"KESHUB"

"KESHUB"

[What do you say when you hear "Keshub"? Say ... gasundhiet!]

When I was a teenager in high school my brother's best friend Bob Orlowski graduated law school and left the job he had held since he was in his own teens. Working for his Uncle Norb at the Gratiot Central Market in Detroit. 

Norb Szcziegel was a butcher. The real kind. The whittle down a whole side of beef kind. Once, even, a customer brought in a fresh killed Deer carcass, and I watched as he skinned it then cut it it up into roasts, steaks, chops, like that.

I learned a lot there. Norb was a good boss. A mentor too. "No one like a wise ass ... especially if he doesn't have any money." You're pulling a "Petitpren!"  whenever (rarely) he thought I was slacking. [Petitpren (sp.?) was a guy who worked for Norb who was famously late, and not such a committed worker. You get the association.]

Everything was hand cut. Cleavers and saws. Sharp as F. Norb taught me well how to saw through round bones with those toothy, razor sharp saws. Never a cut [on me]. Once only I nicked a knuckle on a protruding bone as I was coming down using a cleaver.  Still a point of pride with me, I could take a whole lamb carcass, cleave it in half by eye with a cleaver, the cut it into chops; cleaver to get through the soft bones, saw for those in the legs. The whole thing, neck to hoof.

Famously, when someone asked is the Beef Liver was tender, his stock reply was, "Lady, that Beef Liver is as tender as your Mother's heart". So I would follow suit. One hapless woman [mostly female shoppers in those days] asked the perennial question. "Lady, that Liver's as tender as your Mother's heart." To my surprise and shock, as she swiftly stormed away: "My Mother's heart ain't tender! Goddamn, sonuvabitch!" Etched in memory, that one.

But, I wramble. Refer to the blog title if you have any complaints about that. That's what I do.

Yet, I understand how by now you might be wondering about that "Keshub"?.

Funny how memory works. It all seems to be  stored inside us. Every single iota of experience. Just some items more accessible, easier to retrieve that others.

Yesterday, after some 55 or so years, the word "Keshub" popped up in me keppe. Oh, I remember the origin of my first hearing the term, but ... why, after so many years? Who knows.

Here's the deal. Norb used the term "keshub". My sense it was when he was deriding someone. Like saying they're a dumbass, hick, dummy, dolt, redneck, one of the deplorables; like that. That general category of humans we see all to many of. Especially, these days. [And, on both sides of the political aisle too.]

Well, I looked it up. "Keshub." Turns out "Keshub" has deep historical roots. It's a people. Ancient. The Keshubians. Who knew. For all this time I had it as a pejorative. Like, if you don't get what I'm talking about, then you're such a keshub. I lower case spell the pejorative form from now on.

Here I lift just the tip of the iceberg on the subject from Wikipedia: [Full entry CLICK.]

The Kashubians (Kashubian: Kaszëbi; Polish: Kaszubi; German: Kaschuben), also known as Cassubians or Kashubs, are a Lechitic (West Slavic) ethnic group native to the historical region of Eastern Pomerania called Pomerelia, in north-central Poland. Their settlement area is referred to as Kashubia. They speak the Kashubian language, which is classified either as a separate language closely related to Polish, or as a Polish dialect. Analogously to their linguistic classification, the Kashubs are considered either an ethnic or a linguistic community.

The Kashubs are closely related to the Poles. The Kashubs are grouped with the Slovincians as Pomeranians. Similarly, the Slovincian (now extinct) and Kashubian languages are grouped as Pomeranian languages, with Slovincian (also known as Łeba Kashubian) either a distinct language closely related to Kashubian, or a Kashubian dialect.

I didn't see anything in a search that turned up whether the use of the term keshub was pejorative, a put down. But, at the time I first heard it, it sure seemed so. "He's such a keshub." Usually understood in the context of speaking about something or other from someone dumb or stupid.

Like this: You know how come all the keshubs have round shoulders and flat foreheads? It's because when you ask them a question they shrug their shoulders. When you tell them the answer, they slap their foreheads.

Like in the US of A [around the world?] there's the Polish joke? In Amsterdam on a trip I inquired about who the Dutch put down. Turns out it's the Belgians. In the north in America, it's the southern hillbillies. In an election year, either party claims the other to be nothing but a bunch of keshubs. Well, they don't use that term. But, they exchange a lot of shade on one another.

As Kris Kristofferson famously sang in "Jesus was a Capricorn": " ... Everybody needs someone to look down on."

How about a good, well told Polish joke: