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     “…One more day
      One more time
      One more sunset, maybe I’d be satisfied
      But then again
      I know what it would do:
      Leave me wishing still for one more day with you….”

                                                    Tomberlin, Jones

His eyes closed years ago, but he just didn’t die. Not to me, anyway. In the quarter century since my Pop went silent, there has never been a moment—good or bad—that I haven’t felt his presence; there has never been a time, for that matter, that I didn’t feel his strength.

He was special. He was unique. He was my father. He loved the past and revered the present. He was my father.
Driving ‘cross country, I couldn’t help but think how happy he’d have been with my day …how he’d have enjoyed just taking the ride.
My Dad loved cars. Oh, not race cars, or engines—nothing mechanical. Hardly! The man reveled just BEING in a car. He would drive with Harriet or his boys…anywhere. Indeed, on a sunny day like Thursday, even on the anniversary of his death—had he known I was heading east—he’d have offered to pick me up. Just because. Window open, left elbow dangled out, AC a’ blastin’, he’d have scooped me up at my office and exulted to eight hours of big band music all-the-while urging me off the phone.

• Still in Ohio I had a conference call with the guys. Typical nonsense.   “Don’t you think Bobby and Stuart can live without you for a few hours?” he’d urge, (‘though loving it all). Indeed, merely knowing that on August 9, 2012, years post-his-mortem, I was still in contact with a Fenton, a Snyder and a Baskin (of sorts), would have made his day.

He asked so little! Just hearing my half of interstate conversations with my brother, his sister and the like would have made him smile.

“Remember when I slept in the lobby of the Holiday Inn-Dubois?” I’d ask.                  

“You were in such a hurry to get home, weren’t you? Alan Wieder couldn’t wait?”                                     

“I was coming from seeing Feder in Nicholson, Pennsylvania.”                                                                         “I know,” he remind. “You insisted on driving through the night.”

• Stayed on Route 80 last night. Not at a Red Roof Inn, mind you. (How he loved that motel chain. In an era of Holiday Inns, pass a scarlet billboard on the highway anytime in the Nixon administration and he’d loudly proclaim: “Look, “Sleep Cheap!” (like he was reading it for the very first time….like we were hearing it for the first time)!

We’d stop for the night. Often. Day trips, he taught me, were done in two days.
“Let’s drive half-way the night before,” I’d hear, “And head in in the morning.”

It all made sense. We’d make the call before leaving: 1-800-THE ROOF. It would all be set. Then we’d pause as he’d planned…for the night.

There was more, yet, to his game. Al Bogart would forage exits —for proper cuisine. Teaching his sons neither to hunt for game nor to pitch a tent, his counseling entailed, rather, the proper securing of provisions.

“Don’t eat at restaurants,” he’d advise, “With dirty bathrooms.” To our Dad, though, pastry trumped entree. As such, he’d pass on dinner if an adequate bakery surfaced. Even then his mandate was clear: “Don’t ask if it’s fresh,” he demanded, “Ask if it’s TODAY’S”.

These are simple treasures, these memories. In a lifetime where others knew prices, our father taught values. And he taught them with the one glue that never unhinges: unconditional love….

Which is why Friday, exiting an Econo Lodge one hour from New York, heading for the GW Bridge to be guided in by a my son named for my Dad’s father, I know the Old Man was up there beaming.
                                                                                                                                                                                                     As was I.

“It’s always what you don’t expect.”

Hal’s declaration on Aunt Helen is oh so true. 98 and counting, the Queen Mother continues to confound, frustrate, demand, criticize, and yes…care deeply for us both. (Note, however, that while she loves me like a nephew, she reveres Hal as a son).

So be it.

Friday shopping is now done Thursdays. For some reason she finds this better. The downside, of course, is that it knocks up a good work day for me; (Friday afternoons were pretty much “garbage time”). The upside is that by weekend I’ve recovered from the exhaustion generated by our trips to the grocery.

Like last week:

“Have you been to the new house?” she inquired.

(A simple question I think, and lead with the truth): “Yes,” I respond.  Nothing else. (No uttering when I’d gone, or with whom I’d gone. No details. We’d learned long ago—my brother and I—that her interrogations were strictly governed by the accords reached in the Fourth Geneva Convention in 1949. We offer, as such, nothing but name, rank, and serial number).

