I kept this on the down low.  I’m a Duschinsky.  Yes, that’s right, if not for a name having too many letters on the marquee in Vaudeville days, I too would have, could have, should have,  been–a Duschinsky.  A Duschinsky just like my cousins.

And now I was headed to a Duschinsky family reunion.  That is what the invitation said.  I started to reveal the information to my friends in the weeks and days before.  At book club, I announced my plans for the up coming weekend: “I’m a Duschinsky,” I said out of the blue—the way I say most things, no segue necessary.  And, this Saturday, there is a HUGE and I do mean HUGE Duschinsky family reunion.    “Duschinsky, it’s great,” Donna said.  Then she started laughing, “You would have been Fredrica Duschinsky, which sounds like Russian royalty.”  Yep, Fredrica Duschinsky would have been a mouthful.   We are Hungarian.  As my father told me, quite the opposite of royalty, we’re gypsies. (more…)