San Bernardino- What a frigging dump.
Tuesday, October 9th, 2012
My lifelong friend Dino (yes, the Dino who runs Soulgeek) lost his father very recently and, of course, I went to the funeral today. The older we get, as Mary Smich said in her famous column, (wrongly attributed to Kurt Vonnegut)
“Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you
should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and
lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people
who knew you when you were young.”
Dino and I have known each other 35 years, which is scary enough, but we come from much the same place, for all our manifold differences. As depressed as I was for feeling such frank disdain for the place of my birth, especially its current state which is even worse than it was when I left almost thirty years ago, it was curiously comfortable and familiar being in his mother’s little casita with the rest of his family and friends, most of whom were known to me and some even also friends of mine. Some just passing acquaintances, but with whom I could easily converse and pass the time of day or share a remembrance of my dear friend, our shared experience and their basic decency on an important occasion making up for all that divided us by race, language, religion (or lack of it) and all the rest. Funny how familiar the feel of the grass, the sound and smell and touch of the neighborhood and all of it was. It wasn’t my neighborhood - it was in the more brown part of town, after all, and especially in the `70s that mattered (though never really to Dino or his family or mine) but we weren’t richer, smarter, or better than they were. We worked hard, they did too. I was a geek, so was he. We were both weird and neurotic in our own way, which is why, I think, we became and remain friends.
And we still are weird, neurotic geeks at our age, as undignified as it might seem to some. Hell, they say that 50 is the new 20.
(Don’t ask me who “they” are. Just know that most of “them” are over 50. )
And on this very day my eldest niece gave birth to her and her beloved husband’s first child.
Not sure exactly why I am writing this to you, other than that you have all somehow become an extension of my mishpucha (It’s Yiddish, look it up ) and these are some thoughts I had that I thought i needed to share.
Working on the new page. Shouldn’t be too much longer.
Warmest regards,
JED
lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people
who knew you when you were young.”
Dino and I have known each other 35 years, which is scary enough, but we come from much the same place, for all our manifold differences. As depressed as I was for feeling such frank disdain for the place of my birth, especially its current state which is even worse than it was when I left almost thirty years ago, it was curiously comfortable and familiar being in his mother’s little casita with the rest of his family and friends, most of whom were known to me and some even also friends of mine. Some just passing acquaintances, but with whom I could easily converse and pass the time of day or share a remembrance of my dear friend, our shared experience and their basic decency on an important occasion making up for all that divided us by race, language, religion (or lack of it) and all the rest. Funny how familiar the feel of the grass, the sound and smell and touch of the neighborhood and all of it was. It wasn’t my neighborhood - it was in the more brown part of town, after all, and especially in the `70s that mattered (though never really to Dino or his family or mine) but we weren’t richer, smarter, or better than they were. We worked hard, they did too. I was a geek, so was he. We were both weird and neurotic in our own way, which is why, I think, we became and remain friends.
And we still are weird, neurotic geeks at our age, as undignified as it might seem to some. Hell, they say that 50 is the new 20.
(Don’t ask me who “they” are. Just know that most of “them” are over 50. )