“Is there more than one floor?” she pushed on.
“Yes.”

She paused—think Jack Benny — and then:
“Isn’t that stupid!”  It began– her rant against multi-level housing.
“Why must people walk steps?
More Benny…
“You must agree with me,” she presumed, interrupting herself, as the dam broke down.

“Aunt Helen,” you’ve lived in three places in eighty years. Each was a second floor.”
“Why,” she shot back, “Must you always disagree?”
“Why,” I asked her, “Must you always find fault? Half the homes in the Jewish community have two levels. Are they all wrong?”

Then it came: that look, that venomous glare like when some clown knocks over the Scrabble board. There was silence driving on—a pregnant silence. Entering Marc’s I had that sick feeling, the kind you get when you’re down a touchdown yet sense you won’t see the ball again.

Our food run itself ran well. The aisles of her hallowed grocery are the foxholes of my Thursdays. I breathe safely as she speaks not to the frailties of life, but focuses rather on material matters: like the fact that the bananas are too big, or that the oranges just aren’t orange. (Not that each week she doesn’t importune me to inventory the four pound bags. In a world full of 9-orange four pound bags, our aunt once got 8. It was ’99 I think; ask her she’s kept the receipt. So we count each week. Did YOU ever count oranges in a bag? They keep moving around. It’s either going to be 8 oranges for $3.99 or 9 oranges for $3.99. Should the marginal cost REALLY matter? I actually asked her that once…nicely….. She shot me down. Immediately. At point blank range. “That’s why you have no money,” she adjudged.

Tied at halftime, we exited Marc’s in peace. This, for me, is a good sign. I figure if I can go into the locker room close—you know, ” in a position to win”—I’ll be OK.  Second halves, frankly, are predictable

She’ll ask about my brother—not only his health, but how often I’d seen him that week. Was it at his house? Were third-parties present? (If others WERE present she’ll seek names, affiliations, the identify of drivers and, though not directly inquiring, will strain to learn if matters were prearranged). Only then does will she mention Michael…or Meredith. Only then, after again reminding me that Stacy never called directly to announce her engagement so perhaps (she’ll opinen) my daughter’s not really married—- will she ask of others

“Has Jamie called you?” she asked THIS WEEK. :
“Has Rabbi Skoff called you?” I rejoined.

More silence.  Predictable silence. It’s all so predictable.  Or so I thought…

We were by Cedar Center, within field goal range of her home, but moments from yet another Mission Accomplished…

“May I ask you something?” she purred.
“Yes.”
“Have you ever heard the expression ‘menage a trois’”?

(She pronounced it MENAIGE), but I picked it up.
“No.”
“It’s French”, she related, “When a husband, his wife, and a paramour live under the same roof.”
“Oh.”
“You and I are in, let us say, a ménage a trios! Do you know why I say that?”
“No.”
“It is you, and me, and your cell phone.”

It’s ALWAYS, as my brother says, what you don’t expect.

Aciclovir

Cain Park, the 60’s. It meant Tony Dow in “Bye Bye Birdie” or perhaps Bobby Vinton in “Music Man”. “Wholesome” (as they say), entertainment. Rock concerts, for me at least, were also tame. There was John Davidson at Vets Memorial, Columbus with Vicki, and even earlier, (TYMPANY), in one banner afternoon, Hal and I caught Tommy James and the Shondells, Keith, AND Sam The Sham and the Pharoahs—all on one bill at Detroit’s Upperdeck, second floor of the legendary Roostertail.

It was a simple world. We were pre-marriage, pre-divorce, and in so many ways, pre-life. Indeed, even my idols, predictable to the times, made innocent sense. They were, indisputably: Jack Nicklaus, Jimmy Brown, and Bobby Snyder.

Fast forward the torch—forty years and more. Wednesday, in an amphitheater once charmed by Wally Cleaver, it was the same faces (somewhat older) and the same music (somehow bolder). And for three hours plus, it morphed together.

Those forty-five years.

Could I sit through the Buckinghams, the Grass Roots—and even Gary Puckett— and not run my mind? On a night of nostalgia served full course, could I hear The Monkees (minus three) and the Turtles (standing tall), and not look back?

Programmers at Mapquest would be challenged to chart my route.

