“Who can take tomorrow, dip it in a dream

Separate the sorrow and collect up all the cream

The Candy Man can, oh the Candy Man can

The Candy Man can ’cause he mixes it with love and makes the world taste good”.

I used to wonder about the old man in the candy store.

Really, the old man was the candy store. He wore dull colors; tattered greys and blues. The kind of garb you might find a typical blue collar laborer wearing. A long gray beard and a creased visage reminded me of the picture of the Steipler Gaon we have in our living room. And I used to wonder about him.

What does he do at night? Where did he come from? With his coarse European accent, why did he decide to open up a candy shop in America- here in the heart of Flatbush, of all places? What was the secret behind this man who rose at 6AM each morning to open up the small candy shop that served just one or two customers in the smoggy gray unpicturesque Brooklyn mornings before sunrise. Sometimes, if I came early enough, I would catch him opening up the shop. An extended ordeal that was made only more torturous by his arthritic arms. He’d carefully roll down the heavy steel gates that reminded me of the old man himself. Both clanking, monochromatic affairs that creaked at the joints. And in my mind, I would glorify him.

I would imagine him as the survivor of countless troubles and a miracle or two. Tales I made up to glamorize and romanticize the Old Candy Shop owner. Visions of him fighting hand to hand with some German Wehrmacht officer in a musty, hay filled barn on the Continent would fill my imagination. His extended journey to America, than land of the free. And his arrival in the golden medina, sleeping in the streets for his first few nights here. There was no end to the tales he featured in.

And then I would wonder why he didn’t modernize his shop to catch up with the new, cleaner competitor’s grocery that had opened up across the avenue. It always bothered me, that newer store across the street. So when Mommy gave me a dollar to buy a candy before yeshiva, I would defiantly make my way to the old man’s store; my little contribution to the slowing of the inexorable march of progress, and the inevitable shuttering of the little candy store run by the old man.

I’d walk into the store, feeling like a patron saint of old, carefully choosing the red package of Sour Sticks, and extend my small hand with the solitary dollar bill in it to the old man. And to match the excitement in my face- I was getting 20 whole sticks of that sour and sugary confection- he would painstakingly drawer the bill. Slowly he moved. So slowly. Once I told him that I was in a rush; that I was trying to catch the bus. “There will be another bus after this one”, he said, also slowly. How many buses had he seen? For him, the endless parade of buses meant little, or nothing. Why should they mean something, to this man who’d seen that other parade, that parade of trains.

And I used to wonder about him. Did he ever smile? Would I ever be able to catch him at it? I tried to make him smile, I really did. In my own little way. I’d wish him “Good Morning” in the cheeriest voice I could muster in that dank, dark store. He’d pause, only for a moment, and look up from his sefer, but monosyllabic unidentifiable grunts were all I ever received in reply.

And then one day the old candy store with the tan plastic sun protectors was shuttered by the metal gates that normally only worked at night. And soon, I moved away to attend Yeshiva out of town. When I came back, the store had been renovated; it was now home to a group of real estate offices for a franchise firm out of Jersey that I’d never heard of. The new grocery across the street was no longer the upstart; it was now being challenged by a themed emporium that sold fruits and vegetables and even candy: all organically hand grown, whatever that meant. The inexorable march of progress.

And the candy store was no more. And the old man of the candy store was no more.

And these days, I no longer wonder about the old man in the candy store.

(Photo Credit: ryanthejones)

Old men are different. People expect old men to die.
They look at them with eyes, wondering when.
People watch them with unshocked eyes…
But the old men know when an old man dies. – Ogden Nash.

I’m scared of being old. Not just being old, but being old and…unimportant.

When you’re young, it’s easy to plan on making a difference. Always in the future. Always tomorrow. Some of us even start acting towards that future now. But then the cold world does a number on our ideals and the fiery enthusiasm of youth. And the fire that was is doused out by the icy indifference of a world that cares not.

I spent some time with an aged Chasiddishe Yid recently. A relic of times gone by. Very real. Not some storybook Rebbe, but a real, live example of a Jew from times gone by. He reminds me of an old, gnarled walking stick that has been used for many years. And through heavy usage, it has become splintered and broken to the point of, well, no return. He’s been used, leaned upon, and walked on for so long that I fear…I fear there is very little left.

His zmiros are a defiance of the properties of song. Singing, crying, moaning and groaning mixed together until I don’t think he himself could differentiate where one zemer ends and the other begins. He constantly cries out “Oy, Bashefer Zeesah, Heiligeh Bashefer”, calling on the Creator to…I don’t know why he calls, exactly. Perhaps he doesn’t either. He’s weary, bone weary with the exhaustion of age, the exhaustion of pushing and pushing for so long.

And now, in the twilight years of a long, storied life, he has little to keep him company. Little family, and few close friends or students. At one point, I try to give him a compliment. I tell him that I like the minyan, the davening. He rejects this with a careless wave of his hand- “The Bashefer darft “liken”, he answers humorlessly. Such bitterness. Such overpowering…depression? Despair? What drives a man who feels he’s already completed the race? Who feels that he should’ve received the trophy, and that the cheering crowds are shouting exuberantly for the wrong runner?

Spending time with such a man is wearying, really. He had planned on making a difference. Perhaps he even did, at one point. So what happened? How did it come to pass that he sits in a large, empty house, bemoaning all that is wrong with the world, without the vision to see himself? He cries out against the usage of mirrors (for vanity reasons), but has clearly never used one- he doesn’t know how he looks, and more; doesn’t know how people look at him. Wearying doesn’t quite cut it, however. Scary is more like it. Terrifying. Will I grow old and despondent, like him? Having never made a difference? Railing against a world that has passed me by? I hope not.

So what can I do to make sure this doesn’t happen?

I don’t know. But I’ve got a few ideas. Never stop working on myself. Never stop loving people. Never give up hope in Am Yisroel. In the power of the Jewish People, and all they can accomplish. Always strive upward. And to ask myself, every day, every morning: How much closer I am to my goal(s) than yesterday. Because without constant movement towards, backsliding is probable, if not certain.

And yet, this old man- a remnant of a world that was, that never will be again- has in him, dormant, mostly, the oil and flame that must have fueled him so many years ago. No doubt he’s been through troubles, pain and experiences far worse than I can imagine with my limited view of suffering. Perhaps that is what has extinguished his fire. But I tell you; I wouldn’t want to be an old man without that fire to keep me warm.