Honestly, I don’t ever remember watching the Super Bowl, oh maybe the halftime show when the Stones were featured, but the game itself, no, honestly. Well maybe I did watch when Joe Namath was playing and the Jets were something. But things have changed. THE GIANTS WON LAST NIGHT and no, I wasn’t watching the game. I exercised to 60 Minutes and home renovation shows and I forgot the game was still on until I at 11:00, I remembered, thought it was it was probably over and it was important to my brother, Jeff. We met him in Brooklyn last night for dinner, on the early side, so that he would be back in their weekend apartment to watch it. So I was aware of it.

At 11 the headline was GIANTS WIN, ON TO THE SUPERBOWL and how exciting a win. What a game to have watched! Too bad I forgot about it.

But I promise I will watch this year’s Superbowl. We will be back from Tucson for it.

Go Giants!

Now to my dream…

I don’t think there’s any connection with the Giants here, but as I was getting ready to wake up this morning I was making a dream realization. I was back working in a high school, Tenafly High School, I think. After all, I was just there playing guitar in a music practice room with Sue and Jon. My dream centered around being new and excited about it. Meeting teachers, talking about theater with the drama teachers, finding my name card at a luncheon, getting familiar and being treated with lots of warmth. As I was waking up I thought about the high stakes tests that I hadn’t asked about, probably not much of an issue at Tenafly. Then the complaining parents and finally the papers and lessons I would have to plan for each day. And finally what about Tuvia? How would he feel about me back in the work force full time. Now how do I explain to the new staff that I would have to bow out before I began. I know, JUST WAKE UP!

DONE!

Off to Tucson instead!

Just for fun, I found a cool way to podcast.  I took the first story I wrote as an adult.  This story celebrates the start of my identity as a writer.  The version of this piece, Teacher of the Year, hasn’t changed much from its first draft.  It’s a personal story from the my childhood, a traumatic story that was probably influential in my turning to teaching as a life career.     When I first wrote it, there was only one handwritten copy and I was so nervous about the grammar, that I would not let anyone read it.  I had to do the reading.  What a perfect story to move to a podcast. I have been telling it for years before I became a writer.So here’s the link:http://blkdrama.podcastpeople.com  I have no photos for this piece so a podcast is perfect.  Let me know what you think.  You can leave a comment right there or here. 

  Where do  I begin to capture this past week?

On Tuesday night Tuvia and I traveled to Ellenville to support my brother, Jeff, in his run for his third and last term of office as mayor.  Last time he ran unopposed and wildly popular.  I was never far from a phone but it didn’t seem that a trip on election day was necessary.  I waited to hear the vote count and it was high and Jeff rode on his own record.  This time around he had some competition.  Not serious competition in itself, but Jeff is no longer the new guy on the block.  Ellenville has been hit hard by companies moving out of the area, jobs lost and taxes ever on the rise.  A new guy offers the opportunity to express frustration and maybe hope for something better.

I felt good calling in the morning offering my version of “break a leg and even better to arrive and join in around the campaign table reconnecting with old students now parents themselves and moms of old students. And of course my parents, and family grateful to have me with them.

Go know on the way home as we traveled on a very dark Route 209 as I scoured the roadside for deer, a wood chuck would be racing across and run into me.  And what a thump.  What damage to the center of my bumper.  $3,000.00 later I will be paying the $250 deductible and a local road cleaner is stuck clearing the remains of my very dead woodchuck.  Thank god it wasn’t a deer!

It so happens that while I was home supporting my brother, I was also able to pay my respects to a good friend, who after a long and horrible fight with cancer, finally reached her peace. I stopped in to see you kids sitting vigil at Ginny’s open coffin.  Tuvia walked over to inspect, I stayed with Ginny’s daughter.  The body in the box is not longer the friend I knew well during my teaching years in Ellenville.  I am holding on tight to my memories of Ginny.  There’s more to say, but not now…

 I used to love Shabbat in a synagogue.  I loved it when the congregation turned together and ushered in the Sabbath Queen. I loved sitting downstairs with my Hebrew teacher in the men’s section close to the bimah where all the action took place.  But one Saturday as I was making my way to my usual spot, an elder of our synagogue stopped me and pointed with authority, now you belong upstairs.  You belong with the women.  Upstairs, it was a death sentence for me.  With the women, far away from the heart of the service, where for lack of anything better, women chatted.  I was too serious for that and sat silenced.

Of course, that was in the 1960′s in a very traditional style building, in a very orthodox community. But that was all I had  and it wasn’t enough for me.  I have been wondering if I had what my nieces have now, what my religious life would have been like.   I will never know.  I am far away from the synagogue days of my youth.  I am not excited by the community prayers of synagogues I frequent for the Jewish holidays or the odd bar mitzvah.  That doors seems to be closed.  Not that I couldn’t't open it, but I don’t seem to want to.

I am here sitting next to Tuvia, just being with him, participating casually.  I remember though.  I remember.