The Buckinghams played “Don’t You Care?” and instantly I saw the “Summer Of Love”, my eight weeks holed up at M.S.U. A wondrous mural, that mind of mine. There in living color flashed the Greyhound ride west, the no-AC dorm in East Lansing and…yes, draped in madras: Fenton and Snyder at East Wilson Hall.

The Grass Roots took stage. Smack dab in my Buckeye years, theirs was a heyday generating hit after hit heard endlessly in the car selling Highlights. Never, Wednesday night, were there less than six degrees separating my thoughts. I listened, Carrie to my left, (flanked by H in his glory), as the sound of “Temptation Eyes” took me to a 1970 blue and white Plymouth Duster…which took me to Kenton, Ohio (The Caboose capital of the world, mind you)…which took me down the road and backward in time to Belleville, Ohio…which took me to the only afternoon I would ever spend there. Not drinking, standing in a croweded tavern, I watched horrified, as the team up north stunned Woody’s dream team.

And then Gary Puckett. The experts, (Hal, Lady Leimsieder, and friends of Char’s), railed at his voice. Me? I heard “Woman, Woman” and before he could croon “Have you got cheating on your mind?” I’d retreated. Again. ’67 —the fall. Having left MSU, selling toys at Mays-On-The-Heights, I was counting days until winter quarter. Drackett Tower, palace that it was, lay still in my future.

If there was a tear in my eye it was gone by the break. Halftime meant handshakes. Many.

There was Stuart and the Mrs. Mickey Dolenz sang “That Was Then, This Is Now” and my mind wandered. An oft-forgotten song, when first recorded by The Monkees I was trying to date Marilyn’s sister. Now (I hear), she’s pushing 61.

There stood Diane—always smiling. “Can you tell me why Alan’s first wife hated me?” I asked yet again. She responded, as she has so many times before, with silence.

It was a wondrous night populated by gray-haired faces from a High Street long ago.

“Why is it,” I asked the group, “That only ugly people stand in aisles dancing?”

I clung there, that second act…thinking. It was not so much about the past by then, but something different. ‘Though my brother’d marveled at the instrumentation of the Buckingham’s pre-intermission, it was The Grass Roots that captured me. One song…one lyric in particular.

    “…When I think of all the worries people seem to find
And how they’re in a hurry to complicate their mind
By chasing after money and dreams that can’t come true
I’m glad that we are different–we’ve better things to do…”

It was hard not to think, yet again, how precious time is…how valued life is…

Panning the crowd, seeing so many warm, familiar faces, I couldn’t not think of those not there: like David and Mark, two men of Iuka.

And…

It occurred to me, marching out at 10:30 , that a crowd of cliques was, en masse, one heart—that we’d gathered that night not with the illusion it was ’69, but with a healthy reality, indeed a mandate, to enjoy today.

We did.

Goodbyes said to Ermine, Kraut and I pivoted, stepped to the plane, and sat down. Ten minutes passed—maybe less—before I slept. Thoughts rummaged the weekend: Bobby, Stuart, Skippy, the stories…. and not once would it occur to me I might never return.

Vegas.

The sight of so much respite over the years, the only place I’ve vacationed with Albert, Harriet, H, Margie, Michael, Meredith, Stace, Jace, and yes, even The Jersey Girl, (not to mention the guys from grade school…and law school… and lodge and such).

Memories stay animate, vivid. Indeed, like the umpteenth viewing of a Seinfeld episode, looks back yield renewed affection, and yes, renewed laughter.

Like the first time…with my father. How he’d scheduled it all and couldn’t wait to get west— to show his son that mecca.

He would fly from Columbus that June—it was ’77—and I from Cleveland. We’d connect in Chicago, then travel together.

He left early, of course, grabbing the first flight out.

“When you land I’ll already be at the departing gate,” he’d counseled. “Meet me there.” (I planned to). Touching down though, nature called. I still picture sitting in the john stall just ten minutes on ground and hearing the loud speaker page: “Arriving passenger Bruce Bogart—Please pick up the white courtesy phone.”

‘Twas a memorable trip: four days, three nights. He played the World Gin Rummy Tournament, (cashing at 13), and me? I had quality time with the old man.

“You don’t know how wonderful it is that you would want to spend time with your old man, as a grownup,” he told me. (I didn’t grasp it then; years later I do).

