Dad's Sandwich - Mom's Face

As I've mentioned before - my parents yelled at each other a lot. Especially during that last year in Havertown. Throughout most of their marriage they had argued in Hungarian, but they eventually realized that my sister was becoming somewhat fluent in it - so they switched to German (which neither my sister or I understood at that time.).

BTW - I typically ignored their fights but I do remember my dad constantly yelling "Aber, warum denn Olly???" That phrase stuck in my mind because "aber" is such a stupid sounding word and "warum" sounded like "Varoom!" :-)

There was no end to the things they argued about. After 14 years of marriage neither had managed to meet each others expectations. Mom wanted constant romance and adoration... Dad wanted "old school" devotion and unquestioning 'loyalty'... It was a sad state of affairs...

They fought about my sister's and my behavior. They fought about our school performance. They fought about my dad's unwillingness to take any job to support his family. They fought about all the money they were having to borrow to maintain our lifestyle. They fought about his Cynwyd Club membership. They fought about him hardly ever being home. They fought about the liquor cabinet not being properly stocked. They even fought about the dog... It was open warfare...
But there was never direct physical violence. I added the 'direct' qualifier because I did have to dodge the occasional flying house shoe. Dad had a quick temper but he never threw anything that could cause injury... And that leads to the "Day of the Sandwich".

It was 1964. My mom's oldest sister was visiting for the summer and all of us (except dad) were lounging on the patio furniture in the shade out back. (Dad never voluntarily spent time around any of mom's sisters.) At some point mom and I went in to the kitchen (probably to get something to eat). Dad was already in there making himself a ham and swiss on rye.
I don't recall what triggered it, but the next thing I knew mom and dad were screaming at each other across the counter. Dad raised his half-finished sandwich as if to throw it at her, and she responded by saying "Go ahead! Do it!!"... And he did... Right in her face.

It was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life to that point. Mom ran out of the house crying. I followed and all of us ended up consoling each other. Mom was wondering if the marriage was over - it seemed as if my whole life had been turned upside down in that instant.

A short while later I got curious if dad was OK so I headed inside. I found dad (who had apparently made another sandwich) in the living room sitting on the couch with his feet up on the coffee table happily munching away while watching a baseball game.
Dad asked what was up and I told him that mom was really upset. He seemed surprised and asked why. I said "You hit her in the face with a sandwich" (i.e. - Duh!). He said something like "Yeah. She told me to." (i.e. - What's your point?)
And that was dad's "tragic flaw". Nothing he did was ever his fault. And if you got upset by it that was your fault too. Not only that, but it was unfair to him that you felt that way... That attitude used to drive me nuts :-)

The whole incident did blow over after a couple of days. But the fighting only got worse...

And I've just about reached the point where we left for Germany.