Coldsmith Family Values

We're not Happy until You're Not Happy

Long Island: we're still here. We still miss friends, house, family, dogs. And Central Market. And Mexican food. But whenever I'm down, I just go looking for someone who is truly miserable and then I feel better. Let me explain by digressing further.

Last Halloween, my then twelve-year-old daughter, Jesse, upon hearing the door bell go off, scooped up the platter of healthy crudites that the adults were eating and appeared at the door first, offering the veggies to the astonished children. This was hardly the Kandy Korn they'd been demanding. After torturing the kids a bit, Jesse brought out the candy and sent them on their way. Her smile was as big as the one in this picture ( we were waiting for the ferry to take us from Port Jefferson to Connecticut).

Mike, my husband and a reluctant expert on Coldsmith Family Values, announced after Jesse's return from the front door that somewhere her grandfather must be smiling. Jesse's giddiness was another example of the Coldsmith family motto: We're not happy until you're not happy. My dad's love of tormenting others expressed itself mildly, but frequently. He was the kind of dad who would wait until dark to send his kids out to get the trash. Then he'd sneak into the bushes and jump out just when we'd convinced ourselves that there was nothing to fear. Or if we were watching a scary movie, he'd have us hide our eyes until it got really intense and then he'd tell us to drop the pillow. It was safe to look up, he'd insist. Really. Of course, we'd drop the pillow or afghan just in time to see the monster devour the unsuspecting scientist or whatever. Of course, these moments always ended in gales of laughter. After the initial terror had passed.

My memories of the Coldsmith Motto came floating to the top when, a few days ago, I found myself holding my sides while trying to complete my morning Olympic walk, a walk that sometimes takes me into one of the more affluent parts of Long Island. Pricey neighborhoods tend to make for less traffic and Cold Spring Harbor provides a positively monastic sort of walk. To get an idea of just how affluent the 'hood is, consider the shabby abode in this photograph. I don't know how those people hold their heads up.

So I was on my morning walk, heart pumping, headphones on, listening to talking heads. Dressed in dry-core running shorts from K-Mart, I'm sure I looked frightful, but hardly criminal. As I passed yet another sprawling mansion, then another, the thought came to me: "You know, wouldn't it teach me a lesson to see something completely unexpected, like a bunch of non-Caucasian kiddies and their white nanny tossing footballs in the road? This is New York, after all. It's cutting edge."

Well, that's not what I actually saw when the next mansion hove into view. Yes, it was three decidedly Nordic kiddies playing in the 'driveway' (something you or I would refer to as a 'country lane' given the size of the estate). And, governing the three kiddies, was a decidedly non-Nordic nanny, herself within a few feet of a non-Nordic housekeeper bringing the trash-cans in.

Maybe the housekeeper didn't like my pitying look. She looked to be in her 50s and hauling those cans up her to her employer's Way Big House could not be easy. She was not touched by my sympathy. Instead, she glared at me like I was the town pedophile, coming to scope out the best time to scoop up the kiddies. I ignored her and continued on my merry way. Two-hundred yards later, I glanced behind me to make sure no one was barreling down in his Lexus. The housekeeper had by now abandoned her chore and was standing in the middle of the road, glowering down at me as if I could not be trusted to quit the area. Before I even had time to think about it, I waved frantically, with a maniacal grin. She seemed somewhat chastened but I wasn't satisfied. I started dancing a jig, hopping from foot to foot like the Mad Leper of Jerusalem.

It took me some time to explain my elation to myself. But it hit me. I'm a Coldsmith. Clearly, the housekeeper wasn't happy. If you can bring a little misery or at least self-doubt to a complete stranger, so much the better! The first Coldsmith to arrive to these shores in 1770, a German Pietist named Johannes Kaltschmitt, would have called it 'schadenfreude'. And I want to recommend it to everyone. Whenever I'm low, I think about that housekeeper, or my dad's leaps from the bushes, or my daughter and her veggies for trick-or-treaters. For us, that'll have to do as the circle of life.