We saw Rickles that week: not once or twice, mind you, but three times. After catching his show that first night my Dad insisted we return night two. Fine with me. Morning of our last day, it went like this:

“Let’s do something different tonight,” said the man with his twinkle.
“OK.”
“After Rickles, let’s go to the Aladdin and see Redd Foxx. It’s a midnight show.”

Vegas.

Untraveled as I am, still, fondly I point to that desert town as home to so many unimportant IMPORTANT events. It’s the place where Block introduced me to pineapple hold-em and Jacobson introduced me to Lawrence Welk. (We were in a front line booth at the opening of Donna Summer when our pal leaned over and brashly said “Larry, I want you to meet my friend Bruce.” The celebrity’s posse gave Michael a collective glare as my then-wife and I looked away and YES, I thought they were going to beat us up).

Vegas.

Where the morning of Super Bowl XXI, two weeks to the day post The Drive, Linick stuck his head in my face uttering his immortal words: “May God judge the quality of your life by the way you play these cards.”

Where the afternoon I’d arrived with Walt, as we waited for rooms to be cleaned, we headed to lunch. “Wait a minute,” Marc urged, pausing at a black jack table. Two steps behind, I watched him place a ten dollar bill on green felt, smile as the dealer busted, and pick up his bounty—all in what seemed like seconds.

“Why pay for lunch?’ he remarked…as we ambled on. He never broke stride.

And Vegas.

Do Ermine and Snyder know how funny they were debating all weekend where our group should lodge. Give it up, guys! We checked in yesterday! Or how amazing it was (to all of us) that Fenton stayed at a different hotel just to save a buck.

For that matter:

Do Michael and Jason have any idea how warm and fuzzy it was to sit, the three of us at the same table, in a “sit ‘n go” tourney that day? (Probably not, of course—but they will at my age).

I question things as I sit in Cleveland. I think…and I wonder.

The boys are heading west in a few weeks. Is it really funds that hold me back? Perhaps.

Perhaps not. Time, I’ve found, is more precious than cash. And Vegas, I’ve learned, is only Vegas.

There’s a boy in New York, and he’s walking.  And a girl in Chicago, straining to crawl.  Others?  

Family.

Six decades in, I’ve found the best game in town.

Eyes opened early last Friday—considering the day before it’d taken nine hours for a sixty minute flight to Chicago. Still, staring up to a silky Lucy, I couldn’t complain.

“Could you take her?” asked my Little One. “I’m getting ready for work.” It wasn’t meant to be. For whatever reason—perhaps a slight bug—HER baby needed MY baby (who wound up “working from home”).

Not that I didn’t go one-on-one with the bambina. Quality time would come.

“You want to take her for a walk? I heard late morning.

Baby in buggy, destination unknown, we head out. “Make a right at the very first street,” the kid said. She’d swore it was safe, yet focusing east I saw nothing but houses ahead: streets, alleys and houses. Where, I wondered, was the asylum of an air-conditioned Starbucks?

Three blocks we strode—Luce and me. Blissful, azure eyes up, she acted like it was business as usual. Moreover, sun blazing, in an intuitive moment I even thought to pull the hood down a bit. Indeed, we were both on our games!

It only got better. The corner of Byron and Southport was infested with moms strolling infants. Time for the charming grandfather thing.

“I’m not from here,” I offered. “…Visiting my kid. Is there any place to go to get my granddaughter out of the sun?”

They pointed to Lulu Belle’s, a few blocks down. Bypassing the patio, heading inside, as the buggy broke the plane of the door it all seemed familiar.

“I’ve been here before,” I told the server, ordering the “healthy omelette”.
Lucy stared, enjoying the show.
“How do you come to this baby?” asked the waitress politely, (clearly deducing I wasn’t the father).
“I just met her at the playground,” I noted, pointing outside.
(She didn’t laugh right away).

I have confidence with babies. Always have. As such, when they asked me if I’d sit the next night—so they could “have a date”—I was thrilled. Couldn’t wait, in fact, for the parents to leave.

“Don’t order your food until she’s asleep”, urged the mother. (I tried to obey).

A great night was had. Lucy fed, the only challenge, I sensed, would be the window period pre-bedtime. How could I fill it?

