On the waterfront -- The Feast of San Gennaro

Back in the early days of World War 2,  dad was assigned to guard the Brooklyn docks.   When he graduated from OCS and they handed out the assignments, some got sent off to the war in the Pacific, some to the North Atlantic and some to guard the docks.   The Brooklyn docks was not a difficult job. March the troops out to their posts, then check up on them occasionally to see that they were awake and then march them back to the barracks after they were relieved from duty.

When the Queen Mary was in town, if you were careful, you could enjoy its amenities.   One evening while lounging on a bed in a luxurious cabin, dad was interrupted when one of the crew discovered him and appalled said:  "Sir, get up.  Don't your realize that's Winston Churchill's bed."   To which dad replied, "If it's good enough for Churchill, it's good enough for me."   Dad was never invited back aboard the Queen Mary.

On the other side of Brooklyn's planet, one day, a couple of cops made the mistake of driving onto the docks and trying to break up the lunchtime craps game.   The Italian dock workers did not take kindly to this and instead of breaking up the game they decided they'd teach the cops a lesson.  The cops retreated to their patrol car, but were surrounded by the Italian dock workers.   Then the crowd picked up the patrol car like it was the massive statue of San Gennaro, then,  shaking the uplifted patrol car, the procession started for the water... instead of the Church of the Most Precious Blood in Little Italy   It was about this time my dad arrived with a fresh detachment of armed troops ready to be dropped off at their posts guarding the docks.   Seeing that the police were in trouble, he ordered the troops to fix bayonets, port arms and advance on the crowd.   The Italians dropped the patrol car, scurried off back to work and the police collected themselves and drove off never to return.

Mt Holyoke - Class of 1970 - Almost Famous

It's fascinating to read the thoughts of Mt Holyoke's class of 1970... the glory days when classes were cancelled for the mountain climb where the school president served ice cream at the top of the trail ... weekend socials where young suitors looking for "smart women"  outnumbered the Holyoke gals by six to one... mini-reunions at the Cosmos Club to relive the glory days ... nostalgia for the glory days and sisterhood a drug to numb away life's disappointments ...  job offers that didn't materialize ... embittered siblings ... failed real estate investments ... being left at the alter after waiting years to find the perfect man.

Instead of nostalgia, my own class of 1970 sends letters asking for money and notifying us that the college's students are smarter than ever... the wisdom of this is puzzling ... if they're so darn smart now, they must all be multi-millionaires... why are they asking me for money.   I get it though ... our glory days consisted of the social club organizing off-campus events where we drank a lot of beer and then bought tickets for the privilege of smashing an old jalopy with sledge hammers.  Not exactly something you want to bring up a in college's entreaty for moola.

There aren't many drawbacks to being married to a beautiful and smart woman... too much junk mail from Berkeley and Yale asking for money ... a wife who doesn't quite understand lapses into silence at the dinner table ... trying to outdo each other with our war stories ... starting with the clinic in the Bridgeport ghetto and working her way through the ranks to run Arizona's biggest Medicaid health plan ... but when she gets too carried away with her triumphs over adversity, I drop the hammer: no one ever shot at you ... that's about it as far as drawbacks go.

Nostalgia's a dangerous  narcotic.  It let's me travel back and watch my daughter perform in her first play or sit with her and watch a cartoon show, The Rugrats, with a theme song I still treasure.   Remembering slips into dangerous territory too often though ... searching for lost boys, too often in vain ... hunting for other boys, the enemy, in the darkness ... battles with steel monsters firing artillery shells, the explosions growing louder as the shells land closer and closer.

When the visions interrupt dinner, humming the cartoon show tune seems to help ... but it leaves the wife puzzled at table ... and she asks:  anybody home?   Sorry, dear, I was just thinking about our Rugrats.

In the here and now we care deeply about our children ... there are lessons to be learned and we try to pass them on ... sometimes when I talk about the lessons, their eyes glaze over and I wonder what tune they're humming.

According to the Census

These girls, who all have the same grandma,  are .... Black?  Hispanic?  White?