A Happy Man

Martin Burke married his beloved Leah during the Roaring Twenties, raised three children during the Great Depression and ended up secure and successful. How did he do it? Marty thought everybody gets some luck, but not everybody grabs his chances and takes the risks, and the people who do, people like him, have the best lives. He was sorry for every guy who didn’t have his luck, he called it that, but he wrestled that luck from the bastards who wanted him to stay on Rivington Street, they wanted him to stay poor and stupid, hopeless and powerless, and not be their problem. He said he and his socialist buddies were going to fight them till they won. This is the story of a happy man. If he wasn’t always a good father, he was a good husband, friend and boss. As Amora-Rava, a rabbi and Talmudic scholar in the third century, said, “It’s luck. Bow your head.”