She has a favorite song, my Lucy. It’s the thing by Will.i.am from Sesame Street—her mantra. How many times have I watched Rooney calm her playing the upbeat video on a cell phone?

I had no IPhone…but I did have memory. Holed up in a motel last summer, had I not young Max on my lap? …And a clock to run out? With him it was Bert and Ernie; with Luce it was Will.i am.

On my lap she went: Lucy Hannah Bohrer. Or…that’s where she started. The darn sprite just wouldn’t sit still. Destined, she was, to climb the computer. It must be babies: like her cousin before her, she felt compelled to pick keys from the keyboard. It was, to be sure, Hilton Rye Brook revisited.

In any event, we did forty-five minutes of a two minute song, she and I. (The players change, of course, but the game goes on).

And so it went: two days and it all came naturally. For both of us.

Oh, I DID see the adults. Swear. A Three Stooges movie was sandwiched between dining on Friday and errands on Sunday. Good stuff, family stuff, but the undercard.

Time winding down yesterday, my daughter posed a standard question:

“What was your favorite part of the weekend, Daddy?’

Hesitate I didn’t. Pulling bags from their car, I repeated what I’d told her just hours earlier. It was the fact that THAT morning, they’d let me set my alarm, wait on the baby, feed her, and—while the house was still sleeping—go out for a walk.

Just the two of us. Before 7. Chicago time.

It occurred to me, yet again as I rode back toward Cleveland, that warmed by one’s family, the best things in life ARE free.

“You didn’t tell me you had a houseguest!” my friend declared. (I hadn’t).  It tends to slip my mind.

‘Twas early May—maybe the first week—when Fred, between homes, took my second bedroom. (Sort of). The room’d been empty (but for boxes) and those we could readily move. The space was there.

It’s almost like he isn’t there. Our schedules run parallel, rarely intersecting. Indeed, when we’re both running hard, we go days without speaking.

I have noticed a few things, however. Our habits, to be sure, differ.

For one, he was surprised to learn I sleep with TV on. Every once in a while, even now, he’ll urge from the next room to turn it down just a bit. I do.

And he cooks. Swear! I saw him in June, I think— using a frying pan.

“Fred,” I mused, “Ask me how many times in nineteen years I’ve turned an oven on.”

And he cleans. The cowboy–get this—put a plastic bag liner inside the bathroom waste basket. I didn’t even know we HAD a bathroom waste basket.

But we get along. Famously. (Again, not that our paths cross much).

My alarm rings at 6:37. Daily. Gone by 7, maybe 7:15, I never see his room door open. The man sleeps in.

It’s the same the other end of the day. I’ve theater at night, or meetings. An occasional away game, even. Fred? Don’t know where he goes. The track, I’d guess—but I never ask. The way it plays out is that sometime between 11 and 11:30 (“Big Bang” is on), I’m laying in bed, TV and lights on, and Fred floats in. We chit-chat a bit and, moments later, I return to Sheldon Cooper as my pal disappears behind close doors, presumably to study his Racing Form.

Not that we never convene. Just Sunday, in fact, we played a poker tournament at St. Gregory’s. (I went deep, but didn’t cash; Fred was knocked out early. Memo to Fred: Stick with the ponies).

And then there are Wednesdays. A recent admission to our weekly breakfast, Fred was present just this week for Brother Les’s announcement.

“I can solve the Social Security problem and the war in less than five minutes,” he proclaimed.
“Needing little coaxing to continue, our friend readily described some declining scale for retirement that I couldn’t quite follow. (Walt and Himmel, the financial guys at the table, did).

Not totally impressed, I pushed back.

“What about the war?”

“That’s easy,” he said. “Just hold a press conference, declare victory, and bring everyone home!”

And Fred, our brother from Rowland and Greenview and Brush—the Sammy at Ohio State…took it all in.

Or at least I think he did.

You see, it’s Friday now; two days have passed. I haven’t seen him much.

            “…You have had a dramatic effect on many people, educating them on reality…”

    Email from a university employee to former student  (12/30/03)

*****          *****          *****          *****          *****

The first time they handed me a trophy it was in a Kiwanis Center. The year was 1960 and while my White Sox had run the table, it was, frankly, IN SPITE of me. Still, how I cherished that plastic!

