Kharkiv, Ukraine, and My "Grandpa Meyer"

Mar 14, 2025

Although I don’t know HOW, I think some of you may be getting tired of my consecutive travelogues from Portugal. Me? No, I’m not getting tired of writing them, but I’m always thinking of my readers. And that’s you!

I first wrote the piece below in March, 2022, soon after Russia invaded Ukraine, and I had not yet thought of moving to Santa Fe… nor ever heard of Substack.

But now in 2025, with our new American “regime change,” and our administration seemingly “trying to end the war” and “make peace”, although without the participation of the valiant Ukrainians, I thought I’d post this piece anew, being not so much about politics, but rather about my personal, familial connection with the War.

“March 10, 2022

Kharkiv is the 2nd largest city in Ukraine, and it's now being pounded by Russian troops & missiles daily. Ukrainians are fighting desperately for their lives and for the survival of their country.

It's also where my paternal grandfather, Meyer, was born.

I always wanted to, and planned on going there, to see the place my grandfather was from. But when I finally went to Russia in 2018 to teach theater in Moscow, I didn't have time to go east to Kharkiv.

That’s me, Trules, in “Red Square” in 2019.

And below, you can see in the first of the next two photos- a piece of paper I gave to my grandfather on his deathbed - in Miami - in 1970. On one side, he signed his name in Russian, and on the other side, he gave me the address of his brother "Mark Truleser" in "Khartov", the home from where he fled in 1917. I didn't know until this recent war, that he was from "Kharkiv", the same city with a different spelling.

Like so many immigrants at the early part of the 20th century, Meyer came through Ellis Island, where the immigration officers changed his name and left him with just six letters, "Trules". He met his wife-to-be, Anna, who I never met because she died around the time of my birth, in Brownsville, Brooklyn, where he worked as a house painter. I still have an ancient trowel that he used to plaster walls back in the day - hanging above my washing machine.

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I didn't know my grandfather, Meyer, very well. He was hard of hearing, spoke with a thick "Russian" accent (that’s what we called Ukraine “back in my century”, as my son, Exsel, likes to say), and Meyer didn't visit us every weekend in suburban Westbury, Long Island, New York, like my mother's parents, Sally & Murray, who my sister and I called "Nanny & Poppy". They were also from Ukraine, I think from Odessa, and they brought piles of groceries to us every weekend in cardboard boxes from their grocery store in Middle Village, Queens. In contrast, my "Grandpa Meyer" was a hard man.

Even my father and his sister, Daisy May, had a contentious relationship with him, their own father. My father never liked to talk about it, but my Dad became such a generous, giving husband and father because his own father was so much the opposite.

What I remember from my own childhood is that when Grandpa Meyer sat down for a meal at the kitchen or dining room table, he had real trouble chewing his food, probably because of bad dentures, and I was disgusted by my own grandfather’s lack of table etiquette as he spit out his half-chewed food back onto his plate, because that was the best he could do.

I also remember one day in our grassy back yard in Westbury, Meyer challenged me to a running race, across the manicured yard, maybe 50 yards at best. I didn't want to do it. Meyer was "old" and I must have been about twelve at the time, but he insisted. My father and sister were there, "refereeing", and they started the race with 2 shouts.

I took off like a hornet, leaving old Meyer behind, but after only about 20 yards, he screamed out in pain and fell to the ground. He had torn a calf muscle.

I felt horrible... like it was MY FAULT that my grandfather was injured - lying there on the ground, squirming in pain.

And then, just over a decade later, when I was about 23, here he was lying on his death bed in Miami. I knew I wasn't the cause of that, but still, I felt terrible. I didn't yet know much about death at that age, and it was hard to lose him. Honestly, I don't even know what he died of.

But I've kept that sheet of paper all these years... and always vowed to go to "Khartov" -- to find the home of Marc Truleser. Until now, that is... when "Kharkiv" is in the daily news, fighting for its life and survival. Hundreds, or thousands, of citizens in Eastern Ukraine are getting pummelled with rocket and gun fire, ballistic missiles, their onion-domed Orthodox churches, like those in Kyiv, being crumbled into rubble.

Screams in the air, blood on the white snow, and grimaces of pain on the faces of millions of Ukrainians.

It brings the war home to me personally, as I read obsessively about it in the “LA Times” - every day. It seems that there is no end in sight, except more bloodshed, pain, loss, and destruction... until the inevitable... crushing defeat and submission to Mr. Putin.

Of course, I hope that the defiant Ukrainian resistance will prove me wrong.

But in memory of Grandpa Meyer, I kneel,

and shed a tear for him, and his brave, invaded Ukrainian countrymen.

With love, compassion, and geneology,

One of the last Ukrainian “Trulesers”

Santa Fe Trules

Kharkiv, Ukraine, and My "Grandpa Meyer"

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