IMITATING A popular pastime at my parents' home was imitating. Hardly had the visitor of the Luif home pulled the door shut behind him when the members of the family showed each other how he spoke, looked through his spectacles, or any other peculiarity of the absentee was elaborately mimicked. My dad had just two voices. One was a jewish accent, which he used to imitate jewish customers and neighbours of the same descent, and to tell jokes that came from jewish stand-up comedian Max Tailleur.     Max Tailleur His second voice was a mixture of rustic and Amsterdam accents and was used to imitate the speech of his brothers, his superior at the bank and his non-jewish customers. My father's imitations were so stereotyped that we mimicked them avidly just to make fun of him. The best imitations in the family were done by my mother. On wedding parties and other family festivities she was often asked to do a solo-sketch named Tranen ('Tears'). The sketch featured three mothers: one common woman from the Amsterdam Jordaan area, the second a posh, lah-di-dah type and the third a Yiddishe memme. People who consider themselves better than the rest were a suitable object for her imitations. On Sundays the family went to church (click). On the pews enamelled name plates were screwed with the names of the parishioners. The most expensive places were in the front. There were the names that belonged to the big villas on the Amsteldijk and the Zuidelijke Wandelweg. With great enthusiasm she would imitate their pompous voices or the self-important way they strode out of the church. When Dutch comedian Enny Mols-De Leeuwe appeared on tv with the host of characters she impersonated, my mother had a great time. Whether the character was a lah-di-dah lady or a sentimental common woman, my mom impersonated them with a skill that was a match to the actress on tv. Unfortunately, my mother has left us for good. But traces of her talent can still be seen in her daughter (click). This weblog appeared in Dutch on 4 January 2005 on Internet site Overtom.nl.
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