There’d be others. Batting titles fourteen years apart, coaching prizes in softball and soccer. (Not to mention Sol’s Boys. Indeed, with Wieder And Company it almost got boring. Sure, we reveled at winning—always—but mementos got old. Mine found a cardboard home in my mother’s basement, (then my wife’s basement, then the Lomaz garage, and on and on).

Who cares? I earned medal, but others showed mettle.

2002: A beautiful student was victimized in her college dorm. Life interrupted, she had two choices: deny the event or “remember the night”.

I can’t imagine how she felt, that freshman—alone, out-of-town, so young.

Her school, fearing headlines, buried it. With her assailant still on campus, she wouldn’t.

We watched as she pushed through the system. The police, the prosecutor…sharing her story again and again, reliving the torment again and again.

We listened when her goings got tough and we marveled as she just kept going.

And we heard, as so many did, her voice:

At the disciplinary hearing she’d finally secured to boot the prick off campus. (Alone stood the coed, before a panel of five. The assailant had counsel but she wasn’t permitted).

In open Court, the clown having plead guilty, as she urged the judge “Don’t just wink at what he did…”

And on NBC’s Dateline, nationwide, where she put a public face on assault, showing other brave women it was OK to come forward….

Real victories, I’ve learned, come not on the diamond facing pitchers, but in the world facing life. There’s a Winners’ Circle, a special one, for those who, through incredible courage seek justice for all.

— Which is why it stands there, atop of my desk—shining.

I speak not of the year old lime bought the week Lucy (in embryo) was lime-size. I refer not to the giant Hershey’s kiss which, nine months ago anchored a centerpiece at Max’s “first”.

I speak rather, of a trophy. Another trophy.

Center stage in my office, you see, sits the Jean Clery Campus Safety Award…
given to my Little One …by a national organization…for “incredible courage and leadership”.

It gives me pause to think…about priorities.

They’ve made material changes at her old school since she left. Fueled by a public awareness, the place is safer for Haileys and Lucys and Hannahs.

That thing in the middle of my desk— the one engraved with my baby’s name—with the clock in the middle— now THAT is a trophy. The stuff in the boxes: those remnants of hits and runs? They, my friends, are just hardware.

When I sleep alone, (which is usually), personal preference controls. Lights stay bright, “The Boys” have the floor, and—without fail— the TV’s on. So little, yet so much.

When I rise alone it’s much the same. Peaceful, predictable…the same. Except for weekends.

I waken weekends, not to pictures but to sound. Saturdays, Sundays, I roll from the bed, ears swelling with Muppets or Yabba Yabba…or is it Gabba Gabba? (This morning, for example, there was a big, white smiley face in the sky singing down on puppets, assuring each they’d been safe all night. I think it was NBC).

Eyes open weekends to nursery rhymes and cartoons….and

Sitting in Cleveland, looking east I see Max. On the floor, Indian style, his eyes fixed ahead. (Are we still allowed to call it “Indian style”?) Three feet from the tube, he stares, mesmerized by the pageantry at a distance our parents would have said was too close to sit. It’s idyllic.

To the west I see Lucy. One hour off, she’s not quite awake. Facebook pictures, though, don’t lie. She’s soon to join Max on the floor. Distance may separate them, but not heart. Cousins are cousins.

My eyes open wider on weekends. Much wider. On Saturdays—even Sundays– I’ll see those that I don’t and hug jewels I can ‘t hold. On weekends, you see, midst the backdrop of cartoons and Wiggles, I see Hailey and Matthew.

He turned one this week. Is she driving yet? (Is her TV on too?)

On weekends I anger. And I resent. Like yesterday.

We’ve got tools in recovery: devices for coping, for facing the unfaceable.

When resentments hit, we ask God to remove them. If we’re on our games, we share feelings with friends, make amends when we can and, when all else fails, we go out and help another. We “get out of ourselves”.

I did that yesterday. On a day when the angst wouldn’t yield, I did it right.

“Aunt Helen,” I said, “Do you want to get out of the house?”
Like Kramer on Seinfeld, she didn’t ask where. “Of course,” she exclaimed.

(My aunt, by her own choice, has no air-conditioning. God knows why—it’s not about the money. Still, she opts to sweat. Indeed, in a world of simple pleasures, she lives with out sex AND air-conditioning. Go figure).

“We’ll go to the library. I can work there”
“Giddyap!” (she all but shouted).

