Around sunset tonight I will light six memorial candles, two for my parents, two for Gilda’s, two in honor of our uncles and aunts who have passed away. On the last day of Passover tomorrow, Yizkor will be recited. Yizkor is the prayer of remembrance, said four times a year in honor of the departed.
Last week the Colombian, Nobel laureate author, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, passed away. He was 87. Among the many passages quoted in his memory, this one touched me deeply: “What matters in life is not what happens to you—but what you remember and how you remember it.”
Perhaps that’s why I have recently been obsessed with the fantasy of getting a dog. For a year when I was 11, we had a dog, a puppy. Dusty. We were told he was a border collie but he probably was of mixed parentage, at least part golden retriever, which accounted for his thick yellow coat and his size. My sister, brother and I still talk of Dusty. They both had goldens when their children were young. Lee has since had two other dogs. She took home Ollie from the rescue shelter a few weeks ago.
Gilda’s not buying into my fantasy. She doesn’t believe I’d be willing to walk a dog early in the morning and late at night, when it’s cold, snowy or rainy. And I readily acknowledge I would not like picking up after it. So I think back on my 12 months with Dusty (10 actually, as two months we were separated while I summered in sleepaway camp) and revel in my memories.
“I think we forget things if we have no one to tell them to.”
That sentiment describes another reason for this blog. It is from the Indian movie The Lunchbox, by Ritesh Joginder Batra. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend you don’t wait much longer as it is not the type of film that vanquishes superhero, supernatural or animated flicks for screens at the local cineplex.
Last week an article in The NY Times provided insight into another of my childhood-to-adult foundations. Though born and raised in Brooklyn, I am a NY Yankees fan. My brother and all my friends rooted for the Brooklyn Dodgers. We went to Ebbets Field to watch the Dodgers, until they moved to Los Angeles. I always said I became a Yankees fan because my mother rooted for them, though she really favored the NY Giants. But they moved west, too, to San Francisco. The last year the Dodgers played in Brooklyn was 1957. I was eight years old.
Keep that age in mind, because according to The Times article, team loyalty for youngsters is deeply impressed when a boy turns eight, particularly if the team wins the World Series (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/20/opinion/sunday/they-hook-you-when-youre-young.html?_r=0). Furthermore, “the odds of being captured as a perma-fan peak with those aged 8 to 12 at the time of the championship,” the article related.
Now, in 1957 the Yankees lost to the Milwaukee Braves in seven games. But the following year the Yanks defeated the Braves. And from 1960 to 1964 the Bronx Bombers played in five consecutive championship series, winning two titles in 1961 and 1962. It’s not too difficult to understand why I became a Yankees fan for life.
