Denver and Seattle in NJ

Associations in the mind .... that warm the eyes ....

In 1972, my parents who were still in their empty-nest 50's moved to within 10 miles of the stadium where the Superbowl teams crashed bodies and heads ,,, the venue in which the football-war broke out, last night. My Dad got a new job as a printer and they lived there for the last 30 or so years of their lives ... though my Mom needed to be in a Nursing Home when her ability to speak and understand melted into the Great Uncharted. They're buried up there (100 miles North of where M & I live) in a little town, Passaic, NJ. My Father chose a hillside grave plot within eye shot of the New York skyline. There they lie ... As far as I know, none of their children visit very often, myself included. President Obama made a joke about visiting parents to help them get on and negotiate the Obamacare-ACA website ... a light note during his State of the Union Address ... don't know that he had in mind graveside visits?

I could run up there and tell my Father about the game; I suppose I could.

Dad, Seattle cleaned up on Denver. Payton Manning never really got started out of the gate. Oh, and that really smart guy from Stanford, Sherman, who had a dissociated kind of rant againt that pretty newscaster ... he got hurt.

Howard, I told you when you were 5 why I never took you to Ebbetts Field to see those Bums, the Dodgers play ... that there were two things that should be thoroughly enjoyed but not observed by others and that one of them was professional athletics and that you'd learn about the other when you were older. Don't you remember. Hey, did you find out about the other Participant-non-Observer Sport?

Dad, I remember and I did. And, hey, I grew up liking sports and sex but without much of an interest in watching professional athletics or ogling other people having sex. .... Think I'll push over and talk to Mom for a bit. You hang in there!

Mom, M and I really miss you. Miss you, too, Dad. Saturday night, Mom, we visited your oldest Sister's son, David, and his wife. They were visiting one of their grown kids, one of the twins. He's doing a post-Doc in Applied Math and is married to a warm and very sweet pediatrician. Imagine! Your Sister  Lily's grandson ... all grown up ... leading a very productive religious and academic life with his wife and their two year old. We walked into their place and the 2 year old immediately warmed up. He's one of those tall and beefy kids ... like I was .... but such a sweet kid. In moments, he was a very welcome visitor in M's lap. David's wife is doing a family bio on her ancestors. David and N  have been married for 46 years ... just a few years shy of M and I. Geez. How the years have flown. We occasionally see you middle sister Helen's grandkids and great-grandkids, too. But what to say? We really miss those times sitting around your table and singing Psalms after dinners that you and Dad would prepare. When I was a kid, I'd see that your eyes would warm when we'd sing .... maybe it was that line from the beginning ... "Those who plant with tears, reap with joy." Much earlier I remember you and Grandma looking out the window as the sun was setting on the Sabbath singing melodically in your Germanic language: Gott fum Avrohom ... God of Abraham! I think my eyes would fill up listening to it. You might not know or want to know that most followers of the Abrahimic religions -- Christians, Jews, Moslems -- barely notice the Sabbath. But you and Grandma would sing to God, thank Him (Her?) for the gift of Sacred Sabbaths and hope for a week of goodness and health, of good fortune and a chance to make a living. Sabbath is for Shopping and Superbowls! Sad to think, isn't it, that the beautifully poetic notion of a sacred restfulness is lost on most people ... whether their day is Friday, Saturday or Sunday. A guy named Hirsch sometime in the late 19th C. said that it was a day that we accepted ourselves as equal creations with others and with our brother animals ... when we gave up pretending to be Creators, ourselves.

Mom, you must be crying by now. Made you cry. Sorry.

Howard, "Those who plant with tears, with joy they reap." That's what King David the Psalmist said.

Mom,  Cousin David the Mystic said I should dance more!

Bye, for now.