It was 2:30 when we finally got going. Truth be known, I was already better. It mattered not. As the mercury hit mid-90’s, 260 years of Bogart found, at the corner of Richmond and Shaker, not only air-conditioning, but respite.

For two hours, even more, she sat at the table. Tenaciously, with a magnifying glass as her ally, this frail, smiling fossil studied the Jewish News. Aside her, on computer sat I: working and playing, at peace with the world.

We hit Jack’s later as she wanted cole slaw. And Walgreen’s too, where she bought some briefs. Then home we went, our time well-spent.

Hal called today.

“You got a compliment, “he noted, “…From a woman.”
“Was it someone I went out with?”
“Well,” he rejoined, “You’ve seen her topless.”

I groaned a bit, as my brother laughed.
“Oh,” (I now knew), “So you talked to Aunt Helen.”
“You made her happy.”
“It was good for both of us,” I said. “Even painless.”

We lead such disparate lives, my aunt and I. She chooses solitude and a bordered realm of lights and TV off—no sound to wake up to. I’m the lucky one. My world fills with light day or night; my TV still plays day and night. I rise to a world full of sound with no fury.

Still, on a day she didn’t NEED to shop, and a day I didn’t HAVE to work, our needs intersected. Aunt Helen, brittle…worn, got out of her house. Me? Smiling once more, I left Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.

Hanging up the phone I peered over Max’s monitor, and exclaimed to the room:

“They want me to direct a show!”
“So”, said my oldest, “Do they pay you?”

He didn’t seem to grasp it—the enormity of it all! This theater was asking ME to direct. This wasn’t just another part, another chance to play myself. This, I recognized, was a major step….uncharted waters.

It began, to be sure, two months ago. Until that night I’d never really thought of directing. Not really. (Oh, there were times when I’d be offstage and hear someone say something and think “No, schmuck, deliver it THIS way and you’ll get the laugh”, but I kept my mouth shut. It wasn’t, I well knew, my job to speak up. Still…once in a while, I wanted that right).

“Twas the middle of May when this lark began. Word filtered that a theater group—one I’d performed at—was seeking a director for its fall play. New directors would be considered.

“New directors?” I thought. “I could be one of those!”
“What do YOU know about directing?” said my mirror.

A few weeks passed. I’d decided to leave it alone. It would be a November play, I’d learned, and frankly, there were better things to do. Max’s birthday’s that month. Would not New York be calling? And there was Lucy, later on—

It was tech week for “Hairspray”, and with loads of downtime I sat with our director, watching, kibitzing…just picking his brain. I shared with him of the opening…my insecurity…and how it was probably just as well the kids had birthdays anyway….

“I think you should send the letter,” he urged. “Let ‘em know you’re out there.”
“I won’t miss the birthdays.”
“Just be honest with them,” he shot back.

And then I did what I’ve learned to do: I listened.

Like I said, I had all kinds of downtime that show. Indeed, my sole job second act was to zip up Edna Turnblad. (No small task, FYI. Tom is bigger than me).

With laptop backstage, I penned the letter. And not just any letter, I might add. My note, dare I say, was Pulitzer-worthy.

I laid out true feelings.

Sharing my history on stage, I spoke to a willingness to work with others, and that if they were doing a comedy, I wanted the job. I told them too—quite candidly— that if they thinking a musical, they ought to look elsewhere. That wasn’t, I confirmed, what I do best.

I wrote one more thing that day. I told them that I knew they were doing their show the middle weeks of November and that for that reason alone it might not work. I stated, specifically, that I would be out-of-town that month—one weekend for sure—that I wouldn’t miss a grandchild’s birthday…that they needed to know.

Hitting the “Send” button the afternoon of our last show, I just let it fly. What would be, would be. Perhaps Mango was right—that I should just let them know I was out there…for the future. Maybe it was like working a ref in basketball—knowing you’ll get the next call.

It was only a week later that I got that call, while chilling in Great Neck. It would be two weeks more before the die would cast.

Last night we convened: me, yes ME…and the president of the theater company. We spoke of stage managers, lighting, soundboards, staffing—-what they would do, what I would do.  Over coffee at Starbucks we crossed the Rubican. 

I leaped in my car excited with challenge. They would work around the birthdays; they were doing a comedy. They wanted me!

