessons.

12. Zander was not shy part 2. One time coming back from a Fordham field trip we got on the R at 34th Street. A Catherine Zeta-Jones look-a-like waltzed into the car wearing one of those white wet-look raincoats of the kind that should only be worn in public with a body guard. Bold as brass Zander walked up to her and said "Well hello there Maam. May I please have your seat?" Which to be fair was exactly what most of the guys in the car were thinking at the time. Only that's how she understood him and she said in amazement "I beg your pardon!" And he said "I want to sit there." She went bright red with embarrassment and said "Oh of course" and got up.

13. Zander was many Mom's favorite play date and very often the only boy at girl's birthday parties. He always abided by Mom's rule: when you were with one girl you never talked about the others.

14. Zander and I raced everywhere. When we went to meet Mommy we raced to get the first cuddle. When we went to the gym we raced through the court yard, and we raced along under the scaffolding of an apartment building we passed on the way, and we raced down the street to the gym. In his entire life I made sure I always pushed him hard but I never beat him - not even once.

15. Zander could spell better than most adults by the age of 4. Before other kids could form letters he was obsessed with the silent-H. Later on, in summer camp, he so dominated the spelling bee the camp counselors gave him the job of coming up with the words to spell - only sometimes they couldn't spell them themselves. One time at a Brooklyn College class party he stumped a class of adult students by choosing the word "Mesopotamia".

16. Zander had an adult vocabulary. He would use words like obstreperous, obfuscation, obdurate, and ornery in everyday speech (and would insist you were guilty of it, not he).

17. Zander was a big fan of the Wikipedia. One time he was outraged when he found an error. Then I watched him track down the right information and ask me about correcting the mistake. He was 5 years-old.

18. Zander could speed read. One time, when he was 6, I watched him scanning technical documents on the MTA site about the extension to the 7. He wanted to know the names of the new stations. He complained: "It's still not telling me what I want to know."

19. Zander would sometimes take the laptop and close the door of his room. Every now and then I would check the browser history to see what he had been looking up. This is how I came to realize the depth of his fascination with such subjects as the Moscow subway, the design of new rolling stock for the MTA, and (really) the design of stations on the suburban railway system in Perth, Australia.

20. Zander loved the London Underground and had memorized the system map even before he got to London. I tried to warn my parents about what we were in for and they were adamant that they couldn't take all the walking up and down stairs (because it's really really deep under ground). But he dragged us around any way because - somehow - we saw it anew for the first time with the wonder he did. When we got to the London Underground store he sent the staff into a frenzy finding the signs and posters and buttons he wanted. Zander had that gift: he made you realize that the ordinary wasn't as ordinary as you thought.

21. Zander rode to the end of every single line in the New York City subway system. Look at the map: from Woodlawn in the Bronx to the Far Rockaways and from Coney Island to Jamaica Queens we went absolutely everywhere. He rode the Hudson-Bergen light railway, the Newark light railway, the JFK Air Train, and the Newark Air Train. In the last summer of his life we were on a plan to ride to the end of every single LIRR line. After that it would have been Metro North. After that it was going to be Boston and Washington and then Chicago. He was eying Amtrak's cross-country routes. I lived in mortal dread that he was going to discover a fascination with the airline system (he visited Miami and Seattle).

22. Zander was the official "Director of Field Trip Operations" for my class Field Trips at Fordham and Brooklyn College. He was much less forgiving than his father. Whereas I was only too happy that students would even turn up on Saturdays at all Zander would berate them for being late. Students were generally amazed at being dressed down by a child. Another time on the Hudson-Bergen Light Railway he took to lecturing students about what they could see out of the train. Students were a little embarrassed but when he was finished members of the public broke out into spontaneous applause.

23. Zander was not above putting the power of cute to the benefit of the public: in bathrooms men were told to wash their hands (and they did); in parks parents were told to stop arguing in front of the children (and they did); in class teachers found themselves with an interpreter and teaching assistant (whether they liked it or not and no matter how old the children were).

24. Down to the end Zander had almost complete control over the female half of the population. The only female in his life who could hold her own was his mother and much of the time he gave as good as he got. Men were not that much more helpful. When he was 3 and 4 he would make faces at the ugliest meanest looking guys in the car until they finally cracked up. As to his father: I sometimes referred to myself as "wallet holder the book buyer".

25. I lost him three times. The first time, when he was 4, was in the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens after I stopped to rescue two of his friends who had fallen into a fountain. I ran ahead and found him with a very kind lady who had stopped to wait for me: "Well I knew he wasn't here on his own. You know, we've been having quite a conversation." The second time when he was 6 was at the Natural History Museum. I stopped to help our friends with their kids at the turnstile but he ran ahead and jumped on the train because he was anxious to study the chart of the periodic table I had just bought him. The Moms went into shock. But I knew that he would be back in 5 minutes with two women - and of course he was (with a Swedish student and her Caribbean friend). "Oh Dad," he said, "do you think we have to tell Mom?" The last time I lost him he never came back. Oh little guy, I hope like you did that there is a God and that you are now among people who love you as much as you were loved when you were on this Earth. It's a colder and lonelier place without you but sometimes I look up and I feel a little glow from a bright star in the heavens. Zander lives on in our hearts!