Passover 5784

 Growing up, Passover was a favorite holiday in our home. We got new candy … kosher for Pesach .. and often had visits from or visited our relatives who lived in Baltimore … that is to say, happy days, no school … I am nobody’s fool … we also had a chance to find the Afikomen and win a reward although usually our siblings and cousins were also rewarded but the competition was fun … as were the four cups of wine rarely withheld from children … we were supposed to be celebrating our freedom … I was celebrating the lack of sobriety … yes, my father was a Rabbi, as was his father and his grandfather who had travelled to Israel and the Sinai and even Egypt … Jews are inherently wanderers … and I am a wonderer as well … I wonder why there is so much religious violence around the world and here in the land of the brave and craven … I have a recording my gather’s reading of the Haggadah and will listen to it tonight or tomorrow night … he recorded it for me when I was becoming a steely eyed defender of democracy at the Air Force Academy … my eyesight is now quite weak as is my resolve.

I recall a large Passover seder at our house in Oak Ridge. Tennessee with many Baltimore cousins present when my older and wiser brother and I got in a fight and were banished from the Passover table … I had made a bad joke about our mother and my brother attacked me … I lost the fight of course but we were both punished … justice served … we missed two cups of wine … a significant punishment that evening.

I miss my parents … my father’s wisdom … my mother’s directness … harsh tongue that is … I do not miss the 4 cups of wine which in my case was usually 5 as I often stole the cup of wine left for Elijah … a shame to waste that cup of wine … as Elijah never showed up except once at a Seder at my brother’s home in Jacksonville, Alabama when he hired a friend to play the role of Elijah … my brother had a great sense of humor which I lack. He kept a picture of kitchen in his wallet condiments which he called his “pride and joy” … pictures of bottles of Pride and Joy … he suckered in many with that joke.

Growing old is strange … I cannot remember what happened yesterday but have so many memories of my early life. How is that possible? I remember a time when a child would never say a harsh word to a parent. It was not the fear of a spanking as my parents did not spank although my father once slapped me for saying something unkind about my mother … that was the only physical punishment I or any of my siblings ever got. I never spoke ill of my mother again. Lesson learned.

Back to growing old. I dream of finding a woman who is independently wealthy … I mean independent and healthy … my fingers slipped … perhaps a nurse skilled in care for the elderly who is dumb enough to move to Texas … she should be Jewish, of course, although none of my three wives were Jewish … call me a dreamer.

When I grow up, if that ever happens,  I want to be younger.

Freedom and joy to a laughless world,

mike