Calling my youngest, I thrilled just to share:

“I’m gonna be a director!” I cried.
“I’m so proud,” she exclaimed—then she stopped. On a dime. This little girl, my baby…the one we cradled longest and hardest…this flower of a princess now residing out west….she stopped on a dime. And laughed…loudly.

“But Daddy,” she roared, “What do YOU know about directing?”

Those present know how truly special it was. South Euclid in the 50’s and 60’s was a younger world, a simpler world, and one of blossoming life-long friendships.

They marched in: one, then two, then one again—even Pear was on time. Eight in all, convened to greet the ninth, (Brother Dick from Chicago). Hal’s comrades through life, time and circumstance had bonded us all, and I too scored an invite to Corky’s.

These are good men, guys known marginally when young, up close and personal through years. All of them. The sands of time—forty years and running—have changed little. Their meetings, like the one today, blend warmth and frolic like a third grade recess. They are, individually and en masse, a special blend.

Memories reach back. These were, don’t forget, my kid brother’s pals; I’d met them “backdoor”. Their contacts with him, to this day, remain vital and constant.

I don’t recall when I first met Jeff, or Dickie, for that matter. The former coached Jamie in softball and the latter was an usher in my wedding. (You can look it up). Typically though, the common denominator, even more than my brother, was a ball field. Mandel and Ross were White Sox. (Indeed, they were part of the Jewish cabal overwhelming that squad in the 60’s. How else do you explain—in a suburb more Christian than not—one team carrying 2 Bogarts, 2 Mandels, 2 Fentons, a Ross, a Fischer and a Lery?).

It wasn’t always a diamond. First recall of Cutler was football. Pear too, for that matter. And don’t get me started on Herzog…As if November of ’69 wasn’t bad enough! Days after Ohio State’s upset up north, (our first loss in two years), with heads dragging we came home for the holiday. Thanksgiving football (we knew), our morning respite, would ease the pain. Someone, however, forgot to tell Alan. Someone, more importantly, forgot to tell his girlfriend. (Or should I say EX-girlfriend?) She dumped him, you see, Erev Boobus Bowl, and our teammate, well…he stunk up the house.

I looked at these guys, just this morning, and marveled. (Arriving third, I’d sat near the end: respectful recognition of my spot on the food chain). Conversations—never less than three at a time—were sprite, and my mind soared back, ‘cross the canvas of our past. Yes, I’ll always hold dear those days on the diamond and sure, I’ll cherish forever the bumps on the gridiron. These guys, though…these fellows mean so much more.

They weren’t only my brother’s friends; I’ve known better for years. Each—some sooner, some later— had over time friended me. (And No, I’m not speaking of Facebook). Each, in his way, triggered images… memories deeper than ballgames….

From the powder blue Superman T-shirt (with my name on the back—no small feat in the day), a graduation gift from the astronaut… to the one-day job at Revco’s warehouse Steve’s father gave me (funding my prom)….

From the year I lived with Dick in Columbus— (remind me to tell you about winter quarter Black English with Professor Hortense Thornton)…to the intervention they had for me at Mandel’s house. (Remind me to share that too, and how it ended). And there was more.

I studied the table.

There was a constant, a thread through them all, an asset they still shared.  These men, to a man, held a moral compass. Good people, steady people, they were “keepers”. From long-term marriages through long-term employments, these men were rocks.

Not all memories, of course, are visual. Some, rather, dwell in the heart. My heart. Like the way Hal’s phone rang constantly when his news first hit, and how in the community of care for my brother, these men stood tallest. Stalwart. Always.

I drove back with Baskin today, down Chagrin. I mentioned Jeff, and how I really didn’t know him growing up, but that he’s truly an honorable man. That they all were—all the guys. My friend concurred.

Dick got out, evaporating into his mother’s home. My thoughts pervaded, wistfully…

Sixteen months—two school years—separated The Boys. Hal used to tease me how I’d had the big Bar Mitzvah, but all he got was Harry Kliot spinning records.  He was right.

That’s all though—that’s all he missed. Both of us, you see, were blessed with friends for a lifetime: core friends…gifts. Mine, (so many now buddies with H), got out in ’67, the Summer Of Love. Hal’s, they graduated later.  

They were, those men there at breakfast, truly the Class of ’69.