Samuel Reuben had an incredible mind. It danced forward, backward, up and down on a tightrope of unpredictability, always surprising, delighting, never losing its sense of timing, its balance, or its fine touch.

A friend of mine who only met my father once is convinced that he had supernatural powers of insight. We had been sitting around the kitchen table talking about our favorite things. What they were. Why they were. That kind of chatter. As usual, my mother, I, and every other Reuben female were talking at the same time. With equal predictability, the Reuben men were leaning back or forward in their chairs, apparently sound asleep, a division of labor which had proved, over the years, to result in happiness for all parties concerned.

My friend was trying to tell us what her favorite dog breed was. She stammered a bit and had said only, “I don’t know how to describe it,” before my father opened up those heavily lashed eyelids of his, looked up at her, made brief but compelling eye-contact, said “Saint Bernard,” and then dropped his eyes and seemed to go back to sleep.

Of course, he was right about the Saint Bernard, which is why she is convinced that he was mystical.