HOT COFFEE & COOL JAZZ: EDWARD EMMANUEL KAUFMAN - "SWIFTY"

Sylvia died a few years after Ed’s recovery. The Swift territory that Ed was working included the area around the Salton Sea, and at some point down the road he became friends with a Mexican woman in Mexicali who worked in a bar. He arranged it so that he would end up on Friday down in that area and he would spend the weekend with her. Jerry cannot remember exactly how long this lasted but one evening he went there and she was not at work. When he asked after her he was told that she had died.

Ed never remarried. He had always suffered from stomach and intestinal problems. He loved to eat but doing so always caused him great distress. He would always keep one hand pressed on his stomach, as if trying to dull a pain. He would often let out a huge belch, after which he would say, “God Damn, that felt good.” He would take another few bites and belch again, always ending it with some epithet. It was very sad to see a person in such distress, but it also was very shocking to someone who didn't know him.

Now when Jerry and I married, Kerry and Bryn, my teenaged daughters, lived with us. I wanted to invite Ed to dinner at our house, but before I did, I had to sit down my girls and give them a lecture on appropriate behavior. I explained what Ed’s problem was, how he sounded when he belched and what he said afterwards. I told them somehow they were going to have to keep from laughing because it was not a laughing matter. I told them in no uncertain terms that they had better act like adults. I had to demonstrate to them just how bad Ed’s belches sounded, and I couldn’t even come close but at least I made a good try. I will have to say that during that meal or any others, none of us made eye contact with anyone when the belching and swearing occurred. I knew that if the girls looked at me or each other, they would break into hysterical laughter. The girls made it through the dinner like troopers and I was very pleased. It is hard to exaggerate how bad Ed sounded. And it is hard to exaggerate how much Ed liked the dinner. He came every time we issued an invitation and always said it was the best “chicken” - or whatever the entrée was - that he had ever eaten.

Several years after we were married, when his grandson had graduated from college and taken a job in New Orleans, Ed decided to move back to Baton Rouge. He piled all his belongings into his station wagon and set out to drive cross-country, sleeping in a bedroll in the back of his wagon. He arrived safely, and it was there that doctors performed stomach surgery on him. He always said they took half his stomach. He stayed there for a relatively short time – maybe a year or so – but ultimately he returned to Southern California. Too damn hot in the summer, he said! He moved between Pomona and Baton Rouge several times in his old age via the trusty station wagon but finally figured out he’d better stay put with us close by.

His final years were not good ones. His stomach and his intestines just did not function right and he kept losing weight. I found a whole drawerful of medical bills which should have been sent to Swift for insurance reimbursement but Ed was too confused to understand what he should be doing. I worked for days with the insurance company to make sure Ed received the insurance benefits he was owed. Finally we helped him get situated in an assisted living home in Fullerton that had a little kitchenette where he could do his own meal preparation if he wanted, and then as he got worse, he went into a nursing home about a mile from where we lived. Jerry had put him under the care of his own personal physician in Orange, where we were living at that time. Dr. Maizel took care of his medical needs for the last year of his life. One evening we got a phone call from the doctor saying that Ed was near death and asked if we wanted “heroic measures” taken. Ed had told everybody that he was ready to die, and in fact wished he would. Jerry told Dr. Maizel that Ed specified that he wanted to die quickly, so the decision was made according to his wishes and Ed passed away comfortably at St. Joseph Hospital in Orange.

Grandpa Ed is buried next to Sylvia in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.