8 year old Irving Finklestein didn't want to learn to play the violin - he would rather play baseball with the boys - but his mother Esther made such a fuss and locked herself in the bathroom and proclaimed she will cry herself to death if little Irving didn't take the lessons, and Esther's death would be on his conscious for the rest of his life, and besides, the world would be deprived of Mrs. Finklestein's famous potato latkes and her equally renowned homemade gefilte fish. Oy.