Prologue: the yin and yang of my life -- A couple of drunks clinging to each other for support -- And that's how I met Rose Mischal -- He was the first adult we didn't have to address as mister -- Mother and dad were not immune to hysteria -- That bat would've been involved in two deaths, ten years apart -- These were the things I knew, for sure, in Boston in 1952 -- What if Lot's wife hadn't turned around? -- Hey, gimme my cut, chief -- Serendipity is an instrument that we can never learn to play -- He looked like Moses did, that's all, so don't never cross him -- It came out the same way the guy on the radio would've said it -- The bird princess of Africa -- What do I tell you a thousand times? -- Did ya know, Solly, that they spend more on tea than a workin' man spends on rent? -- The kisses were more akin to a detonator rigged to my childhood -- Can we count on you fellars? -- Dad cooked the books for papa and his pals -- I sure could use some dental floss and some extra bullets -- I was feeling the same kind of oats that old Hooch must've felt -- He said it the exact same way that mother said "we'll see," which meant no -- Remember when papa said something about the Holy Grail? -- I wouldn't be the one to tell any of this to papa -- Kristallnacht, they said, they all knew about Kristallnacht -- Everyone was saying that the fix was in -- No one here's going to tell us, that's for sure -- Grown men danced together doing reels and jigs -- He was a hero, a real hero, and undoubtedly saved all of our lives -- Mother started referring to me as "young man" -- This was supposed to have been settled by the "war to end all wars" -- A foul ball on July fourth off of Frankie's bat -- The understanding that I could put things together on my own -- Uncle Jake had a premonition -- We were meant to focus on Kristallnacht, the Nuremberg Laws , and mischlinge -- You mean little Alfredo wasn't a hero? -- And that's how I met your grandmother -- No record of citizen Jacob Goldblum -- Everyone is going to want to know who's who -- You're gonig to tell Auntie Rose, aren't you? -- Timmy was a time, the way historians name epochs -- I miss you already and you'll always be my baby boy -- The man my grandchildren call old uncle M -- The prism that refracted our societal attitudes, values, and policies -- I'll ask him what he meant -- Glossary -- Acknowledgments -- About the author.