:39:00
So they weren't so glib about God.
:39:04
God was in my mother's
every conversation.
:39:07
How she got her family
out of Russia, thank God, in one piece.
:39:11
About the pogroms, the steerage.
:39:13
About those that didn't make it.
:39:15
Got sick and died.
:39:17
Who could they ask for help?
:39:19
If not God, then who?
:39:22
The Great Society?
:39:24
The department of welfare?
:39:26
Travelers Aid?
:39:28
This city was a... a concretejungle
to the families that came here.
:39:33
They had to carve homes
and lives out of concrete.
:39:36
Cold concrete.
:39:39
You think they didn't call on God,
those poor, suffering greenhorns?
:39:43
You see this suit I'm wearing?
:39:45
Expensive? Custom-made.
:39:49
My father... thank God
he's not alive today...
:39:51
worked 16 hours a day
in a shop on Broome Street.
:39:55
And his artistry for a 10th
of what you pay today...
:39:57
makes meat loaf
out of this suit.
:40:00
145-147 Broome Street.
:40:04
So tired, so broken in spirit...
:40:08
that when he climbed
the six flights of stairs each night...
:40:11
to the three-room, unheated flat...
:40:13
the five of us were crowded in...
171 Attorney Street...
:40:17
that he did not have
the strength to eat.
:40:20
The man did not have
the strength to eat!
:40:25
Turning thinner...
:40:27
and yellower by the day.
:40:29
For lack of what?
A well-balanced diet?
:40:33
Too much cholesterol?
:40:35
Too many carbohydrates
and starchy substances in his blood?
:40:39
Not on your sweet life.
:40:41
For lack of everything!
:40:43
What was God to my father?
I'll tell ya. Sit down. I'm not finished.
:40:47
I'll tell ya
what God was to my father.
:40:49
God got my father up those
six-and-a-half flights of stairs...
:40:52
not counting the stoop...
every night!
:40:55
God got my mother worn gray
from lying to her children...
:40:58
about a better tomorrow
she didn't believe in.