Magyar Herald, 1988 (1-4. szám)
1988 / 2. szám
Page 2 MAGYAR HERALD 2nd QUARTER, 1988 iHayimr (Elült of ; (Elmlanït OFFICERS 1987-1988 PRESIDENT Dr. John Palasics 3024 Huntington Road Shaker Heights, Ohio 44120 Tel.: 991-5677 VICE PRESIDENT Theodore Toth 8501 Countryside Drive Sagamore Hills, Ohio 44067 Tel.: 467-8912 SECRETARY Betty R. Galgány 6577 Woodhawk Drive Mayfield Heights, Ohio 44124 Tel.: 461-4419 TREASURER John S. Veres 7512 McCreary Road Seven Hills, Ohio 44131 Tel.: 524-8422 DIRECTORS - 1988 Dr. Francis Huba Ernest J. Hudák William Köteles 1989 Imre Balassa László Bojtos Frank Dobos 1990 Emery J. Szabo Lewis Robinson Zoltán Tóth HISTORIAN Dr. Dezső J. Ladányi AUDITOR Raymond J. Hasman NOSTALGIC MONOLOGUE — 50 years later... By Andor C. Klay, Ph.D. „Hol vagytok, ti régi játszótársak? Közületek csak egyet is lássak... " Petőfi The poet’s wistful sigh could well be mine: “Where are you, my good fellows of the past? If but one of you I could see at last...” There may be bags under our eyes, but they are full of wonderful memories... Jóska Weber and Jani Böhm, my physicians and chamber-music partners... Judge Petrásh, perennially reelected favorite son of East and West Side, fabled Toastmaster General of Magyar-American Debrecen... the five Kováchys of that remarkable clan which gave their land of adoption concurrently two judges, one banker, one community leader, the children of a Clavinist minister who had been a legislator in the Old Country... Guszti Strachovsky, my dentist who habitually “forgot” to bill me... Louis Jackovich, manufacturer of Hungarian flags... Gus Bessenyey, probably the only soft-spoken police prosecutor on record... Jani Schreier, towering husband of a Székely beauty... Árpád Bognár, teacher of prizewinning violinists... Sándor Vágó, portraitist and bridge-champion... Louis Bárdoly, surgeon and playwright... Jóska Reményi, professor of literature at Cleveland College, inexhaustible conversationalist, popularizer of long-forgotten scribes... “If but one...” — but hold it! Not one: two emerge in an issue of Magyar Herald sent to me by its editor whose hand I last shook when he first arrived in Cleveland. Greetings, Eddie Kováchy and Pista Körmendy, stalwarts of the Magyar Club of yore! My memory may seem very good, but it does have its shortcomings, some of them quite discomfiting — such as my utter inability to remember whether the monthly meetings in the mid-1930s were held on the second Wednesday of the month, or on the third. Even the exact number of members escapes me; it was approximately 70. But my eyes are still in good enough shape to notice that the passage of time has turned our successors into softies. Quoting from the published new ruling of the Board: “An applicant shall automatically become a member in 10 days after publication of the name, or immediately upon acceptance by the members at any general meeting...” Automatically? Immediately? In my time, applicants had to pass a test devised by an assigned member. In my own case, Reményi was logically charged with the task in view of my bilingual literary activities. I still have in my archives my notes of the memorable evening on which I was given three previously undisclosed questions, one each in literature, history, and civics. To wit: “1. Point out differences between Madách’s ‘Az Ember Tragédiája’ and Goethe’s ‘Faust’. — 2. Why was Kossuth’s American tour a failure? — 3. Can a nonlawyer be nominated for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court?” I had every reason to suspect that whatever the questions, they would be tantalizing enough to be worthy of my friend Joseph, very senior to me in both age and position, but through those years my lunch-partner once a month at the Brass Rail on 12th Street. Strenuous thinking finally led me to a tactical device whereby to establish to proverbial “position of strength” from which to face the expectable intellectual onslaught. I would call into question the nature of the questions on some reasonable ground, if I could detect in them the slightest opening consistent with honor. Briefly and less pompously: a game of chess. As is happened, I did find it possible to preface my responses in this fashion: “The question is not quite correct”... “This question calls for amplification”... and “This question is erroneous...” 1 asserted that any discussion of Madách’s masterpiece in the same breath with Goethe’s would lack balance without parallel indications of their similarities, which I then proceeded to outline. I argued that Kossuth’s American tour was a failure merely in a political sense but it was highly successful in projecting a historical profile of an ancient, far-away nation of noble traditions and impressive culture. And I pointed out with unconcealed gusto that “the third question is erroneous because there is no such position as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. The Constitution provides for a Chief Justice of the United States.” But there was lively discussion in between, with comments from here and there, even some occasional hilarity, and when the close of the allotted time was signalled and my application approved, Joe and I managed — he was tall and I am not — a fraternal embrace. Far up in the North, near the fjords of Kattegat, there is a colossal slab of marble (Continued in Page 3)
